Despite all the scurrilous mud-slinging at my friends who are heading to San Diego this weekend for the Society of Biblical Literature meeting, I am happy for them. And, yes, a bit jealous. I find Bible scholars to be fascinating. On one hand, you have to stand in awe of their skills. Many of them not only survived seminary Greek, but went on to master Greek and even become teachers themselves. On the other hand, they are something of a curiosity like the man who has the largest collection of Barbie dolls in the world and changes their outfits once a week. People that study Q are like that. Q stands for Quelle which is German for Huh? Q refers to an unidentified other source used by the Evangelists in writing their accounts of the life of Jesus. A number of scholars that I follow were writing about Q over the last week or so. Q exists. Q doesn’t exist. Q evolved in stages. Several papers will no doubt be delivered this week in San Diego on further refinements or outright upsets of the Q theory.
Over against the Q theorists and other scholastics are the devotional bloggers. These folks write very intimate articles on what God is doing in their life, how the Scriptures are speaking to them, and occasionally how a quote by Calvin made them want to be more fervent followers of Jesus or even burn an Arminian at the stake. I have a hard time reading devotional bloggers if their articles are more than 200 words. This causes quite a lot of self-loathing but my one excuse is that devotional writing tends to wander a lot. I felt this… God seemed to be saying this… Long Scripture quote… You can usually just scroll down and pick out the highlights at the ends of paragraphs and the final sentence of the article and get the same effect in much less time.
I try to avoid devotional blogging myself. And I’m not well-educated enough to do any serious Biblical studies. So instead, you get posts like this one. If nothing else, it’s better than showing you pictures of my new kitten. Maybe I could blog devotionally about Q.
There is one blogger who blogs devotionally and does it quite well. Michael Spencer at iMonk almost always gets me to read to the final word. Here’s one he published on Friday: The Ecclesiastes Attitude.
P.S. Quelle actually is German for source. Or so I’ve been told by the Bible scholars.
well, you might not be a biblical scholar, but you sure have a way with words!
Is that your daughter with the Kitten?
Maybe I could blog devotionally about Q.
I have entertained this perverse thought more than once–though in the World Before the Blogosphere, it took the shape of a devotional booklet, rather like “Our Daily Bread.” This was, in fact, the very first thing that occurred to me when I first saw the full text of Q (!) in Burton Mack’s The Lost Gospel many moons ago. Heh.
Yes, that’s our daughter Ellie. We also have a new puppy. Long story. And thanks for the compliment.
And Esteban, am I hearing voices or did you promise to switch to WordPress. I promise your number of comments will triple. Purty Pleez?
My number of comments more than tripled when I moved to WordPress, until I put into place anti-spam measures. It’s quality that counts, not quantity. Well, I suppose that means I should keep quiet.
[...] Published November 19, 2007 Blogs I Watch , Christianity , church On Saturday, I made fun of biblical scholars and devotional bloggers. It’s a naughty thing to do but Saturday posts are like that. Do what you gotta do to get the [...]
You must be hearing voices, for I have promised nothing of the kind! I did mention, however, that I’ve lately been tempted to switch to WP and am seriously considering it.
Meanwhile, why would the number of comments on my blog triple? Anyone can comment on my blog, even without a Google or Blogger account! But if WP has magic powers and can increase my readership, I’d sure like to hear about that! It would go a long ways to help me move away from my current “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it” sentiment about the switch. Heh.
Wouldn’t be the first time…
WordPress is easier for commenting than the dreaded captcha system. And with my slow connection I find Blogger almost impossible to comment on so in general I seldom do. WP import is custom made for stealing bloggers from Blogger so it is pretty easy. You can always try and then keep them both going to see which you prefer.
And as you’ve heard from folks like Peter and Jimmy, I’m not the only one who thinks WP is cooler and more professional looking.
Well, what do you know! You actually do make a good case!
Much to think about, especially in terms of spam and such (thanks for the heads up, Peter!). I guess I’ll just have to try and see.
As for Jim’s, Peter’s and your endorsement of WP, well, as I said elsewhere, the important thing is whether the cool kids are doing it–but again, it seems they are!
Devotional blogging sucks*, Wordpress doesn’t… that’s all anyone needs to know…
*Unless of course I’m blogging devotionally on Wordpress… In that case it is wholly awesome…
WordPress rocks (says he trying to appear cool)… but it “is easier for commenting than the dreaded captcha system” also for spammers. So I had to put into place my own captcha system. That is, I took Peter’s custom, which pertains to another Peter, not me. At least it is not quite so dreaded as the Blogger variety.
Peter, there’s something strange going on here. With Akismet on the freebie wordpress.com site I NEVER (That is N-E-V-E-R) get a SPAM comment that makes it onto my site. Occasionally someone posts something “spammy” about their site or something unrelated that I have to remove but only about once a week. But never any p-rn, viagra, business deals etc.
Now if I look on my Stats page it says that Akismet has caught about 34,000 spam messages since I started this a year ago August. So I wonder if there is an advantage of being on the wordpress.com site since a million blogs are all identifying SPAM or perhaps the system admin is sharper than the guy in charge of your site (just kidding!).
Well, giddyup Estebán and don’t let us presssssuure you.
Yeah, I like periodically checking out how many spam messages never got posted on my site. I especially like it because I didn’t have to do anything to keep the spam from happening. Akismet does it all and I didn’t even know I had Akismet until a while after I’d signed up with wordpress. Besides how easy WP is for me to use, I breathe a sigh of relief when I’m going to a new blog and find that it is WordPress, because those blogs are usually easier to get around on and comment on than others. They open up quickly, and when you leave a comment, you still have the post on the same page to keep going back to.
Akismet was recognising my spam, and for each one (of what would now be 4573 since March) sending me an e-mail asking me to moderate the spam message. Maybe I just hadn’t set it up right to automatically reject all the messages it caught. But I have had perfectly good comments rejected by Akismet.
“Estebán”? I might have to kill you now, kthx.
Oh, and I’m not feeling pressured AT ALL.
I have been trying the WordPress behind scenes. I have found that I like it all right, but that I viscerally hate their “blogroll” feature, which does not allow me to a) put in the full name of my Biblioblogroll, b) eliminate categories, c) arrange the links in whatever order I see fit. That is kind of a deal breaker for me–along with the inability to display my LibraryThing widget. Oh, and I have no idea how to make the default font bigger without tinkering with the CSS, for which feature I most certainly do not intend to pay! So I don’t know. I very nearly announced that I was switching to WP, but I can’t get over those issues.
And Peter, you’re most certainly cool, but I do onder about this company you keep…
Éşƭĕƀaň, you can always choose a different template with a larger default font. This one of Lingamish’s is a good size. And you can hard code your own blogroll in the sidebar, as you have to in Blogger. But perhaps all of this is only if you host your own rather than use wordpress.com. Anyway, that is what I would recommend, for a lot more flexibility.