Theology Wiki talk:Synod

Discussion of scope
I recently proposed a wiki idea to the administrators which was somewhat similar in scope to this wiki. They rejected it and sent me here. My proposal was to create a Bible study wiki. In addition to the text of the Scriptures, people could write down discussions that they either had or planned to have about particular passages. It is also my hope to create a place where the original context, and (as far as we were able), the original language of the text could also be examined. As a long term goal, I hoped that there would be serious discussion about theological issues which force their way into the mainstream, presently for example, the Gospel of Judas and the Da Vinci Code. I would hope that people would be able to read the evidence presented on all sides of such issues.


 * Well, I don't foresee a problem. I am wondering, however, what you mean about the Gospel of Judas and the Da Vinci Code. I think you get the idea of what my hope is from my talk page, and from what I've contributed. Schmidt 03:25, 28 April 2006 (UTC)


 * What I mean regarding those, is that every now and then there are issues or things which get picked up by the mainstream media which cause excitement among both Christian and non-Christian alike. The current two such items are this alleged "Gospel of Judas" and the Da Vinci code, but the same could be said, for example, about the ossuary of James that was discovered (and later disproven) a few years ago.  People who are firmly in the mainstream, and who otherwise are not exposed to any spiritual resources see these and form opinions (possibly bad ones) about both the Christian church and God.


 * I would hope that this place could be a resource to rationally discuss these items as they come up. Here's the Gospel of Judas.  OK, where was it and how did we find it?  How is it similar and dissimilar other ancient manuscript fragments that we've discovered?  If we're lucky, someone who would otherwise say "Wow!  A fifth Gospel!  The Bible is totally wrong!"  might come away with an understanding of how the ancient texts got assembled into the Bible in the first place, as well as the possible authenticity of this current find.  I seek the Truth, and I seek to share the Truth. That's all. :-)


 * in Christ, Sr.Wombat 23:38, 29 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Sounds great to me for now. I don't see a problem with it, but it should be discussed rationally. By that, I mean that someone who has actually read the book should post what it seems to convey, and in what way it is correct, and in what way it is incorrect; in what way it is rational, and in what way it is fallacious. It shouldn't just say "This book is bad, just because it's bad," or "This book is great because this guy wrote it." Schmidt 02:12, 30 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I completely agree. :-) Sr.Wombat 03:14, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Discussion of practicality
On a different topic, I assume you'd like assistance with the uploading of the Scriptures? First and foremost, do you think it might be good to have multiple entries for each chapter and verse? We are limited neither by database space, nor by number of pages. I don't see a reason why we can't have a top down model. We can have one page for Genesis 1-5, and we can also have a page for Genesis 1, and for Genesis 2, and for Genesis 3, etc. If we wanted to, we could even create one page per verse at the end-all extreme. We could have a bot go and make sure everything linked to everything else in the correct fashion. (We probably could have a bot go and take care of the uploading as well...) In my opinion, that would provide people with the maximum ability to discuss things without confusing the issue with material from surrounding areas. On the other hand, it would probably cause a large disparity of trafic, a huge amount going to John 3:16 and hardly none going to John 3:17. What do you think?

Secondly, did you just want to go linearly, or shortest to longest, or Gospels first, or what?

