Friday, May 18, 2007

Greetings from Joe

I am the new co-blogger at TNIV Truth. Thank you to Wayne and the guys for inviting me to the party. A little about myself . . .

I am not a linguist like Wayne. I am not a Greek scholar. In fact, I am a high school graduate. My English skills are decent, though I'm sure an English professor could point out numerous problems in my writings. My comprehension skills are decent (I think).

I know how to use Greek tools pretty well. The average Christian possesses usually a Strong's Concordance and perhaps a Vine's Expository dictionary of one kind or another. I own several introductions to Greek and intermediate texts in book, audio, and video formats and have gone through them to varying degrees. I own several Greek texts including multiple versions of the Textus Receptus, the Nestle-Aland 27th, the United Bible Society's 4th, Westcott & Hort, and one version of the Majority text.

I have Kittel's ten volume Theological Dictionary of the New Testament and Kittel's one volume abridged edition, Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament by Harris, Archer, & Waltke, and a few other miscellaneous items.

I use all of these tools often. I probably know enough to be dangerous, but not authoritative.

With that ground work laid, on the one hand, don't take what I say for granted. Be a Bearen and check it out. Please verify what I say and check to see if it corresponds with reality. On the other hand, don't cast off what I say and think to yourself this guy is simply an unschooled, ordinary man. While I am that, that's not a good enough reason to dismiss any comments I make.

I work in secular employment for the electric utility for the West suburbs of Chicago all the way to the Iowa border. I help get the lights on when they go off. I've been married since 1992. I have three kids: one daughter (1995) and two sons (1999 & 2002). I'm a Chicago Cubs fan, so I know what it is to suffer. I was born the first time in 1971, the second time in 1986.

In regard to the translation issue: I used to be a Textus Receptus Only adherent, meaning I would use only the KJV or NKJV. That was until the mid 90's. I basically argued like a KJV Only advocate but I thought the NKJV was good too because its New Testament is based off the Textus Receptus. So, as you can see, I've come a long way from where I was. Some think for worse, I think for the better.

Looking forward to sharing at this blog. Grace & peace to you.

5 comments:

R. Mansfield said...

I added some line break HTML codes for you, Joe. You can go back and see what I did.

Wayne Leman said...

Joe, Rick and I are working on the problem. It has to do with a Blogger setting.

anonymous said...

And what's wrong with this version of Acts 4:13?

Wayne Leman said...

And what's wrong with this version of Acts 4:13?

Joe, if you intended to access the TNIV in your post and if you know how to edit html code, just substitute "72" for "31" at the end of the url for Acts 4:13. I note that the wordings are identical between the NIV and TNIV.

John Radcliffe said...

The average Christian possesses usually a Strong's Concordance and perhaps a Vine's Expository dictionary of one kind or another.

Average Christians must be a bit different in your part of the world, Joe. I suspect that most of my acquaintance wouldn't even know what you were talking about, let alone own or use such things themselves.