Back in the saddle

I'm not sure which saddle we're talking about, but I'm back anyway. This summer has been an incredible whirlwind of Angola, wedding, and class mumbled together, and now the fall semester has caught me not quite prepared. So I'm working my tail off. Actually, I'm taking a break to post on a long-forgotten blog. If I can manage it, I'll post a few tidbits of our trip to Angola during the next several weeks.

I've also started editing Wikipedia in my not-so-free time. It's fun, even if certain critics think it's a waste of brain power, or perhaps lack thereof. You might enjoy it too.

Hebrews is difficult, okay?

Just so you know, translating the Greek text of Hebrews is a pain.
Vocab, sentence structure, idioms, ellipses - take your pick, they're
all hard. And once you finally get a workable translation, you still
don't really know what it's trying to say. We're in chapter 12. Take the
exegesis of verse 24, for example. "The blood of sprinkling that speaks
better than Abel." What in the world does that mean? Or the theology
that lies behind verses 16 and 17, talking about Esau giving up his
birthright and not being able to get a blessing no matter how he wept
for it.

Okay, I'll quit whining now. Despite all the difficulty and the many
hours of work and the paper cuts from flipping pages in BDAG, I love it. It's a wonderful feeling when the translation finally hits you.
Wonderful. I just wish it would hit me sooner.