My birthday week begins

I usually have several kind people help me celebrate my birthday -- on the day, before the day and after the day. This year Jill got in first -- giving me an excellent lunch of pasta and seafood followed by strawberries and cream

Anne and I Humbered out to Riverhills but we did not go to Jill's own place because she has it up for sale and it was "open for inspection". Instead we went to Lewis's place, which is nearby,

Lewis has a very attractive apartment which has had a few modifications done to it as a result of a stroke he had a year or two ago. One of the modifications was that they fitted "elephant's feet" to his settee, which raised it up about 9" further off the ground. I was much taken with that as my old bones are a bit creaky too and it does help you to get up. I can see elephant's feet in my future too.

I got a very good bonus of books also this year. Jill will be moving house soon so her late husband's theological library has become rather surplus to requirements. I had for many years had my eye on one book in it: A student's edition of the Septuagint (The OLD Testament in ancient Greek). Anne must have thought she had a very strange bloke in one who wanted a copy of the Old Testament in Greek! But I think she expects eccentricities from me by now.

Anyway, Jill gave me a lot of first-rate Bible-study books, including the Septuagint. One book she gave me was a very early copy of Cruden's concordance, which was originally published in the 18th century. The copy Jill gave me was published in 1828 so is not a first edition but it looks very much like it might be off the same plates as the first edition. So it is something of a treasure. It is in a pretty battered condition so I don't foresee using it much. I normally use Strong's Exhaustive concordance anyhow. But it is nice to have such an historic book.

I also got another book I had rather coveted: Liddell & Scott's Greek lexicon. I normally use Abbott-Smith but it covers New Testament Greek only. An unexpected bonus was the Bagster Analytical Greek Lexicon, which I had vaguely heard of but never seen before. It gives every case of every noun in full. Most useful if your Greek grammar is shaky. Mine is virtually non-existent but I struggle on if there is an important exegetical point to explore.

I also got some commentaries, including a whole volume on Isaiah and one on Revelations. Both will be handy as both those Bible books have plenty that is open to interpretation and I am sure I can learn much from the scholars who have gone before me.