Under the sage direction of Dr. Cole, I’m taking Syriac this semester at SEBTS. One thing I never head into language-learning without is a good set of flashcards. These can take tons of time to make and while making your own is a good exercise, let’s face it, it’s also taxing. After seeing how popular the Seow Hebrew flashcards I posted are, I’ve decided to share my Syriac flashcards as well. They are based on John Healey’s Leshono Suryoyo published by Gorgias Press.

My Syriac flashcards come in the form of an Excel spreadsheet. You may not have known that Excel can be used for flashcards, but let me assure you it’s pretty sweet. You’ll need to enable the macro once you open the Excel file. Here’s a screenshot of what that looks like in Excel 2007.

I’ll be updating the file as the semester progresses. Right now the flashcards are incomplete and are only up to date with what we’ve covered in class so far. I’ll be updating the file and this post as I update the flashcards every week.

Download Leshono Suryoyo Syriac Flashcards

Download: SyriacFlashcards-HealeyLeshonoSuryoyo-KataDrew

Status: Chapter 6 (plus interrogatives and demonstratives)
Last updated: March 11, 2010

Required Font: Serto Jerusalem

Like Healey’s text these flashcards use the Syriac Serto script. The flashcards utilize and therefore require the Beth Mardutho Meltho Syriac Fonts, specifically the one in the package called Serto Jerusalem. The font pack containing Serto Jerusalem is freely available through the Beth Mardutho web site on the Meltho Font download page. Click the download link, fill out the form (if you wish), agree to the license, and then you’ll be able to directly download the fonts. The following operating systems are supported: Microsoft Windows, Linux/BSD, Unix, and Mac OS X.

I also use this font to do my homework in Word. To do this you need to add a Syriac keyboard through the Windows Control Panel by going to Change keyboards or other input methods.  From the Keyboards and Languages tab click Change keyboards… . Click Add and then scroll down to Syriac in the list of languages. I recommend the Syriac Phonetic keyboard. Then switch to this “keyboard” when you want to type in Syriac with the Serto Jerusalem font. Vowels are added by first entering the consonant on which they appear and then using Shift plus another key. For example, for a ptoho (the one in Serto that sorta looks like a Greek alpha), you hit the consonant on which you want it to appear and then the Q key while holding down Shift. The other vowels are found on the W, E, R, T, and Y keys if I remember rightly.

Help

If you need help with any of this, simply leave a comment and I’ll be glad to help.

I’ve noticed several (naughty) classmates on Twitter in class. So, I know there’s people at Southeastern on Twitter. I want to find you and follow you and make a list of all of us. Leave a comment here identifying yourself. (No information collected will be used to incriminate twittering students!)

Here’s who I’ve found so far by various and sundry means:

• Daniel Moore @onwardprogress
• Tim Jones @TimmJones
• Doug Hull @KDH3
• Drew Maust (me) @admaust

I’m amazed at the number of people who don’t read our president Danny Akin’s emails. I guess one excuse is that they’re usually lengthy and numerous; but this latest email sent out to the student body and published on his blog is truly worth a read and hereby receives my commendation.

Below are Akin’s thoughts prefacing an article which he included in his email:

The secular media and some pollsters are: 1) arguing that many evangelicals are considering voting for Senator Barack Obama and 2) attempting to provide a rationale for why they could morally justify voting for him. Attached is a lengthy and compelling argument by Professor Robert P. George of Princeton University that puts to rest such “foolish talk.” Read this thoughtful response and see if you can find it morally conscionable to vote for “a president of death.”

I would likewise encourage you to read Professor George’s “thoughtful response” which you can find in-full on Dr. Akin’s blog at the following address: http://betweenthetimes.com/2008/10/14/why-faithful-evangelicals-cannot-vote-for-barack-obama.

Robert P. George is McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University. He serves on the President’s Council on Bioethics and on UNESCO’s World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology (COMEST). George is a Senior Fellow of the Witherspoon Institute of Princeton, New Jersey.

With Dr. Akin’s permission to “send it to whomever” I have created a PDF which you can use to attach his entire email and the article by Professor George to an email of your own and/or to print to share with others.

Download PDF (48kb)

Thursdays in the chapel services here at Southeastern we pray for North American missions, and today the gentleman who was asked to lead in prayer started by saying, “Sweet Jesus…”

I wouldn’t recommend starting this way given the cultural connotations.

