So, as commenters are rightly calling bizarre, “Jim’s Minions” at the Biblioblog Top 50 posts this:

This is the final post for The Biblioblog Top 50. Several days ago, in an attempt to dissociate our blog from humorless bibliobloggers such as Christopher Heard and Alan Lenzi, we ‘officialized’ Jim West as CEO of the Biblioblog Top 50. Despite this implicit plea for removal from the priggish posts of the self-appointed guardians of anal retentiveness, our plea was ignored. One can infer only one thing: being a part of their idea of “Bibliobloggers” is not voluntary and if one wishes to be removed, one has to delete one’s blog.

So we will not post again until Alan Lenzi resumes biblioblogging. See you around the biblioblogosphere.

But, if you go read Alan’s post, you will see that he seems to be taking the website a little too seriously (which is ironic). The post on Biblioblog Top 50 is a blatant parody of Alan’s post. In that context, it appears to be a good joke (albeit at Alan’s expense).

If this is something more than a joke, however, I would be disappointed. I see the Biblioblog Top 50 as a fun activity that we can participate in each month. I think it breeds a little community, even it is the cyber version of community, to have something like the rankings to chat about around the turn of each month. I also appreciate the site’s attempt to list all blogs related to biblical studies.

Alan’s posts of late seem to be viewing the Biblioblog Top 50 site as something of a corporation or an established organization. Rather, it is an independent blog doing a service for other bloggers. They have the right to link to whomever they’d like. How ridiculous would it be for me to stop blogging simply because John Anderson links to my page and I didn’t like some of his posts? (Thanks for the link, John. I love your posts )

At any rate, if the Biblioblog Top 50 is not simply joking, then we should try to figure out how to carry on its legacy. Maybe that would be the juice that Biblioblogs.com needs to get an extra kick . . .

Update: Yes, it was simply a parody. It is not the end.

Clarification: Jim G. and John A. have wisely stated in the comments that they think it better to stay out of the kerfuffles, like this one. I do think theirs is a good move. I would like to clarify, particularly for Alan’s sake, that I mean no ill will towards him with this post. I tried to go over to his blog and say that, but he’s disabled his comments. But he does say that the affiliation of bibliobloggers with SBL is both “taking things too seriously” and “over the top.” If you’re going to close your blog down for personal reasons, that’s fine. But to shut down all activity on your blog because a site is linking to you does seem to me to be “taking things too seriously” and “over the top.” Just sayin’ . . .