Here are the best online editions of the writings Church Fathers that I can find and that are free. Note especially the Patrologia Latina and the Patrologia Graecae, the most complete original language editions of the Church Fathers. Unfortunately the Corpus Christianorum is not yet available online.

CCEL (English)
Fathers of the Church Series (English)
Patrologia Graecae – Version 1 (Greek)
Patrologia Graecae Version 2 (Greek)
Patrologia Latina (Latin)

I was reading a bit of Ravi Zacharias this morning and came across this observation:

“Sometime in the 1980’s, Christians in the West began to label evangelistic techniques and reconfigure church services to reduce the message to the lowest level of cognition in the audience. As nobly intentioned as that was, the end result was th lowest level of writing and gospel preaching one could imagine. Mass media was brought to aid this purpose, and before long evangelicals were seen to be masters in entertainment and minimalists in thought. As this was happening, the intellectual arenas were being plundered and young minds gradually driven away from their “faith” in the gospel message. Christians are paying our dues today and likely will pay for an entire generation.” (from the Introduction to Beyond Opinion)

While I don’t think that Zacharias’ observation applies equally to Catholics as to evangelicals, I do think that it is incisive. I see a deep alienation between the community of faith and the scholarly community on issues of theology, Bible and practice in both Protestant and Catholic groups. It seems that this has been brought about by certain anti-intellectual tendencies in the community of faith and by results-oriented evangelism that counts quantity but not quality–not to mention the sweeping problems in the scholarly community! There is a proliferation of Catholic and Christian TV shows, websites, radio stations, etc. But there are fewer and fewer people to watch them, donate to them or listen to them.

The evangelization of our generation must be a deeply personal activity involving friendship, grassroots community, deep conversations and lovingly shared home-cooked meals. Our generation is not starving for more Christian media or more entertaining worship services, but we are starving for love, friendship, deep connection with others–for a life that is personally meaningful because it is full of persons with whom we can love and share and draw near to God. But this deeply meaningful type of evangelization can only be carried out on the most solid of intellectual foundations, a sincere and honest approach to the Bible, a reflective and fully obedient attitude to the Magisterium, and a full embrace of the Faith with all of its complexities, controversies and paradoxes.

Weird. There’s one, lonely, Aramaic verse in Jeremiah. It’s Jer 10:11, “Thus shall you say to them: ‘The gods who did not make the heavens and the earth shall perish from the earth and from the heavens.'”

Carey Moore in his book Esther, Daniel and Jeremiah contends that this verse is the basis for the Letter of Jeremiah, which mocks idol worship (Bar 6). It repeats the fact that idols are not gods over and over. But, how weird is that there is just one, only one, Aramaic verse in the whole Hebrew book of Jeremiah!

I wrote a paper about a year ago called “Fire, Prison and Praise: How Worship Unlocks the Lord’s Deliverance.” I focused on the three young men in the fiery furnace and on Paul and Silas in prison in the book of Acts. But I found another passage which heartily endorses the principle that worshiping God when in captivity is a good thing to do to unlock his deliverance. Take a look at Baruch 3:7 (Baruch’s just after Jeremiah.): “For this, you put into our hearts the fear of you: that we may call upon your name, and praise you in our captivity, when we have removed from our hearts all the wickedness of our fathers who sinned against you.”

Isn’t that great? When we experience bondage to sin or captivity to depression or imprisonment to addiction, we can turn to God and worship. And worship “unlocks” his deliverance. It’s not that God was refusing to deliver us, but that our heart needed to undergo a conversion of sorts. We’ve got to worship when we get into trouble and the Lord’s deliverance will come. It’s biblical. Now, how’s that for Catholic Bible Student action?

I came across this essay which was quite influential in the time it was written. I’ve been thinking a lot about the Catholic doctrine of inspiration and this is part of my inquiry. Let me know what you think. Oh yeah, and before I forget here’s the link. The guy in the picture is John Henry Cardinal Newman and if anyone can figure out why his left index finger is tucked behind his ear in this picture, you’ll win my accolades.

I found this great cartoon on Wikipedia’s entry for Modernism (Roman Catholicism). I’m reading a great book on the subject by Marvin O’Connell called Critics on Trial: An Introduction to the Catholic Modernist Crisis. I’m only a few pages in, but I’ll already recommend to you. Maybe I’ll tell you more about it once I’m done.

A thought by Fr. George Montague, S.M.:

• The pagan world of Biblical times showed little concern for mercy. Two groups especially suffered–slaves and children. Slaves were considered tools, and masters had the right to kill them as they wished. Unwanted infants were left to die of exposure, particularly girls. And, as happens even today in some countries, unwanted children could be picked up for the “slave trade” or deliberately maimed and used by racketeers to beg. The modern world flinches at such accounts, then abets them by legalized abortion. Our mercy, like that of our pagan forebears, is selective.

(from Montague, George T. Companion God: A Cross-Cultural Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1989. p. 60.)

I struggled with memorizing vocab words when I first started learning Greek. My friend introduced me to the Leitner Cardfile System, invented by psychologist Sebastian Leitner. I have used it for vocab memorization and found that it helped me. I just use index cards with the foreign word on the front and its English equivalent on the back. There are a few vocab memorizing programs that use the same method: flashcardexchange.com and Memory Lifter.

There are other programs out there for memorizing Greek and Hebrew Bible vocabulary. I have used Flash Works and QuickMem Greek and would recommend both.

I also just found this great site which rates memorization programs.

Yesterday, Dr. Eilat Mazar announced the discovery of a seal she claims dates from 538-445 BC according to the Jerusalem Post story. (The seal is pictured at right.) It was found at a dig in Jerusalem. The name on the seal, Temah or Temech, appears in Nehemiah 7:55 and Ezra 2:53. Mazar’s interpretation of the seal is hotly debated in the comments posted with the story. I think it’s significance will take a little working out. But it clearly shows two male figures on either side of an altar, probably priests offering incense, as she claims. The controversial part is what the thing shaped like a smile at the top of the picture is. Is it a crescent moon, the sun, a cloud? And if it is one of these things, what does it mean?

Catholics accept the Greek additions to Esther as canonical, while most Protestants do not. Unfortunately, no uniform number system has been developed for incorporating the Greek editions in Esther. They are always arranged in the same order, according to the Septuagint’s ordering, but each major Catholic translation or version follows a different numbering system. So, in attempt to make sense of things for myself, I compiled this chart which compares numbering systems for Esther in the New American Bible, the Vulgate, the Nova Vulgata and the typical Protestant numbering for the book (which coincides with the Hebrew numbering). I know this is rather tedious, but I couldn’t find a resource like this on the internet and figured I would supply it. You can access the NAB, the Vulgate and the Nova Vulgata in the sidebar on this website. Maybe I will make a further post which lists the books which Catholics accept as canonical, but for now, here is my comparison of verse numbering systems in Esther. As a reminder, Protestants accept Hebrew Esther as canonical, while Catholics accept Hebrew Esther plus the Septuagint’s Greek additions. All the parts not listed in the “Protestant Esther” column are Greek.

Verse Number Systems for Esther According to the Catholic Canon Compared with Esther According to the Protestant Canon.