It’s probably safe to say that the number of Bible readers is directly related to the number of Christians. In the West (and the best numbers I could find relate in general to Europe and the USA), there has been a steady decrease in the number of self-identified Christians and church attendance. It’s no surprise, then, that Bible reading has decreased, and the only way to reverse this contribution to the decline has to be a revitalization of Christianity in the West. The follow-up question then is, “Can new technologies contribute to the revitalization of Christianity, including the reading of the Bible?”

I think there is also a conceptual factor at work. People still simply conceive of the Bible as a printed, physical book. There is an older gentleman in my home congregation who uses a computer regularly for email and internet, but when he reads his Bible, he pulls out his mother’s RSV Bible from the 1950′s. It’s rewarding for him to have that tangible connection with his family’s history. Even when he was part of an online Bible study group, and I linked directly to biblical texts using bib.ly or Reftagger, he still pulled out his Bible to read the text. It’s not just an issue with older readers, however. Biblical scholars and seminary students have certainly discovered the benefits of working with Bible software, but I don’t know how many of them actually just read the Bible on their computer. How does this concept of the Bible as a physical book affect the number of people reading the Bible? Sales of physical books have been steadily declining in recent years, and just last year, Amazon reported that they were selling more e-books than physical ones. So, if fewer people are reading physical books, and the Bible is primarily conceived as a physical book, we should not be surprised to see a decrease in Bible reading. I believe that the majority of Bible readers simply have not made the shift to think of the Bible as a digital resource.
Now the question becomes, “Can people be enticed to read the Bible if it is delivered in digital forms?”

[More in part three all being well, WordPress problems continue.]

Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg are holding a Blog Tour on Religion and Media, in this post Mark Vitalis Hoffman (of Biblical Studies and Technological Tools) is replying to this question from me:

Mark, advances in electronic communications technologies and equipment (especially Internet and mobile phones) makes Scripture and the tools to understand it more easily and widely available than ever. Yet at the same time rates of engaged regular Scripture reading among Christians in the West since the reformation has hardly been lower.

Are there technologies or tools you think have the potential over the next few years to revitalize Scripture reading among Western Christians?
He writes:

Thanks for this question, Tim. I know it’s a concern that is near to your heart!

Two or three decades ago, at least in the United States, it was not unusual to see Christians who would regularly carry their Bibles around with them and presumably read them. There was quite a market for Bible carrying cases. A quick check on Amazon shows that there still is a market for them (over 900 items under “bible carrying case”), but there in the fourth spot is a “Leather Christian iPad 2 Case.” My point? As you note, technology is providing more biblical resources than ever, and they are easier than ever to access. So why the decrease in Bible reading?

I am convinced that Christians, both consumers (readers) and producers of content, will eventually get in sync with the possibilities technology offers, but it also is probably going to require some revitalization of Christianity in general. I’m trying to say a few things with that sentence, so let me expand.

[I have been having real problems with WordPress today :( I hope I can post the expansion in another post.]

The picture I stole from Jonathan and he stole from New Biscuit (I don't know if they stole it or what...)

Jonathan my fellow ξἐνος and fellow Kiwi has posted the April (Fool’s/Fools) Biblical Studies Carnival. As is usual for these carnivals there is plenty of good solid stuff to think about and the required monthly pseud-archaeological controversy is well summed up in the linked posts. As one expects from Jonathan there is also plenty of hilarious humour. All in all a fine job and a useful contribution :)

I could not resist stealing just one illustration…

Jim West mentioned a new (to me) Olt Testament blog Matthieu Richelle. Among Mattieu’s posts is an English abstract The Literary Structure of Genesis 1-11 of an interesting paper (in French) on the structure of Gen 1-11:

Mattieu Richelle, “La structure littéraire de l’Histoire Primitive (Gn 1.1-11.26) dans son état final”, BN 151 (2011) 3-22.

Since I am just reaching Gen 3 in the course I am teaching this is either brilliant of terrible timing. Brilliant since I can point my students to Richelle’s ideas, terrible because I will hardly have time to read the article before they have assimilated the abstract ;)

Do not thump the book of G’Quan. It is disrespectful.

Many discussions around the Bible founder on the shoals of factual accuracy. The “facts of the matter”, and claims that they are either accurately or inaccurately reported, generate much heat (and for those who like good knock down arguments¹ delight). This should not surprise us, for since the Enlightenment, we have worshiped “facts”.

Indeed respect for the facts has served us well. Truth is found when the facts are reported and marshaled into arguments accurately.

Yet, always, but especially in matters of relationship, there is another sort of truth. Faithfulness too can be truth. In fiction when a character acts in ways which ring true to their nature (as built up elsewhere in the story or the corpus) and to the relevant aspects of the world as we know it (remembering that willing suspension of disbelief plays a role in all poetics) we say the story is “true”. Likewise when the other things all good fictions communicate, the attitudes and elements of worldview “fit” with (i.e. are faithful to) what we believe, we say the story is true. Similarly, in the ancient world,² when an ambassador spoke a message that represented faithfully what his lord would have intended, his words were true. This would have been so even if the message was in fact contradicted by a written communication that spoke differently – if the lord would indeed have spoken differently in the changed circumstances.

To expect the Bible to conform to the first sort of truth, in a world which lived by the second, is mere fundamentalism (a thoroughly modern system).

