Song of Songs Journal Now Live

 As I promised I've uploaded the journal for the Greek Septuagint version Song of Songs (also known as the Song of Solomon and Canticles in English and Ασμα Ασματων in Greek). It is available as a PDF on the Downloads page.

Song of Songs is a poetry book and usually formatted as such, particularly in modern editions such as Swete's. I could have kept it formatted as poetry but it would be more than twice as long as the prose formatting I used. Poetry formatting would not be a problem for those using devices such as tablets and PCs to do journaling, but for those who might want to print it out and work by hand, this is obviously going to consume a lot more paper. If there's any demand for the poetical formatting I might make those for the poetic books such as Song, the Psalms etc once I have all the canonical books completed and uploaded.

Next week I will post Lamentations (Θρῆνοι) and (God willing) the week after will be Ecclesiastes (Ἐκκλησιαστής - 12 chapters and 222 verses), then Esther (Ἐσθήρ - 16 chapters, 265 verses), and so on.

I also plan to start posting a 'Verse of the Week' each Wednesday (Australian time) that I will post on X and my blog. I will start with variants in Codex Alexandrinus as well as interesting features and observations and perhaps expand to include other interesting codices in the future. Alexandrinus is a very large manuscript and there's a lot to work with.

In the meantime, I pray it blesses you, helps you in your journey to learn Biblical Greek and to draw closer to God through his inspired Scriptures.

Ruth Journal is Live

 As I promised in my last update I have made the next journal, this being Ruth (Ῥούθ). The A4 portrait version is linked on the download pages. Enjoy.

I intend to complete all the canonical books first and so the next will be the Song of Songs (Ἆσμα Ἀσματον) next weekend followed by Lamentations (Θρῆνοι).

The Plan 

I really have no set plan for which will come next, it's mostly down to which remaining book has the least verses. Song of Songs has 8 chapters but 117 verses while Lamentations has 5 chapters and 154 verses.

The length of some books such as Psalms (151 psalms and 2,534 verses including the non-canonical Psalm 151) may make the books unwieldy for printing and thus I may split them. Traditionally Psalms is broken up to 5 separate books and I may split the journals in the same manner.

 The main determiner of this will be how big the files are. Computers, tablets/mobile phones, and the internet can handle pretty large files today, but even so a modern PC or tablet is still happier with a file that is no bigger than a couple of megabytes than one that is 10 or 20. So far all the LXX journals are about 400-500 KB and the GNT journals no more than 300 (Luke is the largest at 301 KB). So perhaps sticking to that is the best plan. But if even the biggest such as Genesis (50ch and 1,530 vss) weigh in at less than 2Mb then I'll probably leave them as a single book.

After I've finished the canonical books I'll start on the Apocryphal books and perhaps some early Christian writings such as 1 and 2 Clement, Barnabas, the Didache etc.

On Being a Terrible Blogger

 As I write this I have, as far as I know, zero followers. This isn't a complaint because I'm at fault for this. I don't update nearly enough, I don't post enough, and I don't promote my blog at all. Part of this is down to my apparent inability to come up with things to blog about and partly down to work and college where I'm studying a diploma in graphic design.

I'm not one for New Year's resolutions and so I am not going to make one, but I do want to turn this into a proper blog with more regular updates. I have a part time job and just two units remaining on my course and so I should be able to not only post more often, but also do some promoting, right?

We shall see.

 To get the ball rolling, I have completed my transcript of the GNT of Codex Alexandrinus (available on the Downloads page). I have also been transcribing the Septuagint/LXX of Alexandrinus and so far have completed Hosea, Obadiah, Jonah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, and Haggai - the link for that is also on the Downloads page, the link is above the 02 GNT entry.

 The next update for the Minor Prophets will be Amos, but that has 146 verses and I've reached verse 9 of chapter 1, so it will be a few weeks until that is done.

 Another project I need to complete is the LXX journal files. In my last update I had completed Swete's version of the Minor Prophets (a coincidence) and I've done nothing since. My aim is to finish these, at least one a week, and get them up as well. Once I have the Affinity app installed on my new Linux machine that will start to happen as well. So depending on the size of the book, I hope to have a new volume or part volume up per week (God willing).

I would also like to start blogging through Alexandrinus and its features with my thoughts on what I've found. I would also like to make a Logos Personal Bible and maybe learn how to make them for some other software such as Accordance, Sword, and theWord, but that's for another day.

Finally I'm working to update the Alexandrinus font to Gentium 7.000, but that's low on my to-do list and will happen when I get to it. The journals are by far the more important thing and once they are done, I will focus on other things. I've made a start, but only the Bold font has had any work done and that's only to add Hebrew and Coptic.

So, God willing, I will be back in a week with a new journal document and possibly a post on the Gospel of Matthew of Alexandrinus.