SansBlogue: Biblical studies podcasting

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

I've just had an interesting "chat" with Mark G about Biblical Studies podcasting. Some of the conversation (we used MSN, if we had only used Skype I could have recorded it, but ironically we used plain text ;) was technical stuff that would only be of interest to others doing podcasts, but there were two nuggets that deserve wider thought:

KQED Radio - Michael Krasny's studio by David Sifry

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

I'm convinced that both ideas are worth following up. But, at the start of a new semester, am also too busy to remember ;) so this post is (a) a "reminder to self" and (b) a call for comments - what do you think of the ideas and (c) a call for expressions of interest, would you be interested in participating in such a recorded conversation?

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

So, what is needed:

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.

This post has mainly been about the joint podcast idea, but I do not want to forget the Facebook idea either... this would be a page where podcasts by bibliobloggers or others who open serious biblical studies to a wider audience would be listed and so get mentioned on the profiles of the page's members and perhaps encourage a bit more interaction...

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