Let me start by thanking those of my readers who have picked up on this and mentioned it on their own blogs. As I hoped, this is spreading in the standard blog manner.
I need to correct on issue with the original post. My e-mail address was listed as ending with bluecord.rg, instead of bluecord.org. I have corrected it in the original link, so if you have had trouble reaching me, please try again.
I also wanted to quickly address a bit of the discussion about the Ph.D. requirements for contributors. Some have opined that this is not in the spirit of blogging and should be removed. While I agree that blogging is more egalitarian, this book is an intersection between blogging and scholarship. I have to balance both sides of the equation, so I will be keeping the Ph.D. requirement, although as I said in the original post the guidelines are somewhat flexible.
That being said, I have been considering adding two chapters at the end of the book: one written by a doctoral student who is a blogger and another by a non-specialists who blogs the Bible. I will certainly keep people like Danny Zacharias at Deinde in mind for such a position.
For those of you who have e-mailed, I will get back to you by next week. After posting the call for contributors on Wednesday, I left on Thursday to drive fourteen hours to Tennessee, where I am visiting my parents. They have no Internet at home, so I am limited in my Internet access until I return to Massachusetts.
Thanks to everyone for their interest in this project.
On August 3rd, 2007 at 11:01 am
I question whether having a PHD is a requirement for the ability to do quality scholarship.
On August 3rd, 2007 at 2:15 pm
Mike,
I do not have a PhD and once in a while, more by accident than design, I do competent scholarship. And I know of people with PhDs who seldom say anything that appears competent or even coherent. However, I think Kevin is correct in limiting most of the chapters to those who have the official “license” to practice the craft. Using the minimum standard for acquiring an academic position seems reasonable. On the other hand, I think a couple of chapters by students would be a good thing. The best news (for me) is that I neither have a PhD nor am I a student. So I can look forward to reading the book without pain or prejudice.
On August 3rd, 2007 at 3:10 pm
I agree with your PhD requirement, which I do not have.
If this is to be the introduction of blogging the bible to other scholars unfamiliar with this new media revolution, it seems best that contributors have their PhD’s. We will have our chance. Suggestion: you could include a list and summary of student blogs in an appendix. On the other hand, you may be forced into some exceptions with well established bloggers (not me) who would be good contributors to this volume but do not yet have their PhD’s. In this way you could just open it up and reject the ones you do not find helpful. Anyways, enjoy
On August 3rd, 2007 at 5:18 pm
I feel I should point out that I never said that a Ph.D. is a requirement to do quality scholarship. It is neither a prerequisite for doing academic work nor a guarantee of quality work. It is, however, a sign that someone has done the minimum necessary to gather the skills and information necessary to be a scholar and has demonstrated an ability to produce quality work.
My reason for making it a requirement for contributing is that it ensures that the people who write chapters in this book have reached a certain level of skill and knowledge. It is possible that others would also have those skills and knowledge, but I would have to read through all of their published works to find that out. I don’t have the time to do that, so I have decided to use the doctorate as a minimum requirement.
I suspect most of us do the same thing in our daily lives. It is possible, for instance, to learn how to do surgery without going to medical school. But if I need to have surgery done, you can bet that I am going to look for the guy with an M.D. after his name. This doesn’t guarantee that this guy will perform a successful surgery, but it does at least indicate that he has performed surgery successfully in the past.
On August 4th, 2007 at 7:32 pm
To clarify, I agree with your PhD requirement, but not for the same reasons; not because it ensures a certain quality of scholarship–which as you say it may or may not–but because part of your audience, those not familiar with the role of blogging the bible in the larger academic sphere, might be more receptive to those who are more “established scholars”. Of course, this means more than having a PhD, but would best be done by recognized scholars with many of their own publications.
But this would seem a secondary goal, whereas the primary one is collecting a group of well-written and relevant papers. You say that PhD’s have demonstrated a minimum level of scholarship. I agree. But your project, while it secondarily requires a general standard, primarily requires familiarity, exposure to, and participation in the blogging world. In this case the PhD requirement is antithetical to your primary goal since it excludes many (could we say a majority?) of the bible bloggers.
Thus, your concern seems to be establishing a standard. But that is the editors’ (your) task in reading the papers, PhD’s or otherwise.
You would not have “to read through all of their published works to find that out” but you only need to assess the article for its suitability to your project in order to deem whether it meets the standard that you have set. The PhD requirement here is irrelevant since you as an editor are the one setting that standard.
I do not know many editors that reject a work because it is not done by a PhD, before assessing the article on its own merit.
This is a great project and I wish you all the best on this. Note I am not trying to defend a place for myself (since I consider myself too young to the blogging world to contribute) but there may be a reason why people have questioned the PhD standard.
On August 4th, 2007 at 8:31 pm
I suppose that I should clarify as well. My comment came mainly from the fact that phd bloggers are in the minority (as has been said).
Essentially, my thoughts were along the lines of Shawn’s above.
I apologize for the critical sounding nature of my first comment. It was unintentional.