Category: Uncategorized

Excel Problem Driving Me Nuts!

UPDATE: Problem solved through use of a pivot table! Thanks to everybody who helped! You've saved me innumerable future headaches! Much obliged!!!

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I have a problem with Microsoft Excel that surfaces in various forms from time to time, and I'm hoping that an Excel wiz out there can tell me what to do to solve it. I've tried Googling various ways of formulating the problem and haven't hit the right language to turn up the kind of result I'm after (assuming there is one).

Suppose I have a spreadsheet that looks like this:

EXCEL1

In column A I have some values, each of which is a duplicate (there are two cells that have 50, three that have 70, and two that have 12–and I've got the worksheet so duplicates are showing next to each other).

Each of these values is associated with another value in column B. These other values are either Q, R, or T.

What I want to do is find an automatic (non-manual) way of putting each of the column B values next to each duplicate in column A, like this:

EXCEL2
Here you can see that columns C-E do that.

The column A value 50 has a value of Q in B1 and R in B2, so columns C and D list both Q and R.

The column A value 70 has a value of Q in B3, R in B4, and T in B5, so columns C-E list Q, R, and T.

The column A value of 12 has Q and R in B6 and B7, so C and E list Q and R, just like they did for the value 50.

See what I'm getting at?

I'm basically trying to take data from one line and make it appear on every line that has that same duplicate value. That way (among other things), if I later eliminate duplicates, I'll retain all this data because it's been copied to each line with the value.

This problem has frustrated me for years and keep coming up in different guises.

I know this is the kind of thing that databases do real well, but I don't know beans about database programming.

Any ideas how to solve it in a spreadsheet like Excel?

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UPDATE: Problem solved through use of a pivot table! Thanks to everybody who helped! You've saved me innumerable future headaches! Much obliged!!!

Do You Like the Church Fathers?

Wanted to let folks know that The Fathers Know Best now has a Facebook page. You can help by taking a moment to visit the page and Like it. This will help our marketing people be able to promote the book to retailers by showing online interest in it. (Or so I'm given to understand by our marketing folks!) If you have a moment, and you're a FB user, please consider Liking the page. Thank you kindly for your support!

HERE'S THE LINK.

How Long Did It Take the Gospels to “Spread”? (Not as Long as Some Think!)

John_rylandsA couple of centuries ago it was becoming fashionable to date the gospels and other works of the New Testament very late, such as to the second half of the second century, more than a hundred years after the events they record.

This was due to an extreme skepticism regarding their reliability, coupled with various forms of flawed methodology.

As time has progressed, scholarship has pushed back the dates of the New Testament documents earlier and earlier, to the point that now almost all biblical scholars date them to the first century, with one or two possible exceptions (e.g., 2 Peter).

Some scholars, such as John A. T. Robinson date them to before A.D. 70—a view that I am inclined toward, personally.

Dates later in the first century, though, are still common. For example, it is common to date the Gospel of John to the A.D. 90s. This is quite a bit earlier than the older, more skeptical dating.

One of the things that pushed the dating back was the discovery of a small parchment fragment that is commonly called “the Rylands Papyrus” (pictured). It contains material from John 18, and based on the scribal penmanship it is written with, paleographers (experts in old writing) date it to the first half of the second century. More specifically, the penmanship the Rylands Papyrus uses most closely conforms to the styles that were in use during the reign of the Roman emperor Hadrian (A.D. 117-138).

If we have a physical copy of part of the Gospel of John that dates to the first half of the second century then obviously it couldn’t have been written with one of the extravagantly late dates that used to be proposed for it.

But how early was it written?

One sometimes encounters an argument in this regard that I find particularly lame.

The idea is that the probable composition of the document was some years earlier because it took time for the work to “spread” to Egypt, where the papyrus fragment was discovered.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m happy to see arguments for an early dating for John. In fact, I personally think it likely dates to between A.D. 64 and A.D. 70, but the “spread” argument is lame.

Why is that?

