Permalink Redirect 0.8.4

I have updated Permalink Redirect plugin to 0.8.4. The main functionality of this plugin has been replaced by WordPress’ redirect_canonical() function since WP 2.3, but somehow some people are still using this plugin for its remaining functions (permalink structure changes, arbitrary path redirect, etc). 0.8.4 fixes an issue with arbitrary path redirect when the old path is now producing 404. It has also overwritten the wp_redirect function (taken from WP 2.5) so 301 redirect works properly on Lighty/Nginx setups.

ESVPopup 1.4

Don’t you love browser incompatibility?! While everyone is trying to crack Acid3, I am still trying to figure out why event.clientX on Safari is different from all the other browsers.

Anyway. ESVPopup 1.4 should work with Safari 3.0.x now.

Btw, this blog has also been upgraded to WordPress 2.5. Nice new dashboard and so far everything works. Finger crossed.

Even if you don’t consider your blog a ministry, it serves as one. And, as we found out, you never know when one of your posts will become popular or how people will interpret you.

So true. Especially when your targeted audiences are young, technology-oriented, and most likely athists. Something I still need to grasp upon.

That reminded me a blog post from ESV Blog a few days ago. Their one-year reading plan is now available as iCal subscriptions, which you can easily import into iCal compatible applications, like Google Calendar, Apple iCal, Mozilla Sunbird and many others. That is just so cool. The technical expertise at Good News Publisher/ESV has always amazed me. The API they have exposed to make the Bible more accessible by the computers and software programs has certainly make “scripture” almost everywhere on the web. It is just so easy to put a daily verse, today’s reading plan, etc onto your personal blog.

Can I award them the English Bible translation of the Web 2.0?!

On the note of Google Calendar, I am still loving it. At the moment I am still trying to get the staffs to update the FOCUS calendar (which has its iCal published here) — if they ever catch this “technology” thing. I’ll then use Google Calendar API to pull events and paste them onto FOCUS website, which I have recently upgraded to Drupal 4.7.

Since the UBS Greek New Testament is basically used by most new translations anyway, I guess the real reason for asking is – did the Textus Receptus play any role? Vern Poythress discussed The Textus Receptus in another post:

It [Textus Receptus] was revolutionary, but when Erasmus printed his Greek New Testament, it was only from a very few manuscripts that he happened to have access to, not necessarily the best. So the Textus Receptus designates that Erasmus text. And actually, that Erasmus. Greek New Testament went through four different editions, and there are slight differences between them. So the Textus Receptus, even, is not really one completely uniform thing.

Actually, Erasmus had to translated some text from Latin back to Greek to complete the collection, as some manuscripts were missing. Both Poythress and Mounce praised Eramus and TR as they were pioneers 500 years ago, so that we can have so much resources today. As TR is the basis of King James Version, that were many people still memories and recite today, translators of ESV did consider it when they translated famous verses. Quoting Mounce:

It’s important to us as ESV translators to maintain the same flow of thought coming from Tyndale. And so we see ourselves in the line of interpretive tradition from Tyndale through the King James. And so in those verses that are very well-known, we paid especially close attention to them. And even when the Textus Receptus is different from our critical Greek text now, we sometimes even put things in footnotes to help people who were used to the King James see where they are in the current Greek text.

However, the message is – TR is no longer the most reliable source, and we should have moved on. Out of curiosity, I wondered (actually, always wondered) what forms the source of some Chinese Bible translations, especially the Chinese Union Version (CUV) of 1919. Too lazy to analyze it myself, I asked Google whether anyone else had done so. Then I found this page on BibleTexts.com, quoted:

… From my own word-by-word examination of parts of the CUV, the CUV is translated from much more accurate Hebrew and Greek texts than the KJV, but according to a native Chinese Christian colleague living in Shanghai, the CUV is difficult for modern Chinese readers to read, because of the old style Chinese language that it uses. According to one writer who has corresponded with BibleTexts.com, the CUV’s New Testament is based on essentially the same United Bible Society Greek text as the NRSV and TEV …

So CUV depends less on TR but more on later-discovered manuscripts? Can anyone (with better Google skillz or more time) confirm it? The comment on “classic” Chinese is certainly true, as many people in MBF, who have only been living in an English speaking country for less than 3 years, found it easier to understand God’s word in ESV or NIV than CUV. However, asking Chinese churches to “move on” is difficult, as (1) there is no incentive as “a much better” Chinese translation still does not exist (though IMHO there are some slightly better ones) (2) Chinese like traditions – not to the point of KJV-only-like, but some of them are just so hard to change.

