Thank You for Supporting this Blog
Maybe I don't say this often enough, but Thank You to all who read and support my blog. This little blog is growing slowly, but it is growing month by month. As you can see in the graph below, December is not even over and we'll quickly pass 2,000 hits just this month. Not bad for a blog that I started at the end of June!
I want especially to thank those people who have been buying Christmas presents from Amazon through the links on this site. It is really extremely thoughtful of you to do this, and I really appreciate it.
posted by S and C at 9:59 PM
7 Comments:
Steve, there was an interesting article on blogging in the LA Times last Sunday (unfortunately I don't still have the paper, so I can't give you the exact bibliographic info). It was reporting how blogging was initially seen as the last great unadulterated venture for free speech and democratic exchange by millions of otherwise disillusioned young members of the information generation, a space untouched by special interests, advertising pressures, etc. However, music companies are now sending more and more "free" music, merchandise, and promotional material to the more popular music and pop-culture bloggers in the hopes that they will give a positive review of the artists that the companies are promoting. Thus, what was once looked to as the last "honest and trustworthy" assessment of trends in pop-culture and music by young people, is slowly being "bought" by a struggling music industry hurt by ipods and downloaded music. I mention all this, so that when Brill, T and T Clark, and major university presses start sending you "free" scholarly tomes once they realize how fast you blog is growing, your blog won't lost its integrity and give into the commentary-industrial complex :-)
JDS
Fascinating; and, not totally beyond the realm of possibility!
In fact, Jim West recently received galley proofs, I think, of Fitzmeyer's forthcoming book on messianic expectation in the OT. And, indeed, interestingly enough, his posts on the book have been startlingly positive! Jim, are you reading this?? ;-)
Congratulations!
The notion of a "commentary-industrial complex" may seem beyond the realm of the realistic when couched in terms of Brill giving away books to bloggers, but I do wonder how the increasing commercialisation of scholarly publishing serves the interests of the biblical studies community...
Of course, as Tim knows, I'm half-joking about the "commentary-industrial complex." I don't know if I can or want to take credit for the phrase, but it was inspired by a few SBL responses that I've seen Carole Newsom give in the last few years. Basically, she's criticized the fact that, under the pressure of increased sales, more senior scholars are working on commentaries rather than monographs. Thus, due to the overall conservative and generally repetitious nature of commentaries (in that most of them largely deal with the same set of critical issues more or less), the top minds in the field are not producing as much truly original scholarship as they could. The recent number of Proverbs commentaries by top wisdom scholars supports her point. Of course, the irony, which Newsom fully recognizes, is that she is on the editorial board for half of the major commentary series. But that fact does not invalidate her point.
JDS
Yes, Stephen, I read every one of your postings. Yes- galley proofs. But you misspelled his name. It's Fitzmyer. I'm not criticizing, though, yours was a common error.
As to the anonymous chap(ettes) belief in some sort of military-industrial conspiracy to coerce and manipulate biblical scholars by means of weblogs. Poppycock. It seems that now even the attempt to get the word out on new, interesting, and important contributions to biblical studies is given a black eye by conspiracy theorists. Sometimes, Anon, a banana really is just a banana!
[n.b.- mr anon has been active on Chris Tilling's blog comment section skewering Eerdmans for some supposed delinquent delivery of Bauckham's book- so methinks he has a personal agenda more insidious than biblical studies publishers who simply wish to "spread the word" on important or potentially important volumes].
Thank the Lord we're finally having a "real" conversation again on my blog. I had almost convinced myself that the Christmas Blues had you all paralyzed with depression! This is wonderful! ---S.
Stephen, I agree - this is fun. After all, I've never been associated with a conspiracy theory before… of course I've never had a secret identity before either. I didn't make either of these connections until Jim pointed them out for me. Jim, you know that I'm half-joking about the commentary-industrial complex, right? That's what I meant in my previous comment when I said: "Of course, as Tim knows, I'm half-joking about the "commentary-industrial complex." Nonetheless, I fully intend to send Jim a copy of my book at some point. ;-)
In all seriousness, I like that Jim is reviewing both Fitzmyer's and Stephen's books because it promotes serious, innovative, monographs by senior scholars. I believe that at this point in time, encouraging such monographs by capable scholars "fosters biblical scholarship" more so than a slew of commentaries by the same scholars would. That was my point. I wasn't trying to give anyone a black eye.
Regarding Eerdmans, I can't take credit for the work of Jim's so-called "Mr. Anon" on the other blog. I actually only read Stephen's blog and recently I've started reading Jim's blog, due to Jim's rather witty replies to Stephen's comments. I'm just saddened that Jim did not think much of my wit.
Although I'm not the same Mr. Anon, I do have issues with Eerdmann's. It took them 2 years to deliver McCarter's 1 Samuel commentary after I ordered it at SBL. Yes, I continue to buy commentaries. In fact, I'm very much looking forward to McCarter's Joshua commentary, should he ever finish it. In the end, I completely agree with Jim that bananas are in fact bananas.
JDS
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