SBL releases new SBL BibLit font!

I just received this excellent news from SBL. What this Unicode font does is combine the previously released SBL Hebrew and SBL Greek Unicode fonts and add transliteration characters. Click on the links to obtain the font.

The Society of Biblical Literature is pleased to announce the newest font in the SBL fonts series,  SBL BibLit.  This font contains Latin, Greek, and Hebrew characters, including the characters suitable for the transliteration of Ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean languages. When combined with appropriate software keyboards, SBL BibLit allows for the use of one font for all biblical languages. This release is of a regular weight only; italic and bold weights will not be released at this time.
In addition to the release of the SBL BibLit font, SBL is also making available software keyboards for both Windows and Macintosh OS X operating systems that give easier access to the diacritics necessary for the transliteration of Ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean languages. These keyboards, along with the font file and the previously-released SBL fonts, can be downloaded from the SBL website.

Instructions for their installation and use are also available in the updated Biblical Fonts FAQ,

including platform-specific instructions for Windows 7, Windows 8, and Macintosh OS X.
Joining SBL Hebrew and SBL Greek, SBL BibLit is the third font of the SBL font series. All of these fonts were commissioned by the Society of Biblical Literature to assist in the society's mission to foster biblical scholarship. John Hudson of Tiro Typeworks designed each font, ensuring that each one represented the cutting edge of font technology, maintained full Unicode compatibility, and that each would be as beneficial as possible to scholars in biblical studies and related disciplines. SBL is pleased to present this font as the final installment and the culmination of the initial font series.

SBL 2012 in Chicago Reflections

The Calder "Flamingo" sculpture in Chicago

I'm back home from the annual AAR-SBL meeting in Chicago. Just some observations and comments:

• I arrived Saturday morning (and got to McCormick Place shortly before noon) and left Monday evening. That worked well enough, though there were a couple sessions I would have attended earlier on Saturday morning. It appears that the planners have recognized that most people leave on Monday, because there weren't a whole lot of offerings on Tuesday.
• McCormick Place is HUGE. To get from the east to the west building took at least 15 minutes of walking, and somehow it seemed that the sessions I wanted were scheduled so that I often made that walk.
• It was kind of a pain not having enough hotel space close to McCormick Place. The buses worked well enough, but it did mean you had to add extra time. I did end up meeting some very interesting people by chance who sat next to me on the bus ride: the new Dean of the Yale Divinity School, a teacher who had grown up as a child of Lutheran missionaries in Africa, David Gowler whose book on the parables I'm using next semester...
• The exhibit hall was great. Thanks for providing the charging station for our phones and laptops!
• WiFi throughout McCormick Place worked well. That also was a boon.
• The evening receptions and the opportunities to meet friends and colleagues is always the best part of the gathering. I especially am glad to connect with my former teachers and thank them again. (This SBL, thanks to Wayne Meeks, Vernon Robbins, and Richard Hays.)
• Note to self: There were 3 different Hyatt hotels used for the meeting. Make sure you know at which one the reception is at or you will end up losing an hour and a half walking and riding around on the buses.
• The AAR-SBL app worked well enough. My phone is just a bit slow, so I did end up writing my daily schedule on paper. Using Scanner for Zotero to accumulate interesting books I saw in the exhibit hall worked great.
• As usual, the sessions were a mixed experience. Some topics are so obscure that you need to be an expert to figure out what's going on. (Okay, so the SBL Fonts presentation was high on my list.) Some presenters do much better than others. (In a number of instances, I really would have preferred to just read the paper.) I wasn't able to stay for the whole session to hear all the reviewers, but Larry Hurtado provided a very helpful review of the Jewish Annotated New Testament. (Perhaps he will publish his full review online.) Another interesting session was on "Intertextuality in the NT" featuring a book review of  the very recently released Revelation and the Politics of Apocalyptic Interpretation (Richard B. Hays and Stefan Alkier, eds., Baylor University Press, 2012). They (rightly) assumed that most people had not read the book, but it generated some very interesting discussion. 
• I also enjoyed visiting the various Bible software booths and posted some updates for Accordance, BibleWorks, and Logos.

Next year in Baltimore!

AAR / SBL 2012 Annual Meeting App

James McGrath has just noted on his Patheos blog that this year's AAR/SBL app is now available for iOS devices. I can't find the Android version, but I'm trusting it's coming. (If you find it, please leave a comment here pointing to it.) The meeting is in Chicago, Nov 17-20, 2012.

I had some critiques of last year's app, but I still found it more useful than not. 

UPDATE: 2012.11.01: The Android app was just made available. Click through to either the Android or iOS app HERE.

From the description, app features include:

• Native app: No wifi connection required to access the conference program, schedule or animated maps.
• Now: Stay informed about hot issues, event program changes, your upcoming sessions and organizer messages.
• Program: Browse the entire event program to build your personal schedule, bookmark sessions or speakers, or access session handouts as available.
• Take notes and email them as part of your trip report for reference.
• Exhibitors, Maps, related conference info and much more. 

Quick test run: Just downloaded and fired up the app. BTW, free wireless internet access has been promised throughout the convention center so connecting should not be an issue.

• There are a number of ways in the app to email or send to Twitter or Facebook (but not LinkedIn which was in last years) notes you've added, schedule, etc. There's even a live Twitter feed on the home screen of the app. (Twitter: #SBLAAR or #AARSBL)
• Yes! You can add your own appointments to the schedule!
• Yes! You can export your entire schedule so that it can be imported to Outlook, Google Calendar, iOS, Android via an ICS file.
• Maps of all the venues are great and a link to Google maps of Chicago. The exhibitor menu is similar to last year's, but that is good.

The app is similar to the 2011 one, but is definitely improved. More ways to search / find what you are looking for and better ways for sharing / exporting stuff.

UPDATE: 2012.11.07: There is now an official user guide to the app here. (PDF)

The Top 100 Tools for Learning 2012 list

Jane Hart annually releases her "The Top 100 Tools for Learning" list, and the 2012 one has just been posted.

This year’s Top 100 Tools for Learning list (the 6th Annual Survey) has been compiled from the votes of 582 learning professionals worldwide – 55% working in education, 45% working in non-educational organizations.