To finish off this blog entry, I found another KJV-only website that confirms CUV is indeed based on UBS Greek Testament, but in a negative way. It tries to sell its Chin New Testament:

Please Note: This is NOT the Chinese Union Bible. The New Testament that we are offering is a translation of the Textus Receptus (upon which the KJV is based) into Chinese. Please do NOT confuse this with the Chinese Union Bible. The Chinese Union Bible is an innacurate translation which is based on the Revised Versions of 1881 of Westcott & Hort.

This means that the Chinese Union Bible is a corrupt and unreliable translation/version.

Then it links to more TR/KJV-only propaganda and why CUV is corrupted. Ha!

I myself took a compact hardcover copy. First impression – very very thin pages. It has Chinese on one side and English on another side of page, which is obvious for a bilingual Bible. It contains NCV and ESV introduction for each of the book before the first chapter, and it also contains introduction on groups of books, for example before the Law, the Major/Minor Prophets, etc. I found the NCV introduction is quite comprehensive, as it includes sections on the date, author, main themes, section break downs, etc. At the end of the Bible, it also includes the ESV concordance, which would be very useful searching for related passages around a key word. ESV cross reference is not included though, but I doubt it would fit as it already tried to squeeze in two translations.

At the back it also includes some full colour maps – they are actually good quality maps from the days of the Patriarchs to the spread of Christianity. The binding is okay – I hope it will not be as disastrous as Crossway’s ESV binding, which Vivian’s died within a year. I guess only time will tell.

I have not tried to compare much of NCV to the older CUV (Chinese Union Version of 1919) yet. I opened both of them to 2 Timothy 3:15-16, which I used in the Bible study last Sunday.

… the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, … (English Standard Version)

… 這聖經能夠使你有智慧，可以因信基督耶穌得著救恩。全部聖經都是　神所默示的，在教訓、責備、矯正和公義的訓練各方面，都是有益的，(New Chinese Version)

… 這聖經能使你因信基督耶穌有得救的智慧。聖經都是神所默示的、於教訓、督責、使人歸正、教導人學義、都是有益的．(Chinese Union Version)

The Mandarin group I had yesterday had trouble understanding verse 15b on the relationship between the scripture, salvation and faith in Christ Jesus. The CUV is a bit confusing, or misleading I’ll say. ESV is clear, and so is the NCV. So far so good…

Another feature of NCV is that dotted underline, which means these words/phrases were not in the original but added by the translators so that the sentence won’t sound too awkward. I’ll take that famous passage of John 3:16.

神愛世人，甚至把他的獨生子賜給他們，叫一切信他的，不至滅亡，反得永生。

The word “他們” can be clearly seen that it has been added by the translator (and it is not in ESV). The same word exists in CUV, but there is no way for readers to know that it is actually not in the original manuscript.

That’s it for today. I believe there will be more discovery for the days to come.

For a dream comes with much business, and a fool’s voice with many words.

Well, that quote comes straight from Good News Publishers‘ website via cut and paste. However, it reads a bit differently on my Collins’ ESV bible! Instead of having “business” there in verse 3, it reads “busyness”. Apparently all HarperCollins’ ESV have “busyness” there, including the cross reference ESV that Vivian has, but all the Crossway ESV bibles have “business”. At the end of day, we opted for “busyness” for Simon to read out on that verse, but I wonder how whether we have picked the right one.

So I went on for a little search…

First of all, the Revised Standard Version, which ESV is heavily based on, uses “business” in 5:3. However, from the context it seems that it is talking about the ‘busy-ness’ state of dreams, which then links to the many confusing, unprofitable and useless words of fools.

I then turn to my trusty Hebrews. Well, not that I can recognise any of these curly characters, but with help of interlinear Bible and Strong numbers, it gave me more clues. The word used here is:

ענין (in-yawn’)
that is, (generally) employment or (specifically) an affair: – business, travail.

Strong’s Hebrew and Greek Dictionaries 1890

Well. That certainly sounds like “business” as it is about an affair. I am confused. Now, maybe “busyness” and “business” are actually the same word. From Dictionary.com, it has this meaning for “business”:

11. Obsolete. The condition of being busy.

Okay. Now, here are some conclusions:

• The original means “business”, and HarperCollins, not being the official publisher of ESV, messed it up and printed “busyness” on all their ESV bibles. But how does a dream comes with much business? I wonder what kind of “business” the Preacher was engaged in.
• It should be “busyness”, talking about the chaotic and confusing state of life that bears much day dreams (and nightmares). ESV simply uses an ‘obsolete’ version of the same word, but Collins has expressed it in a more modern English.
• Some dynamic translations put it as “worries” or “cares” – too much of those give you bad dreams. That makes sense, but then I am reading someone else’s interpretation on the whole paragraph.

