This is the best footnote I’ve ever read!
I read this on the blog of Christian Brady who acknowledged Robert Holmstedt as his source. The footnote is by Michael V. Fox. 1987, Hebrew Studies 28:6-8.
I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I did.
Fox on footnotes (PDF)
מִקְרָא Mikra: Biblical studies 
ha ha. awesome!
i agree. case in point is rob bell’s ‘velvet elvis’. the footnotes were magnificent but were printed as end notes & after all i wearied of flicking to the back, just read the book & then read the end notes as a work in themselves!
as a reader footnotes also provide a nice break, a diversion, sometimes even a mental oasis if its a curiosity or something humorous.
I agree with Michael V. Fox about endnotes being a nuisance and I really relate to his example of holding one hand as a marker in one page while turning up another page, and then losing your place while reaching for a pen! I would much rather all the information was in the one place, on the same page.
But I love footnotes – and read them all. Sometimes the most interesting information is in the footnotes. And I find they’re great when writing a paper and have exceeded the word limit but still want to include more stuff – just drop it into footnotes and leave them out of the count 🙂
yes, I’m a footnote fan!