In "Why So Reticent, Boaz?: Boaz's (In)action from an Identity Perspective" Peter H. W. Lau of Sydney University presented a reading of the book of Ruth that analysed Boaz' behaviour from a Social Identity Theoretical perspective. Using this grid enabled Peter to describe clearly the issues involved and throw considerable light of some of the gaps that we as listeners to the story are obliged to fill.
Next, Sunwoo Hwang of the University of Edinburgh offered a clear and organised discussion of "Bêtî in 1 Chronicles 17:14: Temple or Kingdom?" and in doing so drew my attention also to the interesting differences between not only 1 Chron 17:14 and its presumed source in 2 Sam 7:16, but also between the LXX and MT.
Rachelle Gilmour of the University of Sydney presented a lively and engaging analysis of "Suspense and Anticipation in I Samuel 9" and in doing so added still more to my appreciation of this most entertaining and rich passage. (For my take on the passage before Rachelle's paper listen to my 5 minute talks "Humour in the Bible: Part 1: Introducing Saul and Humour in the Bible: Part 2: Still Introducing Saul, incidentally there really are other 'casts in the Humour in the Bible series!
Labels: 1chron, 1sam, 2sam, audio, bible, ruth, sbl
¶ 5:23 PM
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This could be great news for projects like PodBible.mobi (making the PodBible audio Bible podcasts available to mobile phone users).
However, I have two questions you might be able to answer for me:
- What mobile phones can or can't play AMR files? So if you have a phone can you try downloading this AMR file and seeing if it plays, and report the make, model and result below, please!
- What exactly are the licensing issues with AMR there is a link on the Wikipedia site to an VoiceAge legal page, but I go cross-eyed trying to find out what that means for ordinary non-commercial users. Any comments on that would be helpful too!
Labels: audio, bible, mobile, podcast
¶ 8:06 AM
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Gsm format is worth a look. I think most mobiles support it and it could be converted on the fly on the server by using sox (providing your host has it installed).
What you need is an application that offers the user different file formats which are generated on the fly by the server, taking all the hard work away from conversion.
I imagine this is fairly straight forward, unfortunately I don't have the technical ability.
By 
Graham Doel, at
June 15, 2008 7:06 PM
I am a total beginner when it comes to audio formats for mobiles, as best as I can make out from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_Multi-Rate
and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_file
It sounds to me as if maybe AMR is a form of GSM??? For this project we do not really have any one who can easily organise clever file format conversion on the fly, so we are likely to have to do the conversions manually or using batch files, so I'm keen to get the "right" format when we start.
With AMR I can even use a the lowest quality setting, and get something that sounds better than a phone call where the chapter is only 160KB which would be a tiny download for 3.5 minutes of audio!
By 
Tim, at
June 15, 2008 7:34 PM
The chapters are podcast using PHP to read the directories and create both the RSS feeds and the corresponding web pages. So... what I need is someone who can help me create a blog using the same (sort of?) mechanism.
If you know someone who might (a) be interested in helping and (b) might have the necessary skills please let me know!
Labels: audio, bible, digital, internet
¶ 5:58 PM
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A Man of Means is a collection of six short stories written in collaboration by P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill.You can download it to listen to in the car, or wherever you do your leisure listening from Archive.org (this link is to a search page that will lead also to other readings I've done in case Wodehouse is not to your taste ;)
The stories all star Roland Bleke, a nondescript young man to whom financial success comes through a series of “lucky” chances, the first from a win in a sweepstake he had forgotten entering. Roland, like many a timid young man seeks love and marriage. In this pursuit his wealth is regularly a mixed blessing. The plot of each story follows its predecessor, sometimes directly, and occasionally refer back to past events in Bleke’s meteoric career.
The writing style is crisp and droll, and shows much of the skill and polish of the later Wodehouse. The disasters that befall the hapless Bleke are entertainingly recounted and his unforeseen rescues surprise and delight. In the character of the butler, Mr Teal, we meet an early draft of the ingenious Jeeves.
The stories first appeared in the United Kingdom in The Strand in 1914, and in the United States in Pictorial Review in 1916. They were later published in book form in the UK by Porpoise Books in 1991; the collection was released on Project Gutenberg in 2003. (Summary by Wikipedia adapted by Tim Bulkeley)
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Sadly this does not work for blogger :( so I can't demonstrate it here, but you can see it at work here http://asiabible.wordpress.com/ so, if you have a WordPress blog, how about it?
