Biblical Studies Carnival VII

Like others in the biblioblogging community, I warmly welcome the latest Biblical Studies Carnival, produced over on Daily Hebrew by Chip Hardy:

Biblical Studies Carnival VII

As regular readers will know, I am a big fan of the Biblical Studies Carnivals -- they are an ideal way of catching up on the latest in the ever-expanding biblioblogosphere and we are all greatly in the debt of those like Chip Hardy who have done great jobs. Indeed this month I've been pleased to discover Chip Hardy's Daily Hebrew blog, which is new to me and which I have added to my blogroll (though it has about 4,000 different RSS feeds and I don't know if I've got a good one). But I want to add a point this month of (mild) criticism and (stronger) confession. The point of criticism is that I think there is a possible danger that the Biblical Studies Carnivals are over-dependent on the submissions made by individual bloggers. I say this because I think there are some great blog posts that are getting missed, indeed entire blogs that never get mentioned. And this is where I want to add my point of stronger self-criticism and confession: I have never yet submitted anything to any of the Carnivals. I often talk about them and always advertise them, but somehow I never get round to submitting anything. I know that in my own case it's a certain self-effacing shyness at submitting anything I've written. In the case of recommending other people's blogs, it's sheer laziness. I just don't get round to doing it.

So this is partly a memo to self: in future make more of an effort to submit materials. And it is partly a call to others: do try to keep the Carnivals strong by submitting your favourite materials, especially in others' blogs. I think this is important as the blogosphere continues to expand because we will not always be able to rely on the time and ability of those like Chip Hardy who are putting good carnival posts together.