To follow up on what not to name a church centre (from Dr. Jim) . . . how about what not to name a Christian blog? On a sidebar, the author offers one definition of a glory hole (a furnace used to make glass), but is perhaps unaware of another meaning. If you too are unaware of this other meaning, try spending a moment at the Urban Dictionary, your source for what the kids are calling things these days. In light of this, the first six words of the biblical quote following the blog’s title are particularly unfortunate.

Update (11/10/09): Just noticed that they changed the name. Probably a wise idea. I guess that answers the question of whether it was intentional.

If I’m linking to women’s blogs, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention my own wife’s new blog, The Milk Mama, which is dedicated to breastfeeding, among other things. Only one week old, she’s already published some interesting thoughts and is generating some decent traffic. But she’d love to find lots more dialogue partners and I thought it couldn’t hurt to get the word out there with my own readers.

Not only is Christina an heroic breastfeeding mother (who prevailed through some very trying times with our son early on), but she is also a Registered Dietitian (specializing in pediatric nutrition), holds a Master of Public Health degree from UCLA (she graduated as one of the top students in her class), and is a Certified Lactation Educator en route to becoming a Lactation Consultant (IBCLC). That’s right, my wife is so awesome that she deserves four parenthetical statements in one sentence.

So if you, or someone you know, is interested in topics related to breastfeeding, being a working mom, natural approaches to parenting–particularly written by a well-qualified specialist and excellent writer–then Christina’s blog is worth a good gander.

N.B. — I considered titling this post, “Like Boobs?”, but my wife advised me otherwise.

You don’t say. Rachel Marszalek stopped by my blog today, looking at an older post I did on Junia, to which she linked on her own blog. Rachel describes herself as an Anglican Ordinand and uses the following labels for herself: “Christian, Anglican, Evangelical, conservative (small C), Charismatic (big C), Open, Post-modern.” Have a look, for instance, at her posts tagged with “Bible” (which doesn’t even include all of her posts on biblical studies) and it looks to me that we could call Rachel’s a “biblioblog,” if she so desired. Not only that, if we were to include her as a “biblioblog,” based on her Alexa ranking, I think she’d go straight to the Top 50. Fancy that.

Now, Rachel, you may be sitting there bewildered by this post. I don’t know if you follow biblioblogs at all, but we are an active community of people who blog about academic biblical studies (though some are more “academic” than others). We have a Top 50 ranking, a monthly carnival, and bibliobloggers of the month. Recently, we’ve been talking about how few women we have in our ranks and some of us are hoping to find some more female bloggers who might unwittingly deserve the label “bibliobloggers.”

All of that said, do check out Rachel’s blog. I’ve added her to my own feed reader and look forward to some interesting conversation. Incidentally, I’ve just noticed that Rachel is not unknown to bibliobloggers as links to her blog show up quite a few times in the biblioblog custom search, but her blog itself is not included in the “official” list.

Kevin Scull, my esteemed UCLA colleague, a fellow Bartchy advisee, has officially joined the blogging ranks. He tried a brief hand at it while Brandon Wason was still in the game, as a co-blogger over at Novum Testamentum. Kevin is a rare bird. He’s good at pretty much everything he does. He is a modern day renaissance man–championship chess player, blues musician, and a Pauline scholar. Not only does he come at the text with fresh insights and keen observations, he’s also a pretty crazy fun guy to be around. So, his blog should be both interesting and entertaining. Do drop by and welcome him to the blogging world!

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:

1. Scott Bartchy [of course]
2. John Howard Yoder*
3. Dynamic Dual Blog: Adela Yarbro Collins & John J. Collins
4. 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!]
5. Carolyn Osiek
6. Richard B. Hays
7. Willard M. Swartley
8. Albert Schweitzer*
9. Amy-Jill Levine
10. 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.

That is, from online sources like blogs, RateMyProfessors.com, and Facebook? Here’s an article of interest in the NY Times: “The Professor as Open Book” by Stephanie Rosenbloom. Here’s the beginning bit:

It is not necessary for a student studying multivariable calculus, medieval literature or Roman archaeology to know that the professor behind the podium shoots pool, has donned a bunny costume or can’t get enough of Chaka Khan.

Yet professors of all ranks and disciplines are revealing such information on public, national platforms: blogs, Web pages, social networking sites, even campus television.

When scholars were recently given the chance to refute student criticism posted on the Web site RateMyProfessors.com, a cult-hit television series, “Professors Strike Back,” was born. The show, which has professors responding on camera to undergraduate gripes such as “boring beyond belief,” made its debut in October on mtvU, a 24-hour network broadcast to more than 7.5 million students on American college campuses.

“It’s our dominant show driving half of the traffic to mtvU now,” said Stephen Friedman, general manager of the network. “It gets more than our music premieres.”

Though it includes a few dissenting views, the article is overwhelmingly positive about professors sharing their lives online as a humanizing networking approach. Being one who blogs and is on Facebook, I think I’d say it’s a positive phenomenon. As long as no naked photos or the like are revealed, I think online chumminess goes a long way towards making connections in the classroom (connections that could lead to further learning!).