Rick has a great post on the tremendous availability of word processors . Thanks for the interesting entry, Rick. I counted 13 wp's and text editors omm (=on my machine). Of course, several of those are text editors catering to programming. This count doesn't include Unix apps such as emac and vi, etc.
Exciting news on the Hebrew-supported word processing front. ThinkFree Office has released a new version and they have added right-to-left language support. The small price tag and the non-proprietary formats it uses make it well worth trying out the 30-day free trial if you are currently considering your word processing solution.
So, if you're keeping track... to use Unicode Hebrew on your Mac, Micro$oft Word is OUT.
Mellel, ThinkFree Office, NeoOffice/J Open Office, and Apple's Pages are IN.
Well, it's good to be back. After weeks of travelling from Dallas to Houston to Oklahoma City to Portland to Atlanta, my family has ended up in our new home in Kansas City. I started last week as a pastor of a 127 year old congregation, and have just gained some sense of normalcy regarding my online activities.
After catching up on my blogroll, I wanted to pass on to folks a great article explaining how OpenOffice might be a solution for you in your scholarly work, particularly if you need to work with Right-to-Left Hebrew.
If you find yourself to be "open curious", definitely give the article from MacDevCenter a read.
I recently discussed with others whether bible software companies should consider opening up their API's to allow for 3rd party innovation. Quite frankly, the first one that does will quickly overtake the landscape, in a way similar to how Google Maps has gone from nothing to THE tool to use in such short time.
Look at this mashup of a Google map utility that displays satellite images of Jesus cities and provides scripture links. The example is very elementary but it demonstrates how one could create a map for an entire range of pedagogical and church uses. Some tips on how to get started can be found there.
It illustrates the tension between web applications and traditional computer apps. For example, Accordance has a nice Atlas module... unequalled in any other bible software on any platfom, however, I can't create in it a map where sites are linked to specific scripture texts I assign. It's simply not an option, and there's no way for me to customize it to do so. One can't even do pushpins, I don't think. We can't predict the uses folks might come up with, and if the Open Source model has taught us anything, is that innovation catches on fire in such an open API environment.
Still, I notice that the Accordance Map module is on sale right now... I'd grab it if you don't have it. And perhaps more customizing options will be coming in the future.
The recent discussions regarding the notion of scholarly consensus are helpful, I think. (See Mark's post for a catalog of some of them.)
I'd like to make two points:
1. We depend on consensus. And by we, I mean me. To an even greater extent, church pastors and just-beginning-junior-schoars, of which I am both, depend on the summary assertions of scholarly consensus in order to build upon understanding. Bible scholarship is a big picture that gets painted, a story that gets told, and it is only through reliance upon consensus that we can create and shape the story, so that we can in time expore different facets, consider the nuance, and decide for our own.
In my Intro NT course in seminary, I was told about 2SH, and then (is "minority" the right word here?) assertions were mentioned. When I took my first course in Synoptics, I studied the issue in depth. I marked my Synopsis. I read the material. I began to formulate my own opinions, opinions that have even begun to change (grow?) in the last few years. This is the way it should has to be.
Frankly, we can not decide for our own on every issue within Biblical scholarship--not even the most senior scholars can do that. One simply does not move from extensive study to the necessary intensive study of every single topic. We depend upon others' dating of material, generic conclusions, authorial speculations, etc. This is why we must be careful in these discussions to not suggest scholars, commentary writers, etc. should not appeal to consensus.
In the absence of it, we are empowerd to say nothing.
2. Having said that, a real downside is that the senior scholar is innately resistant to being convinced by an argument that overturns a consensus assertion when it would seem to render her/his past publications that assume that opinion outdated and hardly worth reading anymore. (The exception might be, of course, if the challenge to consensus is the work of their own scholarship.)
