PodBible

Selling the Sky Tower?!

Tim — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 04:28:00 +0000

Actually he's not doing that, but Mike Crudge, of Carey Baptist College (where PodBible was recorded) seems to have become a con artist.

He is selling Dominion Road!

His "scam" will only work if lots of people bid, so do claim your piece of history...

If you are still suspicious try checking this out!

To discuss: What does the Bible say about this?

Music and Bible

Tim — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 18:28:00 +0000

Listeners to PodBible may be interested in another audio Bible project the Manna Bible is providing readings of Scripture with a musical backing track specially written to dramatise the text. So far they seem to have just a few chapters done - it is a massive project. They needed copyright free translations so are providing KJV and WEB. If I find out more I will blog about Manna Bible again...

Congratulations, Cheyenne Bible

Tim — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 20:46:00 +0000

Congratulations to Wayne Leman (the founder of the interesting and active multi-author Better Bibles Blog) on the publication of both print and audio versions of the Cheyenne translation he has been working on (if I remember right for years, since I first got to "know" him through comments on the early drafts of Amos). A major translation project like this involves so much work, skill, compromise and commitment from so many people that the dedication day must have been a real celebration! (There was even TV and Press coverage.)

So, please pray that this translation will be well used! (And, Wayne, will someone be making the audio available online?)

Reporting problems

Tim — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 19:59:00 +0000

I've just discovered that when we did 2 Corinthians as part of the Bible in a year last year somehow we repeated chapter 12 THREE times! And we missed out chapter 13. Please if you spot a problem like that do let us know, either in a "comment" on this blog (It doesn't matter what the post is about, I'll get the comment and act on it!) or in an email to pod at podbible.com

That would be a real help. Thanks!

Not in the Bible: Extraordinary Adventures of Arsène Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar

Tim — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 04:42:00 +0000

Not about PodBible, but a somewhat kindred spirited project, LibriVox describes itself like this:

LibriVox volunteers record chapters of books in the public domain and release the audio files back onto the net. Our goal is to make all public domain books available as free audio books.

One LibriVox project I've worked on has now been released back into the wild: Extraordinary Adventures of Arsène Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar. This is a nineteenth century comedy melodrama, Sherlock Holmes makes a bungling appearance in one of my chapters! Do have a listen, and let me know what you think...

Tim

Sorry (again) ::

Tim — Sun, 14 Jan 2007 02:02:00 +0000

Once again I have to say I am sorry! It is the summer holidays here downunder, and I managed to go away without checking that I had enough Bible in a Year chunks uploaded before I went. And, perhaps because it is holiday time, no one with my cell phone number phoned to tell me! The first good news is I am fixing it, the second is that I will have additional help this year as Chris (who I will introduce properly later) will be helping me and with a new and (once again) bigger team we should make less mistakes!

So, please accept my apologies, and please continue to use this great way to hear the Bible in a year, with the audio read by "real people".

Audio Bible in a Year mentioned on Better Bibles

Tim — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 20:16:00 +0000

Thanks, Wayne, for mentioning that one of the options here is to hear the whole audio CEV Bible in a year. Basically if your new year's resolution was to read the Bible in 2007 but you prefer to listen than read remember you just need either to log on daily to PodBible and download the day's chunk, or set your blog or podcast software to do it for you!

Christmas is coming...

Tim — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 01:55:00 +0000

Dear all, hope you have been finding either the chapter a day or the Bible in a year versions of PodBible useful during the year. Now it is time to wish you all a very happy Christmas!

The next few days the chapter a day version of the podcast will have a special "Christmas Medley" which will return to working through a book after Christmas.

If you have any comments or suggestions you can add them as comments here.

We have quite a few things we hope to achieve during 2007 (besides clearing up our mistakes ;-) among them an online discussion forum. I'll keep you posted of our progress here.

Sorry, we made a mistake! Somehow, somewhere, dur...

Tim — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 03:51:00 +0000

Sorry, we made a mistake!

Somehow, somewhere, during the year we slipped up and lost some days! So, those of you who are following the Bible in a Year programme will find that you end the calendar year with a few "Minor Prophets" left to hear. I am very sorry, but you will have got the Bible in a year and a week, if you started on 1 Jan 2006. Hopefully, during next year we'll fix it and everything will be great in 2008... maybe!

Just remember, even if it is not in the Bible "to err is human, to forgive divine"!

Podcasts from your phone ::A service called Podlin...

Tim — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 19:06:00 +0000

Podcasts from your phone ::

A service called Podlinez allows you to get Podcasts from your mobile phone. The numbers you call are US ones, so if any listener in the USA has spare minutes on their phone and wants to try it... We'd be glad to hear how it goes.

