Este é o texto da palestra de Jim Davila, do PaleoJudaica, a ser apresentada no dia 22 próximo, no Congresso de 2010 da SBL – Society of Biblical Literature -, que acontece em Atlanta, Georgia, USA, de 20 a 23 deste mês de novembro.
Seu tema: A ascensão do biblioblogar na primeira década do século XXI: What Just Happened: The rise of “biblioblogging” in the first decade of the twenty-first century
© James R. Davila, University of St. Andrews
2010 Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature in Atlanta
S22-209 SBL Blogger and Online Publication Section
Destaco alguns pontos, usando suas próprias palavras, intercaladas, às vezes, com acréscimos meus:
:: This paper “concerns the rise and development of ‘biblioblogging’ or blogging devoted to the area of academic biblical studies. Many aspects of this topic were treated in my two earlier papers [on biblioblogging published in 2005: here and here] and I have made some effort here to avoid overlapping with them (…) I will begin with some brief background notes on the rise of computer and Internet applications to biblical studies, then say a few words about the rise of biblioblogging, and then draw on the predictions I made in 2005 as a launching point for discussing further developments over the last five years”.
:: Após descrever o surgimento de várias listas de discussão dedicadas a temas acadêmicos do mundo bíblico, especialmente na década de 90 do século XX, Jim Davila conclui: “The 1990s were a heady era in which we learned to take for granted that we could trade notes to colleagues around the world anywhere, anytime, at the speed of light. And so the stage was set for the blog”.
:: Em seguida ele explica que “the advent of the ‘biblioblog,’ a blog with a substantial amount of content on academic biblical studies, came either with PaleoJudaica [March 2003] or with New Testament scholar AKMA Adam’s more diary-style blog, AKMA’s Random Thoughts, in January of 2002″.
:: Falando sobre o crescente número de biblioblogs que apareceu nos anos seguintes, diz de uma de suas projeções: “One prediction was (in late November of 2005) that over the next couple of years the exponential increase in the number of biblioblogs would continue. At the time I was aware of thirty more biblioblogs, making the total close to fifty. Exponential growth would then produce about 100 at the beginning of 2007 and 200 at the beginning of 2008. Statistics have been hard to come by, but I have located one supposedly comprehensive list of biblioblogs in September of 2009 which named 362 blogs ‘which deal primarily with matters concerning scholarly or academic biblical studies’ and another 262 ‘which have a different primary focus (e.g. theology, ancient Near Eastern archaeology, devotional and homiletic approaches to the Bible) or are commercial rather than personal blogs – yet which contain some biblical studies material.’ PaleoJudaica is listed in the first category, although I don’t really think of it as dealing primarily with the Bible. This gives us a total of 585 blogs that have at least some academic Bible-related content [O meu biblioblog, Observatório Bíblico, foi criado no dia 7 de dezembro de 2005].
:: Após falar de outras projeções, Jim Davila começa a tratar da contribuição dos biblioblogs para a área dos estudos bíblicos. São seis itens, aqui citados de modo esquemático, mas ele sempre dá exemplos:
. “First, it has made possible the rapid dissemination of information on new discoveries and other matters of interest – as well as dissemination of accessible specialist commentary on such matters – to a vastly enlarged audience” (…)
. “Second, blogging helps to put a personal face on biblical scholarship by allowing scholars to speak with an informal public voice different from the voice of academic publication” (…)
. “Third, blogging encourages biblical scholars to interact publicly with popular culture” (…)
. “Fourth, blogging has also generated some interesting discussions and controversies within the field and its professional organizations” (…)
. “Fifth, a new development, and a sign of the times, is that blogging has helped scholars to mobilize in support of their colleagues in an era of job cuts and financially threatened departments” (…)
. “Sixth and finally, I think it is fair to say that biblioblogging has contributed at least a little to the accelerating erosion of the authority of the mainstream media” (…)
Assim Jim Davila conclui sua exposição:
:: “To conclude, blogging has found a solid niche in academic biblical studies in the first decade of the twenty-first century. It has enriched the field in numerous ways and its expansion over the decade has been exponential, at least until recently. Moreover, the contributions of blogging have been amplified rather than diluted by the advent in recent years of additional new media such as Facebook, Twitter, and podcasts. All three are routinely used in synergy with blogs and I believe, although I cannot prove statistically, that dissemination of blog posts through these other media routinely increases blog traffic rather than reducing it. We are nowhere near a zero-sum game within the new media. And all indicators are that biblioblogging will be with biblical studies for a long time to come”.