Labels: audio
¶ 2:18 PM
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I love reading stories aloud, and our kids are a bit beyond that now (just a bit, all being thoroughly adult), so I enjoy Librivox as a hobby. As well as the William book Barbara and I are (slowly) reading together: More William by Richmal Crompton I have started a version of the Just So Stories. LV already has more than one, but since I had made my readings of the book available online before LV started I felt it was not unfair to do a LV version now.If you'd like to see what it sounds like the first story: How the Whale Got His Throat is available in draft form (please report any problems or errors).
Appeal for help: there is a thirteenth Just So Story, added to the US edition in 1903 (which was absent from the 1902 UK edition, and most subsequent editions) called "The Tabu Tale" if anyone can source a copy (published before 1926) that I can use I coulld read all thirteen. (There is also a fourteenth but it is in copyright and does not have the wordplays that make the "real" ones fun.
PS: The heading is a quote, it is how the 'Stute fish describes humans, I think the fish was spot on, we are (usuallly) nice, but (often) nubbly!
Labels: audio, children, librivox, literature, open.source
¶ 8:36 AM
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Along with all the marking and paper preparation getting ready for leaving for SBL I have finished my latest Livrivox project. An early PG Wodehouse novel, Uneasy Money, pure escapism!Uneasy Money is a romantic comedy by P.G. Wodehouse, published during the First World War, it offers light escapism. More romantic but only a little less humorous that his mature works, it tells of the vicissitudes of poor Lord Dawlish, who inherits five million dollars, but becomes a serially disappointed groom.
When the story opens Bill (Lord Dawlish, a thoroughly pleasant man) is engaged to a demanding actress. His first thought when hearing of his massive legacy from a stranger whose tendency to slice he once cured on a West Country golf course is of the disappointed relatives. His trip to the USA attempting to give back the windfall results in complication after complication, including firearms and burglaries as well as the usual human misunderstandings that accompany any human life.
Uneasy Money was first published as a serial in the Saturday Evening Post in the USA from December 1915, and in the UK in Strand Magazine starting December 1916. It first appeared in book form on March 17, 1916 by D. Appleton & Co., New York, and later in the UK (on October 4, 1917) by Methuen & Co., London.
A silent, black-and-white film version was made in 1918.
Labels: audio, entertainment, literature
¶ 1:46 PM
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This second of my recast podcasts continues thinking about Jesus as "fulfilment" of the Scriptures, by examininging at one topic that's been agreed universally by the Church universal for decades, and another that, in NZ where a bill whose detractors claimed would criminalise parents spanking children, was in the daily headlines when I recorded the 'cast.You can download it here.
I'm working with this material again for a possible short series in Daystar an NZ Evangelical monthly, which will be republishing my piece on families in the Bible in their December issue.
Labels: audio, biblical.studies, podcast, reading
¶ 6:40 AM
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I checked if IE would play it correctly and it didn't so I expect the problem is in the set up of the shortcut. Maybe there is a missing piece in the html. It sounds like what we used to have when we played an LP at 78 rpm - it all goes by too fast and then silence.
By 
Bob MacDonald, at
November 10, 2009 12:14 PM
It is a straight link to the MP3 file, so I think it must be a problem with the file itself, but one that only shows in some players...
By Tim, at
November 10, 2009 12:27 PM
So, here is the first of two audio posts discussing what it might mean for Jesus to "fulfil" Scripture:
What DOES "fulfil" mean?
PS this post is the first of several over the next few weeks while I will be either or both extremely busy or travelling in which I will repost here things that were first put on my 5 Minute Bible podcast if you first saw them there I apologise for cross-posting after all this time.
Labels: audio, biblical.studies, podcast, reading
¶ 4:00 PM
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Chris thus joins the existing biblical studies podcast series (the order is chronological, since style, audience and frequency offer interesting variety):
- Matt Page's Jesus Films (Sept 2006)
- My 5 Minute Bible (April 2007)
- Phil Harland's Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean (Oct 2007)
- Mark Goodacre's NTPod (June 2009)
- Steve Wiggins’s Sects and Violence in the Ancient World (July 2009)
Incidentally (but appropriately) our PodBible daily podcasts of the Bible itself from various amateur readers precedes all of these biblical studies 'casts :)
Labels: audio, audio.bible, bible.reading, biblical.studies, biblical.studies.online, podcast
¶ 7:01 AM
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The second is a summary of the ideas behind the vernacular resourcing through approximate oral translation (that I have presented before here - but cannot resist
Labels: audio, audio.bible, culture, digital, mission
¶ 5:55 PM
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Hi Tim,
That was an excellent introduction to the PodBible. I have posted about it to pass it on.