HT to Craig for noticing the possibility. And maybe we will explore it further in future, perhaps when the service becomes possible in other countries too?

GodCast top 100

Tim — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 01:05:00 +0000

Currently PodBible is in the GodCast top 100 Christian podcasts http://www.godcast100.com/ when I looked no 23 ! So why not go and vote for us and see if we can make the top 10...

PodBible Free Lunches

Tim — Mon, 16 Oct 2006 20:50:00 +0000

The main way we get Think | Pray | Do ideas is to offer people at church a PodBible "Free Lunch". We supply soup and French Bread, or a simple quick and easy pasta. Small groups have fun spending an hour brainstorming ideas and recording them.

A quick easy and fun social event with "spiritual" content. Just a thought, would anyone who reads this like help to organise a PodBible Free Lunch at their place, and then you can contribute to supplying the Bible to hundreds of people every day... Just email Tim to "talk" about it...

Peter Sellers Accents - the delight of regionalism...

Tim — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 20:16:00 +0000

Peter Sellers

Accents - the delight of regionalism ::

In this video Peter Sellers is interviewed over the 'phone and does several different London accents, before "visiting" Glasgow and Edinburgh, and returning through England to Devon. Just Brilliant!

If you like acting... :: Here's a great clip of P...

Tim — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 19:21:00 +0000

If you like acting... ::

Here's a great clip of Peter Sellers being interviewed on the 'phone, in a couple of minutes he does accents from London (several) to Glasgow and Edinburgh and then back to England. Brilliant!

Site "down" Sunday-Monday

Tim — Mon, 09 Oct 2006 01:09:00 +0000

I am sorry about the unavailability of PodBible during part of Sunday and Monday, we had only minutes warning from our hosts!

We were warned by our webhosts eDataRack.com that PodBible (like other sites they host) will be unavailable for some hours during Sunday-Monday. But the email arrived only minutes before the site (and so this blog) went offline!

We are very sorry about this but had no control over it. It comes from needing to use a cheap host ;-)

Site "down" Sunday-Monday

Tim — Mon, 09 Oct 2006 01:09:00 +0000

We have been warned by our webhosts eDataRack.com that PodBible (like other sites they host) will be unavailable for some hours during Sunday-Monday 16th-17th. We are very sorry about this but have no control over it. It comes from needing to use a cheap host ;-)

Sorry, Bible in a Year mess up

Tim — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 22:53:00 +0000

Dear all,

I am very sorry, there has been another mix up with the Bible in a Year posts, which I am correcting this morning.

The last few weeks have been very busy, and Pete has been incommunicado (learning to be properly military, so he can be a chaplain in the navy) so I've been doing the posting alone.

Two items of good news though:

Another group has volunteered to think up openended Think|Pray|Do ideas, so Balmoral Baptist should get longer gaps between PodBible free lunches, and you should get an even bigger variety of things to think about, pray about and do, as you listen to the Bible.

Bibles in Action have promised us money to employ a student parttime to help with breaking up the chapters and correcting the volume etc. Since this is quite a lot of work this will be a big help!

More news on both of these will follow...

In the meanwhile if you know a group of 3+ people who would like a different fun activity that will let them discover (part of) the Bible in a new way, just contact Tim (tim@carey.ac.nz Auckland 526 0344) to talk about arranging a PodBible Free Lunch.

PodBible on Shine TV

Tim — Wed, 31 May 2006 02:41:00 +0000

For any of you who missed seeing Peter Olds on Shine TV (and I did as we don't have Sky ;) you can access the segment online just click on the Monday 29th May 2006 link (there's a choice of broadband or dialup) and the segment is about 1/3 of the way through the program!

PodBible gets media coverage!

Tim — Fri, 26 May 2006 22:12:00 +0000

PodBible will feature on Shine TV on Monday with an interview with Peter Olds. Programme details and URL for watching on the web, to follow!

We also had a nice article in Challenge Weekly covering our first six months of podcasting the Bible. Which has been taken up so wse have made (a very small splash in) a US news service: Biblecast delivering 1000 Bible chapters a day to listeners.

Incidentally, over the first six months usage has grown fairly steadily and visitors have increased by 50%. Data downloaded increased by a 600%, though heavy downloads after Easter Camp ;-) may account for some of that. Before Easter at the 5 month mark it was up 350%.

In April (the last full month 364 of you visited PodBible.com each day. At the peak at the end of the month you guzzled over a gigabyte of data each day (that's over 1,000 chapters)! "Bible Podcast" was the commonest search term on Google to find this site.

24 countries scored more than 10 hits in the month, NZ was second after the USA, visitors also came from: Japan, Netherlands, Australia, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Canada, Guatemala, China, Italy, Singapore, Brazil, Israel, Poland, Norway, Spain, Finland, Turkey, Denmark, Hungary, Malaysia, Portugal. But, of course lots of people subscribe through Bloglines or another Blog or Podcast reader, and will therefore "count" as coming from the USA!