The Gospel of John is, obviously, attributed to an author named John, and it has been from the earliest records of it we have. There is some question about who this John was. Most have attributed it to St. John the Apostle, the son of Zebedee and the brother of James. However, there is an alternative view that links it to a different disciple of Jesus, not one of the Twelve, who was known as John the Elder or John the Presbyter. (Note: Pope Benedict links the Gospel of John with John the Elder in his book Jesus of Nazareth, vol. 1.)

Whichever John is behind the gospel, there is a strong tradition linking the gospel and its author with the Roman province of Asia, which is in modern Turkey. Specifically: There is a tradition linking it with Ephesus, which is on the coast of Turkey, near the modern port of Kusadasi.

If the gospel was written at Ephesus, as many think likely, then it was composed at a port city on the northern coast near the east end of the Mediterranean Sea.

How might it get to Egypt?

The first large Christian community in Egypt was at Alexandria, which is a port city on the southern coast near the east end of the Mediterranean Sea.

Is it really hard to connect these dots?

All you have to do is sail down through the Greek islands and cross the Mediterranean, north-to-south (the short way). This is a journey of less than 500 miles, and at the time it took only 4-5 days by ship under favorable conditions.

In the first century there were well-established trade routes all over this part of the Mediterranean, with Ephesus and Alexandria both being major trade centers. So there were ships sailing in and out of the cities all the time.

They may not have had the Internet in the first century, but they did have the newly-built network of Roman roads, which allowed rapid over-land transportation as well. The Emperors were able to send and receive messages for and from distant parts of the empire and have them delivered in days.

Ordinary people used slaves or associated who were traveling to the desired locations and, though the process was slower in their case, they typically had their messages delivered in only a matter of days or weeks.

The idea that it would have taken years from an important Christian document to spread from one part of the eastern empire to another is just crazy.

We have rather striking proof of this in the New Testament itself: Paul’s letters.

When St. Paul wrote a letter from one community (say, Ephesus or Corinth) to another (say, Corinth or Rome), he would send it off and expect it to be received and read not in a period of years but of days or weeks.

The early Christians thus had the kind of communications infrastructure available to them to transport any document they wanted across the empire in a very short space of time. As St. Paul’s letters show, they could and did make use of this infrastructure.

The only question is: Would they want to in the case of a particular document?

One might argue that in the case of a letter written to a specific person or church, that this might indeed “spread” slowly through the Christian community. If it was addressed to a specific recipient, there might be only one copy of it, and it would be up to the recipient to decide whether to copy it further. It might then take time to spread broadly among Christians.

There is merit to this argument, as we have mentions in the writings of St. Paul of letters he wrote that at least appear to be lost (though there is some controversy about that). These could represent letters whose recipients either didn’t have them copied or didn’t have them copied widely enough that they became part of the canon.

On the other hand, there is also evidence in Paul’s epistles that he expected them—or some of them—to be read more broadly. For example, he tells the Colossians to get a copy of the letter he sent to the Laodiceans (a neighboring city with a Christian community) and to send the Laodiceans a copy of the letter he sent to them.

Whatever may have been the expectations for how broadly a Pauline letter was to be published, it can scarcely be imagined that a work like a gospel would be intended only for private use.

No disciple in the first century would have gone to the effort of writing a biography of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and intended for there to be only one copy of it. Such documents were too important, and they were clearly destined for public use in the churches. This is true even of St. Luke’s gospel, which appears to be dedicated to a single individual (who he calls Theophilus, though this may be a pseudonym to protect the dedicatee’s identity).

St. John’s gospel, in particular, is clearly intended for public use, with its passages stressing that it was composed so that the readers might believe based on the testimony of the eyewitness author.

One could suppose it would take years for a gospel to spread only if it were viewed as a private document intended by the author to only have a single copy or if it were viewed as an unimportant document that first century Christians wouldn’t care that much about and would take their time copying and circulating.

Neither of these is the case with a gospel.

Most likely, as soon as an evangelist finished a gospel, he would take it to a scribal service (the ancient equivalent of Kinko’s) and have multiple copies made. These would then be given to key individuals in the local church and sent to neighboring churches.

(In fact, it may be due to an accident at the scribal service that explains why the original ending of Mark’s gospel appears to be missing; only an accident with a very early edition could explain the omission if there was originally a longer ending.)

