More Books

I have just about finished adding all my spare books to the Books for Sale list, including quite a few classical titles that were not there three weeks ago.

Personalized Commentary

I Timothy 5:23 is one of the passages H. L. Mencken liked to quote to irritate fundamentalist Christians:

Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake and thine often infirmities.
(KJV)

A recent commentary offers an interesting analysis:

. . . it must be noted that the text proposes no doctrinaire or theological grounds for its directive but simply notes that this course of action will be "for your bad stomach and your frequent bouts with illness". The concern here is very Hellenistic (see notes above), though of course the ailment the "nervous stomach", the queasy acidity that tense perfectionists are always prone to and that administrative pressures have been known to cause even in the most stolid and placid, is by no means a monopoly of Greeks or Sumerians.
(Jerome D. Quinn and William C. Wacker, The First and Second Letters of Timothy, Eerdmans Critical Commentary series, Grand Rapids, 2000)

This sounds heartfelt, all the more so when we observe that Quinn completed only the first draft of his commentary: it was completed after his death by his student Wacker. I wonder which one wrote this note.

Books For Sale

I have quite a few spare books I'm trying to sell, plus a few CDs and videotapes. Some of the books are classical, and most are literary or scholarly. I have added a permanent button on the left under 'Personal' (just above 'Links') or you can just click here. 'Curculio Scholarly Books' already has fifty satisfied customers from 2000-2001, but I had to put my stock in storage for the last year and a half while I worked a couple of temporary jobs. CSB has now reopened for business.

If you don't see anything you like, check back in a week or so. I will soon list six-and-a-half banker's boxes full of books I'm selling for a friend: there will be more modern philosophy and less classics, but the types of books are otherwise broadly similar. They will be marked as 'NEW' when they are added.

Please note that I'm not buying books, just selling off some spares. This is not so much a business as an electronic yard sale.