The top tool for the 4th year running is Twitter, with both YouTube (2nd) and Google Docs (aka Google Drive)  (3rd) retaining their places for the 3rd year in succession.

Next in line in the top 10 are Google Search, WordPress, Dropbox, Skype, PowerPoint, Facebook, and Wikipedia. You can view the list either as this Slideshare (with commentary on each) or as a textual list.

Top Tools for Learning 2012 from Jane Hart

In both formats, she indicates whether its primary use is for personal/professional, educational, or enterprise contexts.

I did participate in the voting, but a couple of my favorites didn't make the list. Some comments:

• Dropbox (#6) is fine, but I much prefer SugarSync. (Disclaimer: Those links should get both you and me a little extra space. Thanks!) You get 5GB free instead of just 2GB. More helpfully, SugarSync allows you to point to existing folders on your system with which you can sync on another system. Dropbox requires you to create a special folder to drop things in. Personally, I use SugarSync to keep my notes and user-modified files in BibleWorks, Logos, and Lightroom synced. Both programs also have mobile apps so that I can access files from my smartphone. Don't forget Microsoft's SkyDrive (#98 on the list) which offers 7GB free and allows you to edit Microsoft docs online. In addition to syncing, remember that these services also provide backup for your data.
• If you want a different look than PowerPoint (#8), try Prezi (#14).
• I still use Skype (#7), but Google+ Hangouts (#17) has some distinct advantages, especially for allowing multiple video feeds.
• I really like Diigo (#18) as a social bookmarking tool, and I've tried to get my students to collaborate on using it for creating bibliographies for a class or topic, but it apparently requires some discipline to use it regularly.
• Ok, I'm on Pinterest (#36), but I still don't really get it... I also wonder about LinkedIn (#23). Are most people on it simply because they are afraid they're missing something if they are not on it? I set up an account long ago, but I don't pay it much attention.
• One tool I'm checking out that isn't on the list is Netvibes. I have loved using my iGoogle homepage, but with it being vaporized in a year, I'm looking for an alternative. Netvibes is one possibility. (Any one using this and having a good experience with it?)
• The really significant omission on the list is Zotero. I have come to use this nearly daily as a way to organize books, articles, PDFs, and web pages I come across. It's such an outstanding bibliographic tool. I did buy the Scanner for Zotero app for my Droid X, so I'm prepared for Society of Biblical Literature meeting this year. (I had mentioned this after last year's SBL as a better way of making note of the books I saw there.) Zotero also allows for collaboration with the sharing of libraries, so it's one way I share my bibliographies with my students and allow them to add to it. (There are Zotero mobile apps for other platforms too.)

So, check out Jane Hart's C4LPT blog, and if you are looking for some tech tool to accomplish a task, her site is a great place to look. Especially check out her "Best of Breed" categorized list.

SBL 2011: Bible in Ancient and Modern Media

I still have a bunch of notes to post on the recent SBL meeting, and I'll get them out as time allows.

On Sunday afternoon (2011.11.20), I went to the Bible in Ancient and Modern Media presentation where the theme was: "The Bible and Digital Media." Here are rough notes, but they can provide an idea of what transpired.

Presenting first was Michael Hemenway (MH): “From Codex to Kindle: Reimagining the Book”
Cited McLuhan

• Print technologies are vehicles of stability, closed,
• Digital technologies are open, dynamic

• Cf. Tim Beal's, The Rise and Fall of the Bible: The Unexpected History of an Accidental Book
• Cf. O’Donnell's Avatars of the Word: From Papyrus to Cyberspace

MH pointed out the romantic remnant of book collections like Shelfari using a bookshelf with book cover displays or Kindle using page numbers. (BTW, what shall we use to reference locations in digital editions?) He imagined a time when our own writings become part of our digital libraries, fully searchable and integrated with all our other books… (which basically is what Logos already offers with its Personal Book Builder).

Margaret E. Lee (MEL) presented: "A Digital NT for Sound and Performance"
Cf. her Sound Mapping the New Testament 

Because the NT was composed for performance, its meaning is not (primarily) in its words but its sounds. How can we better present an auditory NT? Issues of suitable graphic interface, pronunciation schemes, challenges to fluency of Hellenistic Greek.

Printed versions distract us by encouraging focus on grammar, semantics and the versions further distract us by division into sentence, verse, paragraph, chapter. All of these reflect editorial decisions and matters that are foreign to the auditory nature of the text. We need tools to analyze auditory compositional elements.

MEL presented a preliminary prototype of a digital NT that was created by one of her students at Tulsa Community College. It was a digital "document" (MEL prefers "document" as a term instead of "text) that had links to all sorts of media presentations of the Greek, including a reading of it in Koine. The display featured oral divisions rather than the traditional chapter/verse.

I have not read her book, and this was the first time I'd really encountered her approach, but it struck me that it would be quite sympathetic with Runge's type of discourse analysis.

Next, Eva Mroczek (EM) on "Digital Culture and the Death of the (biblical) Book: New Metaphors for the Study of Scriptures in Jewish Antiquity"

EM referenced the work of Katherine Hayles. Our notions of textuality are shot through with assumptions specific to print, although they have not been generally recognized as such. The advent of electronic textuality presents us with an unparalleled opportunity to reformulate fundamental ideas about texts and, in the process, to see print as well as electronic texts with fresh eyes.

Quoted K. Van der Toorn Scribal Culture and the Making of the Hebrew Bible (p16)

The books of the bible were not designed to be read as unities. They rather compare to archives. A biblical book is often like a box containing heterogeneous materials brought together on the assumption of common authorship or chronology.

=== In antiquity, we really need to think of ‘book’ as metaphor.
Used example of Robert Frost ‘education by poetry’ on metaphor.

Consider 11QPsalmsa
We think of pss in modern digital categories: cache, archives, repository.

Ben Sira generally recognized as first authored book in Jewish antiquity
But the way he understands "author" is not same as way we understand author today. He is not asserting authorial authority but understands himself to as an heir of traditional wisdom.
In Sir 50.27 in Hebrew fragment, it is not called a book (as it does in Greek).

EM encouraged us to think of "book" as a project rather than a product.
(cf PACE project on ancient cultural engagement)

=== 

I found Mroczek's presentation to be the most interesting. I suppose I have understood authorship of the biblical books in modern terms rather than in the way it was understood in antiquity. Perhaps that is why the gospels are anonymous? Did the gospel authors mainly see themselves as a transmitters of common knowledge?

