Thoughts on Antiquity

Jim West laments on the death of the biblioblogging community with his post The Dis-Integration of the Biblioblogging Community. I do want to emphasize “community”, since this is what the focus was on:

The “biblioblogging” community qua community is either dead or breathing its last. Mind you, I don’t think biblioblogging itself is dead. Quite the contrary- there are many bloggers interested in Biblical Studies. But qua community, as an inter-related, convivial, dialoguing entity- it has ceased to be. Why?

He goes on to explain this:

If I may offer a personal perspective, I would say the cause of the disintegration is directly related to Paul Nikkel’s complaint that the “biblioblogging community” was too closed, too elitist, too focused, and too exclusivistic. Paul, and a few others, complained that there were not sufficient “outsiders” “allowed” to enter the dialogue then ongoing amongst the bibliobloggers.

I really don’t think this is the case at all. Perhaps for some, but definitely not the majority of us. Heck - I have a blogroll twice, perhaps three times the size of Jim’s, so I know I’m definitely not being “inclusive”.

There are actually several underlying problems.

First, blogging takes time - many have been very busy lately, and that’s understandable. Second, blogging takes dedication, and when only a small number of people share a similar specialty, interaction shrinks. And when even those in the similar specialty post largely about other things, such as personal theology, then it is really hard to have a decent conversation. The big topics that go round the blogosphere certainly have something in common with everyone, no? We can all relate to faith and how it affects scholarship, but not everyone can relate to or cares about an ancient Latin translation of some Greek advertisement.

Another reason why we’re disintegrating, and this has been mentioned before, is that blogging does not allow maximal communication. The two best ways for communication remain email lists and forums. Blogging is a set of opinions worthy to be aired in the open, free from major debate, while email and forum-posts are primarily for interaction - and immediate action at that!

Finally, there are still several of us who do engage in blogversation. The day before you mentioned the decline, I had responded to Peter Kirby’s latest post. And the Gospel of Judas has indeed seen its share of blogversation, although usually by linking excellently done posts. But the Gospel of Judas is something that we are all very unanimous about - we all appear to know exactly everything about it - not a great topic for discussing.

I would like to see us get back to the real issues - ANE and mediterranean archaeological discoveries and their significance, Synoptic studies, gospel studies, historical Jesus, the meaning of Paul, what Tacitus was talking about, the idealogy behind Aristophanes, etc… In fact, I would much rather have long and drawn out, but well thought out, posts about these topics than daily cartoons or small and irrelevant news clips. Seems to me a waste of time, especially when the daily cartoons can be looked up themselves.

And to top off this rant, I’d like to mention revelee’s post on בית בלג inscription. I only wish I could be as clever as Eric could be. Great stuff, Eric!