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She was asked:
Can you tease out an example of how publishing will change?Wireless phones, which didn't exist 20 years ago, have changed not only the way people communicate but also the way they live. People are going to read, and they're going to read paper for the rest of our lifetimes. But I'm convinced that different distribution for content will change the way we live. We have entered the digital world. It's not like we're just stepping our toe into it. The Bible Experience audio Bible was the best-selling Bible of 2007.
I think we can make some predictions today for how further distribution changes will alter the way we live our Christian life. The spiritual journey many of us have will be changed by the Internet and digital technology. But I'd like a little more time in this discovery process before I can vocalize how.
Now, this is cautious, but much less cautious than print-based publishers usually are! It makes projects like David's for mobile phones or our PodBible relevance visible!
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like this one Cornelius Reid — “That’s what kept him going.” It's a lovely, thought-provoking, post, but the short clip of Cornelius makes it come alive. Definitely a blog I'll subscribe to, who knows, one day I may comment, and one of my comments may help Ashton tweak some aspect of her ideas and so her book. Now that's a fine project: a worthwhile, valuable, interesting blog; where the comments and email correspondences that a blog attracts will assist the writer with her project, not only that but as the author explained to Ben in an email, it could even make commercial sense:
I also think i'll end up with a valuable platform for leveraging and disseminating my work over the long run — one that could radically revise conventional notions of shelf life. Cutting Loose, my book about women and divorce (HarperCollins, 1997) is still in print; imagine what sales would look like if it were at the hub of an ongoing social network, and what a rich site that would be?The early adopter in me, however, wonders - just a little - what the point of the print edition will be... especially in the light of all the rave reviews of Amazon's proprietary (lock you in to us as your supplier), pay as you go (even for "converting" your own PDFs), expensive (and not even available) Kindle over at Lifehacker ;)
Labels: age, audio, media, publish
¶ 5:43 PM
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Singapore airport was already my favourite, and the only airport where I am happy to spend a few hours! It has confirmed this impression this time. As well as writing blog posts I've got up to date again with my email, including a note to say that Kipling's American Notes has now gone live on Librivox. I wonder of Barak Obama's progress in the US pre-elections would make Kipling rethink his best-known quote from the book? "It is not good to be a negro in the land of the free and the home of the brave." I also wonder what today's Americans make of his take on their ancestors - do let me know, whether you read a print edition, read the Guttenberg edition, or listen to my Librivox edition.PS, the weather is as dull as it looks here, so we did not much miss the chance to see a bit more of the city this time (which was ruled out since we arrived in the middle of the night).
Labels: audio, internet, librivox, travel
¶ 6:01 PM
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You wonder as you wander, as it were.
- Introduction
- At the Golden Gate
- American Politics
- American Salmon
- The Yellowstone
- Chicago
- The American Army
- America's Defenceless Coasts
This book is controversial, it records Kipling's cutting observations of American life in the 1990s, and it reports with apparent relish the most racist of opinions as if they were facts.
Yet Kipling's essays about American life in the 1890s are written with an interesting British/Indian distance from his subject. Though the tone is often sarcastic, his affection for the country and its people is a steady undercurrent. These essays provide an interesting glimpse of the
As well as the rude things he says about the
Indeed Kipling's writing, often, and above all here, raises questions of interpretation. One American reader (G. A. England from
He comments scathingly on Kipling's passage (in ch.1) describing the benefits of the San Fransisco cable-car system: "With the same scorn he wastes nearly a page in fantastic description of a cable-car as an amazing phenomenon. It is as though Alaric at
Indeed, can the critic be as naive as I have assumed above? Mr England of Harvard began his piece demolishing Kipling claiming: To the American temperament, the gentleman who throws stones while himself living in a glass house cannot fail to be amusing; the more so if, as in Mr Kipling's case, he appears to be in a state of maiden innocence regarding the structure of his own domicile. Was England perhaps playing Kipling at his own game and pretending to take seriously, what really he was smiling fondly at?
In the end, this is not Kipling's best work, yet these articles, first published in an Indian Newspaper, still carry vivid impressions both of the
Quotations from The New York Times of October 11th 1902.
