NT Gateway Weblog

The NT Gateway Blog is five years old today (Previous blogiversaries: 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007). And this is post number 2,853. Happy blogiversary too to Rogue Classicism, also five years old today.

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Happy fourth birthday to the NT Gateway blog! It's birthday was actually yesterday, but I was away from the blogging machine and so unable to celebrate. This blog began on 2 September 2003 and there have been 2,599 posts since then.

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Happy Blogiversary to Paleojudaica, four years old yesterday. Paleojudaica is why I started blogging three and a half years ago. It's still going strong, and may it have many more blogiversaries in years to come.

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Happy blogiversary to Hypotyposeis. Stephen Carlson's blog is always at the top of my blogroll, which means it's always the first I look at when it has something new.

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Happy blogiversary to me: the NT Gateway blogt is three years old today. The first post, Welcome to the NT Gateway Weblog was on 2 September 2003.

Update (15.44): And happy blogiversary to rogueclassicism too, also three today. In comments, Tyler asks if I'm the first that's still up and running. No -- Paleojudaica is a good six months and more older than NT Gateway Weblog. And speaking of Paleojudaica, thanks a bunch for the nice picture and message from Jim, along with my two former Birmingham graduate students Helen Ingram and Catherine Smith. (I wish I was there too!).

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On Biblaridion, Bryan mentions Dave Black Online, a site I have visited before but tend to forget to go back to because of its lack of RSS feed. But it's nice to see a "Happy blogiversary" to me a couple of weeks ago (no permalink), especially as I'll be headed in that direction (North Carolina) before long. So any chance of an RSS feed, Dave, and then I can read your blog every day, and add it to my blogroll?

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The NT Gateway Weblog is now two years old. It began on 2 September 2003. 1786 posts on and I'm still enjoying blogging. Thanks for reading and supporting the blog.

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Happy blogiversary to Ricoblog, , which is a year old today, and has a nice summing up post and which is kind enough to mention links here. We are all looking forward to the second year.

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I was in Glasgow examining yesterday, so missed the chance to say Happy Blogiversary to Jim West's Biblical Theology. Jim has carved a real niche in the biblioblog world over the last year (I'd have guessed it was longer thatn a year) and I'd say that one of his great skills in getting the information out to the punters quickly, efficiently, without fuss or fanfare. He could well add "Read it here first". It's often the first place I see things. And often I am grateful to Jim for covering something so that I feel I don't need to! Keep up the good work, Jim -- it's appreciated.

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I'd like to join the others who are wishing Jim Davila a welcome Happy Birthday to Paleojudaica, now two years old. I look forward to the forthcoming article in the SBL Forum that he mentions.

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Thanks very much to Jim Davila for his birthday greetings for this blog, one year old last Thursday. I should mention a small typo -- it is, of course, the blog that is a year old and not the New Testament Gateway, which is roughly seven years old.

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Jim Davila's Paleojudaica blog is a year old today (well, now yesterday). Many happy returns. I began reading Paleojudaica from the beginning and it was the direct catalyst for the creation of the NT Gateway blog several months later. Jim has put together an enjoyable retrospective with links to some of the most popular, interesting and recurrent postings. He also reflects on the blogging experience and has some interesting thoughts. This rule is particularly useful:

I've made a rule for myself that when I disagree with someone, I always try to imagine that I'm in the same room with the person, speaking to them face to face, when I compose the entry. That helps me keep to the point, stick to the facts, and avoid personal attacks.

That's something scholars in their criticisms of other scholars in printed work would do well to remember too. One of the things that I've found striking about blogging is that people actually read what you say and so you do become conscious of your audience. I've learnt that any remark I make here might well get read by one of the people whose work I am criticizing -- and that is a very helpful thing to have in your mind. My hope is that that consciousness will also improve the quality of one's published work.

Jim also suggests being wary of sarcasm, which does not work so well in the blogging realm. Agreed -- and also with humour generally one has to be careful. The only thing I'd add from my own experience is that one can get a little too self conscious if one is not careful and one of the keys to successful blogging is to be able to push postings out reasonably frequently in a relaxed enough way. I actually don't want to be spending a lot of time making sure that I've got this potential nuance or that possible reading exactly right. If I were to do that, I'd only ever be blogging and really would have no time for all the teaching and admin. I have to do, to say nothing of trying to eek out some time to research and write. So if people don't like what I write, they can send an email or post a comment. And it sometimes happens that I feel suitably chastened by something someone points out, e.g. I used an unfortunate turn of phrase a couple of weeks ago when commenting on The Passion of the Christ and I was pulled up on it.

Jim also mentions that he has learnt about the shoddy level of some journalism. Agreed. I very much like the way that Jim takes seriously the blogger's prerogative -- and especially the academic blogger's prerogative -- of calling journalists to account. Of course they make mistakes; we all do. The key question is whether they have the humility to correct them and learn from them.

Thanks, Jim, for some useful thoughts. And may Paleojudaica long continue to prosper.

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