Though I am sympathetic to Lee's emphasis on the orality of the early Xn documents, I do think we can discern shifts even among the gospels. I'm convinced that Mark reflects an oral tradition and presentation, but Luke is much more conscious of the literary nature of his work.

Review of the AAR-SBL Mobile App

I always hated trying to navigate the SBL paper catalog and when it's an AAR-SBL catalog, it's even worse. When you get to the annual meeting, you do get a condensed version, and that is more helpful, but this year marked the first time that a mobile app (iOS and Android) was available for the meeting. It was quite handy. It could be updated with latest changes. You could look through the meeting lists and add ones to "My Schedule" which made it easy to see when and where to go and see time conflicts. It included maps and lists of exhibitors. For both meetings and the exhibit hall, there was a great little locator link showing you where to go. If a meeting had any extra information attached to it (info on speakers or abstracts of presentations), that was available too. You could even attach notes to meetings within the app. There was even an included Twitter feed (#sblaar). All great stuff! Downsides? It was a bit slow and sometimes would freeze on my Droid X. The calendaring part would always start at Thursday rather than the day/time where you last were looking. I also couldn't find any way to export My Schedule (e.g., to Outlook or Google Calendar) or to add an appointment that wasn't a meeting to My Schedule. Still, a very handy app, and I strongly encourage AAR-SBL to offer it again next year.

Zotero (Everywhere) and a good idea for the next AAR-SBL

Took the redeye home from San Francisco to Washington Dulles and trying to catch up on a bunch of things...

Moscone Convention Center - Entrance to Exhibit Hall

One of the best parts of the annual AAR-SBL meeting is to wander through the Exhibit Hall. It's great to see the new works that are being featured. You are bound to bump into someone you know. Plenty of little freebies to collect. I, of course, always check in on all the Bible software vendors.

I managed to restrain myself and come away with only a couple books, but there were a lot of books I wanted to remember for future reference. Instead of trying to write down author / title / publisher information, I thought it would be easier to use my Droid X and scan the barcode. At the time, what I ended up doing was using the Amazon Mobile app which allows me to scan the barcode and look it up at Amazon. One thing this accomplished is that I could quickly see the Amazon price and compare what sort of convention discount the publishers were actually offering on the book (and some certainly were and some were not). Second, and actually more important for me, I could add the book to my Amazon wishlist. (I had set my 'Academic Books' to be my default wishlist, so they all went straight there.) Now, when I got home, I pulled up my wishlist, clicked up the books, and was then one more click away from having them saved in my Zotero collection with full bibliographic information intact.

You can click to enlarge the graphic to see my somewhat eclectic / esoteric list. You will also see that I dumped everything in a SBL2011 collection, but from there, I used drag/drop to add them to any of the other collections you can see in the left pane. It's a beautiful thing.

I've been a big fan of Zotero, and it has become my default means of collecting all my bibliographic data, adding notes and tags to the resources, links to Amazon or Review of Books in Religion, etc. In the past, Zotero has required you to use it within Firefox, but they announced in August the beta releases of standalone versions for Windows, Mac, and Linux. (Click for the download links. I've used the Windows one, and it has been stable.) There are now also connectors so that Chrome and Safari users can use Zotero in those browsers. You really have no reason not to use Zotero now.

I should have thought to check ahead of time, however, to see if there were any mobile Zotero apps, and indeed there are. Check them out here. In particular, I would have liked to use Scanner for Zotero (Android) which would allow me to scan directly to Zotero. BibUp functions similarly for iPhone.
UPDATE: Avram Lyon, author of Zandy, indicates in the comments that his Android app now also handles ISBN barcode scanning.
(If anyone has used either of these, I'd appreciate hearing your comments.)

Future of Markan Scholarship Put in Jeopardy

The blog title is intentionally provocative, but, given all the Markan scholars in the room, we can all be glad that no tragedy occurred during the SBL session: Discussion of Kelly R. Iverson and Christopher W. Skinner, ed., Mark as Scholar: Retrospect and Prospect. (That link is to the book and includes more info as well as a PDF download of the table and conducts and the introductory chapter.)

The panel gathered around the table included:

Kelly Iverson, Christopher Skinner, Rikki Watts, Francis J. Moloney, Tom Shepherd, Kathleen Corley, Philip Ruge-Jones, David Rhoads, Joanna Dewey, and Donald Michie.

I also saw Elizabeth Struthers Malbon and Ched Myers present, and there were probably others as well whom I didn't recognize. There are, of course, many other noted Markan scholars, but that still is quite a room full!

 

I have used Mark as Story as a required text in my Gospels course, but I also have a bit of history with it. Back in 1977-78 when I was learning Greek at the University of Illinois with Vernon K. Robbins, he shared with us in class a draft translation that a colleague and friend of his was working on for us to comment upon. That translation eventually was published by David Rhoads in the 1982 release of the first edition of Mark as Story: An Introduction to the Narrative of a Gospel.

SBL Fonts Presentation at SBL

SBL Fonts Presentation at SBL 2011

Christopher Hooker provided a helpful background on electronic fonts tracing back to ASCII, the older SP fonts, and to the new SBL fonts. He noted such issues as:

• Limitations with ASCII, especially that could only handle 256 characters
• The difficulties with keyboard input, especially with non-standardized inputs in the old True Typefonts
• The difficulties with keyboard input for right-to-left languages

Christopher Hooker

The solution was Unicode that provides standardization for glyph mapping and explicitly included classical and historical texts. The beauty of Unicode is that it is fully cross-platform and has an expanded character range that allows for 1,048,576 characters. Hence, even scripts like Ugaritic or Eygptian Cunieform have standardized locations.
With the pre-Unicode fonts, switching to type in another language really meant switching to another font. With Unicode, what you primarily are doing is switching to a different keyboard. (Note this means a virtual keyboard accessed by the software, not a physical keyboard.) You really don't want to have a font that has all million plus characters, because it really is overkill that may slow things down if you embed the font. (If you do, try Lucida Sans Unicode.)
Here is where the SBL Fonts--SBL Greek and SBL Hebrew-- come in to play as specialized, Unicode fonts with character sets intended for biblical scholars. Hooker was particularly proud of the sophistication and comprehensiveness of the SBL Hebrew font.