For something as important as a gospel, the recipients would almost certainly start making and distributing their own copies with zeal, and it is wholly unwarranted to suppose a period of years for a gospel to spread throughout the empire.

Sure, it could have taken years to get to some places, but jumping from one major Christian community (like Ephesus) to another (like Alexandria) could have been accomplished in mere days or weeks.

Thanks to Readers Who Helped!

I wanted to say thank you to readers who helped out recently by letting me know if they get email updates about the site or whether they access it through Feedburner, Google Reader, etc.

This information was very helpful and allowed me to track down a problem and get it corrected.

Based on what Feedburner was showing me, it appeared that there were zero subscribers, which didn't seem likely. Hearing from some who do subscribe allowed me to prove this wrong and get the problem fixed.

Turns out that there are a lot more subscribers than I suspected–around 7,000 at present!

I wanted to send each person who responded an individual thank you, but so many responded (not all 7,000, but a lot), that I thought I want to publicly thank them for taking the time to help out.

Much obliged, folks!

1st Thoughts on the 6th Season of the New Doctor Who

Doctor-who-series6 So the new season of Doctor Who has premiered (in fact, with the release of the third episode this weekend, we're about a quarter of the way through the 13-episode series), and here are a few thoughts:

1) Steven Moffat (the current show-runner and author of five of this season's episodes) continues to impress with his darker, suspense-oriented plots. His new villains–The Silence–are worthy of his old villains, which include the Weeping Angels and the Vashta Nerada (the flesh-eating shadows from Silence in the Library and Forest of the Dead). Moffat is good at delivering creepy villains and compelling horror out of things you wouldn't think could be scary. (An immobile statue of an angel? How can that be scary?)

2) The creep factor on the show has, in general, been really good so far. Not only are The Silence creepy, but the countermeasures used against them and the way they are introduced (e.g., marks on the flesh) are creepy. Many of the creepy elements in Moffat's tenure on the series work a kind of intimate or claustrophobic angle on fear. A statue that can move when you aren't looking at it. You can't let your shadow touch anyone else's or it may get infected with a monster that will consume your flesh. Monsters you forget as soon as you turn away from them. If anyone gets the tiniest knick on their skin, they're doomed to madness and death. This is fear being generated on the small scale, though our own knowledge of how easily we could slip up in such situations. This fear via the intimate and by implication–rather than big explosions, special effects, etc.–is impressive.

3) Moffat has also made time travel far more central to the show than it has ever been before–which is quite a statement since this is a time travel show! Up to now most episodes involved the Doctor landing in a particular time and wrapping up some mystery there before moving on. The time travel was just a way to get us from one setting to another. Moffat has made things vastly richer and multi-layered with the time travel. This emerged very clearly in the 5th season, coming to a head with the mind-bending two-part finale, and it's right here in the 6th season as well, with the two-part opener that portends ominous things about the Doctor's future (and River Song's past).

4) Moffatt's strong character arcs are noteworthy. The complex interplay between the Doctor, Amy, Rory, and River at the different stages of their respective journies is satisfying, and way beyond anything attempted on the show before. Some prior companions have been very memorable (Sarah Jane Smith, Leetah, Rose Tyler, Donna Noble, etc.), and there have been notable character arcs before (Adric, Turlough, Rose, Donna), but nothing like what's going on between the Doctor, Amy, Rory, and River has happened before.

5) Speaking of Rory, it's nice to have him aboard. He's earned his place on the TARDIS. His presence adds a great deal of emotional oomph to the show as he is essentially the everyman, the low character on the exoticness totem pole, and so we understand his reactions on an emotional level that relates more directly to us as audience members.

6) It's still cool, though, to have the mysterious Amy Pond (about whom much yet must be explained) and River Song (who is always a bundle of fun–and provides moments of intense poignancy, as when she realizes that the Doctor's first kiss of her will be the last time she ever kisses him).

7) Matt Smith's portrayal of the comic, frenetic 11th Doctor is pleasing. When I first learned that Matt Smith had been cast as the Doctor I was *profoundly* skeptical–as were many–but as soon as I saw him in action, I realized he was totally fine for the part. At this point, he's delivering one of my more favorite portrayals.