- A Text without contexts is dumb! 2: Text without cotext is dumb (stimulated by teaching Understanding and Interpreting the Bible)
- Chance or Providence? (needed preparation for the next one)
- Direct speech in biblical narratives (I'm teaching biblical narrative again ;)
If they work for that then the series is working :) and 3.7GB in July (which equates to 16 podcasts each of which was downloaded more than 300 times during the month - not to mention the other 24 podcasts that were less popular).
Labels: audio, bible.reading, narrative, podcast
¶ 7:23 AM
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- a joint biblical studies podcast, maybe of two sorts:
- a virtual common-room, where a few of us chat about some topic
- a more prepared edited 'cast where different people speak briefly and then perhaps respond to what another has said (getting the interactivity but allowing a more considered approach)
- maybe using a Facebook page to encourage wider interaction with our podcasts - we each said that while we appreciated the way voice adds a richness, nuances like tone distinguish sarcasm from more gentle wry humour, we missed the interaction with an audience that other media like live talks or blogs provide
On the technical details:
- we thought of using Talkshoe so participants could phone in and would not need recording gear themselves
- we also thought of getting someone to act as host and ask questions / guide the conversation
- a topic: needs to encourage different points of view, probably to work well needs to allow different personalities to 'come through" (audio rather than text medium) needs to be potentially interesting to a wider audience
- a host: needs to be willing to refrain from expressing their own opinion!
- some speakers
- an editor: to take the recording and cut the fluff (remove the worst ums and errs, or where the participants make asides like "is this too loud?") - I'd be happy to do that.
Dramatis Personae:
Mark (as well as being the biblical studies Blogfather) has started an excellent NT focused podcast series NT Pod and for a couple of years I've been doing an occasional 5 Minute Bible podcast (basically Hebrew Bible focused but occasionally trespassing - nearly 40 'casts so far).
Labels: audio, biblical.studies, biblical.studies.online, podcast
¶ 2:26 AM
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I think the role of the מוֹכִיח - referee in Job (9:33, 32:12, 40:2) might be an interesting subject - maybe too hard to boil down to a podcast. I have just read Ticciati on this role and have an initial post. The problem has to be framed - that's hard. It requires a lot of information just to frame the discussion. One possible frame is the variation in translation of this term. Not even Young's literal translation gives a clue that this word recurs in these places in exactly this form. I have rendered them all referee to bring out the irony and the serious invitation in the recurrence. Post is here if you hav the time and patience with this youngster.
Anyway - it's nice to think you and Mark have both talked about the technology in this way.
By Bob MacDonald, at
July 22, 2009 9:42 AM
Thanks for the helpful post, Tim. I hope to comment on my blog too in due course, and also to set up the NT Gateway page on podcasts. Given that there are not yet many of us bibliobloggers in the podcasting world, it may take a bit of a push to get something collaborative off the ground, but I think it would be really worthwhile.
By Mark Goodacre, at
July 23, 2009 1:55 AM
I'd love to help however I can. I have recording gear and some editing experience. I also have opinions about biblical studies, but temperamentally I'm more like Leo than Dvorak (if you're familiar with This Week in Tech). Skype-centric podcasts generally sound excellent, and only require a microphone for each person calling in to the central host.
By Bryan, at
July 26, 2009 4:53 AM
Labels: audio, hebrew.bible, old testament, podcast, teaching
¶ 4:20 PM
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What do you make of it?
[The MP3 was produced by a husband and wife team, and together with a very good essay explaining and justifying the performance it was submitted for the last assignment in the Genesis class I taught recently. I shared some of the thinking behind this assessment on Theologians without borders.]
Labels: audio, audio.bible, genesis, teaching
¶ 4:12 PM
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Perhaps the biggest, and certainly the most complex, Librivox project I've been involved in is finished! It took 400 days, involved about 20 different readers "playing" the various characters whose reminiscences and letters make up the story, in which different characters versions of events are told alongside each other.
The Woman in White was written by Wilkie Collins in 1859, is the first mystery novel, (which may make it attractive to Barbara who reads whodunits. The Woman in White is widely regarded as one of the first (and finest) in the genre of ’sensation novels’. Many people know it through the musical adaptation by Andrew Lloyd Webber in 2004. It has al,so been filmed by the BBC, a Rusian company and Holywood...