Labels: audio, kipling, librivox
¶ 3:29 PM
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and wrote:Subject: A really excellent series of stories!Stalky has now had 5,673 downloads since 30 April 2007, so I'm delighted, and hope other listeners are too!
This was my first LibriVox download and what a wonderful introduction it was! Tim Bulkeley did an excellent job reading the entire book. His reading was as good as many professional audiobooks I've bought and the sound quality was also well done. I grew up loving Stalky & Co (they were the original "Marauders" before JK Rowling invented James Potter & Co for her series and Stalky still wins hands down, without any magic at all!). If you haven't read the stories then this download is a great introduction. And if you have read the stories this is an excellent way to enjoy them again.
Labels: audio, kipling, librivox
¶ 1:38 PM
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Dave Warnock drew my attention to the post by Cory Doctorow on BoingBoing HOWTO make a Senior Remote with only five big, friendly buttons such a simple neat and useful idea. But why, oh why does no one manufacture the things? Cory's post is itself drawing attention to the original (I think) by anonymous on IndestructiblesSenior RemoteWhich reminded me of another simple modification to an electronic gadget which could make it user friendly for older folk. An MP3 player with big buttons, and ideally a bigger screen font. I first explained in 2005 why I'd like to find a source for these. If they were cheap enough I'd buy 50 or 100. But no one seems to make them, and it has to be a small mod to make a cheap MP3 player user friendly for a whole new market. Add Librivox for talking books, add PodBible for talking Bible... or as Dave wants to add recordings of the service for shutins... the possibilities are huge. So, why does no one make them?
Mod your mom's TV remote to make it senior friendly.
My mom was born in 1931. She is from the generation of radio and WWII. Her eyesight is failing and she isn't good with anything electronic. TV remotes confuse her. This mod came to me after she called me one day, claiming her TV remote stopped working. It turns out, she inadvertently hit the button that activated the VCR functions. She didn't know or couldn't see the button to reactivate the TV functions. So I decided to "dumb" down the remote to only three functions: On/Off, Channel and Volume.
My post back then "Tim needs an MP3 player with large buttons" was in response to an amusing meme from Maggi Dawn, incidentally several of the real candidates still appear, Tim [still] needs help and a theme... plus ca change...
PS Back in 2005 I wrote: BTW if you choose to run with this meme, could you please quote the phrase "Tim needs an MP3 player with large buttons" as I'd love to see that come up top on Google when some other Tim decides to try the meme! Who knows a manufacturer might see one of those posts and actually make one! I'd like to still echo that, both to please make the link, and the hope that some manufacturer might see and take note - there is a market for these things.
Update: So, players with big simple buttons exist, designed for pre-schoolers. The Fisher Price one is a bit on the expensive side and I can't see an NZ stockist, some of the US stores have cheaper ones though, so I'll look when I am in Thailand unless someone can point me to a suitable source here.
Thanks to Stephen and Anonymous (though your DSE link did not work for me bringing up other products :(
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http://www.dse.co.nz/cgi-bin/dse.storefront/477dc85a00c51bb2273fc0a87f3306e5/Product/View/G0008
By , at
January 4, 2008 6:50 PM
Those sort of remotes do exist, and crop up particularly in hotels and motels where the original remote controls are replaced by one that will only change channels, change the volume or turn the TV on/off. A real pain if you want to play a DVD through the TV off the laptop and the TV/AV button is missing.
Like the link above notes several are available from your local electronics store. However, having said that, they may need some technical ability to configure initially?
By Stephen G, at
January 4, 2008 11:05 PM
For MP3 players then some of the ones in toy shops might also fit the bill
http://www.fisher-price.com/fp.aspx?st=2620&e=fp3landing&Fp3Redirect=kidtoughplayer
- Text, canon, and the woman caught in adultery why the two least sexy branches of biblical studies matter ;)
- Cliché Theology: Joshua 11:1-9 sometimes a cliché is stylistically and/or theologically necessary!
- Ezra and the foreign wives which contained some material related to the post below on (Ana)Baptist hermeneutics.
Labels: audio, bible, language, reading, text criticism
¶ 7:36 AM
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We focused on "Learning Styles" with input from Dr Peter Gossman from AUT University's Centre for Educational and Professional Development. He introduced the concept of learning styles through a question about which medium we'd prefer to use to learn about a rotary engine. He showed us:
- a series of pictures of a cut away of the motor at work
- an animated GIF
- a page of text describing its workings
- a model which one could turn and watch
However, the VARK approach is conceptually simple. People tend to prefer to learn in four modes:
- Visual: diagrammes, pictures, colour coding...