8) Whe the season has all the above going for it, I–of course–do *not* approve of the objectionable moral content that is part of the U.K. fascisto-politically correct regime for children's television (and society at large)–e.g., the final scene between Shepard and Nixon right at the end of Day of the Moon. At least Moffat seems to be less intrusive about this stuff than his predecessor, Russell T. Davies. It's still mighty annoying, even if it is only present in a few throwaway lines.

9) The location shooting in the American Southwest for episodes 1-2 of the season wasn't really payed off in any way. It's pretty scenery, but there isn't much of a reason for it. Perhaps this is more impressive to British viewers, for whom this may have more "wow" factor than for Americans. It would have been better if the scenery had played more of a role in the plot rather than just being window dressing.

10) Also on a down note, the most recent episode–#3, Curse of the Black Spot–had some really huge plot holes. There were multiple parts where I wished I could punch up and fix the script. Some things in it were extremely effective (e.g., don't get cut or you'll die; be careful of everything you touch). Nice close, initimate horror. But there were also massive leaps of logic and plausibility that severely marred the episode. My current thought is that it's the weakest episode since Steven Moffat took over the series.

11) Fortunately, next week's episode is by Neil Gaiman, so it's likely to be really cool!

12) P.S. Stetsons are cool.

Was Osama bin Laden Chronically Stupid or What?

Osama-bin-laden

It’s been a day, and some more details have become clear about the killing of Osama bin Laden. I thought I’d add a few more thoughts—some of which I didn’t have time to blog yesterday and some of which are in response to what various commenters have posted.

First, was bin Laden chronically stupid or what?

You are the most wanted man in the world, with the world’s most powerful nation on your tail. Okay, so maybe living in a cave isn’t so fun, especially if you have health conditions like Osama was reported to have. And then there are all those pesky predator drones trying to shoot at you out in the hills, so getting under some kind of permanent cover in a more populated area makes sense, but—come on!—the Abbottabad compound? That place positively screams “This is bin Laden’s hiding place!”

It’s built on a hill (strategic defense position), when originally built in 2005 it wasn’t closely surrounded (i.e., was on the edge of town), it’s eight times larger than other local properties, it’s worth a million dollars (in a third-world country where dollars go a looooong way), it has concrete walls 10-18 feet high, the walls are topped with barbed wire, there are two security gates, a seven foot privacy wall around the third floor of the main building, no windows face the road, there are other aerially visible security features and—unlike a mansion built by any other hyper-security conscious rich person in the world—it has no Internet or even telephone service.

Lots of defenses but no way to call for help? Huh? What kind of paranoid millionaire builds himself a pad like that?

Oh, and the locals report the women who live there speak Arabic, and the inhabitants go out of their way to behave weird by never interacting with anybody and by burning all of their trash instead of using the local garbage collection service. And it’s legal owner has no obvious financial means that would allow him to build such an estate.

According to MSNBC,

This home, U.S. intelligence analysts concluded, was “custom built to hide someone of significance.”

That’s kind of appallingly obvious, isn’t it!

Bin Laden’s efforts to remain concealed remind one of the Monty Python sketch, “How Not To Be Seen,” (which is somewhat rude, so be warned).

Yes, having a big macho superfortress with no phone or Internet service will make you a little hard to get at. It probably also strokes your master terrorist-sized ego to strut around in such a place. But it will also make it totally obvious where you are.

It makes it so obvious, in fact, that I wonder why we didn’t identify this place a long time ago—anytime between when it was build in 2005 and now.

I know, I know. It’s easy to connect dots in hindsight. Also, Pakistan isn’t a developed nation and doesn’t have information that’s as easily accessible as here. Further, it’s an uncooperative nation that—while it sometimes helps us, also sometimes deliberately frustrates our anti-terrorism efforts.

I would have thought that our intelligence services would periodically go over our presumably micro-detailed satellite maps of Pakistan and Afghanistan looking for signs of fortresses and then doing a process of elimination.

Such a process of elimination, in this case, might have involved sending in a small, insect-sized robotic probe (like this one, only better [I assume our intelligence services have better ones]) in the dead of night with a button-sized camera (like cell phones have) or a grain-of-rice-sized microphone to see who’s in there—or at least to plant surveillance devices.