Oh yes, and you can listen, or download from the Internet Archive, or Librivox.
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Of course, if you want text... just read Watering the "Desert of Books" & Vernacular resources: watering the desert of books II.
Labels: audio, bible, bible.translation
¶ 11:34 AM
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Won't the translations be inaccurate?
Oh yes! But this is part of the attraction of the project, as well as being rendered in the mother tongue the out of copyright texts are also adapted (a little more than is usual in a translation – for all translations are also to some extent cultural adaptations) this makes them more useful. But it may mean that some sort of peer review process should be built in, to ensure that undesirable errors do not creep in. I doubt this needs to be formalised. Since the new “text” is semi-oral and since semi-oral cultures have a flexibility to adapt their texts, the pastor would rework and improve any chapter that their colleagues question.
How will we ensure that busy senior pastors actually find time to do the translating?
First, not a lot of time is needed, just read a chapter, then reread it a paragraph at a time and speak it in their mother tongue. Say two hours for a chapter, once they have done a couple during a training day, and done the first few more slowly on their own. Second, the laptop itself is a carrot. It stays under their authority as long as they produce an agreed number of chapters – becoming their possession after an agreed period. Third, the fact that they are producing this resource is a source of honour (mana etc.) and the fact that it is in their voice will also add to their authority in other things.
Senior pastors won't be able to master the unfamiliar technology!
How many senior pastors do you know who do not have children (and/or grandchildren, nieces, nephews...) in their household. How much training do you think those guys will need? But it is true not all will be able or willing to support the project. Many useful medicines cannot be tolerated by some patients, Penicillin is a well-known example, this does not stop their use among the rest of the population!
There will be a lot of new technology to break down and support!
Not a lot. Most of the distribution can be to existing mobile phones or MP3 players. So, for each district you are looking at one laptop (the OLPCs are designed to be rugged and if they are becoming the possession of the families there is an interest in protecting them) and perhaps several MP3 players (they are also very rugged and now quite cheap <$20 retail). You would naturally use the laptop model that is that is chosen for the national education system, or one for which support should be available. And anyway, how much does it cost under the old print system to get books to pastors? And they are culturally inappropriate books, in foreign languages!
This scheme gives the power to the local church!
Yes! Great isn't it :) Print allowed foreign missions, missionaries and ministries to produce “great” resources for the poor people people of the land. This way they get assisted to produce resources for themselves. If they start out doing Matthew Henry in Kisangali, how long do you think it will take before some pastors also produce their own “texts” dealing with locally raised issues? Where has print ever achieved that degree of localisation?
This scheme will reduce the motivation for literacy in places with low literacy rates :(
First, get your priorities right! What are you about? Helping people become clones of the West? Or deepening their understanding? Second, if you think this little project will have a bigger impact than radio, TV and mobile phones you have a higher view of its potential than I have ;) Literacy as we have known it for 500 years is under threat, but this project will not contribute much to the change, though it does work with it rather than resist... “Literacy” and “books” are not idols to be worshiped but a technology and skill that are no longer as dominant as they once were – do not make the dominant technology of the past a fetish object!
Labels: audio, bible, biblical.studies.online, copyright, digital, education, publication
¶ 7:32 PM
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If you want a free, objective way to check the reception in your area BEFORE you lock yourself with a specific carrier, you should really check out "Got Reception?" (http://www.gotreception.com).
By 
dave88, at
November 8, 2008 5:41 PM
Following on from my previous post The "book" of the future Theologians Without Borders has converted a comment to a stimulating post in Transferring Knowledge in a Desert of Books Jennifer Turner puts the experience of teaching in Africa where "libraries were very sparse, due both to shortage of funds and lack of materials in the local language" with the sight of an OLPC laptop, to generate the dream that we might "skip to the next generation of knowledge transfer" by putting a library on such a machine for village pastors. How about we put these two posts together, and then tweak the results a bit?
At selected centres (like theological colleges) someone provides a laptop stacked with out of copyright or e-texts for which permission had been given. Senior pastors with a good command of the "imperial" language (English, French or whatever) then read selected works a paragraph at a time into the built-in microphone, translating into their mother tongue as they go. It would not be an accurate translation, and it might well include explanation, but that would just make it more useful!
It is in the senior pastors' interest to help, because they get to base a laptop at their home (their kids will nag them into it) and the churches they are responsible for will respect them even more.