- Aural: the people who download my 5 Minute Bible podcasts presumably, and those who like to talk about what they are learning
- Read/Write: the bookish ones, who write good notes in words (my notes were kind of mindmaps with few words)
- Kinesthetic: the ones who fiddle with their pens while others are talking, and who walk about or wave their hands a lot...
This stuff was fascinating to me, I spent a decade in tertiary education (BSc, BA, PhD and a year of missionary training) and almost all of it was either oriented to the read/write learners (books, articles, essays...), the aural learners (lectures, discussions, arguments over a coffee...) with just a little for visual people (the occasional photo or diagramme). None, nada, zero, zilch was formally oriented to my learning style! Though since I passed, either the visual stuff (my second preference) helped a lot, or I managed to roll my pens enough to learn something...
Now it gets really interesting...
My teaching, has largely copied my teachers. It is VAR but little K. Actually I think its the reverse, RAVing nuts (since according to our time estimates we expect students to Read and Write much more than they Talk/Listen, and Visual material is still regarded as a nice extra added on to enrich the words!
Wouldn't it be nice if our classes catered for ALL our students!
Next year's Intro to the Bible at Carey will do a better job than most, my secondary style "visual" has always been "allowed" so the material is pretty visual already, and Karen (who has experience and training teaching children!) has developed some great exercises where the students actually do (as in move, kinesthetic experience, real doing) things...
So, which learning preference(s) are yours? (Do the test at the VARK site to find out it really only takes a few moments.)
Does the teaching/learning that you do/endured match your preferred style?
Labels: audio, education, teaching
¶ 5:05 PM
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This post has been removed by a blog administrator.
By , at
November 28, 2007 9:44 PM
Hi Tim
When he spoke about Kinesthetic learners being hard to cope with in the classroom ...
Not sure I said it quite like this. If I did what I meant was that kinesthetic learners are harded to cater for in a classroom and require the teacher to be more imaginative. Now we of course can (and did) question wether a teacher should 'cater' for the students. Good summary of the session, hope it was useful. Regards Peter
By , at
December 18, 2007 9:32 AM
Since I'm NOT a read/write learner, we are relying on my forgettory or your notes, so I am very hqappy to accept that you said something much more nuanced! If you can tell me what I'll even correct the report above.
I found the session very useful, in providing both encouragement to explore a wider range of teaching activities, and a framework (even of crude or un-substantiated by evidence ;) for thinking about the issue.
It does not show in the comments, but several people from the USA and elsewhere have tried the VARK test online and commented in response to the post.
By Tim, at
December 18, 2007 11:23 AM
If it wasn't for RSS feeds and blogging software, on an "ordinary" website, like my Children's stories I just use the MP3 with an M3U textfile to stream the MP3 directly!
I'm sure there are easier ways... so why not tell me, and Phil in the comments, you might make both our lives easier ;-)
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there are free open source programs for podcasting. just record your speech, upload it to rss feeds. easypodcast is one:
http://www.easypodcast.com/
the other free one is audacity:
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
for other windows based, try:
http://blog.scon.de/siekmann/podcaster.nsf
http://www.podifier.com/
By anthony, at
October 29, 2007 7:17 PM
Thanks, Anthony,
From the look of it Easypodcast does much the same job as Podifier. Anyone know why one might be better than the other?
Audacity is a superb open sound editing program, great for removing noise and generating MP3s of different quality to get the best trade off of quality and download speed.
The Siekmann blog now jumps to his Blogspot blog, can anyone give the new link to what Anthony was intending?
By Tim, at
October 29, 2007 8:01 PM
Thanks Tim and all of you for your comments. I'm a technological numpty, but I hope to give all this a try out once I get a day off. If things don't work out I'll be back no doubt with more questions!
By Phil Sumpter, at
October 31, 2007 9:51 AM
BTW Phil my email is
tim (a) carey.ac.nz
By Tim, at
October 31, 2007 2:42 PM
You know what I'm going to say...Plug self-hosted wordpress (wordpress.org) plus podpress (podpress.mightyseek.com).
It's unbelievably worth the learning curve, but you do need to set aside some time for that. Not so great in marking season.
