This time I am not actually talking about Genesis. I am thinking about my blog and I am doing that because I am getting ready for SBL where I will be on two panels discussing biblioblogging and the question of “ePublish or Perish.” Jim Davila will be sharing an excellent history-to-date of biblioblogging and has made a draft available to other members of the panel. He began Paleojudaica way back in 2003. So when did Targuman start? 1Not the name, that was created for my eworld account back in 1995-6 and credit for the suggested name goes to Gary Rendsburg. I was going to use “OTMan” and he suggested, given my area of research, “Targuman” and its play on Meturgeman.
The archives on this site and its predecessor blogspot.com would place it in December 2005, but that archive is incomplete. To be honest, I am not entirely sure when it began. I know I had the Targuman blog and a blog for the Tulane Honors Program up and running before Katrina and it had been going long enough that when I did not post after the storm several people commented and asked after our safety. I am going to guess that early 2005 and perhaps even late 2004 as the start date. Odd that even the founder and author should not be able to remember this clearly. (Yet another warning about how reliable historical witnesses can be!)
How long have you been blogging? Or if not an author, how long have you been reading blogs? As I prepare for the presentation, let me ask you, what value do youfind in blogs and how do you see them developing?
UPDATE: My brother at http://theprofessornotes.com/ points out that he points to my blog as early as August 9, 2004. So that makes Targuman over 6 years old! (Or at least Targuman’s predecessor “The Professor Brother” since SPB had “The Professor’s Notes.”)
- 1Not the name, that was created for my eworld account back in 1995-6 and credit for the suggested name goes to Gary Rendsburg. I was going to use “OTMan” and he suggested, given my area of research, “Targuman” and its play on Meturgeman.
11 thoughts on “When did it all begin?”
I began online c 1995 with the Global Ethic e-list which included Jimmy Dunn, Hans Kung, and Jimmy Carter among others. I got soundly chastised occasionally. I still have some of my early essays. Exploring our Matrix has begin this bit of nostalgia for me. It seems to me that blogging software did not become widely available till 2003-4. Your name is of course brilliant – second only to the Velveteen Rabbi.
I’ve been blogging about 5 years. I don’t really work to get followers, and I just only read other blogs that I’m interested in. After I started my regular blog, where I write about my life, I noticed that whenever I wrote about something religious, I was upset that it was sandwiched in between goofy stories, and i felt that detracted from the sacred nature of my religious posts. Therefore I began writing a religion blog. This is where I feel my true passion lies! Although I have had people make comments that were attacking in nature, I’ve also had some wonderful gospel discussions. I’m not a “scholar”, but I have been well educated in my beliefs, and I have great resources available to me if I need help writing about a subject, or answering a question.
At one time I began following the blogs of a group of people who had found each other’s blogs and had become friends. I read their blogs for awhile, but then they began coming up with some of the strangest interpretations for the scriptures, and the “gospel” they spoke of just did not “jive” with the Bible that I know. I decided they were a little too “out there” for me. What I found was that they really weren’t well educated about the Bible, and would snatch a scripture out of nowhere and develop some weird theory about it, without learning about the historical setting, or even what was going on in the rest of the chapter. So I’ve become more and more picky about which religious blogs that I read.
I actually mentioned on my blog today that today is the 7th birthday of Exploring Our Matrix. It started on my university web space and only later moved to Blogger (which I don’t think was around yet when I started).
Thank you all for the posts! Delirious – I think many of us change and develop along the way. I remember that in my first post to Targuman I said that rather than define it I was simply going to post on what I found interesting and then look back and see what its character is. I actually started an anonymous blog first, but I quickly realized I wanted to feedback and interaction from readers and I also needed to own up to anything I might write.
I have to admit that I still keep my identity private. There is always this fear that someone will come torch my house or something because of something I’ve said. lol As it has turned out, I’ve gotten followers who live close enough to drive to my house. While they are good people, there is always the fear that the “wrong” person might happen to read my blog.
My blog’s first post was August 4th, 2004 http://theprofessornotes.com/archives/3.
Your’s (the anonymous Blogspot one) started soon thereafter (do you remember it’s original name?)
Your blogger account with the name “Targuman” dates to about the same time, and so I suspect your account was created soon after mine (say, weeks, if not days?)
In fact, my first “link” to your blog at the time was on August 9th, http://theprofessornotes.com/archives/7
Enjoy…
“The Professor Brother” was the “anonymous” first blog and that is actually the one you linked which is no longer there.
How did you lose your first few posts? I am curious about that since mine pulled over completely…
I really have no idea. I moved a couple of times… And it is actually more like a year and a half worth of posts.