Of course, to interpret a text which seeks to be faithful requires more skill and judgement than to interpret one which aims at the facts. And isn’t it interesting how often “the facts” serve to support and sustain the status quo?³

Amanda at Cheese-Wearing Theology has posted this month’s Biblical Studies Carnival, in what ways is the “world” (of bibliobloggery) it presents true?

1. What H. Dumpty described as “glory”.
2. Before modern technologies made swift or even almost instant communication at a distance possible.
3. At least until the pressure for change becomes almost irresistible, at which point somehow those flighty facts change sides.

I have installed a new plugin, which claims to make commenting and sharing material much easier and more flexible. It enables people to highlight part of the text of a post and to comment on that. This might enable more nuanced discussion for a complex post – I’m thinking here of using this as a replacement for the rather clunky system at Digress It that I am currently using for Not Only a Father. Which has not been getting the traffic or the discussion I had hoped for.

The new system also claims to make sharing a post easier on Facebook or Twitter. We’ll see!

So if you want to try it, you could start by playing on this post, just highlight a word or phrase and away we go :)

Facebook never (despite all its failings) ceases to surprise and delight. About a year after the post Kindle versus spindle? went to the electronic home of dead ephemal blog posts, discussion has revived on Facebook. You can join in either there or here, or elsewhere!

Ah, the joy of words :)

Podcast bear by blogefl

Promoting a blog is easy, no need to list it in directories, just post a few interesting posts, and as with the most publishable academic articles make sure they “engage” with others (in blogging this may mean being rude, in academia proper fawning admiration is often better) and presto in a few weeks or months you are on your way with a growing readership.

Not so with Podcasts :(

Take Mark Goodacre’s excellent NT Pod. Mark is a fine scholar, teaching at a prestigious University, he’s an all-time nice guy, and famous in Biblical Studies online as the pioneer gateway keeper of the NT Gateway. His podcast is liked by 405 people on Facebook, and Twitted by many, yet it is sitting down in doldrums on Alexa, miles from the top 50. Podcasts are hard to promote…

First Google cannot, yet, index audio, so the “content” that draws the spiders is only that “teaser” you knock off at the last minute as you post the carefully crafted audio. Actually in terms of search engines it would be better to craft the few sentences of the teaser, and let the audio suck, it’s not “content” but text that is king of the search world.

Links, bloggers simply do NOT link to podcasts (unless you prod them really hard, I have not tried bribery, it might work… but is probably unethical) bloggers live in a world of blogs. Therefore they will link to your blog post that itself links to your podcast, but usually will fail to link to the real thing :( The only answer here is shameless self-promotion. So when the entertaining and much-commented How Jim West Really Knows So Much About Hell appeared it at first had a link to an earlier post here, but no link to the real content on 5 Minute Bible: Universalism, or Not? Part One: Jonah but I am determined¹ so I posted a comment complaining, and presto a precious link :)

Yes, to promote a podcast you MUST trawl the web for podcast directories and submit your site to them, without that no one will find you except your children and cousins, or if you are a teacher your students ;)

So, this is an appeal to YOU, if you have a blog or other web presence please link to AT LEAST one podcast this week :)

PS: Having mentioned the problems of promoting podcasts, I should do my bit by mentionning other related podcasts here. In particular one I have not linked to before: The [ad hoc] Christianity Podcast a weekly show on theological and ethical issues facing the Christian community “non-obnoxious” and laid back. With Travis Jacobs, Steve Douglas, and Matthew Raymer.

1. You do know that this is an irregular verb don’t you: I am determined, you are stubborn, s/he is pig-headed!

Photo by youngthousands

Gavin at Otagosh, always a stimulating read, has a fine piece, Taking a Punt on Rob Bell, on the Rob Bell fuss. As he notes few people round here will even recognise the name, let alone the fuss, but certain more northerly American bibliobloggers certainly seemed to have twisted undergarments over the book before its publication.

Gavin’s rhetoric is nicely Reformation is style and (almost) scatology, while his rhetoric is positively Anabaptist. I love it :) With defenders like this that Bell character must have something going for him!

Of course someday the book will appear, then all the bloggers will go quiet, except Hobbins who will have read it and sixteen more learned tomes and three medieval Jewish authorities before the ink is dry. Meanwhile Jim West ought to love Gavin’s post, ir’s almost Zwinglian in tone, though since it’s Anabaptist in sentiment he also may foam at the mouth ;) I can’t wait… let’s have photos please Jim!

Well, another month is past, in the passing Sansblogue has completed seven years. So do I have the seven year itch that causes so many bloggers to “temporarily” cease blogging (either really temporarily or really for ever)? Not a bit of it, while I have readers, and (I hope) something worthwhile to say I’ll continue to blog.

Another month is past, and so naturally there are rankings. I’m happy that I again have two works in the top fifty, this blog and what I think is still the only biblical studies podcast to make the top fifty. How come podcasts are so much less “popular” than blogs? I’d have thought that Goodacre’s excellent NT Pod ought to have a regular top fifty slot… you are all missing something good!

On the subject of something good, the indefatigable Jim West has produced an excellent and entertaining (at difficult juggling act to manage both :) carnival, so if you have a few hours on your hands, or just want an idea of what was going on in January that you missed (because you were on your summer hols, or snowed in at home – depending on whether you live in the right or wrong hemisphere) do head on over to Jim’s The January 2011 Biblical Studies Carnival.