Three developments

Tim — Sat, 06 May 2006 00:14:00 +0000

Hi, people, one change of personnel and two great developments are being planned for PodBible:

Nathan Kilpatrick will be taking over from Matt Wilson as our technical guru and general web person! Many many thanks to Matt, whose willingness to do things quickly and as needed enabled us to get the site up and running and to introduce new features like the Bible in a Year with little warning! And big thanks too to Nathan, who will be an ideal successor (especially and Nathan and Matt are friends...
We are moving to a new host. Richard Naylor of CityLink (more big thanks!) has offered us hosting, which should make the site respond much better with the new higher traffic we are getting, which was beginning to cause problems with the old host. This will also give us space to make the "Biblecast" link work properly. (Just be patient a little longer!)
We are planning to add a facility so that you can discuss the Bible as well as hear it. Though this one may (as they say) take a little longer...

Bible in a year

Tim — Sun, 26 Mar 2006 19:11:00 +0000

To those of you following our Bible in a year podcasts, sorry! Due to a misunderstanding I wrongly added Luke's Gospel (again) and because we had got behind some chapters will have appeared for you. It is now corrected and the Bible in a Year is working through John's Gospel. (chapters 9 and 10 today.)

Please accept my apologies.

Humble Pie

Tim — Wed, 15 Mar 2006 02:04:00 +0000

[insert here image of groveling and eating dirt]

We are all very sorry, due to very busy schedules (and a much needed holiday or two as well ;) we have got all behind. Normal reading will be resumed asap. We will get up to date by 'casting the daily chapters without | think | pray | do | sections till we get organised again, and will catch up in a day or two. We are trying to organise teams to help make this a smoother and more regular podcast. Please pray that suitable people may volunteer. Before we volunteer you! ;)

Thanks and an invitation :: Thanks to Raymond Lum...

Tim — Wed, 22 Feb 2006 18:19:00 +0000

Thanks and an invitation ::

Thanks to Raymond Lum who identified Rochelle Andrews from Global Christian Centre for us, now picture 13 is no longer nameless!

The invitation is not directly PodBible-related but any reader of this blog, or listener to the podcasts, is most welcome to the launch of Tim's Amos: Hypertext Bible Commentary over coffee and desserts on March 10th at 7:00pm at Carey Baptist College, 473 Great South Rd, Penrose, Auckland

If you can RSVP to anne.adlam@carey.ac.nz so we know how many to cater for.

You can see the working test files from the commentary at Bible.gen.nz

Podcast: Word of the Year

Tim — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 01:59:00 +0000

OK people, it's (quasi)official: "The term 'podcast' has been declared Word of the Year by the New Oxford American Dictionary." (according to BBC News) so we were just in time to be trendy!

BTW we plan still to try to podcast the Bible in a year as well as the chapter a day version, starting Jan 1st, so be ready for the Bible Podcasts at PodBible...

TXT not fine enough for the Bible?

Tim — Mon, 14 Nov 2005 20:33:00 +0000

There's another interesting experiment in communicating the Bible started a few weeks ago just across the ditch from PodBible, the Bible Society in Australia's SMSBible. Of course, there are people who think TXT is just not "holy" or "beautiful" enough for the Bible even the esteemed if:book , a blog dedicated to the future of books.

Kim White's post there sounds like someone who can't stand change, and prefers the snobbery of the highbrow. Listen to this:

...the SMS version changes the voice of god from that of a wizened poet to that of a text-messaging teenager. Here's an example:

4 god so luvd da world

I'm all for reading on cellphones and other portable devices, and I understand using a shorthand language for keying in messages, but why does the published book need to look like an electronic stenographer's notepad? I realize that the form of the electronic "page" is changing the way we write, but I'll be more than a little disappointed if this is the direction we are goingÂtoward a cutesy-looking shorthand that compromises the integrity of the text for the sake of expediency.

Kim White concludes: Are you with me when I say that they jst dun hav d powR of d orignL txt.

OK admit it, TXT IS ugly, and has no place in print (yet). However, it is (currently at least) convenient. I use TXT (badly, as my fingers prefer trying to spell things in full and use punctuation too ;-) when communicating on MSN with Sarah in France. Though when we can I prefer to use voice, she often prefers TXT - since she is also carrying on three other "conversations"... For some things TXT is best.

So, I agrere with Kim, in some things, but there is also a spare and contemporary flavour to the extracts from the TXT Bible that seems to work. Remember too, that the original Greek of much of the New Testament was no literary linguistic masterpiece, but was koine the langauge of the streets and everyday letters - the TXT of the first century?