By Craig, at
November 7, 2007 6:19 AM
Sorry, podpress is hosted at http://mightseek.com/podpress
By Craig, at
November 7, 2007 6:20 AM
Actually at: http://www.mightyseek.com/podpress but there is even a picture of Mighty Mouse when you get there :)
By Tim, at
November 7, 2007 2:40 PM
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There's a lot more that could be said on the topic of humor (Note: please change the misspelling in your post title).
Luther said that the Devil hates to be laughed at. Irony, hyperbole and lampoon are all used by Jesus for humorous effect but it's not always easy to catch that in translation.
By lingamish, at
October 6, 2007 5:15 PM
"Humor" is a small town Suceava, in Romania, I believe it is best known for its monastery, but fail to understand its relevance to this post.
By Tim, at
October 7, 2007 9:07 AM
That, together with being terribly busy catching up after our lovely holiday in Thailand, explains why I have still (despite encouragement) posted on Psalm 68. I know, I must... maybe I will before the marking wave of the end of the semester breaks over me. But for now please make do with complaints, I love to tackle the mysterious and ancient praise song, but "I am a worm and not a human" and just at present not up to both tasks! ¶ 11:22 AM
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- the short simple answer is "with our eyes"
- the longer, more complex answer is "carefully".
But goes on to describe the different relationship to and feel of a biblical text if it is read aloud. He wonders:
Since biblical texts were written to be read, that is read aloud to an audience - not scanned more or less carefully with the eyes in a study, and since many of them may well have existed orally before being written at all, this question seems to me a no brainer. Never mind the syntax, get the mouth-feel first. Then analyse. (Since the Bible is an ancient text, separated from us in time, culture and by language, we MUST analyse.) Then, return to reading the text, and get the mouth-feel again informed by the analytical study.if it might be better for me to read the words aloud. Let them wrap around me. What does the scansion tell me? Where does the stress fall naturally? Perhaps rhythm is more important than word order.
Incidentally, I think much the same applies to non-scholarly readers, hear the Bible as well as looking at it. Just looking at the Bible risks making you into a Bible idolater, hearing the Bible risks making you try to follow its advice - much more dangerous, and worthwhile... but that's another post.
PS: See also How to avoid reading books for advice on reading academic texts in non-linear manner!
Labels: audio, bible, oral, reading
¶ 6:47 AM
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Or if you don't read well yourself, suggest the project to a friend. You could read just a chapter a week, or get inspired and read ten over a holiday weekend, it is up to you... For more details just either email me (tim at carey.ac.nz) or visit the Librivox forum for the project. ¶ 8:24 PM
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The Bible Society undertook some research that displayed only 21% of the more than 2,000 church attending participants read their Bible daily. Twenty one percent. Twenty two percent stated they read it at least weekly with the remaining 57% which absolutely should blow you away. I hope it does, because this is a crisis. The remaining 57% saying they either read the Bible occasionally or hardly ever – 22%. Now similar studies recently conducted in the U.S. stated that only 12%. In this study in the U.S. which is quite large, 12% said they read the Bible regularly. Twelve percent! This is an issued that faces the Western Church and I’ve had the opportunity of doing a little travelling, chatting to colleagues in other western Countries, in the U.S., U.K and even Australia. And this is the problem they face. This is an epidemic.Mark also candidly shares his personal experience, in which the central problem was "that through my theology training the Bible had moved from my heart to my head." This is a huge problem (at least for a theological educator!) though one I will hope to return to in a later post. For now, I just want to note now what happened when we discussed Mark's question in our local church elders meeting a while back.
The oldest elder began the conversation: "Why don't people in our church read the Bible like they used to?" After acknowledging the issue, we swiftly moved to the usual "answers", push SU Notes etc.. Then we recognised that many (but not all) people don't actually READ. They can all read, we have nearly if not 100% functional literacy, but people use that literacy to scan newspapers, webpages or magazines, they do not read books. We also recognised that many of these "non-readers" (as well as many young "readers") can be seen jogging and on buses with their ear buds feeding them music... The result PodBible, audio Bible for the iPod generation!
Incidentally, PodBible has been "down" for a week, but is working again now, so if you know someone who tried and failed, please explain it was circumstances with our hosting company, involving high usage, and a catch 22 that compounded a Murphy situation (which I probably won't explain more for fear of bursting into exhausted tears ;-)
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Because they aren't literate enough to read a real Bible (KJV) so they figure why waste their time with a fake one (NIV, NASB, NRSV, etc.)
