Test jesus under plastic

More from Walter Ong's Orality and Literacy (1982). (long I realize, but try it anyway)

Most persons are surprised, and many distressed, to learn that essentially the same objection commonly urged today against computers were urged by Plato in the Phaedrus and in the Seventh Letter against writing.

Writing, Plato has Socrates say, is inhuman, pretending to establish outside the mind what in reality can be only int the mind.  It is a thing, a manufactured product.  The same of course is said of computers.  Secondly, [Socrates] urges, writing destroys memory.  Thos who use writing will become forgetful, relying on an external resource for what they lack...  Today, parents and others fear that pocket calculators provide an external resource of memorized multiplication tables.  Calculators weaken the mind, relieve it of work that keeps it strong.

One weakness in Plato's position was that, to make his objections effective, he put them into writing.

Writing and print and the computer are all ways of technologizing the word. Once the word is technologized, there is no effective way to criticize what technology has done with it without the aid of the highest technology available. Moreover, the new technology is not merely used to convey the critique: in fact, it brought the critique into existence. Plato's analytic thought...was possible only because of the effects that writing was beginning to have on mental processes.

One of easiest ways to stress myself out is spin myself into a materialistic web of anxious theological book shopping.  The Logos/Libronix software is my downfall on this. When I first hit seminary, I realized a Bible software program could be really helpful.  Though my professors tend to use Bibleworks in class, I looked at the options and chose Logos for two reasons:  it seemed better suited for a well-rounded collection with commentaries, etc.  And it's interface design was significantly better than Bibleworks (which has toolbars that look as if a programmer mashed them together using tinkertoys).

I had sticker shock when I first looked at the base-packages—they range from $150 to $1379.95—whoa! Because my degree was going to be more theological in nature and wasn't going to allow me to do any original language work, I chose the Bible Study Library package. It really didn't have everything I wanted, but I couldn't justify jumping to the Scholars library, which had lots of resources I'd just never use (I really think they ought to have a better "between" package there... but maybe more on that another time).

So now I've slowly been buying additional resources to add to my library, which is fun but really expensive.

Until Nov 10th, Logos has a sale again for North Park students (they do this every semester), so I'm back to wanting more stuff.

Here's the possibilities:

1. Interlinear LXX (Septuagint) - $109.  Greek version of the Old Testament.  Almost essential to word studies, etc.
   
2. BDAG/HALOT - $275.  The most authoritative academic standard lexicons (dictionaries) for Greek and Hebrew.
   
3. IVP Reference Dictionaries.  $120 Includes Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, Dictionary of Paul and His Letters, and like eight others.
   
4. Anchor Bible Dictionary.- $250  More comprehensive, scholarly, and liberal than the IVP stuff, but will it be too redundant?
5. The TDNT (Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, aka. "Kittel") - $199.  Massive standard comprehensive theological dictionary.
   
6. The Word Biblical Commentary Series.  $700  Pretty much all my Bible professors (including McKnight and Snodgrass) say that you shouldn't purchase one particular series of commentaries--each book tends to have it's best author, and it can be published in any one of the major series.  But the upside to buying an entire series at once is PRICE... Word Biblical Commentaries tend to be $35-$40 each.  Buy all 60-ish volumes at once?   $12 each!

Argh!  I can't afford all that!  I can't afford even smaller portions of that.  I'm not sure who these prices are made for, but not for seminary students living off part-time ministry financial support and student loans.  But to take advantage of the student discount I can get (which helps cut these prices a little, but not enough), I should buy now, while I'm in school.  Plus, I can USE them while in school.  I've gotta think about this as long-term investments, I think.

Decisions, decisions...  the sale ends Nov 10.

This past week has accelerated me to the absolute top speed I have. I could tell sitting in certain classes that my brain was over-CPU crunched and starving for extra cycles. Last I night I had to leave Romans early just so I could recover enough to do three hours in Contextualization this morning. My reading list is ruling my life!

Meanwhile, this weekend I'll be traveling for GCM down to central Illinois to help at I-Life's Fall Retreat--leading two training sessions on mentor discipleship and leading the weekend-closing session including communion. I look forward to seeing old and new friends, talking about topics I'm excited about, and getting away from the books for a few days.

And should I get one of these??

Downside: camera is reportedly taking as long as 10 seconds to take a picture!  And it doesn't have Microsoft Exchange push, but I don't care.  It DOES have a few feature the iPhone doesn't, including gMail push, an amazing new "compass" mode for Google Maps Street View (you just move the phone to "look around"), and the thing that's kept me from jumping to Apple:  a full QWERTY keyboard!

ps - I realize I can't "get" a Google Android.  The open-source operating system will show up on multiple phones in the next year, T-Mobile's G1 being just the first new example.  And I agree with Don Reisinger--there's no reason not to expect Google to do well, even in the face of the iPhone.