Getting Back Into Gear
Things have been sparse of late. The most recent problem was that I was apparently hacked and had some trouble getting my blog back in gear. But even without that, I have been terribly busy and just didn’t have time to blog. It seems that the winter quarter is busier than the others. In addition to teaching, doing coursework and parenting, all the deadlines for one thing or another are packed in during the winter quarter.
I am pleased to announce that this quarter marks the end of my required coursework. I have had flexibility in my program to choose whatever courses fit my research areas, but I have had to take a certain number of seminars and reading courses, etc. After this quarter, it’s all finished. Between my seminary degree and my first two years at UCLA, I have been taking full-time graduate-level courses for five years straight. I’m ready to move on!
This quarter I am taking a Hebrew seminar on Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomistic history with Bill Schniedewind as well as reading through Roman historians as an independent reading course with Ron Mellor. It’s a good way to end this streak of courses. Now that I have go my blog back up and running, I will post some thoughts inspired by these endeavors.
Thanks to everyone who has honored me by subscribing to my humble blog and reading it on a regular basis, participating in various conversations with me. I hope that I can provide you with more food for thought in the coming days and weeks than in the past couple months.
Breaking the Million Mark
No, I’m not talking about the million dollars I have made via my Amazon affiliation. But my Alexa ranking. This blog has finally broken past the 1,000,000 mark on the Alexa worldwide rankings for the past 90 days. My one month average is 658,614. While some rightly point out the faultiness of the rankings (“Generally, traffic rankings of 100,000 and above should be regarded as not reliable”), I have nevertheless been working to make this a better blog to reach more people. Alexa spurs me on a bit. Blogging with more frequency has been the first step, though I’m not sure I can keep it up during the responsibilities of the quarter. We shall see.
The deeper concern here is that I find more discussion partners. Over the past month or so, I have indeed gained several more blog buddies (among others, Rob deserves a shout out). I love the additional opportunities for dialogue and the sparks of new ideas! Thanks friends.
You're a Good Blog, Charlie Brown.
“Blog posts are written, not defecated.” That’s the best line in this list of instructions for “good blogs.” I think many bibliobloggers struggle with #1, while we probably excel at number two. I would add to the list: being willing to admit that your own blog may not meet all the criteria for a good blog! Plank-in-your-own-eye sort of thing. Personally, I think I could get better with most of the items on the list (Jim agrees), but trying to post more often and more consistently might help (I would place this under #8).
What do you think are the best “good blogs” among bibliobloggers? I’m not talking about the most academic, the most informative, or the most brilliant, but the ones that line up with as many of the points on this list as possible. Of the cuff here, and based simply on my own personal preferences, I would say Doug Chaplin, James McGrath, Nick Norelli, John Anderson, and a few others. I think there are many who would probably line up really well with the list if they posted more often.
HT: Chris Brady and Jim West.
Need Advice: My Wife Wants to Start Blogging
My wife would like to start a blog, including purchasing a domain and finding a host, so that she can include advertising. Her blog would be based mostly on breastfeeding and maybe some other things about mothering–she is a public health dietitian specializing in pediatric nutrition and is also a Certified Lactation Educator.
I have a few questions about the best way to do this:
- What is the best way to purchase a domain? (I went through WordPress)
- What is the best way to host a domain? (looking for cheap, but reliable)
- What are the best sources of advertising or otherwise making a couple bucks on a blog (I know this is not a big issue on biblical studies blogs)? I know about AdSense and Amazon Affiliates. What else is there?
Thanks!
Wanna Start a Blog?
The one and only Mark Goodacre offers his advice to potential bloggers on three basic questions: Blogger v. WordPress; integrated interests in one blog v. separate blogs; and domain name v. “.wordpress” or “.blogspot”. I offered my own thoughts in the comments.
I think WordPress is where it’s at. Blogger has a reputation of being “simpler,” but WP seems pretty simple to me. I also appreciate the ability to add “Pages” and to track all my comments made on other WP blogs. I would recommend starting out in WP and staying there, rather than starting with Blogger and moving to WP like a lot of folks do.
The main problems with WP from my perspective are the lack of versatility. To some extent, you’re imprisoned by their pre-set options. With Blogger, you can make changes to your code, allowing you to attach codes for outside statistic sites. With WP, you’re stuck with their built-in blog stats, which aren’t bad, but they aren’t as comprehensive. With Blogger, you can forward your feed url to feedburner and therefore track your subscribers more easily. Not so in WP. I am also sad that, even though I pay money for my own domain name, my blog is still WordPress hosted and therefore I cannot make the above changes nor can I add nifty widgets available to self-hosted WP bloggers, like Logos’ RefTagger.
Transitions: Becoming a(n) (academic) dad
Perhaps the reason that I have been so silent on my blog lately has been the monumental transitions in my life. At the top of that list is my coming fatherhood. My wife and I are expecting a baby boy, born in early December. Advent will have tremendous meaning for us this year!
Besides thinking about birth and parenting issues lately, I have been finishing up my last courses at Fuller Seminary and preparing for my first quarter as a doctoral student this fall at UCLA. My blog had previously been tied to my identity as a Fuller student in a drive to get into a doctoral degree. Now that my search is over and Fuller coursework will soon be finished, my blog has to adapt.
I now hope to adapt to the changes by writing about my doctoral studies at UCLA and my thoughts about being a dad in academia.