These audio books get loaded onto mobile phones (or MP3 players) for village pastors and others. The result semi-literate (and lets face it in much of the world village pastors are often either semi-literate or less than fluently literate) pastors get real solid stimulus and information for a fraction of the cost of print.
It is in the village pastors' interest to listen because they will seem better educated, without all the hassle and risk to their status involved in moving from partial to full literacy.
Do the maths! For a district with say 20 local churches:
- cost of one laptop, loaded with "books" $250
- plus 20 MP3 players @ $30 = $600
All we need are:
- enough people to catch the vision
- publishers of texts like the Africa Bible Commentary to be willing to see their print editions reach extended twenty-fold
- people to "sell" the idea to senior pastors
- a bunch of Western agencies to give up their fetish for print!
Labels: audio, bible, biblical.studies.online, copyright, digital, education, publication
¶ 11:30 AM
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So much more can be done with audio, esp. for people in oral societies. Print is good but it can stifled us, to some extent, in the West.
Thanks for posting this, Tim. I hope many catch the vision.
I just posted about "hearing" on BBB.
By Wayne Leman, at
October 24, 2008 12:05 PM
I might suggest working with TransWorld Radio and FEBA and the like instead. They have trained announcers working in many of the languages of Africa and anything they produce will be transmitted to a large population.
That proliferation of gadgets worries me...
By David Ker, at
October 24, 2008 12:23 PM
Thanks both!
David, I think minimal gadgets (one laptop per language and MP3 players where mobile phones are scarce), and do the radio stations actually transmit is tribal languages or just in the major trade languages? In Congo we had 5 trade languages but c250 mother tongues...
...and, anyway why not both and...
If only people would first publish with something like a CC license ;) so that adaptations were possible... still Matthew Henry tradapted (TM = adapted in the process of approximate quick and dirty translation) into Africa could be more appropriate than a modern print work translated accurately ;)
By Tim, at
October 24, 2008 12:37 PM
PS @David, if I read the statistics right 32% of Mozambicans mother tongue is not one of the several most-used languages in the country...
By Tim, at
October 24, 2008 12:40 PM
True, Mozambique is a special case with relatively few languages. I don't know what radio is like in a country with mucho languages. But my suspicion is that languages of wider influence are covered and possibly community radio transmits in the local dialects.
This is good stuff you're pondering and I hope you don't think I'm being disagreeable.
By David Ker, at
October 24, 2008 3:43 PM
I think Literacy Bridge aims to get suitable audio devices down to USD$5.
<><
By , at
October 24, 2008 3:46 PM
There are already several translation projects involving the Africa Bible Commentary. The French version for Francophone Africa will be released in early November 2008, and the Swahili translation will be ready in 2009. A Portuguese translation for Mozambique and Angola and an Amharic translation for North Africa are in progress. People are welcome to apply to the Board for translation rights into other languages.
These translations won't cover 600 languages, but they will cover a big chunk of Africa. And they will be fairly accurate translations vetted by experts in the language, which the recorded versions wouldn't be.
By , at
October 24, 2008 4:06 PM
Tim, see futurebible for anonymous' identity.
Two extracts, a thought from the BBC and then my comment:
As you might expect, book publishing in India is enormously complex: 80,000 books are published a year by 16,000 different publishers in India's 22 major languages. Translation happens between Indian languages and to and from non-Indian languages. Piracy is a major issue: a number of contributors bemoan the fact that anything published in Bengali is immediately pirated in Bangladesh (and shortly thereafter on sale in the shops of my neighborhood in Queens).Mohini Rao in one of the articles in the book mentioned above wrote
We are facing the post-literacy problems even before achieving complete literacy. We are coping with the information revolution even as we struggle with pre-industrial problems. . . . According to the report of the committee on TV software, '. . . Electronic media like the radio and TV have the potential of transcending the literacy barrier and therefore also the class barrier.' TV has made it possible for the non-literate masses to have access to information, and consequently, to the fruits of development without first crossing the literacy barrier. People belonging to the pre-industrial era can take a leap into the post-industrial era without passing through the stages through which the West had to pass.I listen to the (also often stimulating) Digital Planet podcasts (I believe they are also broadcast) from the BBC world service. While in Brazil (another huge and rapidly developing economy and culture) the presenter visited a radio station whose playlists are chosen by listeners.
So, here's my comment in the IFbook blog:
Labels: audio, culture, digital, mobile
¶ 10:15 AM
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He's invited the arty to produce art to create "an illustrated manuscript for the 21st century." He is also inviting us to read a cyber psalm for an audio version - and if I can persuade him potentially multi-media version(s). I'm also trying to persuade him to put the text into the public domain, so we could run the audio project on Librivox ;) He plans to put the whole thing online and also sell print copies...
