Although it is April 1st, there are still serious things going on around the blogosphere. Exploring Our Matrix came in first in the Biblioblog Top 10 ranked by vote, and #4 in the Top 50 based on Alexa ranking. Thanks to everyone who voted and visited! In keeping with custom, Daniel McClellan has not simply caricatured me each time this blog has won, but caricatures the next-highest ranking blogger who has not been caricatured yet. This month it was April DeConick’s turn. Congratulations to April for taking the #2 spot this month!
Darrell Pursiful posted the Biblical Studies Carnival – March Madness edition. It is really entertaining – he definitely didn’t drop the ball on this one (sorry, I had to work that pun in somehow). And in keeping with the NCAA basketball theme, he highlighted my blogging since I teach at Butler University. What can I say? Presumably there are only two things that really must be said: “Thanks Darrell!” and “Go Dawgs!”
Jim Linville will be hosting the April Biblical Studies carnival. Presumably it is not too soon to start sending him submissions, and below is a topic which is bound to continue to get attention this month and be part of the April carnival.
Dan McClellan broke the news, also reported by Jim Davila and then circulated by countless other bloggers, that the lead plates that have been in the news lately are indeed fakes. Tom Verenna wrote to Margaret Barker and got a reply which indicates that she has been misquoted in the media about them. And Ferrell Jenkins mentions other earlier forgeries – the Kinderhook Plates – which from the description sound a lot like these.
The biblioblogging community should be proud. It seems that yet again the collective effort of scholars and other interested parties with blogs has shed more light on an issue than the media or any one individual managed to, and has done so quickly and effectively. The next time someone asks “Why blog?” I will mention this as an example of the sort of thing that makes blogging worthwhile for all.
Eisenbrauns has its annual April Fools Day sale, and it is hilarious as always. Lead plates get a mention. Thanks to Jim West, currently the focus of a major scandal in biblioblogdom, for letting us know it is up.
Finally, let me mention that Danny Zacharias shared Logos’ Shibboleth tool for helping with the typing of ancient scripts in Unicode.
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