Sr.Wombat 03:14, 30 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Me, I'm just trying to get out there what I feel most strongly about, in order of how I remember things. I have gillions of notes in my Bible, and until just yesterday I couldn't find it because it was in my brother's truck. Since I found it, I've been trying to get my thoughts in. And as you can see, I put in Leviticus 17-20, but not the rest of the book. Just do first what you feel is important to yourself for others to see. Go from there.
 * I feel that all breaks in the reading of the text should be as close to breaks in context as possible. That is the primary reason I chose to break Genesis and Leviticus the way that I did. It will be more difficult to do it with other books, but Jeremiah should be easy to do that, and maybe Isaiah. But for the reason you brought to light, I feel strongly that we should not break with every chapter. I mean, there's obviously a break with each chapter, but some breaks are less significant than others, and we need to keep relevant blocks together. That's how the Bible is to be read.
 * First off, I'm not averse to using any version of the Bible, but I lean towards KJV because that's the most commonly used version in the public domain. I think RSV is also, and I don't mind that, but the version I saw had accents in all the names, which would be a pain to deal with.
 * As far as bots go, I wouldn't mind, as long as all the text comes from the same version of the Bible. Further, I'd like the format to fit with what I've already established. By that I mean specifically using chapter and verse formatting, starting each verse on a new line (not necessarily starting a new paragraph, of course), with links to other blocks in the book it belongs to. As well, a general OT or NT nav pane in each page might be nice. I just thought of that.
 * I can't think of anything else I've missed, so if you had an unanswered question in there, let me know. Thanks for asking, by the way, for my opinion.
 * Let me know if there's a specific thing you might be able to help with that would be beneficial to the wiki at large, such as writing up CSS or other admin stuff, you know what I'm getting at. Schmidt 05:06, 30 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Oh, and as far as singular verses, that should never happen, outside of the scope that follows: If a page discusses one special aspect of one verse. For that, the only example I can come up with so far is Genesis 11:5, which is the only verse (so far) that mentions Gentiles. Of course there are more mentions later throughout. Also, the raven article mentions one verse. And as you say, John 3:16 is so much more significant to people than John 3:17, but really they're in the same place, in the same discussion--even in the same breath--but so many people ignore it. That's why I refer to Leviticus 19:18 when I mention Love your neighbor as yourself. It's significant, and answers "So how can I say that I love my neighbor?" Ever since I read that, I thought, How do people ignore the rest of this chapter? Schmidt 05:16, 30 April 2006 (UTC)


 * You're probably right. It was just a thought.  So much of the Bible is quoted out of context, it can be made to say anything.  Anyway, my background is one of computer science.  I have a personal Wiki running on my home machine which I use as an organizational tool, so I'm pretty well versed in how MediaWiki works.  I can take care of any of the techie side of things.  The creaton of custom bots to do whatever we need is quite possible.  Sr.Wombat 06:25, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Cool. So what kinds of bots are normally used, and would a bot be able to take from U. of Michigan site (or whatever other site) and put it in the format that I have for the other passages? (Oh, and do you have any recommendations about the format?)

And what else kinds of things would a bot be used for? I'm clueless when it comes to that.

I'm also an administrator at another wiki (although if I wasn't, I'd still know just as much even then), and I'm quite fluent in formatting, and I know CSS quite well also. Schmidt 17:12, 30 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Bots would be used cheifly for housekeeping activities. For example, a bot could go and read all the pages looking for ones that didn't have links back to the core scripture entry page.  It could then put the links in and add that page to the appropriate categories.  Additionally, we could have a bot watching the latest changes 24/7.  It could look at how each article had been changed, and be an instant vandalism detector.  As I say, there's not much we can't program one to do.  (One of my subfield of interest is Artifical Intelligence.  I've got a soft spot for these little guys. :-)


 * Regarding taking the base scripture from the U. of Michigan site, I think it would be better to download it all in one go and have them do all the parsing on one of our local machines. 3rd party sites sometimes get cranky if they see something that's obviously a bot performing screen scrapes of their site.  I see however that the UMich site is simply a series of static pages, one per book.  That would likely be do-able.  Breaking them up into the sub-book chunks will be harder since the bot obviously, (like the Ethiopian Eunuch) won't understand what it's reading. :-)  Once that's done however, it should be a simple matter to get everything up in one single uploadfest.  Anyway, let me know.  Sr.Wombat 20:02, 30 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I guess all we'd need to do is break down each book into the proper sections and then let the bot do what it does best. In the meantime, I guess you could fill out the books I've already broken down. So feel free to do that, and put that bot into gear about reformatting the pages.
 * Do you think you'd be able to break the books down, or do you want to leave that to me? I'll tell you now that I may have more time this week and next, but after that school starts up again. Schmidt 21:15, 30 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Sounds good. I'll focus on the New Testament, you can keep working on the Old.  I think we should bring the Apocrypha in as well, albeit with a few templated disclaimers.  The Apocrypha, and why they are not canon, is exactly the kind of thing I was discussing earlier with respect to objects that should be examined and explained for the benefit of lay folks.  We can put those up once the canon is complete.