Talk:Biblical Studies/Revision

Revision Logic
Below lies the logic behind each of the revisions that I made. Please, feel free to comment on any revision you support or oppose, as I would like to achieve consensus with this page. The revisions are grouped by page section. --Opensourcejunkie 01:58, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

(introduction)
In the introduction I took a very large leap in that I single-handedly defined (what I percieved to be) the focus of the department - "this department focuses on the study of the Bible, and of exegetic and hermeneutic techniques". I felt that such a definition was critical due to a large amount of discussion of the topic on the department's talk page. There seems to be a lot of confusion over what belongs in "Biblical Studies" and what belongs elsewhere. I therefore took into account what was being said, along with what other resources say about Biblical Studies, and eventually settled upon this definition. Let me know what you think.

Department Centers
Four revisions took place here. First of all, in keeping with the newly assumed definition of our focus, I retained all of the departments that pertain to the study of scripture, and ejected all of the departments that had more to do with the results of such study. Therefore I kept the following: and got rid of the rest:
 * Department of Biblical Hermeneutics
 * Department of Biblical Overview
 * Department of Bible Translation
 * New Testament Greek - Requires Introductory Ancient Greek Language
 * Department of Biblical Languages - Ancient Hebrew
 * Department of Christian Formation
 * Department of Ecclesiology and Church History
 * Department of Missional Theology
 * Department of Eschatology

Secondly, I followed the logic given by Guðsþegn on the School of Theology talk page of changing (sub)departments into centers. This avoids some confusion of having departments within departments, among other things. I like it anyway :)

Thirdly, I combined New Testament Greek and Ancient Hebrew into a new Center of Biblical Languages, as recommended by Hisfootstep on the department's Talk page. This way, we have no individual courses on the department page; I think it might be a good department policy to keep all learning projects in their respective Centers.

Lastly, I changed a few names around, to reflect unity and conformity both within the department, and without. (essentially, I made the names sound better :-) Biblical Overview changed to Biblical Survey, a name more often used in universities/seminaries, and Bible Translation changed to Biblical Translation, just 'cause everything else was "Biblical"

Department Projects
This section gives a brief introduction to a page I've created to hold department projects. The purpose of this page is threefold: first, it serves as a practical invitation to new editors who may not know what areas of the department need attention. Second, it serves as a place where seasoned editors can post side-projects etc. that they may not have time to complete, but which would augment their material nicely. (For instance, in my Study of Genesis, I would like to include a page showing the arguments for and against both Creation and Evolution, but at the moment I am consumed by the text of Genesis itself. If I had another editor (similar to a graduate student?) to create that page for me, it would greatly help the study, while not distracting me from it).

Lastly, having a department projects page would serve as a way to steer the development of the department, should such steering be desirable. If, for instance, it was noticed that the Center of Biblical Languages was lacking in its study of Hebrew, a project or set of projects could help steer editors toward that area, and give them practical ways to improve it. This of course requires there to be more than just me editing this department; hopefully people will start coming back around again :)

Active Participants
Adapted from the Department of Traditional Christian Theology, this section was added to, as mentioned on the actual page, "help the department grow and the participants better communicate."

Discussion
Let me know what you think! --Opensourcejunkie 07:34, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

All right then, since there're no objections, I guess I'll cut it over! --Opensourcejunkie 06:43, 19 March 2008 (UTC)