By , at
July 20, 2007 3:30 PM
Hi, Anonymous,
Clearly we disagree a bit about the Bible, you think it is a cultural artefact to be preserved and studied, like Shakespeare - I think it is the record of God's dealings with humanity and the witness to what God did in Christ. I say in the Bible we can hear God's own voice today (that's why we translate the Bible so we can hear better).
By Tim, at
July 20, 2007 4:13 PM
My text was Matthew 5:17-48. A long, complex, and difficult passage! Basically I focused on the opening: where Jesus affirms unequivocally that he came to "fulfil" the Law and Prophets, and NOT to abolish them. Noticing how Jesus develops this in a series of examples where what he demands of us is stronger and harder than what Old Testament law requires. He closes the section saying: "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect." (Mat 5:48) It's too long (at 30mins plus question time!) for 5 Minute Bible so I am posting it here:
- Matthew 5:17ff. : How to read the Old Testament (download 14MB)
- Matthew 5:17ff. : How to read the Old Testament (stream as you go)
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Labels: audio, librivox, podcast
¶ 1:13 PM
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BTW since the project is on Librivox we have to use a translation that will allow us to put the result in the public domain. ¶ 8:58 AM
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Hi Tim - I finally got to listen. Five voices in concert could be quite effective. I think the WEB Bible was the most effective. The eth suffixes in the archaic versions made for more difficulty hearing. This is partly because of the archaism and partly due to the accent. Your reader has a pronounced short e vowel. The word breath for example comes to my ear as brith and it takes me a moment to decode it. One could get used to it. I think too that the speech is long - and more spondee - or unexpected accentuation of verb and object is required. 10 times - is this the eleventh round of speeches? then he lists his complaints - somehow we need to hear them in groups of 3 and 4 or we will lose focus - I am thinking here of the limitations of the listener related to a list of 7 (+/-2)things. I think Job's character must understate the list so as not to be heard as whining but as a matter of fact complaint about things he has no control over. And what inner light causes that change to I know that my go'el lives? It is the same gift of light that the psalmist receives - how can this be put across aurally? - by understatement, pace, pause, etc. I would want to hear the human tone - hope without a shadow of piety.
By Bob MacDonald, at
May 26, 2007 8:23 AM
Regarding the first comment:
Thanks for letting me know what specific problems you have with my accent. I briefly considered imitating a different, more well-known accent (i.e. one that appears on TV outside New Zealand), in order to make myself more easily understood, but I don't know if I'm skilled enough to pull it off without creating more problems than I solve. A better idea is probably for me to slow down a little, so that listeners can have time to interpret my accent. Of course, the readers haven't actually been chosen yet; I was just the first person who happened to get around to recording a sample chapter for comparing translations.
By the way, if I've correctly understood what you're saying, you seem to have quite a different understanding of Job from me. You see a "matter of fact complaint", whereas I see strong emotions like anger and frustration all over the place. Sure, Job's words seem quite sedate in the prologue, where he says “Naked I came out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there. Yahweh gave, and Yahweh has taken away. Blessed be the name of Yahweh.” (although he had just torn his robe), but in his very first speech he seems to be quite frustrated, to put it mildly, effectively saying "I sometimes wish I'd never been born at all!". (Now, am I making reference to Bohemian Rhapsody, or was Queen making reference to Job? Probably only the former, given the divergent contexts.) Of course, I may be mistaken. Since I'm not a reader of ancient Hebrew, my opinions on Job are based only on the English translations I've read, a little commentary, and my own personal experience of chronic illness.
<><
By , at
May 27, 2007 4:44 PM
Accents are really difficult in this online world. What sounds perfectly normal to one person sounds strange to another. We've had some people write in about PodBible that they only like this or that reader! For this project different accents will be less of a problem than they potentially are on PodBible because each speaker will be heard for several chapters at a time.
Questions of interpretation are more "problematic" because to read is always (intentionally or not) to provide a reading! I think on that one we'll just have to choose readers and parts and then let them interpret - perhaps we could (a) get each reader to do several small chunks and then pick people for parts and (b) discuss the interpretations a bit - though I think I prefer the idea of letting each reader work it out for themselves. That was in a way part of the motive for the project. Like different actors "reading" MacBeth differently - though without the director ;-)
By Tim, at
May 28, 2007 5:57 AM
PS The slowing down idea is probably a good one, for all the readers, if we do as I hope have an international team everyone will sound "strange and foreign" to some listeners!
