Round the Sphere Again

I've included a few posts that were intended for last week's Round the Sphere post, but were inaccessible because Blogger was behaving badly.

This week's Christian Carnival is at Part-Time Pundit.

A collection of stories from the lives of well-known Christians:

1. Fanny Crosby at Historia ecclesiastica
2. Frances Schaeffer at Grantian Florilegium.
3. Mathematical genius Leonhard Euler at Hiraeth.

Some theology:

1. Kim from ON writes of God's infinity.
2. John Samson writes on Contending for the Trinity.
3. Seems I'm not the only one blogging about the decrees of God. This post at Fide-o discusses the order of the decrees as they relate to the different forms of Calvinism.

A look at an old New Testament: Colin Maxwell compares the Tyndale New Testament with the King James Version. Colin is KJV preferred, and I'm not, and I don't agree with all of his conclusions in this piece. You might not agree with everything, either, but there are some interesting findings in this post.

A little reading, a little writing, but no 'rithmatic:

1. They've been doing a lot of discussion about reading and reading lists at Together for the Gospel. Of particular interest to me: Al Mohler responds to questions from readers on reading.
   
   
2. I've noticed lately that some readers--not at this blog, which has smart and quirky and wonderful readers--just don't understand rhetorical devices, and tend to read everything with flat literalism. This means that they end up being offended over things they read--things that wouldn't be offensive if they only knew how to read something other than a textbook.
   
   One of the devices I use most often is understatement (I was reared Minnesotan, after all!), but that proved to be a dangerous tool to at least one writer this week when a group of nit-wits read what he wrote literally and tried to make something of it.
   
   Another device I see used frequently in the blogosphere is hyperbole, which is sort of the opposite of understatement. When someone posts a rant, I can pretty much guarantee it'll contain at least one hyperbole, and that's an understatement.
   
   All this is to introduce A Handbook of Rhetorical Devices. Check it out. (There's a fun little test at the bottom for those who are gung-ho for devices.)

Tags: Christian carnival, carnivals, biographical story, links, Fanny Crosby, Francis Shaeffer, Leonhard Euler, theology, God's infinity, order of the decrees, Trinity, Tyndale's New Testament, reading, literalism, rhetoric, rhetorical devices, understatement, hyperbole