Phil Harland has a post "Mark Goodacre on the "God-blogging" phenomenon and academic blogs" responding to Mark's (now famous) "What would Jesus blog?"
Phil makes a neat clear distinction between Biblioblogs and Godblogs, and says
Perhaps the term biblioblogs is most appropriate only to the latter in cases where the focus is on historical study of biblical writings or cognate areas.Such neat clear distinctions are dangerous, I like them not!
I teach Hebrew Bible, in both a state university and a church seminary, I blog. Sometimes I blog about the Hebrew Bible (am I a biblioblogger?)
Often I blog about teaching or studying the Hebrew Bible (so am I a real biblioblogger?)
I am also a Christian, I sometimes blog about this aspect of my life (help, I'm not a biblioblogger, I must be a Godblogger... and I missed the con...).
No, such distinctions are daft. Biblioblogger is simply a convenient name for a bunch of bloggers who read each other's stuff and comment on it! It's a club, so please don't make membership TOO restrictive...
[to Del.icio.us]
I was not so much trying to impose a false distinction for those who do both as suggesting that the term "bibliobloggers" emerged in reference first to NTGateway, Hypotyposeis, and Philoblogger, none of which are doing theology or advocating a religious position. That's mainly what I had in mind (with the God-blogging as the other topic in mind). I wasn't claiming anyones' ownership of "biblioblog" as a concept. Just that a clear terminological distinction of some sort (if people are going to name these things) would help to avoid people thinking a blog was something it wasn't. (I have to say that I've never been charged with being daft, but I think there was a misunderstanding of what I was saying.) All the best. Phil
By 
Phil Harland, at
October 18, 2005 2:18 PM
Sorry if my flippant tone offended, I did not mean that YOU are daft, Phil. Though I do think trying to define firm categories in the blogsphere is a touch daft, as it goes against the grain of the medium, which is associative rather than distinctive...
I agree that biblioblogger is a useful concept, I agree that some blogs that deal with the Bible are not biblioblogs in this sense, but I think the difference is in their associations rather than (neatly at least) at the level of content.
By Tim, at
October 19, 2005 6:54 AM
