Welcome to the Biblicalist!
I am delighted to announce a new Biblical Studies list, designed to be open to people from a wide variety of perspectives. Our desire is to welcome students of the Bible from differing backgrounds.
- Welcome to The Biblicalist, a biblical studies list of academic emphasis open to all who wish to approach the Bible in its wider context, past and present. All viewpoints and perspectives which draw on the work of scholars in biblical studies and cognate disciplines are welcome.
Topics of discussion include the interpretation of particular texts of the Bible and related literature, the background of ancient Near Eastern and Classical cultures, theological and philosophical reflections on relevant issues, and the Bible in art and literature, including the reception of the Bible from ancient times to the present.
- If you’re interested in an academic biblical studies e-mail discussion list that is open to the full sweep of exegetical and theological studies, one that welcomes discussants of all theological commitments (or lack of same), one that invites participants to bring their theological commitments to bear on their interpretive tasks, then the Biblicalist is for you! Join today!
posted by Suzanne McCarthy at 12:24 PM
9 Comments:
As I commented to John Hobbins, aren't e-mail lists a bit 1990s? Surely blogging is the new e-mail listing. And Yahoo Groups is a really naff way of having serious conversations.
2007 traffic on the b-trans list was less than one tenth of 2002 traffic. I think that illustrates the decline.
But I have joined to see if anything interesting comes up.
It's nice to have different spaces, Peter. Sometimes, I drop in at a friend's house for tea and sometimes she comes to mine, sometimes we go out to a coffee shop together and sometimes we meet by accident in a public place among a lot of other people.
It's nice to be in a public place with friends.
I agree with Suzanne. Blogs (blogger with commenters) are not quite the same animal as email lists (everyone posts), I've found. The best email lists are truly group lists, where various people bring up topics, and the discussions evolve out of several directions. That's almost impossible to do with a blog.
Also, and it may be unkind to say it, I like being able to delete whole swaths of stuff, and just keep the really interesting individual messages.
Anyhow, I'm glad you've joined! Things should really start picking up in the next couple of days. Things are kind of chaotic right now!
For organizational purposes I find bulletin boards to be a much better way of handling these types of discussions (vs. blogs and yahoogroups). Of those, I think the phpbb format is probably my favorite. I dropped by the Biblicalist, but after several years in another yahoogroup I find that it is an inferior format.
I can't remember exactly, but I thought I read it was only a temporary location anyways.
Nathan,
By my age, (not young) the question is rather, is the company congenial, not whether the format is to my liking. :-)
I can't remember exactly, but I thought I read it was only a temporary location anyways.
Nathan, I also remember reading that (from memory: "to get it up and running as quickly as possible"), although, like you, I can't remember where.
It was on Iyov's blog and posted in the comments by Kevin P. Edgecomb:
"anonymous, the Yahoo! Groups usage is only temporary. We'll be looking into more permanent and more robust options down the road. We just wanted to get the list up quickly."
Suzanne,
I must admit I am partial to excellence in format, though I understand your point completely :)
Nathan,
I blogged for a year elsewhere on excellence in format, on exactly what platform and encoding sequence produced the best product. So this was a very big issue for me. I was in the writing system forum and the unicode list.
However, there comes a time when one makes a compromise for the sake of conviviality and content. There is something to be said for a forum, where everyone is on equal footing.
Maybe the medium is not always the message. ;-)
Maybe the medium is not always the message.
It's not, but the packaging helps. I happen to agree with you that there is still a place for the dynamics of an email discussion list. There also still a place for face-to-face discussions. :-)
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