By Tim, at
May 28, 2007 5:59 AM
Thanks! ¶ 8:03 AM
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Tim: nice idea - I think the three friends have lovely names. I was not able to get the audio files from librivox due to popups and advertisements. For translations, I wonder if you know Mitchell's http://www.amazon.com/Book-Job-Stephen-Mitchell/dp/0060969598
I have not looked at Job in Hebrew and it has been a long time since I read it last (2 or 3 years) but I do remember enjoying Mitchell
By Bob MacDonald, at
May 23, 2007 11:15 AM
The problem with a translation published in the last 75 years or so is that it is still in copyright, and for Librivox we need to supply the audio in the public domain.
Since you (and possibly others) had problems with the free service he used to make the files available I'll put them here...
By Tim, at
May 24, 2007 8:54 AM
Sugirtharajah, R.S. "Scripture, Scholarship, Empire: Putting the Discipline in Its Place." Expository Times 117, no. 1 (2005): 2-11.
A large part of the problem, Ryan, is that the academic systems in which we operate either do not give us credit for writing "popular" works, or only give us small credit. So, the recent "Performance Based Research Funding" exercise in NZ which grades lecturers seems to give more credit for the more esoteric publications, and little or no credit for writing aimed at ordinary readers. Such writing does not count as research, but there is no other grading system in which such work does gain brownie points!
Before I started this course I had never heard of any of the people we now study, and I would say it would be the same for most of you in the class. Unless you actively seek to know more, as we have done by studying theology, you never come across all this insightful work which brings me to my point.
What is the goal of a theology and theologians?
Is it to win the battle of popularity and bragging rights by publishing more books, however unreadable by the average person, and proving more of your pears ideas wrong then they can prove of yours?
Or is it to disseminate their insights to the church community as a whole so that we can benefit from their work. I know which one it should be but since I have never seen or heard of them in the 20 years I have spent at various churches I would have to say it’s the former which is a shame.
Is theological dissemination going to be left to people like us who take what we learn from the masters and spread it ourselves to those in our churches?
As a result of the way these systems discourage "popularisation", good biblical studies scholarship is seldom communicated in places that non-specialists read. Except by a few scholars, some of whom deliberately write books that will communicate to non-specialists. These scholars usually do not have stellar careers - they are most often employed by church-based theological colleges (seminaries), and so tend to be more conservative.
However, the way in which generations of pastors have failed to communicate much of what they studied has also led to a huge gulf between (almost) any sort of academically rigorous biblical studies and the way the Bible is read and used in church.
In Conservative churches, where the Bible is still regarded as the (or a very important) authority, the way in which scholars cite Bible passages to support points they are making has been understood as prooftexting. Most people in churches who seek to follow "the Bible's teaching" believe that one or two Bible verses can be read alone and mean something! Then add the approach to Scripture (largely driven by 20th century American Christian fundamentalists) that sees it as all of a piece, dictated word for word by God, and something like a makers manual for a car. By now you have effectively killed the Bible and turned it merely into a convenient cudgel to be used for beating your opponents to pulp.
In "Liberal" churches the situation is, if anything, worse. The Bible is seen as a merely human book, that it ceases to hold much authority at all, and is at best a source of some carefully selected or Bowdlerised stories to tell to Sunday School children (of whom there are very few left to listen). The resulting Politically Correct censored Bible has little of value to say, for its message is merely be good people and be nice to each other!
Now, after my moan, the good news! Thanks to the Internet it is easier today to get hold of good, stimulating, intelligent material about the Bible than ever before. There are dozens, perhaps now hundreds, of blogs written by biblical scholars. Many of them, like those listed in the side bar of this blog, and those they list in turn, present a good level of scholarship in ways that are easy to read. Soon there will be a wave of bibliopodcasts (or whatever we come to call audio files presented by biblical scholars). For now there are few, and most are not regular bite sized chunks, but solid meaty lectures. However do try guiding people to hear Amy Jill Levine of Vanderbilt Divinity School talking about Jesus and Women. Then they'll be begging you for tickets to her Auckland lecture!
And if that's too long for them, send them