For that matter, why not simply, in the dead of night, just lob into the compound a surveillance device disguised as a rock or something and wait to see what it picks up?

But, maybe our technology isn’t quite that good yet (which I find a little hard to believe), or could be too easily detected by anti-bugging equipment bin Laden might have on site, or otherwise might cause him to scamper before we had all our pieces in place.

Or maybe we just gave him too much credit and assumed he wouldn’t do something as stupid as hole up in a monster obvious superfortress but rather choose to stay in a more low-key and harder-to-detect safehouse.

In any event, our guys did finally spot him. He’s dead now, and thus kudos to all of them! I don’t want to be unfair. Hindsight is golden, and all’s well that ends well. Especially terrorist masterminds who get ended. Much obliged, folks! My hat’s off to you! Best of luck with all the nifty new intel you got raiding the superfortress computers and other materials! I hope it all lets you bust up the network good!

The fact that Osama bin Laden was hiding out so close to the Pakistani capital (30 miles as the crow flies; 80 by road), in an upscale, heavily military town which also houses a military academy that is the Pak equivalent of West Point, raises uncomfortable questions about just what the Paks knew about his location.

Monday night I heard an interview with the Pakistani ambassador to the U.S. in which he insisted that they knew nothing of this and that it was just an intelligence blunder not unlike those the U.S. has experienced.

Maybe.

Color me profoundly skeptical.

Given the Pakistani intelligence services’ ties to the Taliban, I strongly suspect that at least some individuals knew where bin Laden was.

Frankly, that’s of secondary consideration at this point. What our leaders need to do is use the obvious discomfort this creates for the Pakistani government to pressure them into helping us find Osama bin Laden’s #2, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and other key al-Qa’eda operatives.

We can let them have their face-saving, “We are your staunch allies against terrorism” bit as long as they get their posteriors in gear and help us root out the remaining terrorist leaders and camps as a show of their “good faith” in the wake of this monumental embarrassment.

If they don’t, and if we get solid evidence that responsible elements in their government did know about bin Laden’s whereabouts then our leaders should deal with them most harshly.

To put it bluntly: Knowingly sheltering Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants from the U.S. is an act of war. It was an act of war for the Taliban back in 2001 (that’s why we went in there, remember?), and it’s an act of war now.

If there are any legal niceties that need to be covered on that score then the appropriate parties in our government should quote Darth Sidious and simply declare, “I will make it so.”

So much for a secular analysis of the situation. Now let’s look at things from a theological perspective.

It has emerged in the last 24 hours that the Navy SEALS (you go, guys!) who were sent on this mission (Operation Geronimo) were instructed that it was a capture-or-kill operation and that bin Laden was given the chance to surrender, which he chose not to avail himself of. It also is reported that the government didn’t seriously expect him to surrender.

The fact that the possibility of surrender was offered to him enhances the moral justifiability of the action, but it was not strictly necessary. If it had been determined that bin Laden must be executed for national security reasons given his involvement in the mass murder of civilians then this would be a defensible application of the death penalty. The precise legal form that such a determination might take (e.g., trial in absentia) could be debated—as could the conclusion of the determination. The point is simply that a surrender offer was not an absolute moral necessity. The fact that they gave it, though, lends additional moral credence to the action.

It is also being reported that the woman who was used or who served as a human shield during the operation may have been one of Osama bin Laden’s wives (he is reported to have at least four, in keeping with what Muslim law permits). If so then he died after trying to hide behind one of his wives.

If that’s so then the U.S. should seriously consider releasing footage of the event (which we apparently possess, or at least may possess) as a way of illustrating to the jihadi world what a wimp and a failure this man was in the end.

(Incidentally, according to reports the government is also looking to release images of the corpse. Those will be gross, but releasing them is probably a good idea since images—even in an age of Photoshop—carry a visceral weight that reports of DNA verification don’t. Bloody photographs would also serve to underscore the humiliating fate that awaits those who attack innocent civilians.)

Now to what strikes me as the central conundrum that many have been puzzling over in the Catholic blogosphere: How to square the impulse to see bin Laden’s body molderin’ in the grave with the impulse to forgive and pray for his soul.

