Okay, given my previous post about female bibliobloggers, my conscience as a feminist, and some negative comments I’ve gotten about #bibstuds as a potential Twitter hashtag, maybe we should reconsider. One person thought it sounded “sexist,” another “misogynistic,” and another explained with less charged language, “[I]t had occurred to me when I saw your previous post that ‘studs’ might give the wrong impression and discourage women from participating.” Let’s rethink–and remember, the idea here is to find tags that aren’t generally used for something else. This will hopefully make for some interesting conversations on Twitter in our field. So, here are some ideas…

General Biblical Studies Hashtag Ideas

• #biblicalstudies: to the point, but let’s face it, 16 characters is too long for a Twitter hashtag.
• #bibstuds: short for “biblical studies” (not sexy men who wear bibs), memorable, but apparently sounds sexist and misogynistic.
• #biblit: short for “biblical literature” (broadly defined, as in, the Society of Biblical Literature), nice and short, but “biblical literature” doesn’t seem as all-encompassing a term as “biblical studies.”

Hashtag Ideas for Biblical Studies Subfields (this may be a bit ambitious):

• Ancient Near East: #ane
• Hebrew Bible/Old Testament: #hbot, #othb, #hebbib, #oldtest
• Second Temple: #2temp
• Dead Sea Scrolls/Qumran: #dss, #qum
• New Testament: #newtest
• Christian Origins: #chrorg
• Greco-Roman society/culture: #grecrom

I’d like your feedback. Throw in your suggestions either for the general hashtag or for more specific ones. After I get some suggestions, maybe we’ll put up a poll. Then I’ll publish a list that we decide upon.