Call For More Bibliobloggers...

I want to say something about my last two posts. It is making me think about the great concept that is blogging...

Why should people blog? Let’s just take what has recently happened around this request for info on Jewish and early Christian literature.

1. People should blog because its a good way to share info about what you love. Jim at PaleoJudaica probably didn’t create his entry in response to me just because he needed to get more exercise for his fingers. I bet you he did that because he loves the subject matter. And because he shared what he cares about, I learned a good deal. I appreciate the fact that he did that.
2. People should blog because it is a great way to spead news about interesting stuff. I learn about new things in technology and biblical studies all the time because of blogs. Now, I hear a lot more about technology stuff. Why? Because more techies blog than biblical studies folks. It would be nice to change that...
3. One of the most important things about blogging is that it helps create relationships. I have now met a number of interesting people because of my blog. At SBL I was able to meet Paul Nikkel, Stephen Carlson, Roy Brown, and Ken Penner because of my blog. I have also been able to meet others through email or through their blog posts. Ruben Gomez, Tim Bulkeley, James Davila, et al. were complete strangers to me just a few months ago. Now I look forward to hearing what they’re going to put on their blogs. I appreciate what they have to say. As a matter of fact, there’s only one blog that I follow closely just because I’d heard to him before: NT Gateway by Goodacre. I’ve read most of his The Case Against Q, and so want to here more from him. But that’s turned out to be the exception, not the rule. You meet lots of interesting people through blogging.

And there’s more to this last one. What will happen when I go to do PhD work? Will I meet someone through the blogosphere that I’ll want to study under? Or will an aspiring teacher find a contact that he can use to get a teaching job? Maybe so. We must, of course, try to keep from saying anything incredibly stupid. If I were to argue, for example, that the NT documents were written in the 8th century by monks who wrote everything in Pig Latin and back-translated them into Greek just so they could found a new religion around the worship of hamsters, I would immediately lose all credibility and no one would ever read my blog or think I was worthy of being a PhD student at their school. So I need to keep that in mind. But you see the point. We all know (or should know) how important relationships are in any field of study, and biblical studies is no different.

One more thing. Here are two people I would like to see blog: Ken Penner and Arne Halbakken. You don’t think you have enough interesting stuff to say in a blog? I bet you do. I appreciate your emails, and would love to see more of what you think out on the web.

Enough for now! I’ve got to go do some tagging for NET GEMS!

[Update: Just a few minutes later]

So...do you want to blog? I bet there are lots of folks who just read the biblioblogs. I bet lots of you have interesting stuff to say. And if you do blog, don’t be ashamed to tell some bloggers that you’re doing it. If you’re new to blogging and you want people to know you exist, just send me an email. It’s not a vain thing to tell people you blog!