DR. JIM'S THINKING SHOP & TEA ROOM

Well, what the heck, I might as well jump in on the discussion about the SBL’s granting affiliate status to Bibliobloggers.

One of the SBL Bibleblogging badges.

This is a move championed by Jim West (see the announcement here) and objected to by a number of other bloggers including Chris Heard and Alan Lenzi.

Lenzi has felt that his objections to the plan were serious enough that he wanted his blog removed from the informal “Bibliobloggers Top 50” list.

Needless to say, this being the blogosphere, the opinions and disagreements are not altogether polite on the larger issues and the fallout is a bit ugly. More needless would be repeating it all here. There is a lot of backstory, I think, some behind the scenes issues and I don’t pretend to know nearly enough of it to judge anyone.

In the end Lenzi has quit blogging, although I hope he reconsiders as I think he has a lot of good stuff to say on the ancient Near East and the Bible.  I was just getting ready to jump into the conversation that was starting around his comments on myth and the Bible that I largely agreed with.

I have been wondering where I stand on the matter of me and the SBL blogging community, and like so much else, I’m in two minds on it, neither of which might be very clear on the matter…

Shamelessly stolen bandwidth from http://public-domain.zorger.com

I am listed on the Bibliobloggers website.

I’m not sure how I got there, though. I don’t remember actually asking to be included (although given the summer I’ve had, that might have happened). I think I made a few comments on other blogs and someone put the Thinking Shop forward. I’m not sure what Bible Bloggers find interesting about this … well, whatever it is.

Stolen from Savage Chickens: www.savagechickens.com

Not that I minded being listed of course, but I don’t really blog about the Bible all that much although lately I have been bitching and whining about the state of biblical scholarship.

I am a member of the Society of Biblical Literature although sometimes I wonder why. I’m not exactly disgruntled, but I’m not fully gruntled either.

On the one hand, I understand the questions some folks raise about the issue SBL bloggers. What defines a biblioblogger? Who has the right to speak for bloggers-a fiercely independent bunch? In his latest (I hope not last) post, Lenzi writes:

First, I learned about the affiliation between the SBL and “Bibliobloggers” led by Jim West (note the capital letter in “Bibliobloggers” in the announcement and the announcement refers to this as a group with members) on Chris Heard’s Blog. There was a lot of confusion about what the affiliation meant, who were members, why Jim West was the leader, etc. because few of us knew anything about the plan except what we read in the announcement.

I did share some of these concerns although I was pretty quick to add the bibliobloggers badge. After reading up on some of the issues and coming to the conclusion that I like being rather independent I removed the badge (which actually replaced the regular bibliobloggers badge so neither is now displayed). I’ll stick it back on eventually. I like the Top 50 list, some good links and its rankings are all in good fun.

I didn’t remove the SBLBlog badge out of spite for anyone involved in the project (I’m not judging Lenzi, West or anyone here). I don’t intend on stopping to blog about the Bible by any means (not that I do much of it anyway).

My attitude is more a positive and hopeful “wait and see”. If there are sessions at the SBL on Bible blogging that are interesting I might attend if they don’t coincide with sessions I am MORE interested in. See the latest travesty of scheduling that clearly shows the SBL is out to get me *makes whipped puppy eyes*.

Blogging is now a significant way of sharing ideas and many Bible bloggers produce posts that display high academic standards. I suppose I should try to emulate them…

Just how the medium of blogging can be best utilized by academia is certainly a valid point of discussion for SBL. Needless to say, its limitation and how other disciplines regard blogging are also points worth talking about seriously.

So why don’t I keep the badge? Well, for starts, at this point I don’t have anything much to say about blogging itself. I really don’t know much about it. I can stick some cartoon and sleezy pictures and rambling text on the interwebs, but that is about it. Its full potential is really beyond me.

Likewise, I don’t think to much about the different venues for academic thought. I sort of take for granted journals, monographs and edited volumes, go to conferences and so forth but don’t really engage in a lot of academic media metacommentary, so anything I have to say on those issues won’t be very useful too anything else.

www.coxandforkum.com. Great cartoons, check 'em out!

Needless to say, the liklihood of my presenting a paper or an oral blog post at the SBL biblioblogging sessions are about nill. But some good might come of the SBL blogging bunch, so I don’t think there is any point to burning bridges.

But since I won’t participate in the sessions and can’t even guarantee that I would attend them, there is no point my displaying the badge here.

I’m still undecided whether this is Bible blog or not. I’m not going to write here what I can, with a good bit of extra work, get published in a peer reviewed journal or edited volume. Yet, there might be a number of points worth bring up that might be worth posting all the same. As I’ve said, lots of people make some very serious posts about Biblical interpretation and I’ve learned a lot from some of them. Perhaps I should emulate them…

BUT WHY? Does one’s whole life have to be so damn dreadfully serious? Blogging is fun and it is nice to say “F*** off” to political and academic correctness once in a while.  I like the idea of blog carnivals, but blogging itself is something of a carnival to me: an inversion of usual social conventions and restraints.

At this point, having read the word “carnival” and knowing how much of what passes for humour on this site is based simply on word association, much of Dr. Jim’s usual audience is eagerly anticipating a picture of a 9/10s naked woman parading around with a bunch of feathers or so some such accoutrements (holy crap, I spelled that right on the first go, didn’t I?!) on the streets of Rio. Ok, who the hell am I to disappoint the punters?

If it can be put on the streets it can be put on a blog…

Well, that’s enough for now, methinks. Back to our usual programming…