Tag: From my diary

It’s been a while since I did anything with the translation of Origen’s Commentary on Ezekiel which I commissioned.  The book has sat in a collection of .doc files on my hard disk, while other tasks went forward.

The main obstacle to progress is getting the book typeset.  I did buy a copy of Adobe Indesign CS5, with a view to doing it myself; but I simply don’t have the time necessary, nor, in truth, the energy.

This evening I have enquired of an advertiser on PeoplePerHour.com whether he would be interested, and at what price.  I want to get this thing published.  To do otherwise is to waste the time and money spent on it.  And when it has been printed, and sold whatever quantity of books it is going to, we can get the thing online.

The Eusebius book is winding down.  It’s still selling a few copies, although I haven’t checked since the summer precisely how many.  It sold fairly well in the first year; in the second, to my surprise, more or less the same, after a distinct ‘sag’ in the early months.  But I get the definite impression of the decline.

I’ve begun to think about how this can go online as well, as was always intended.  I will place the English translation on my website, and make that freely available.  But it would be good to make the entire PDF available as well, perhaps at Archive.org, if this can be done without relinquishing copyright.  A copyright question arises on the PDF of the whole book because I don’t own the copyright of parts of it, which I only leased.  I will look at the sales this year at New Year, and work out exactly how things are going.  If I keep it in print, in April/May 2014 I shall have to pay Lightning Source another chunk of cash.

I’ve spent this evening scanning in a wodge of photocopies of pages from Van den Ven’s French translation of the Life of St. Symeon Stylites the Younger.  It’s a daunting amount of text!

And I do feel drawn to translate some more of the Life of Severus of Antioch.  Both these Lives are historical sources.

Finally there is still a lot of interesting material to look up in Cyril Mango’s article.

I’d also like to return to Ehrman’s Forgery and counterforgery and do some more work on this.  A post containing all the primary sources used would be good; and I think Armin Baum gives that material in his book, and E. just made use of it.  There is more to be done with the book also.

So there is no lack of tasks drawing my attention!  If only I didn’t have to go to work for money as well!!!

A correspondent writes to tell me that Jonathan Armstrong, at Moody Bible Institute-Spokane, is at work with his students on a number of patristic texts.  He writes:

We have founded an early Church studies honors society complete with electives that are taught primarily by Dr. Armstrong. As part of the program, students will be taking three years of Greek including translating early church documents during that third year.

… Dr. Armstrong is planning on pumping out translations every two years or so (depending on the length of the text) with his third year Greek students, and has already made informal plans with Brill to publish the translations.

I’ve continued to work on formatting Theodoret’s Commentary on Romans for online accessibility.

Another chunk of the translation of Eusebius of Caesarea’s Commentary on Luke has arrived from the translator – chunk 8 out of 14, if I recall correctly.  Apparently progress on this will slow down, tho, for term time.

OUP are going to send me a review copy of Bart Ehrman’s Forgery and Counterforgery, which is kind of them, and I shall write a review on it.

I shall be going off to Turkey in a few weeks, on a short coach tour.  It starts in Istanbul, and includes Troy, Pergamum, and Ephesus.  My impression is that Turkey may well become unstable in the next couple of years – the Islamist government is starting to put army generals on trial, and the army has been the guarantor of Turkey’s constitution – and it may be prudent to go now.  It will be very nice to see these sites, and I will be glad of the holiday.

I have continued to work on Bianca-Jeanette Schröder’s book.  This evening I have finished translating the conclusion to the second part.  From it I conclude that that section is, I think, something I really will need to read in detail.  Tomorrow I shall begin on the conclusion to the third part.

I wonder if there is merit in placing these rough translations here?  German is so difficult for so many people that perhaps it would be of value.  The extracts are sufficiently small that I do not foresee a copyright problem (and if anyone cares, I could, of course, remove them).

A very hot day here.  I have been converting an out-of-copyright Loeb into PDF format.  The book is old and worn, and the binding is loose with much use.  Yes, it is a library copy.

Yet somehow such old volumes have a charm of their own.  I did look to see if I might purchase one online, but only new copies are accessible.  New Loeb’s have a harshness about them.  One of my favourite Loebs is an old Juvenal, bought in Minehead in the west country for practically nothing.  It is long since superseded, in the eyes of librarians, but the softer prose of a century ago makes it far more agreeable than the harsh shouting of the modern translations I have elsewhere on my shelves.

Perhaps I shall recline, Roman-like, on my sofa later and read into that old Loeb.  Possibly with strawberries and cream.