What's next? They are working on the SBL BibLit font which will be the comprehensive font set incorporating Greek, Hebrew, and Latin characters. Further, it will also have the full set of transliteration characters (IPA extensions). Unfortunately... there is no release date BUT Hooker did his whole presentation using SBL BibLit. He assured us we are close to a release date.

Beyond SBL BibLit, they are looking into figuring out the best ways to make such fonts available for mobile devices. They are also working on the development of other ancient language fonts. (No particular priority list has been established yet for additional character sets, but SBL would welcome input on scholarly needs.)
Hooker then ran through the process of installing and using the SBL fonts on both Windows and Mac. You can download the fonts and get other installation info at the SBL Fonts page.

As we are waiting for SBL BibLit, I recommend using Cardo (free) which includes full sets of Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and transliteration characters. (BTW, if you haven't updated Cardo since April 2011, there is an updated version now available along with additional bold and italic sets.) If you aren't entirely comfortable trying to install the keyboards (especially setting up the right to left scripts) I recommend that you use the Tyndale Unicode Font Kit. It's available for a variety of platforms--Mac, Win, Linux--and provides additional instruction on its use. 

If you only type in Greek or Hebrew occasionally, I have previously suggested using Logos' free Shibboleth program with its graphical interface. (Rather than working within any program, Shibboleth runs separately, and you type/copy/paste into any other application.) Additionally:

• Tavultesoft Keyman (a wonderful program for $19) integrates into your system so that you can type in brilliant Greek and Hebrew right in the program. No need to copy/paste...
• Tavultesoft also has a free online notepad for typing in any language you want. If you want to use Greek, you have four different keyboards to choose from. (Where is that psi?) I find "Greek Classical" to be the most usable.
• The free online composer at TypeGreek.com is very nice, and note that it is even smart enough that if you type a sigma followed by a space or punctuation, it will convert it into a final sigma. One problem with TypeGreek: if you are typing and don't know what character you need, you hit the "Alphabet Key." This provides the layouts, but when you go back to the previous page where you were typing, it will be all gone.
• The free online composer at GreekInputter2. The keyboard is a bit less intuitive, but you can display the layouts so that they are visible while you type in the box.

Accordance at SBL

Accordance at SBL

David Lang at the Accordance booth

I actually do have Accordance 8 running on my PC under emulation, and I like to use it for its map module, but since I'm mainly a PC (and now also Android) kind of guy, I don't spend as much time with it as I do other programs. Still, my students who have Accordance love it, and I like to keep up with the Accordance folks are doing, because they have been leading the way on a number of fronts in Bible software. Besides, they are just nice guys at Accordance and fun to visit.

Accordance is now at version 9.5, and probably the nicest new feature is the Dynamic Interlinear capability. Contrary to the complaints I heard a few times at sessions that Bible software doesn't offer actual 'texts' of manuscripts (as compared to simply providing critical editions), I was interested in seeing how this works with their collection of manuscripts. Here's a graphic from their website that gives you an idea of how it looks.

BibleWorks9 offers a similar set of manuscripts and tools for text criticism, so scholars do indeed have options for original manuscript analysis.

Be sure to check out the Accordance web site to catch up on the latest enhancements, new resources, and continued development of their iPhone/iPad apps. BTW, you may also want to check out the recent review of Accordance 9.5 by Rubén Gómez.

BibleWorks at SBL

Mark Cannon and Glenn Weaver at the BW display

BibleWorks at SBL
I visited with the BibleWorks people here at SBL. Business has been good with the new BW9 release, and they continue to plan for the future with new resources and features. One thing I've heard in 2 sessions here at SBL is people lamenting that there are no actual digital texts, i.e., editions of actual manuscripts. I've been happy to point out that we do have precisely that now in BW with the NT transcriptions project. Sinaiticus not only is fully transcribed but it is even morphologically tagged. (Accordance offers a similar mss collection. Logos for now only has the Comfort/Barrett collection, also available in both BW and Accordance.)

SBL: Bible Software Shootout 2 - Revenge of the Teacher

SBL Computer Assisted Research Section: 

Bible Software Shootout 2 - Revenge of the Teachers 

Keith Reeves introduced the session and highlighted that this session was not intended to be a shootout resulting in last man standing. Rather, the approach this year is to come at the topics 'backwards' by seeing how teachers are actually using the software in the classroom.

Logos

Two professors from Calvin College, Dean Deppe and Carl Bosma, presented on their use of Logos in their classrooms.
Calvin College has a 2 week gateway course that is a required part of the curriculum to introduce Logos to the students. An important aspect of the instruction is both learning how to use the program and to start the process of using it to take notes.

• A 1 hour introduction
• Four 2 hour sessions explaining features with MDiv students
• Three 3 hours sessions with MA students.

Deppe showed examples of how he has used Logos. (Cf. Deppe's All Roads Lead to the Text: Eight Methods of Inquiry into the Bible for his work on using Logos for exegetical examples. I have now acquired the book and will provide a review here, hopefully before the new year.) He demonstrated how he thinks in terms of various lenses for viewing the texts using various Logos tools: Personal Book Builder to collect notes, Collections for searching, Passage Analysis, highlighting, layouts, visual filters including sympathetic highlighting, tools that can be used for students who don't know Greek or Hebrew, etc. He showed an interesting example of highlighting of verb tenses in Romans 7 along with quite a number of layouts he has created for working with grammatical, exegetical, background, related texts (e.g., DSS, Josephus, Pseudepigrapha).
Bosma showed how he used Logos for notetaking and linking to local and web resources.

Comments:

• It was clear that both Deppe and Bosma have a great deal of experience working with Logos. It was good to see they are actually using it.
• Deppe especially had a tremendously customized version of Logos enhanced by many of his own layouts, collections, etc. Unfortunately, it is not possible to share layouts with other users (at least at this time). When I try to model my use of Bible software, I would like my students to be able to follow along, so the ability to share a similar look would be important.
• It's great that Calvin College has the required training sessions. I know enough about the use of Logos to see that the kind of things Deppe and Bosma had done reflect at least a high intermediate level of skill. 
• Though it wasn't pointed out in the session, I like that Logos is available for Windows, Mac, iPhone/iPad, Android, and as a mobile web resource at Biblia.com.

