Happy birthday Paleojudaica

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.