I am just blown away by how many Drupal 6 books have hit the market this year. Four books have already hit the market this year, four more are on the way, and at least four more are due in early 2009. Keep ‘em coming!

As a Drupal enthusiast and evangelist, I get excited when I see the community produce books about Drupal. For me, when I see books published about a particular technology, it’s like a rite of passage. Drupal 6’s roots are now deep enough that many people view it as a platform they can depend on.

I was recently swept into the Drupal community earlier this year, just months after Drupal 6 was released. I cannot begin to express how hard it was to find good resources and tutorials that could help a newbie. In some ways, learning Drupal 6 has been like learning a new language. One of the areas in Drupal 6 that has been a challenge for me is the theme engine.

I considered buying Ric Shreves, Drupal 5 Themes, by Packt Publishing. However, I decided against it because I had no clue if this would help me with the Drupal 6 theme engine. As a compromise, I ended up buying Building Powerful and Robust Websites with Drupal 6 by David Mercer. Just so you know, this is a great book… BUT, it only devoted ~30 pages to the theme engine! Hey, it was enough to get me going, but it obviously wasn’t a thorough treatment of how I can leverage the theme engine in Drupal 6.

But, I just received exciting news! Packt Publishing is releasing Drupal 6 Themes, by Ric Shreves. This book is an updated and expanded edition Ric’s previous book. I’ve pre-ordered my copy and I am looking forward to its arrival!

Yesterday I heard about the recently announced Drupal for Education and E-Learning! Over the past couple of months, I’ve been designing courses for Drupal platform and this book gets me very excited about how to effectively use the Drupal platform to educate others in how to use Drupal.

I’ve read a few books published by Packt Publishing and they’ve all been high quality resources. This book is expected in October 2008!

I haven’t had much time to write much over the past week. I’ve been extremely busy as of late. After finishing VLI in the spring, I’ve been itching to go back to school. There is a church in Columbus called Beth Messiah and they have a school called Messianic Studies Institute. They have some high quality courses and rock bottom prices.

I enrolled in Hebrew I and Greek I this quarter. They cover Biblical Hebrew and Biblical Greek, as opposed to Modern Hebrew and Modern Greek. There are similarities between Biblical and Modern, of course, but we’re only going to be learning everything we need to know to exegete the Bible. We’re not going to be learning words like “bathroom” and “computer”. So in a sense, it’s going to be easier than learning a modern language because we are limited to a closed body of text, which means fewer vocabulary words.

So you might be asking yourself, “Why did you enroll in both at the same time? Are you nuts?” The short answer is: YES! Now for the long answer…

At the beginning of this year, I made a new years resolution to start learning Hebrew. Since I made that promise to myself, it’s just a matter of principle that I don’t weasel my way out of a promise just because the task will be difficult. It’s a character development thing. Sure, I had good reasons for not starting Hebrew this Fall, but I knew that if I didn’t start this Fall, I wouldn’t renew my promise to learn the language when it’s offered next Fall.

As for Greek, it is the ONLY class is being taught by Henri Goulet this quarter. That means nothing to you because you don’t know who he is. I’ve gotten to know Henri over the past year and he is one of the most passionate persons I have ever met. In a sense, I see him as a Spiritual Father. You know, someone who models Jesus in such a way that you can’t help but have a bit of Jesus rub off on you when you’re around him. Let’s just say that I want a double portion of his mantle. Reason #2: Henri is also an excellent teacher. Reason #3: I truly do want to learn Greek so I can understand the Bible better.

You might find me posting some Greek and Hebrew-related posts over the next 10 weeks or so. I love sharing what I learn with others.