Accordance

Roy B. Brown from Accordance demonstrated how he and his colleagues have used the program. (His presentation is available HERE.) He noted that the use of the software is dependent on the audience. He used Amos 1.1-6 as an example.
Preparation: How can Accordance be used for preparing, creating handouts, etc. He noted a variety of resources available and the easy way to export material for printing, incorporation in other programs, using its Slideshow mode, displaying collections of photos, maps, etc.
Presentation: The Slideshow mode was particularly helpful in Brown's own presentation to the group. It's a great way to present while staying within the program. (I have found that I regularly am jumping back and forth between PowerPoint and the Bible software as I teach.) He showed the sort of resources he would use for teaching Amos 1.1-6 to a popular level and then repeated the exercise as he might use it with a more advanced level group who know Greek and/or Hebrew. One of the things he demonstrated was the Inference search which looks for passages that might stand as allusive parallels.
Participation: How can Accordance be used most effectively in an interactive environment? Brown provided an example of how one might start with the Amos text and move from resource to resource by means of simply highlighting words and using the extensive integration of links to maps, lexicons, timelines, graphics, dictionaries, etc. One can even rather effectively conduct searches in Hebrew without know Hebrew.
Some of the things that struck me in this presentation were:

• They have accumulated an excellent collection of related resources for biblical study: grammatical/syntactical,
• The program was quite fast when running searches and switching between resources.
• The integration of resources and the intuitiveness of accessing them is excellent.
• The program is quite attractive overall.
• They have made the program accessible to both an academic/technical and popular level audiences.

He also demonstrated a recently added feature: a "dynamic interlinear." While standard interlinears (based on the English) and reverse interlinears (based on the original language), their dynamic interlinear provides linking to up to eight tagged English versions and includes all the tagged information including syntactical tags. For the NT, he showed how this dynamic interlinear could be used to line up various NT manuscripts for comparison.

Comments:

• Brown did indicate that it is possible to share Accordance workspaces which would make it much easier for students to follow along.
• It was an impressive display of linked resources that Brown demonstrated, but I'm also wondering what the total cost of all those resources is. Yes, it probably is cheaper than buying hard copy edition,and one can, of course, gradually build up one's Accordance library of resources, but I doubt many students would be able to afford it all at the outset.
• Accordance is available for Mac, iPhone, and iPad. (It can be run on Windows under emulation.) Buy the Mac version, and you get the iPhone and iPad versions with it running all your Mac resources.

OliveTree Bible Software - BibleReader

Steven Johnson and Matthew Jonas, both from OliveTree, presented. Johnson provided an overview of the program while Jonas spoke more about its classroom use. They presented how it works on an iPad as well as demonstrating a beta version of the program for MacOS. They are certainly multi-device aware and offer (or are working on offering) the program for a variety of platforms: Macs, iWhatever, Kindle, Nook, PC, Android, etc.
Two main concerns for BibleReader are approachability and having everything available, everywhere, all the time. How quickly can someone start using the program? They try to have as simple and as intuitive interface as possible. Further, while there are some differences particular to each platform, they also try to have the interface as similar as possible so that students will be able to follow along regardless of platform. Everything is automatically synched, so that annotations and such are preserved as a user moves between their various devices. The Resource Guide was an effective center for moving around to related resources: related verses, commentaries, topics, dictionaries, images, maps, notes, charts, etc.
Do note that the program really has its roots as a Bible reader, so it is easy to switch to a simple reading view though all the resources are still easy to call up. Jonas demonstrated the features that allow BibleReader to be personalized: notes, highlighting, bookmarks, book ribbons, etc. They use their own cloud sync service to keep everything current, but you can also use an Evernote sync service.
For students, it's easy to get started with BibleReader using their 'freemium' model. The basic program is free and available for the various platforms. They also are looking at integrating social media tools. (E.g., it's only available on Android for now, but it is possible to share verses via Google+, FB, Twitter.)
 

Comments:

• It is indeed a clean and intuitive interface.
• It was impressive during his presentation how Johnson switched between devices. The program was consistent but still took advantages of the platform's capabilities. (E.g., iPad multi-touch, use of gestures)
• While OliveTree certainly has a full collection of Greek and Hebrew resources, it strikes me as intended to be accessible for a somewhat more popular audience level.

Overall comments, questions, and observations:

• It was an interesting choice on Logos' part to have instructors who use Logos present rather than company representatives. They did a good job, but it was a different presentation compared to the others.
• How easy is it (or to what extent is it desirable) for instructors to share resources with students? How desirable is it to do this? I find that I usually do want to share what I am asking them to learn about the use of the program. I think it is important, therefore, to have easy ways to share workspaces/layouts, search parameters, etc.
• It is great to have a 'buy once' policy which allows you to transfer your resources to the variety of platforms you use. All three companies basically offer this.
• I also see how we are moving to a situation with students using a variety of platforms, and most of them are more portable: tablets, iPads, and smartphones. Logos leads the way here, and only OliveTree will compare with it (once they make the desktop versions available). It is important to have one's resources available regardless of platform and to have them available everywhere. I also find, however, that when I am doing in-depth work, I really want a lot of screen space, so I still favor a desktop or laptop setup.
• I do believe that cloud syncing and backup will become a standard. This involves not only the syncing of resources but of one's personalizations. Logos and OliveTree lead the way in this respect. 
• BibleWorks was noticeably missing from this shootout. Since it is the program I am most familiar with, I can affirm that it can pretty much do everything the other programs can do and other tasks as well. And it does it all for cheaper considering the resources it includes. Still, there are some limitations to BW. It is a Windows program (that can be run under emulation on a Mac), but it cannot be used on a mobile, handheld device. Given the way the program works, the bigger the monitor the better, so I'm not sure it would be very useful on the small scale of a mobile device. Second, I have encouraged BW to make it easier to sync one's personalizations (e.g., annotations, searches...). It can be accomplished, but it requires the use of another cloud syncing service like DropBox or SugarSync. (I use SugarSync, and it works beautifully. I add my BWNotes, ase, and timeline subdirectories to the sync list, and it keeps everything up-to-date between my home and work computers. BTW, if you sign up for a SugarSync account after clicking on that link, we both get an extra .5Gb of storage in addition to the 5Gb free starter account, so please do so!)

