So what is a biblioblog anyway?

I’ve got my own working definition which is based partly on what other people call biblioblogs (or some such term) and partly on my own way of classifying things in my feedreader.

I noticed over on Rob Kashow’s post defending himself that Maggi Dawn had asked:

How does Biblioblog select the blogs it promotes? Just curious.

And I realised that I had no answer myself to that question.

In my own comment I noted that I’d been reading Maggi’s blog for some time (well over a year I think). Why, people may well ask, haven’t I linked to it? I think there’s a sort of answer, which is that it’s a blog I read, but Maggi’s topics are very rarely (if ever) the sorts of topics I have written about, so links to her posts don’t come up naturally. I tend to put in my public blogroll only those blogs I have often linked to in a post. I think that’s a reasonable explanation, although it reminds me my blogroll needs some work.

But what is a biblioblog? The thing is, you see, I haven’t classified Maggi’s blog as one. In my feedreader it’s in the folder called “Church” because I read Maggi’s blog for topics on spirituality, worship, culture and mission. I hope she thinks that a reasonably accurate summary of the things she posts on.

I define a biblioblog as one that regularly discusses questions of biblical translation and interpretation from a viewpoint that is concerned to draw on and comfortable with employing historical and theological methods and questions such as are used in the academy. It doesn’t have to be written by a believer. It can also be of some direct impact on practical church and spiritual questions. Its use of the bible is not simply devotional, or focussed on how “God spoke to me” through this verse.

What I’m less and less sure of is how many of those “regular posts” are needed to keep the blog a biblioblog, rather than some other sort of blog that posts on the Bible from time to time. I assume that if I’m removed from the biblioblog lists, I shall have transgressed that canon in some way. My experience, however, suggests that it’s more likely to add those who self-identify as biblibloggers. If there is a controlling hand (of which I am dubious), I think it is a very light one indeed.

But I don’t know how many would share that definition.

Oh, and as a final “shoe on the other foot” point, I note that clayboy doesn’t appear in many lists of Anglican blogs. I am, as many readers know, an Anglican priest, it’s just that – my sporadic series on the articles excluded – I have chosen so far very rarely to blog on current Anglican topics. There’s only so much I want to say about willies and mitres and other divisive issues. I assume it’s that, combined with the fact that I haven’t networked many of them, that prevents my appearance. I don’t think it’s a deliberate attempt to exclude me as – well as whatever it is I am.

Tagged as: biblioblogs