A family friend was asking my mom what her about-to-graduate-from-high-school boyfriend should study in college to prepare for seminary. Through a series of text messages, this is the advice I had my mom relay to the couple:

We need Christians/seminarians/ministers/pastors/missionaries of all backgrounds. If you’re interested in chemistry, by all means go hard after it. If you’re interested in psychology, get it. If you really click with languages, study linguistics. If you’re thinking of being super-practical, become a nurse or maybe an accountant. But what we don’t need is homogeneous Bible degree seminarians.

Will a Bible degree put you ahead in seminary? Sure. Will not having a Bible degree automatically put you behind? No. If you love philosophy and theology, you’ll study philosophy and theology, or philosophy with a special view to theology. College is equipping you to learn on your own. So what better way to put that into practice than by studying theology, the Bible, biblical languages, etc in addition to your studies on your own. We need theocentric and biblical microbiologists and P.E. teachers and businessmen.

At the same time, however, be focused: don’t study architecture just to get a degree so you can go to seminary. Study architecture because you’re interested in the Sagrada Familia and you love Jesus and want to help people build efficient and appropriate church buildings.

Even with that said, I would study classics, history, linguistics, English, philosophy, and/or nursing. Yep, nursing.

Lastly, keep an Amazon wishlist and every book you hear recommended, add it. Tell people that for your birthday, Christmas, Easter, Kwanzaa and Flag Day, you want something off that list. Go ahead and get all you can: you may not have time to read them now, but they may serve as references or your curiosity. You might just eventually have time to read them, but for the time being, your book shelf will look impressive.

You can’t read enough. But remember:

This is going to be one of those entries where I wish I knew more about what I wanted to talk about than I actually do. So, don’t let me give you the impression by posting this that I know more about classical music or Mendelssohn or Elijah. But this I kataphorically do know: praise for SEBTS’ production of Mendelssohn’s Eljiah tonight. The timpani rumbled the pews. The sopranos found all the notes. The little boys in front of me rattled their coloring pencils. Another little kid chanted almost on beat, “Come on, concert. Go faster.” At two hours the frosty chapel did become slightly less homey than my couch, but the demulcent instruments and voices lent their softness to the pew on which I sat. Overall, a delightful experience hearing the narratives of Elijah’s life, ministry and ascension put to such moving music by a full choir and orchestra.

Of course, what would a concert be without a bootleg? I bet Mendelssohn’s never seen a bootleg before. Anyways, praise for Dr. John L. Davis and tonight’s uplifting performance of this masterpiece. I bet you’ve never heard Binkley Chapel like this before:

01-01-SEBTS-Elijah

01-02-SEBTS-Elijah

01-03-SEBTS-Elijah

01-04-SEBTS-Elijah

02-SEBTS-Elijah

The latest post on the new Sovereign Grace blog recaps the sermon delivered by C. J. Mahaney at SEBTS’ 2008 20/20 Conference Missio Dei just a week ago. Find there an overview of the conference, an outline of Mahaney’s message “The Cup”, and Dr. Akin’s conclusion:

I was listening very carefully when C.J. preached. Sometimes at a conference like this people are very enthusiastic and demonstrative in their response to the preaching. But tonight as C.J. preached, there was a holy silence in this room. There was not much stirring because we were standing on holy ground. I’ll never, ever look at the Garden of Gethsemane the same again.

Download the entire message at the SEBTS chapel schedule page.

It is my honest hope and intent that the following post will by no means bring disrespect to the persons and families of the about-to-be-mentioned. The passing away of a loved one is indeed a sensitive time, but nonetheless a part of life, and with this in mind I would like to proceed with an observation:

Within the past two weeks, and within a week of one another, two religious figures have passed away: Dr. L. Russ Bush of Southeastern Seminary, 22 January, and Gordon B. Hinckley, President of the Latter-Day Saints (Mormons), 27 January. After attending a Friday night lecture on the Mormon view of the soul, death, and the afterlife at the local LDS stake in Wake Forest, I was interested to read how the death of their president would be presented to the public. This would be a prime opportunity to demonstrate through the death of President Hinckley their views on death and the afterlife. I expected headlines on the official LDS web site to contain some sort of religious euphemism that would hint at their beliefs, such as: “President Hinckley Has Gone to Be with the Lord” or “Hinckley Now Becomes as God Now Is.” Nothing to this effect was published, but “Beloved Church President, Gordon B. Hinckley, Dies at 97.”