 Bottom Line: Thanks to the CARS (no longer the CARGroup since we are now a CARSection) for organizing this section. While it did give the companies an opportunity to demonstrate capabilities of their programs, it also provided some excellent ideas about how the programs can and are actually used in classroom settings.

Reporting from SBL - Logos

 Hmmm.... I wrote this up a month ago but forgot to "publish" it...

Steve Runge at Logos

Stopped by the Logos display and got a chance to visit with Steve Runge. It's good to hear that his Discourse Grammar of the Greek New Testament is being well received. (The link is to the book at Amazon, but it is, of course, also available as a digital download at Logos.) I'm introducing bits of it in my intro Greek class, but I want to do more with it. I think it's helpful in making students aware of the nuances of the Greek text and why an author has chosen to express something this way instead of that.

I've been remiss about updating all that's going on with Logos lately. The updates to Logos 4 (I'm now using 4.1 SR-4 - UPDATE 12/22: They have now released 4.2) have fixed some niggling issues and have brought up full capability so that I finally am comfortable to delete my old Libronix/Logos 3 from my system. Logos 4 has turned out to be a very nice update. The speed and interface are much improved. I really like the Biblical Places tool and the quality resources associated with it. I think it's great that my Logos library is synced across the computers I use and even available via the web (and hence even at my fingertips when using my old Dell Axim x51v online). To have it available on mobile platforms is also a nice benefit. Of course, Logos is particularly happy to be shipping their Mac version.

Reporting from SBL - Accordance

Accordance Booth at SBL

Trying to find some time to catch up on stuff from SBL last week...

I had a good conversation with David Lang from Accordance at their booth here at SBL. (He's been busy working on and now happily finished with editing the Journal of Biblical Literature volumes to be accessible in Accordance.) I am still running Accordance 8 on a Windows machine using Basilisk, but the big news was the release of Accordance 9 (and now already a 9.1 release). In addition to updating the interface, the most appreciated improvement appears to be the Workspace Zones which "group, organize, and synchronize study texts and tools to maximize efficiency." Accordance has been very good at incorporating original language resources into their libraries (texts and images of codices, Samaritan Targum, DSS resources, etc.), and I am happy to see that they now have the collection of Carta publications available.

Accordance is now also at work at developing a syntactical database of the Greek NT. (Luke and John are available for now. Logos, working with OpenText.org, has already shown the benefit of this kind of database for analyzing the Greek text. Accordance appears to be using a somewhat simpler analysis [and this may well be a good thing...].)

Accordance also has announced an iPhone/iPad app which should be available soon that will allow access to all of one's modules. (Targuman has more to say about it here.)

Reporting from SBL - SBL's Bible Odyssey

The SBL announced in their September newsletter:

This August SBL submitted to the National Endowment for the Humanities a grant to build a website for the general public, called Bible Odyssey (the previous working title was World of the Bible). In the past year SBL and an advisory team used an NEH planning grant to develop the site concept and a prototype design. (Stop by our table at the Annual meeting for a preview.)

The site will be a useful undergraduate classroom tool and will offer SBL members a chance to hone their public communication skills. We will hear from NEH about funding in April 2011. 

I got to see and have attached pics of a few pages of this still-very-much-a-prototype project. (It is not yet close to ready to go online, so these are pictures of the screens.)  If you look closely, you can see that it is organized by People, Places, Passages, Themes, Traditions, and Maps.


I am hoping the NEH funding comes through. The resource will be positioned as a high-quality site generated by reputable scholars that will be accessible to a popular audience. You can see that it is highly visual, but it does also maintain a text navigation system. I did encourage them to consider how it might function on mobile platforms where it seems more and more people are working online. I see it as a good resource to refer students and laypersons for quick reference.

Reporting from SBL - OliveTree

Visited with the folks at OliveTree whose BibleReader program resides on my Dell Axim and is the program I use to have the Greek and Hebrew texts in my hand. One thing I've appreciated is that, as I've migrated from an old Palm III back in the day to the Dell Axim running WinMobile 5, I have been able to transfer over the books I have purchased. Check out their support for the various mobile platforms including iPhone, iPad Touch, Blackberry, Android, WindowsMobile, Palm OS, and Symbian. They anticipate providing support for Windows Phone 7. BTW, they do also have the SBL Greek New Testament with apparatus available as a free download.

Reporting from SBL - Blogger and Online Publication Section

Rough notes from the SBL Blogger and Online Publication Section - 2010.11.22

 

Robert R. Cargill from UCLA presiding

 

James Davila, University of St. Andrews (Scotland): PaleoJudaica

What Just Happened: The rise of "biblioblogging" in the first decade of the 21st century"

His presentation is available online with links at his blog, PaleoJudaica. This is a really helpful summary and overview of "the rise and development of 'biblioblogging' or blogging devoted to the area of academic biblical studies." His conclusion:

Blogging has found a solid niche in academic biblical studies in the first decade of the twenty-first century. It has enriched the field in numerous ways and its expansion over the decade has been exponential, at least until recently... And all indicators are that biblioblogging will be with biblical studies for a long time to come.

Christian Brady at Penn State, well-known online as the blog author of Targuman and also the online editor for the Newsletter for Targumic and Cognate Studies

Online Biblical Studies: Past, Present, Promise, and Peril

Brady has also posted his presentation online at his blog. His main proposal: "I would like to propose the formation of an SBL sanctioned review committee." Why?

(1) It is a viable business model...
(2) Such an assessment would provide the necessary recognition required of P and T committees and department heads...
(3) Knowing that such a review and subsequent recognition is possibility we would all step up our game...

My institution has been supportive of my explorations in the online world, but I would support this kind of review committee. Some questions were raised:

• regarding the financial viability
• would the prospect of knowing online work would be reviewed take the fun out of blogging? I suspect that we would still maintain different types of online writing. A site like Online Critical Pseudepigrapha is in a whole other class whose contribution needs to be properly recognized.