In countless comboxes across the Catholic Internet, people have given voice to both impulses, some openly rejoicing in bin Laden’s death, others expressing regret, and many expressing both sentiments but unsure of how to square them.

Some have pointed to passages in the Old Testament that speak of God as a warrior, a mighty man who slays the enemies of Israel. They have pointed to passages, such as in Esther, where the Jewish people celebrate the destruction of Haman, the enemy of their people. And there are other passages that one could cite as well.

Others have pointed to Old Testament passages that tell us not to rejoice at the fall of our enemies or that God does not rejoice in the death of the wicked but rather wills their repentance. And then there are the “love your enemies” and similar passages in the New Testament.

Many have said they’ve been uncertain how to react—whether to join the celebration at the death of this black hearted villain or feel . . . something else, something less celebratory.

The reality is that all of these perspectives share elements of truth.

Without going into the details of particular passages (at least in this post), several general remarks can be made:

1) We shouldn’t be too quick to embrace the more martial, seemingly bloodthirsty passages of the Old Testament. The Christian faith holds that God led his people, over time, into a progressively more pure understanding of his will. We already see the seeds of universal love displayed in Jesus Christ in the Old Testament, and it comes into full bloom in the New Testament.

2) Neither should we dismiss the Old Testament passages as simply irrelevant. As St. Paul tells us, the Old Testament was written for our example. And while it may represent an earlier phase of God’s revelation to his people that does not fully express all the dimensions of his will, there is truth to be found in even its darkest passages.

3) An important key to understanding the relationship between the two is recognizing that many Old Testament passages speak to the question of justice (or nature), while many in the New Testament speak to mercy (or grace). Both are important aspects of God’s will. Thus we can recognize that it is preferable for the wicked to repent but that if they do not then it is also God’s will that they suffer the consequences of their actions.

4) Even when the wicked have repented, and even when we forgive them for what they have done, this does not mean that there are no consequences from past actions. Our own repentance does not simply obliterate any consequences of our prior misdeeds. Internally—from motives of penance—and externally—from motives of justice for the community—a sinner may still experience punishment and other negative consequences. Thus even a repentant Osama bin Laden would not simply be let off scott free.

5) Based on the way God designed human nature, it is natural to experience positive emotion when the news is received that justice has been done and that safety has been enhanced. It is thus natural to welcome—on an emotional level—the news that Osama bin Laden has paid the ultimate temporal price for his crimes and that he personally can no longer harm us.

6) The love that we are to show to our enemies is not principally a movement of the emotions but an act of the will: An intention to do what we can—even if it is only to wish or to pray—for him and the fate of his soul.

7) The ultimate, objective assessment of the situation is something that only God can make. It likely involves all of the elements previously named: We may rejoice in the things that we may legitimately rejoice in, and we must will the good to our enemies that the Christian ethic requires of us. This means willing the salvation of all if they repent, and it means willing that they repent, but it does not mean willing their salvation in spite of their failure to repent. In the last case, it means willing that they experience what they have chosen for themselves, and what God respects their choice to be as being an eternal rejection of him.

8) Because the foregoing is too complex for us to embrace at any single moment, the human mind in its present state naturally attends to different aspects of it at different moments. At some points we are pulled more toward rejoicing over the things we should rejoice over (e.g., based on justice and nature). At other moments we are pulled toward the things we should will (e.g., based on mercy and grace). This is not unexpected. It is to be foreseen. God does not expect us to hold the whole, complex reality of the situation in our minds at once—either in our feelings or our wills—and so it is perfectly acceptable to alternate between these.

This is why the book of Ecclesiastes states:

There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens: . . .
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.

In other words, one can in one moment say, “Yahoo! Osama bin Laden is dead!” and in the next moment say, “Lord, have mercy on his soul!”

What do you think?

Prayer Request for a Little Boy

Prayer_1 I would like to ask for prayers for a little boy who is seriously ill. He has been admitted to the hospital and may be admitted to ICU with bacterial pneumonia. He is four years old and is the brother of one of my godsons. I would like to invite prayers for him, his family, the medical professionals who are caring for him, and for all who are in similar situations. Thank you, and God bless you!