Call this a missed opportunity or professional journalism avoiding religious jargon, but I, honestly, was surprised. I clicked the headline to read the whole article, thinking that surely inside would be the religious language the title had forgone. “President Gordon B. Hinckley, who led The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints through twelve years of global expansion, has died at the age of 97…President Hinckley was known, even at the age of 97, as a tireless leader who always put in a full day at the office and traveled extensively around the world to mix with Church members, now numbering 13 million in 171 nations.” No mention of what I was looking for; but maybe I shouldn’t be surprised.

I wouldn’t be writing this, however, if Dr. L. Russ Bush hadn’t passed so closely to Hinckley. The title of the article written bringing the news of his passing is very different than that of Hinckley: “The Homegoing of Dr. L. Russ Bush.” “Homegoing ” says it all. Dr. Bush has not become a homemaker as Hinckley, but has gone home to be with the risen Savior. President Akin remembers Bush as “a champion and faithful warrior for the cause of Christ.” Dean of the Faculty at Southeastern, David Nelson, sums up what is contained in the article’s heading when he says, “We are truly grieved at [Bush's] passing, because he was a kind, gracious friend and leader, but of course, because of his faith in Christ, ours is a hopeful grief as we know he is in the presence of the Lord he loved.” Dr. Bush preached the Gospel in life but also in death: when he passed it was said of him that he is in the presence of the Lord he loved. Journalist opportunity seized: the result of a life lived in devotion to Christ is shown to the public.

Maybe I’m making more out of this observation than it merits, but nonetheless, it is an observation. Has Mormon journalism merely foregone religious jargon or absconded with their beliefs? Baptist journalists and spokesmen gladly publicized the Christian view on death and the afterlife, giving the reader a peek into Christian theology, a theology that doesn’t have anything to hide to save face. Contrasting orthodox Christianity and Mormonism on such basic tenets as death and the afterlife show them to be very dissimilar, and for a faith that considers itself Abrahamic as well as Christian, it has much to fear in open, public juxtaposition of the two which could have taken place had Mormon journalists openly shared their beliefs. It then makes sense why a non-religious obituary should be published.

It looks like it’s going to be a fun semester for chapel messages at Southeastern. I’m particularly excited (and you should be too) to hear John Lennox of the University to Oxford throw down. Just look at his jolly face…and you haven’t heard him speak yet. What a gracious, calculated (yes, pun intended–considering he’s a reader in mathematics) fellow. March 11-12 he’ll be here, Lord willing. Please, Lord. What you’ll want to do in the meantime is familiarize yourself with Dr. Lennox’s demulcent voice, and you can do that by clicking around at bethinking.org (his “God and Richard Dawkins” talk available there is a good intro to the man) and by smuggling yourself into Darwin’s Rottweiler’s den and listening to a debate between Lennox and Richard Dawkins.

Moreover, we have Mark Dever Tuesday, February 26 (cf. Capitol Hill Baptist Church [that this page has a Netscape fav icon is stultifying]). His current sermon series is entitled “Pierced for Our Transgressions.” You can most likely guess the inspiration for such a series and the content thereof considering his endorsement of the book by the same name. We can only hope that he brings a sermon in this vein.

Lastly, get ready for a Canadian kerfuffle on April 8 when Dr. Hogg brings history, humor and homily.

Anyone I missed that you’re looking forward to? Student preaching week? Here’s the full lineup.

In doing an intensified language course, like J-Term/Summer Hebrew or Greek, having a ready-to-go flashcard program for the computer is where it’s at. Talk about maximizing efficiency and effectiveness. I found the below Microsoft Excel flashcard file for Seow’s Biblical Hebrew vocabulary. I had no idea that Excel was capable of this, but boy is it sweet. I snagged it from Lionel Windsor. His language tools pages are a little treasure trove, and it looks like we get the booty! Thanks, Lionel.

Download Seow Biblical Hebrew Flashcards

[Edit: check the vocabulary list in the Excel file against the chapter's vocabulary list in the book which you are trying to learn first before studying that chapter. I think there are a few discrepancies.]