Maybe there is no conclusion. Maybe it is just like what the Preacher has said. Discussing whether it is ‘i’ or ‘y’ is all vanity. Even more meaningless than chasing after the wind…

While Glenn has provided a Perl script on his blogsite, that retrieves verse of the day in RSS and generates HTML/PHP, which can be included on the index page, Dean Peters of Heal Your Church Website also added more Perl scripts using the more liberal RSSLite module. Not that I still remembered any Perl, but here we go – we have two scripts that generate verse of the day into HTML. Wait. Three if you include Dean’s PHP script that does pretty much the same thing…

And it won’t be difficult to write a similar script in Python either. With Mark Pilgrim’s Ultra-liberal RSS parser, it should take no time to convert Dean’s RSSLite based script from Perl to Python.

Here’s my attempt:

• Download: dailyverse.py

And the syntax highlighted source:

#!/usr/bin/env python

# module "feedparser" can be downloaded from Mark Pilgrim's website:
# http://diveintomark.org/projects/feed_parser/
import feedparser
import re

rssfeed = "http://www.gnpcb.org/esv/share/rss2.0/daily/"
outfile = "dailyverse.inc.php"

result = feedparser.parse(rssfeed)
output = open(outfile, 'w')

print >>output, '<div class="dailyScripture">'

for item in result.entries:
    print >>output, item.summary+'<br/>'
    print >>output, '<a href="%s" title="%s">%s</a>' %
	(item.link, result.feed.tagline, item.title)
    if item.get('enclosures'):
        print >>output, ' (<a href="%s">Listen</a>)' % item.enclosures[0].url
    print >>output, '<br/><br/>'

copyright = re.sub(r'[t|n|s]+', ' ', result.feed.copyright).strip()

print >>output, '<span class="credits"><a href="%s" title="%s">%s</a></span>' %
    (result.feed.link, copyright, result.feed.title)
print >>output, '</div>'

output.close()

Updated 3 May 2005: This script has been updated to provide a link to ESV’s audio edition, so that you not only can display the daily verse on your site, you can also listen to it pronounced.

And Vivian thought the same way as well. My considering wife bought me a new HarperCollins Holy Bible English Standard Version edition from the Matthias Media office for AUD$19.95 on Tuesday, and I have been trying to get start using it. Beside the translation of the Word of God, this HarperCollins Bible is quite different from the Crossway’s edition. First of all, it is compact. It measures 156mm x 105mm x 27mm, and it can fit in the side pocket of a cargo pants easily. Carrying around the Crossway ESV is just too much for me. However, it does not have cross references. It does not have maps at the back. It has some foot notes, but it does not have book introduction like the Crossway one. Basically, it has pretty much nothing but God’s Word (which is the most important thing anyway). Not really a studying Bible I guess.

However, my biggest complain about the HarperCollins ESV is its font size. It is tiny!! It is even tinier than my old compact NIV Bible. Maybe it is just signs showing that I am getting old, but I do find that I need to put in more effort to read. Not just the English (well, ESV’s vocabulary is a bit deeper than NIV’s), but the fonts really hurt my eyes when I try to focus. I think it might just take a while for me to get use to…

One thing about the Crossway’s ESV – I think the binding is not that good. Our Crossway has already started loosing pages, and we have to use sticky tape to put them back – only after 6 months of light usage! I am not sure about the quality of binding for the HarperCollins’ ESV, but I guess only time will tell.

Phillip was preaching on the fruit of the spirit, and he took Ephesians 5:18-21 as the example. With the NIV, it has actually been broken into multiple sentences, and verse 5:21 sort of stands on its own. However, in ESV we see that the original is one long connected sentences.

Ephesians 5:18 is talking about not getting drunk, but be fill with the spirit. However, 5:19-21 contains several actions words in NIV that are independent sentenses. On the other hand, ESV shows that 5:19-21 are continuation of the commandment in 5:18b on being filled with the spirit. It helps us to understand that what does it mean by being filled with the spirit, i.e. addressing one another in psalms, singing to the Lord, giving thanks, and submitting to one another.