If you are thinking of recording an audio psalm for Psalterium Cyberium please do spare some thought to the equipment you'll use, it can make a huge difference. To illustrate here are two versions of Cyber Psalm 11 recorded on:
- a headset mic using the sound card built in to my laptop
- an decent quality mic using an external sound card
Labels: audio, culture, digital, internet, librivox
¶ 10:43 AM
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Wow. The second is my favorite. What were the specs on the mp3?
BTW #11 is one of my favorites. And hearing you read it gave me goose bumps and made me smile.
By David Ker, at
October 10, 2008 12:47 PM
All the MP3s are at 64kbs, which is quite enough to give good quality for mono voice. Though Librivox uses 128kbs, and Archive.org offers a choice.
Both the mic and sound card make quite a difference, so getting a good setup is quite important. Unless we added a backing track ;)
By Tim, at
October 10, 2008 1:05 PM
I have a Zoom H2 with fabulous recording quality. But I still haven't figured out the setting that makes me sound like a Kiwi...
Since we're hoping for lots of participation I'd suggest people trying their default computer recorder. What was that thingy you set up here where people could leave audio comments? Could we mash that with the texts of the Cyber-Psalms so that someone could just hit record and read off the screen. Those things tend to not work on WordPress very well but I might be persuaded to do that segment of the project on Blogger (ugh).
By David Ker, at
October 10, 2008 2:04 PM
Hmm, could do, though the sound quality was not good. BTW to show how bad it can get here's my laptop's built in mic!
By Tim, at
October 10, 2008 2:22 PM
I tried phone through Gabcast:
http://lingamish.com/2008/10/09/recording-a-cyber-psalm-toll-free-by-phone-in-six-countries/
What it lacks in sound quality it makes up for in ease of use (no software/hardware just punch in two codes.)
By David Ker, at
October 10, 2008 3:36 PM
At that quality we could always make them AMR files (1/10 size of your MP3).
I still like the idea of making it a Public Domain Librivox project, for the audience...
By Tim, at
October 10, 2008 4:00 PM
I've done several chapters in collaborative projects, and also several "solo" readings. My most popular (so far) have been:
- Stalky and Co. - Rudyard Kipling > 8,000 listeners
- A Man of Means - P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill > 1,500
- American Notes - Rudyard Kipling > 1,500
I am just finishing Three Men and a Maid by PG Wodehouse and was really encouraged by the feedback on these recordings from Gustav evacuees (see Gustav, Librivox and Life).
In its way PodBible is another collaborative (over 300 volunteer readers and dozens of ongoing volunteer workers) reading the Bible first live over a long weekend, now podcasting the Bible a chapter a day or the whole Bible in a year, and soon to make individual books available in one hour chunks as an audio Bible you could download and put on CD or cassette for those with poor eyesight. The translation we used the CEV is designed for easy listening and is suitable for ESL listeners.
There is also a PodBible Facebook page where a different group of listeners can get a daily "fix" of the Bible.
Labels: audio, bible, culture, librivox
¶ 8:49 AM
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You can also try www.FaithComesByHearing.com; this ministry has 10 popular English versions of the audio bible and 314 foreign languages!
By , at
September 9, 2008 3:28 AM
Check out NewFiction.com. They have free audio books.
By tomlopy, at
November 14, 2008 12:56 PM
their site is http://www.newfiction.com/ and they offer isoaps.
By , at
December 19, 2008 10:22 PM
I've been reading early PG Wodehouse comedies recently, A Man of Means by P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill was finished back in May,and since then Three Men and a Maid by Wodehouse alone. I have been praying for one of the proof listeners, so when Gustav threatened their area that became a cause for concern.
