Blue Cord

One of the things I wanted to do with the Blue Cord main site is to provide an area for my students to interact.  To this end, I have installed a new component that allows for discussion forums.  It can be found, easily enough, under the Forum link on the main menu.  But because I went to all the trouble to install this new package, I figured I would go ahead and start some forums that can be used by anyone who wants to discuss the Bible.  I doubt this will be used much by the scholars who read this blog, but I hope it will be of use to others.

When you go to the Forum page, you will notice there are no forums for my students.  The reason for this is that I have made those groups private, so my students can have open discussions with each other without having the entire world listen in on the conversation.

I hope to integrate these discussions into my teaching this coming semester.  Instead of reflection papers or similar devices, I am going to try this on-line approach to class discussion, with a part of their grade being determined by their participation.  If any of the other teachers who read this blog have tried this, I would love to get your input on this.  What worked?  What didn’t?  How would you improve the experience for the students?

Please note that you need to be registered at Blue Cord’s main page (free!) to post to the forums, but anyone may read them.

Two days ago I posted some information I had received about archaeological sites effected by the war between Israel and Hezbollah. I have since seen this information on-line at the Biblical Archaeological Review website. Their page is being updated as more news comes in, so anyone who wants to keep up with this is encouraged to check out that site.

Tyler F. Williams at Codex has tagged me in a meme. So, I figured I better respond. I have never been tagged before, and I am told it is an honor just to be nominated. I would like to thank the academy . . .

1. One book that changed your life.

It would be easy and certainly true to say the Bible, as that book occupies most of my life. If we are referring to books other than Scripture, I would have to say Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Cost of Discipleship (although of course he discusses the Bible).

2. One book that you have read more than once.

Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land.

3. One book you would want on a desert island.

Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov.

4. One book that made you laugh.

W.P. Kinsella’s The Iowa Baseball Confederacy. Baseball and apocalyptic literature — a great combination!

5. One book that made you cry.

John Irvin’s A Prayer for Owen Meany.

6. One book that you wish had been written.

I am going to cheat a bit on this one and name two books that were written but did not survive. I would love to get my hands on the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel and the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah that are referenced throughout the DtrH.

7. One book that you wish had never been written.

Since Tyler already took The Prayer of Jabez, I guess I will say anything by Ann Coulter.

8. One book you are currently reading.

You can see the currently reading section to the right for academic books. For non-academic things, I am reading King Solomon’s Mines by H. Rider Haggard.

9. One book you’ve been meaning to read.

War and Peace by Tolstoy.

10. Tag five other people.

I tag Chris Heard, Stephen Cook, Charles Halton, Kevin Edgecomb, and Sean Boisen.

The crisis war between Israel and Hezbolah has caused a great deal of death and destruction on both sides. While we should all remember people on both sides in our prayers, especially the civilians, I have a few updates from archaeological digs in the area that I thought I would share.

The dig at Tel Kabri has been hit several times by Katyusha rockets according to Eric Cline. None of the archaeologists were injured, and they have since closed the dig. No word on the amount of damage caused to the antiquities there.

Amnon Ben-Tor reports that they have shut down the excavations at Hazor. When hostilities began, they closed the dig and gave the situation ten days to resolve. When that deadline had passed, they decided to cease operations for this season.

Ilan Sharon says that the dig at Tel Dor is still going on, at least as of July 22nd. This was their first major season since the Intifada caused digs to cease in 2000. They were three weeks into a six week season when the fighting began.

According to David Ilan at Tel Dan, they shut down their dig on July 14th, right after hostilities began. They went into bomb shelters on a few occasions, then decided it was best to clear out.

Finally, David Ussishkin and Israel Finkelstein are still up and working at Megiddo, although some of the volunteers have left. Eric Clines says it has been interested to actually be at Megiddo during a battle. He will have to add this experience to the next edition of his book, The Battles of Armageddon.

I am back from my vacation in Maine. I did not do much blogging while I was there, but I got a good portion of an article written. I will be spending this week in Massachusetts before heading back to Lithuania next Monday.

I came across a WordPress plugin today that I thought I would share with other bibliobloggers. It is an acronym replacement tool that will automatically wrap any acronyms in your posts with a tag that supplies the meaning of your acronym. For example, you can mouse over the acronyms SBL or DtrH in this post, and a pop-up box will tell you what they mean. The plugin comes with a number of acronyms defined, but it is very easy to add things that it does not have and tailor it to your needs.

I think this is one of the ways that we can make our scholarship more accessible. Often, we talk in jargon. Jargon is helpful because it reduces to short hand many of the things that scholars discuss on a regular basis. That makes it easier to communicate between scholars, but shuts out those who are not a part of the guild. This tool allows us to keep speaking in technical language, but allows non-specialists to follow along more easily. Now I can talk about JEDP all I want without having to pause to define it. Of course, the definition that pops up is short, but it will at least help. Just part of my on-going commitment to Open Source Scholarship ™.

Naturally, this will only be helpful to you if you blog with WordPress. For those of you who use other tools, I apologize for wasting your time.