Michael Barber, John Paul the Great Catholic University: The Sacred Page

Weblogs and the Academy: The Benefits and Challenges of Biblioblogging

(He promises to post his presentation later on his blog.) Is it even appropriate (given some of the blog site names) to be considering biblioblogging at SBL? Yes... It does not serve as a replacement of traditional formats, but it is helpful and worthwhile. Reported on a survey of academic librarians and their suspicion of blog writing, especially because of lack of peer review. People who blog are more likely to regard blog writing as having academic value as compared to those who don't blog. (duh!) There appears to be a generational gap, with younger scholars viewing blogs as scholarly publications as compared to older ones (even ones who blog). "Bloggership" as a useful neologism... 3 types of publishing: traditional, blogging w/ scholarly aspirations, other types of blogs. Facilitation of learning through 'edublogs' does seem to be appreciated....

Turning specifically to biblioblogging: note that traditional publishers are now regularly pointing to an author's blog on their book promotions.

Barber related his own positive experience of blogging in the research and development of his recently completed PhD dissertation at Fuller. ("Scot McKnight has claimed that historical Jesus research is dead, but apparently no one has alerted the publishers yet!") Unable to keep up with all publications, the blogosphere did provide keys to important directions and developments. (Especially Bird and Willitts at Euangellion) 

Even non-academic posts are useful in humanizing us as scholars... Really, must a serious scholar always remain serious and objective? Isn't it truer to display the subjective reality of who we are as scholars? This will not undermine our scholarship but increase honesty and sharing between scholars.

Discussion: What about 'vitriolic blogging'? ~ We would want to treat each other with charity and respect, but online exchanges may able to be more open and honest in a 'rough and tumble' way.

 

James McGrath, Butler University: Exploring Our Matrix

The Blogging Revolution: New Technologies and their Impact on How We Do Scholarship

Started with question: What is a blog? -- (NOT: Lost + LOLcats + YouTube mashups) but a format for making content available
Blogging = reading + writing + linking + commenting | better: commenting with posts organized by date

Graphic of the circle of "knowledge creation":

Analysis Interpretation ~ Authoring/Presenting/ ~Sharing/Networking ~ Publishing/Dissemination ~ Archiving/Preservation ~ Research/Data Collection 

What does this mean for the future of actually meeting together?

"If everyone is blogging... then no one is blogging." True?Is blogging the future? Need to define future of what? It is here to stay. It won't supplant traditional publishing, but does provide new venue.One of the best things about blogging is that it is encouraging new ways of thinking about and presenting content.
 

McGrath provided a lively (and often humorous) analysis and defense of the value of scholarly blogging. 

 

Robert R. Cargill, UCLA: XKV8R

Instruction, Research, and the Future of Online Educational Technologies

Referred to a NYT article on "Digital Keys for Unlocking the Humanities' Riches."

How do the new technologies fundamentally change our instruction? (Ie, not just adapting a traditional class to an online setting.) 

Noted his work with the UCLA Qumran Visualization Project which really could be accomplished only through the use of new technologies. Further, there was no real way to share findings through traditional channels. (Cf. Cargill's Qumran through (Real) Time)

Part of problem is convincing academy to adopt new forms of publication

Motivation for publishing is not based on financial hopes but on considerations for promotion and tenure. 

Academic Prestige still resides in the printed format of books and traditional journals. 

dot coms thrived and established businesses panicked and responded by buying and rebranding dot coms. Traditional newspapers and magazines have lost ground to the online sites.
 

This year, for first time, Amazon has sold more ebooks than traditional books. The academy is being left behind. Result: "The academy must embrace online publication." Online publication should not just be recognized as acceptable but as preferable.

In the past, institutions valued for their hoarding of 'sacred knowledge.' With the new paradigm shift, value resides in the sharing of knowledge. How can an academic institution increase their value and 'preserve their brand' by being known for their sharing of knowledge rather than the hoarding of it?

Solutions: 

• For publishers: we need more online journals and more scholars who will write for them (Eg, Bible and Interpretation)
• For authors: when appropriate, scholars must publish digitally (eg, The Dynamics of Change in the Computer Imagin of the DSS and Other Ancient Inscriptions which shows how a traditional format can be preserved but dramatically enhanced using digital options)
• For instructors: make use of tools like Moodle and iTunesU; view toward hybrid or blended courses; use the digital possibilities to take the lead in online education

The future of online course management systems is the textbook. (Digital textbooks, that is!) 

We need to embrace the digital humanities and overcome the challenges of simply commercial and less reputable alternatives.

For institutions, technological support needs to be understood as an utility like electricity rather than a luxury.

Reporting from SBL - Academic Teaching and Biblical Studies

Rough notes from SBL “Workshop on Interactive Technologies for Teaching and Learning” 2010.11.22

Kelley Coblentz Bautch from St. Edward’s University

“The Hype about Skype: Using Videoconferencing to Enhance Our Teaching”

• Goal is to bring more voices, including global ones, into the classroom
• KCB has been experimenting w/ the use of Skype in the classroom, including inviting the author of the required textbook
• Both session-long and also short Skype sessions (e.g., have an expert provide a top 5 list…)
• Students appreciate opportunity to interact w/ experts in the field and to hear contrasting views; also personalizes the scholarship behind the texts and technicalities
• Helps students become aware of how the Bible is received in contexts other than one’s own
• Skype is free and relatively easy to use (other options include Illuminate or iChat or panopto)
• There are potential challenges of technology and Internet connection
• The SBL International Voices … identifies scholars around the world who are willing to participate
• Students largely found it helpful, especially when used in moderation

Brooke Lester from Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary

“‘To Those Far and Near’: The Case for ‘Community’ at a Distance”

• In the academic context, the divide he identifies is not so much a technological one as it a distinction between those who have / not experienced ‘community’ online
• One frequently encounter skepticism re: the reality of online ‘community,’ but this really is reflecting a very limited perspective
• Provided links for his web tour HERE
• Note the fine introduction provided at A Community of Scholarship, Emory’s Candler School of Theology, but note the caricaturization of typical online
• Pharyngula as an example of community
• Twitter as another example (eg, follow along at #slb10)
• ‘Getting over the hump’ in an online class eventually ends up with a mutually supportive group
• Community, Infed (Informal Education) as an example from the field of sociology; community and communion (profound meeting with an/other); openness, reciprocity, trust
• What are good ways to assess whether students are or not experiencing community in online classes? I.e., what specific questions can we ask in evaluations which can provide some quantitative data for determing this?
• Some experiments Lester is inviting other scholars to participate in:
• 60 day invitation to community by interacting w/ other blogs HERE
• A wetpaint wiki experiment to discuss the ‘Hendel’ matter HERE

