Biblical Studies

First up are some posts relating to biblical studies. Jeremy over at Parableman has a post reconciling of two verses concerning those pesky Canaanites mentioned at the beginning of Judges 3.  While the verses at first blush appear to be contradictory, he resolves it in his post, “Apparent Contradiction in Judges 3.”

Over at ReturningKing.Com, Jeff posts the ninth installment of a series entitled, “A Pastoral Soteriology” with his post on “Atonement in the Old Testament Law” where he demonstrates how its view of penal substitution foreshadows Christ’s sacrifice on the cross.

While not expressly on the Bible per se, William Green also reflects on the atonement in his post, “Why God can’t just forgive sin.” You can find this and more at his Weblog of a Christian Philosophy Student.

Now back to the Old Testament.  e-Mom presents a Christian viewpoint on one of annual feasts prescribed by Jewish law in her post, The Jewish Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot), over at Chrysalis.

Moving into the New Testament, NCSue has written a reflection on Jesus bearing our burdens (Matthew 11:28-30) in her post, “Thoughts from the ‘in box’,” over at her blog, IN HIM WE LIVE AND MOVE AND HAVE OUR BEING.

Annette presents some reflections on Hebrews 11 in her post, “Faith is….” You can read this and more over at her blog, Fish and Cans.

Henry Neufeld takes on Paul Helm’s views on translation theory in his post, Dynamic and Cognitive Equivalence, over at Participatory Bible Study Blog (Methinks I agree with Neufeld on this one).

While not technically a post on a passage from the Bible, Ketan Rindani posts “10 Bible Facts You Must Know” over at JESUS IS LORD!. (Hmmm… I’m not sure that you “must” know that the Bible contains 31,071 verses — an interesting fact perhaps, but not essential)

Christian Life and Thought

Diane, over at Crossroads: Where Faith and Inquiry Meet, continues to report on articles and books that help us help the poor. Her latest installment is entitled, “More on How to REALLY Help the Poor,” which highlights a story about some women in the Philippines who meet for prayer and working out sound business plans. Her post made me think of the great website http://www.kiva.org, where you can make microloans to people in the two-thirds world.

Ridge Burns, over at at his Blog, asks readers how attached they are to God’s call on their lives in his post dealing with major life Transitions. As someone who just went through a major work transition, I appreciated his candor.

Over at Thoughts and Confessions of a Girl Who Loves Jesus…, michelle shares how God is restoring her life in an emotional post simply titled, “09.09.09.”

Shannon Christman, a.k.a. the Minority Thinker , reflects on the importance of intergenerational fellowship in the body of Christ in her brief post, “Generational Segregation.”

Barry Wallace challenges us to walk the fine line between sloth and proper rest and asks us if we know ourselves in this regard in his musing, “2 little sleep + 2 much caffeine = headed 4 disaster,” posted at his blog who am i?

Since we are on the topic of rest, it seems appropriate to mention Andrea‘s post, “Listening for the Voice of God” where she underscores the importance of quieting our hearts and attending to the voice of God. Her blog is Unfailingly Loved.

Rick Schiano has a reflection on how our lives can impact others based on his reading of 1 Thessalonians 1:2-9 in his post, “Our Lives Make a Difference,” over at Ricks Victory Blog.

Finally, Tom Gilson, the Thinking Christian, wants to get the word out about the National Conference on Christian Apologetics. So if you are going to be in Charlotte, NC, in mid-November you may want to check it out.

Next Up…

The 295th Christian Carnival will be going green as it will be hosted next Wednesday, September 23, 2009, over at The Evangelical Ecologist.  To submit a post for the next Christian Carnival, go to the Blog Carnival submission form, or send your submission to christiancarnivalsubmissions shift-2 gmail dotte com. For more instructions on submitting posts you can go here, and for  examples of past carnivals, see the Christian Carnival archive.

• First, the goal shouldn’t be to blog the entire meeting. That, obviously, would be a bit too much. I would think that all of the major presentations should be covered (e.g., the presidential address) as well as some of the more controversial papers. In addition, some editorial pieces may be worthwhile, especially since this will be the first SBL without the AAR.
• Second, in addition to the type of posts noted in the first point, the SBL Meeting Blog should also serve as an ongoing “carnival-like” repository of links to SBL-related discussions going on in the blogosphere. Thus, someone could keep and eye out and put together a daily round-up of links. Even better, bloggers could be asked to email a trackback url to the editor of the SBL Meeting Blog when a relevant post is uploaded.
• Third, perhaps a regular podcast from the SBL meeting could be arranged and distributed via the SBL Meeting Blog. This could include interviews with some SBL bigwigs, discussion of controversial papers, or just general impressions of the meeting.

If these are the sort of things the SBL Meeting Blog would cover, then the blog would need to be a team blog with different disciplines represented and perhaps an overal editor/organizer. Then we could assign certain bloggers to cover certain papers and topics, etc. Of course there would have to be some technical details worked out; first and foremost the question of where the blog would be located and what blogging platform would be used (WordPress is my vote). Leonard wants this as part of the SBL Forum, though I am not sure if their server has blogging software capability (I assume it probably does, though I am not sure if it is a unix based server or not).

At any rate, those are some of my ideas. I now open up the comments for a discussion on how best to blog the SBL annual meeting. What say you?

At any rate, my original post was far more polished than this one! Now, back to marking papers…

Here’s an excerpt:

Tech researcher Gartner Inc. reported earlier this year that 200 million people have given up blogging, more than twice as many as are active.

“A lot of people have been in and out of this thing,” Gartner analyst Daryl Plummer told reporters. “Everyone thinks they have something to say, until they’re put on stage and asked to say it.” Given the average lifespan of a blogger and the current growth rate of blogs, Gartner says blogging has probably peaked.

Which isn’t to say that blogging is dead. Quite the opposite. Blog aggregator Technorati estimates that 3 million new blogs are launched every month. The site’s tongue-in-cheek slogan: “Zillions of photos, videos, blogs, and more. Some of them have to be good.”

As someone who has struggled with blogging the last couple months (and no, I don’t plan on giving up on blogging), I can relate to those who throw in the towel. I think that Olson hits the nail on the proverbial head when he notes, “What tired bloggers are increasingly discovering, however, is that it’s not necessarily the quality of their blog posts that matter. It’s matching their quality with frequency.”  Once my blog took off (and I thank all of my readers past and present), I felt this pressure to blog regularly so as not to disappoint my readers — and it was this perception of needing to blog that made it a chore rather than an enjoyable creative outlet and part of my teaching ministry.

I encourage you to read Olson’s whole post.