The classes I’m currently enrolled in are: History of the Early Christians (Bartchy), Spirituality and Sexuality in the Early Christian Movement (Bartchy), and Jews, Gentiles, and Christians in the Roman World (Boustan). I will also be studying elementary Latin at Pasadena City College, which is a more convenient commute and covers basically the same material as UCLA’s Classics Dept. I will probably also be a “reader” (aka a grader) for an undergrad course at UCLA, but that hasn’t been set in stone yet. That all begins at the end of September.
My first parental sacrifice seems to be that I will not be able to attend SBL in Boston. Since I grew up in Massachusetts, I’ve been looking forward to this one for a couple years. It’s very sad, but it really is a no-brainer given the timing. My baby is a higher priority than SBL! 
More thoughts to come . . .
Top 10 List: Scholars I Wish Had Blogs
Nick had a good idea for a list, so I’m going to offer my list of scholars (dead* & alive) that I wish had blogs:
- Scott Bartchy [of course]
- John Howard Yoder*
- Dynamic Dual Blog: Adela Yarbro Collins & John J. Collins
- Thomas Yoder Neufeld [I just had lunch with him today, so I might be biased, but I love how he approaches New Testament studies from a balanced Anabaptist perspective!]
- Carolyn Osiek
- Richard B. Hays
- Willard M. Swartley
- Albert Schweitzer*
- Amy-Jill Levine
- Markus Bockmuehl
Okay, so I’m kind of cheating with two scholars on number three. But the list started much longer, so at least I got it down to 11. I was thinking about scholars that aren’t just my favorites and write about topics I’m interested in (though, that is a factor obviously), but also who I think would write very readable/relatable/entertaining blogs. Bart Ehrman, Tom Wright, Luke Timothy Johnson, and Bultmann were very close! In the end, none on the list are the same as Nick’s, but some were almost there.
Chris Heard is stirring up trouble…
I can’t tell if it’s an exposé of Jim West or Andrew Keen, but it’s a very interesting post nonetheless.
Update (Same Day): The trouble continues. You can find Jim West’s announcement of Chris Heard’s Biblical Studies list removal here (if you’re on the list).
Member of The Daily Scribe!
This news is a little late in coming, but a couple weeks ago I was welcomed into the family of The Daily Scribe, which has the description: “A growing compendium of exceptional Christian expression.” One of the things that the Scribe is looking for is open-mindedness and dialogue. I am honored and happy to be included in such a community as it is inventing itself. Here’s a little bit more from the “About” page:
Only the highest quality Christian writing and expression is aggregated on the pages of The Daily Scribe. All of the writers featured are dedicated professionals in their respective fields and faiths. Theirs is a passion which is obvious, mature and tuned – well tuned. Each aggregated member represents quality and honesty. Each of these individuals bring much of value to the craft.
For me, my membership in The Daily Scribe complements my understanding of my commitment to biblioblogging. I am deeply interested in intellectually engaging issues of scholarship in biblical studies and early Christianity, and I view that as the “biblioblogging” side to my blog. I also want to communicate these issues in a way that is accessible to those outside of scholarship who are still interested in the issues, and I guess I think of my newly formed commitment to The Daily Scribe as one representation of that passion to communicate to a wider audience. This melding of intellectual engagement with an attempt to communicate complicated issues of scholarship to a wider audience, by the way, is how I view my journey as a scholar and future educator. Engage in scholarship. Communicate and dialogue with students and other interested folks.
Since joining TDS, I have discovered a number of well-written and very interesting blogs on matters of faith. I highly recommend checking it out!
-
Elsewhere . . .- Blog titles beginning with "A" to "Z" on your reader Mark Goodacre
- Of making many books there is no end Chris Brady
- Free Online: The Liddell-Scott Jones Lexicon S and C
- Does Higher Criticism Attempt to “Destroy the Bible”? II agathos
- Steven J. Friesen and the Identity of Satan’s Throne in Pergamum alan
- Does Higher Criticism Attempt to “Destroy the Bible”? agathos
- Bloomsbury buys Continuum Mark Goodacre
- Imperial America Peter J. Leithart
- C.F.D. Moule on the Birth of the New Testament d. miller
- Responding to Kostenberger (with comparisons to Marshall) Jeremiah
-
As a member of RevGalBlogPals, I am committed to building a supportive online community for women clergy, women church professionals, and women in religious life.
Research assisted by:
Best Way to Track Comments on Other People's Blogs?
I will be making the switch to WordPress.org from WordPress.com soon and I’m trying to figure out some of the best options for the switch. I already have had a peek into WP.org because of my wife setting up her new blog on breastfeeding. I have enjoyed the feature available on WP.com called “My Comments”, which tracks all comments that you have made to other WP.com blogs (while signed in to your account). I particularly appreciate how it lists all other comments after yours, and whenever a new comment arises on that post, that list of comments goes to the top of the report.
The only thing I wish it could do that it doesn’t is track comments made on non-WordPress blogs.
On WP.org, one has to find a plugin that does the trick (sometimes like finding a needle in a haystack), or else find some other service outside of the WordPress admin area. I have not found something to my liking that both (1) tracks all comments made on all other blogs and (2) updates the report whenever new comments appear on that post. It would be particularly nice if the report showed up within the WP admin area–too many websites to go to!–but I may be dreaming there.
I’ve experimented a bit with BackType, but it doesn’t look like it performs the second task (updating for every new comment). Am I wrong about that?
How do you track your comments and responses?