David Howell of Ferrum College

“Using Technology Not to Manage but to Connect Course Teaching and Learning”

Examples of programs he has used in teaching

• TimeGlider: students completed chronology assignments online here w/ some guided questions (Who is the person? Why is s/he important? Why should I care?)
• Wordle: E.g., used Wordle to visualize apocalyptic literature texts; also cf. Tagxedo or Word It Out (Another alternative I would recommend is ImageChef)
• Flickr for creating visual collections (eg., the Four Horsemen) and allow for comments and direct annotation of visuals
• Google Maps and Google Earth: Create one’s own annotated maps
• Diigo as a tool for social networking; bookmarking, sharing, tagging, and annotating online resources

Adam L. Porter of Illinois College

“The Power of Zotero for Student Learning”

I’ve been a longtime fan of Zotero, and Porter gave a fine introduction of its use and benefits. Do note that Zotero is in the process of creating Zotero Everywhere which will work in browsers other than Firefox as well as function as a standalone. Again, Zotero is a great bibliographic tool that allows you to accumulate, tag, and annotate resources from both online and local locations. With its integration with Microsoft Word, it provides an excellent way of footnoting papers and generating bibliographies. One thing I'm still hoping we can do is work on developing shared group bibliographies such as this one I've started for the Parables of Jesus. Also note that the SBL style needs to be installed separately and is available on this page.

Nicolai Winther-Nielsen

“Bereshit Basic Biblical Hebrew (3BH): Interactive Technology for Language Learning”

To get an idea of how the 3BH program works, login as a guest HERE. It is an interesting program that makes use of Moodle in the learning process. Winther-Nielsen uses the program in conjunction with Logos software. He also demonstrated Ezer Emdros-based Exercise Tool (3ET) as a self-tutored Bible reading program. Useful approach also involving linguistic analysis in conjunction with SESB in Logos. He also showed possibilities for Persuasive Learning Objects Tools (PLOTs). Consider also how we share and engage globally.

Reporting from SBL - E-Publish or Perish

Here are some rough notes from the E-Publish or Perish seminar at the 2010 SBL meeting.

The session was introduced by Charles Jones of the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World who described the 30 or so years of work he has done as a librarian. He’s both encouraged and discouraged by online developments. Check out some of the work Jones has done at Abzu ("Abzu is a guide to networked open access data relevant to the study and public presentation of the Ancient Near East and the Ancient Mediterranean world") and AWOL (Ancient World Online).

Christian Brady at Penn State, well-known online as the blog author of Targuman and also the online editor for the Newsletter for Targumic and Cognate Studies, talked about his experiences as an academic who has been active on the Internet. (He encouraged scholars to participate in Academia.edu as a kind of Facebook for academics.)
He used the example of the iPad app Elements as a kind of engaging instructional resource that we should be imagining for biblically related materials. He recognized the amount of time required for producing online resources. From his experience, publishing with online journals is generally recognized as a valid and tenure-worthy form of publication. Other types of online sharing still face some scrutiny.

Ehud Ben Zvi of the University of Alberta and author of more books and online material than can be summarized spoke next. E-publication of journal articles has become an acceptable commonplace. More problematic is the e-publication of monographs. He sees that it will likely become an acceptable standard, but there are challenges and opportunities. One aspect he emphasized is that knowledge is part of the common good, but what does this mean in terms of open access? He is especially concerned about a global openness that makes the common knowledge available to the 80% of the world that does not have access to it now. To this end, check out the open access project, International Voices in Biblical Studies that specifically addresses this need. This project does not want to assume that the model is simply one of the privileged providing sharing with the needy. Hcnce, there is also an incentive to get scholars from the 80% world to publish as well.

Caroline Vander Stichele of the Universiteit van Amsterdam who has worked with the online journal lectio difficilior (European Electronic Journal for Feminist Exegesis) spoke next and described how she got started in online publishing in 1998. With others, she quickly realized the atractiveness of publishing an online journal: lower costs, global access, and fast and effective publication. Those are all good reasons for why one would start an ejournal, and it also allows us to think of experimental directions we might take in terms of topics, interactions, multilinguality, media, etc. So how does one start an ejournal? Her first step was to obtain institutional support for both financial and technological assistance. Institutional cooperation provides some security for a journal’s longevity and legitimacy while also giving publicity to the institution. The issue of control is a challenge—observing copyrights, protecting from plagiarism—but has been addressed in part by preserving physical copies of the online publications.

Ian Scott of Tyndale University College and Seminary (Ontario) and co-editor with Ken Penner of the Online Critical Pseudepigrapha (OCP) was next. His frustration finding texts prompted him to begin the creation of the site. He wanted, however, not simply to provide the most conveniently available out of copyright texts (oftentimes inferior ones) but to make the best primary texts available. Why would we not publish the best critical editions online with open access? We do want to be aware of the rapid technological changes that even allow us to ask this question. With the advent of the printing press arose all sorts of issues regarding intellectual property, paying for publications, etc. The Internet poses even more significant issues. The primary costs for physical printing are in the actual production of the artifact, not in the writing, editing, and peer review. The OCP shows the kind of possibilities for a dynamic and ‘dense’ document. Still, there are costs. The biggest costs for OCP involve platform and software development. Scott would like for academics to adopt a common platform, and to that end they will soon (next week?) be releasing the Grammateus Reader which will be freely available. The Grammateus Reader is flexible and extensible and once installed (Drupal setup), scholars will be able to upload documents and have them available. They are also planning to develop an online editor that scholars will be able to use without technical training. One major challenge is obtaining permission to print texts held in copyright by publishing houses. The SBL is an example of a positive interaction in that they both identified OCP as a SBL endorsed ‘publisher’ and have provided permissions for copyrighted texts that are therefore being released in both print and online versions.

It was an interesting seminar, and we all are benefiting from the work these participants have done. I am especially excited about Scott's announcement of the forthcoming Grammateus Reader. I have often made good use of the OCP site, and this looks to enhance it even further. Thanks!