Here's what they wrote after the storm was past:
You are so correct about the separation being a very difficult part of this evacuation process. At work, I find that we have a great deal to pray about with our customers searching for family members and pets, who have been separated from each other. At one point, our interstate 59 coming from New Orleans was so backed up that a trip which normally takes 4-6 hours, took one customer 14 hours, with gas stations along the way out of gas, several people including this customer found themselves walking the evacuation route for the last 20 or more miles. Nothing on the news about this though, so all I know is to keep praying for all those who are far from home.So, more to pray about, but some thanfulness and joy mixed with the "pleases", isn't the Internet wonderful. How else could an Old Testament teacher in New Zealand be able to brush against the lives of people far away at a time of crisis? BTW Smith the Bulldog is indeed quite a show-stealing act ;)
Something which might cheer you: I took mp3 copies of your Wodehouse project with me to work, during the rain squals (they usuallky lasted about 20 mins) I played tracks from them for the travelers standing around. Many loved the book and asked about it, one woman in particular stayed while I cooked a pizza for her family and listened to 2 tracks. It turned out she had heard of LibriVox and planned to download Three Men and a Maid when she gets back into her New Orleans area home. I can't seem to say this very well, but I'm trying to say that for at least 2 carrivans of people, your reading gave resspite, comfort and the first real laughter I'd heard all day as our friend Smith the bulldog stole the show that fateful night that auntie returned.
Labels: audio, internet, librivox
¶ 5:48 AM
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However, like Deirdre I be pushing pause a lot, the translation they chose for Ear Bible (the NASB) is far from ideal for hearing. It is a deliberately "formal equivalence" translation, which means that it is only just English. For regular speakers of Biblish it is fine, but for our primary target group when we started PodBible, it is far from ideal. We imagined people who did not grow up with the KJV, don't speak Biblish, are not used to sitting down to "study a book" for such people (most of us today ;) the NASB is not the audio Bible of choice.
We chose the Contemporary English Version, a Bible intended and translated to be read aloud, an audio Bible translation. So compare a sample passage in each version and imagine which would be easier to hear:
Since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, each of us is to exercise them accordingly: if prophecy, according to the proportion of his faith; if service, in his serving; or he who teaches, in his teaching; or he who exhorts, in his exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness. [NASB]Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking the NASB, just suggesting it is not the best translation choice for an audio Bible. So if you want a Bible for your ears, an easy to listen to audio Bible give PodBible a try... and while you are at it how about becoming a fan of PodBible: every one's audio Bible on Facebook!
God has also given each of us different gifts to use. If we can prophesy, we should do it according to the amount of faith we have. If we can serve others, we should serve. If we can teach, we should teach. If we can encourage others, we should encourage them. If we can give, we should be generous. If we are leaders, we should do our best. If we are good to others, we should do it cheerfully. [CEV]
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When will PodBible be finished? I notice you only have 134 Psalms, for example.
By Iyov, at
August 7, 2008 6:49 PM
We are doing a chapter a day. Most books we finish in one go, but 150 days of psalms in a row seemed too much, so we are doing them in chunks of a couple of weeks evety couple of months. We are working to make the books we have already finished available in an easier download format for people who want to listen to a book rather than get a regular chapter a day...
By Tim, at
August 8, 2008 6:23 AM
You can also try www.FaithComesByHearing.com
They have a great ministry and they give away their audio bibles.
By , at
August 8, 2008 7:42 AM
Basically the idea is to enable/encourage people to:
- listen to the Bible
- share things that they have thought, prayed or done as a result of listening
- encourage each other to respond to the biblical chapters they hear
If you are a FaceBook guru I'd be very glad of suggestions on how to make this "work" better. If you are a keen Bible listener, then do add some stories to the page!
Labels: audio, bible, internet
¶ 4:22 PM
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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
By Stephen G, at
January 4, 2008 11:09 PM
Here's a remote I purchased: www.FlipperRemote.com. So far, its been working great, and operates both a TV and Cable box. I ut in the users favorite channels, and it solves the problem of menus.
- 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
Thanks for sharing such an valuable information, these are very useful.
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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 to hear my latest experiment 5 Minute Bible podcasts. They attempt to break complex ideas about studying the Bible seriously into short "bites".
Labels: audio, bible, open.biblical.studies, podcast
¶ 3:03 PM
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This is a great post. Thanks also for pointing me to Amy Jill Levine. I listened to the audio of her lecture.
Labels: audio, copyright, internet
¶ 12:28 PM
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Labels: audio, education, podcast
¶ 12:21 PM
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So, I assume the problem was the Evoca end... I will try to watch the system and see if it is reliable enough to use. I will also try MyChingo to compare. In the meanwhile do keep trying, and letting me know if it is broken!
PS: Comment by Mike
¶ 7:21 AM
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- stalky_0_kipling.mp3
- stalky_1_kipling.mp3
- stalky_3_kipling.mp3
- stalky_4_kipling.mp3
- stalky_5_kipling.mp3
- stalky_6_kipling.mp3
- stalky_7_kipling.mp3
- stalky_8_kipling.mp3
- stalky_9_kipling.mp3
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