Note: Over past few days, I have been posting a series of thoughts on biblioblogging and New Media. I have become more active as a blogger over the last year, and thought that some of my regular readers would like to know why I consider myself a biblioblogger, and what it means to operate a biblioblog. For my working definition of a biblioblog, see Part One: A Definition. For a list of reasons biblioblogging can be a useful tool to the student and scholar alike, see Part Two: Advantages. For a list of drawbacks to biblioblogging, see Part Three: Disadvantages.
“The Gospel of Jesus’s Wife” (R.I.P.)
One of the most pertinent recent
examples of the usefulness of biblioblogging to scholarly communication as a
form of New Media is the case of the so-called Gospel of Jesus’s Wife papyrus fragment. The fragment, which features
Coptic text that includes the phrase, “Jesus said to them, ‘My wife…’” was
revealed to the online world on September 17, 2012 by Dr. Karen King, Professor
of Ecclesial History at Harvard Divinity School. Along with the photograph and
text of the papyrus fragment, it was also revealed that King would be
releasing a journal article on her analysis of the piece, to be published in
January 2013 by The Harvard Theological Review. The discovery caused quite a stir among major cable
news outlets, who in turn erroneously reported that “solid evidence” of Jesus’
marital status had been unearthed! A sensationally titillating story, to be
sure.
By the next day, however, the
blogosphere was already hard at work scrutinizing and sharing the little
knowledge that was available to the public. Dozens of scholarly biblioblogs
referenced the find, dialoguing, referencing, cross-referencing, and debating
on the authenticity of the fragment and its implications for the world of
biblical studies. Upon closer inspection, several academic bloggers—descending
upon the find like a school of highly educated piranha—confidently declared the
fragment a modern forgery.[1]
Within the space of two weeks, the breaking news of the Gospel of Jesus’s
Wife fragment went from being an
international media sensation to getting tossed on the junk pile as another
over-hyped academic dud. Within a month, Jesus’s wife (may she rest in peace)
was all but dead and buried. As of the posting of this blog in mid-April 2013, The Harvard
Theological Review has yet to publish Dr.
King’s article.
What is most remarkable about this
whole spectacle is not only the astounding speed with which the fragment was
addressed by a community of King’s peers, but also the efficiency with which
scholarly dialogue was facilitated by use of the online medium of blogging.
While I am firmly convinced that biblioblogging will by no means take the place
of rigorous academic peer review and publication, it has nonetheless captured
the attention of the greater academic community and given pause to those who
might dismiss blogging as an inferior mode of scholarly discourse. In less time
than it would normally take for one scholar to write, edit, submit, and publish
a peer-reviewed article, a large community of corresponding bibliobloggers
could quite possibly render the very subject of his or her study completely
obsolete.
Conclusion, or How Biblioblogging is Like a Mel Brooks Movie
Perhaps a good illustration of
the speed and efficiency with which biblioblogging catalyzes academic ideas is
this very series of posts, which has utilized the writings of fellow academic bloggers to
illustrate biblioblogging’s place within the culture of New Media. With relatively few published scholarly articles available on the subject (though the number
is growing, even as I type these words), the most reliable data is currently
found in the field itself, especially in the work of metablogs such as The Biblioblog Reference Library (currently under construction), which tracks and documents data pertaining to
registered biblioblog traffic. The speed and accessibility of information that
have facilitated biblioblogging as a legitimate scholarly exchange have nearly
erased the typical waiting time that used to be the norm for academic progress.
In a way, what biblioblogging does for the New Media might be compared to a
famous scene from the Mel Brooks comedy, Spaceballs. Near the climax of the movie, the villainous
character Dark Helmet—a parody on Darth Vader—attempts to locate the
whereabouts of the hero of the film by watching a straight-to-video version of
the movie itself, even while it is still in the process of being made. While
fast-forwarding through the first half of the picture, Helmet pushes ‘play’
only to find himself watching the very scene he is currently acting in. He
raises his arm and waves at the camera, and precisely at the same time, the
Dark Helmet on the screen raises his arm and waves, too. This ultimately leads
to confusion, and a frenzied series of questions culminating with the villain
asking emphatically, “When will then
be now?” If biblioblogging has
any lasting effect at all on the intersection of theological scholarship and
New Media, the answer is most assuredly “Sooner than you think.”
[1]
Most notably Francis Watson at Durham University, who determined that a mistake
in an online translation of the Gospel of Thomas was reproduced in the text of
the Jesus’s Wife fragment. See Francis Watson, “The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife: How a fake Gospel-Fragment was composed.” Sept. 20,
2012. http://markgoodacre.org/Watson.pdf
