http://www.wikichristian.org/wiki/en/api.php?action=feedcontributions&user=DavidCary&feedformat=atom WikiChristian - User contributions [en] 2024-03-28T10:17:47Z User contributions MediaWiki 1.32.1 http://www.wikichristian.org/wiki/en/index.php?title=Christian_wikis&diff=671760 Christian wikis 2010-04-12T13:13:35Z <p>DavidCary: some wiki comes to town, some wiki leaves town</p> <hr /> <div>{{Infobox_Contents | <br /> topic_name = Christian Wikis |<br /> subtopics = Specific Wikis - [[WikiChristian]], [[OrthodoxWiki]], [[Theopedia]], [[ReformedWord]], [[BibleFootnotes]]<br /> * [[Wiki]]s |<br /> opinion_pieces = {{short_opinions}} |<br /> }}<br /> <br /> A wiki website is a site that allows users to add content, as on an internet forum, but also allows anyone to edit the content. There are a number of wiki websites related to [[Christianity]]. <br /> <br /> ===Reasons Underlying the Development of Christian Wikis===<br /> <br /> The first wiki was set up by Ward Cunningham in 1995. Wikipedia, the most well known wiki website, was started in 2001, and currently contains millions of articles. It contains thousands of articles related to [[religion]]. One of the criticisms that adherents to various religious groups have however is that in attempting to maintain a neutral point of view, some of the teachings of their religion can be &quot;watered-down&quot; or altered. These critics also state that the neutral point of view is in the eye of the beholder. In response to some of these criticism, explicitly [[Christian]] wiki websites have been set up. Some of these Christian wikis, like OrthodoxWiki and Theopedia, are devoted to a particular Christian denomination or theological slant whereas others, like WikiChristian, are open to a wider diversity of views.<br /> <br /> ===History of Christian Wikis===<br /> <br /> The first Christian wiki was clublet.com, begun by Richard Drake in 2000.<br /> <br /> Another early Christian wiki was Compass, which was set up by Richard Hall in early 2001. This is no longer online. <br /> <br /> In late 2004 WikiChristian was set up as a non-denominational wiki for Christianity. <br /> <br /> Other wikis developed in early 2005 including Orthodox Wiki (for [[Eastern Orthodoxy]]) and Theopedia (for Reformed Protestantism).<br /> <br /> In 2006 and 2007 there was a brief explosion of Christian wikis, particularly &quot;Bible&quot; wikis dedicated to Biblical Christianity, such as Wikible. Most of these wikis have since disappeared because of lack of interest by web-users.<br /> <br /> No Christian wikis have achieved anything like the numerical success of editors that wikipedia has. Currently there are only three English-language Christian wikis that have regular daily users. These are [[Theopedia]], [[OrthodoxWiki]] and [[WikiChristian]].<br /> <br /> ==Quotes==<br /> <br /> ''From an internet chat forum''<br /> : I think Christian wikis need to join forces<br /> <br /> ==Links==<br /> <br /> ===Active Wikis===<br /> * [http://bible.tmtm.com/wiki/Main_Page Bible Wiki] A user-created free scholarly commentary to the entire text of the Christian Bible. <br /> * [http://www.christianmedia.ca ChristianMedia.ca] Connecting Canadian Christians with a heart for media ministry.<br /> * [http://wiki.faithfutures.org/ Jesus Database] Historical Jesus research.<br /> * [http://www.orthodoxwiki.org/ OrthodoxWiki] An encyclopedia and information center for Orthodox Christianity.<br /> * [http://lutheranhymntunemusic.pbworks.com Lutheran Hymn Tune Music] Lutheran hymn tune music.<br /> * [http://reformedword.org/ ReformedWord] A Moral Encyclopedia of Knowledge and a Linguistic Tool for Studying God's Word.<br /> * [http://www.sawiki.net/ SAWiki.net] SAWiki is an online encyclopedia covering all aspects of the Salvation Army.<br /> * [http://www.theopedia.com/ Theopedia] An online encyclopedia of Christianity and Biblical Theology<br /> * [[Main Page|WikiChristian]] ''(This website)'' An encyclopedia and discussion forum for all Christians to share their faith.<br /> * [http://www.textus-receptus.com/w/mediawiki-1.13.2/index.php/Main_Page Textus Receptus] A wiki promoting the Textus Receptus and versions translated from it.<br /> * [http://www.anabaptistwiki.org The Global Anabaptist Wiki] An interactive community of Anabaptist-Mennonite groups from around the world.<br /> <br /> ===Barely Active Wikis===<br /> * [http://christianity.wikia.com/ Christianity Knowledge Base]<br /> * [http://thecatholicguide.com/ The Catholic Guide]<br /> * [http://christianrock.wikia.com/ Christian Rock wiki]<br /> * [http://lutheranwiktionary.org/ Lutheran Wikitionary] A dictionary of Lutheran theology<br /> * [http://www.monachos.net/wiki Monachos Patristic Quotations Index] Eastern Orthodox<br /> * [http://oldbelievers.wetpaint.com/ Old Orthodox Wiki] Old-Rite Russian Orthodox<br /> * [http://hymnal.oremus.org/ Oremus Hymnal] Anglican hymnal<br /> * [http://theology.wikia.com/ Theologia] Theology from an ecumenical point of view<br /> <br /> ===Inactive Wikis===<br /> * [http://www.lutheranwiki.org/ LutheranWiki] Lutheran theology<br /> * [http://openbibleproject.org Open Bible Project] <br /> * [http://biblestudy.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page Wikia Bible Study]<br /> <br /> ===Specific Interest Wikis===<br /> * [http://christianmusic.wikia.com/ Christian Music Wiki]<br /> * [http://heavenmusic.wikia.com/ LifeMusic Wiki]<br /> * [http://www.creationwiki.org/ CreationWiki] (Creation Science Wiki Site)<br /> * [http://www.mormonwiki.org/ MormonWiki.org] (Christian Wiki Reviewing Mormonism)<br /> * [http://www.apologetics-wiki.com ApologeticsWiki] (Wiki for Christian apologetics) ''apparently offline as of 2010-04-12''<br /> * [http://astorehouseofknowledge.info/ A Storehouse of Knowledge] &quot;the encyclopedia with a biblical worldview.&quot;<br /> <br /> ===Christian Wikis in Non-English Languages===<br /> * [http://www.kathpedia.com Kathpedia] (German)<br /> <br /> ===Christian Wikis Search Engine===<br /> * [http://rollyo.com/rockofvictory/christian_wikis/ Christian Wikis Search Engine]<br /> <br /> {{returnto}} [[Christianity and the Internet]]<br /> <br /> [[Category:Christian wikis]]</div> DavidCary http://www.wikichristian.org/wiki/en/index.php?title=Biblical_references_to_technology&diff=671759 Biblical references to technology 2010-04-12T08:45:15Z <p>DavidCary: do &quot;witty inventions&quot; count as technology?</p> <hr /> <div>{{Infobox_Contents | <br /> topic_name = Biblical References to Technology |<br /> subtopics = ... |<br /> opinion_pieces = {{short_opinions}} |<br /> }}<br /> <br /> <br /> Many verses throughout the Bible assume a degree of technology and technique: that is, the existence of tools and the processes for their manufacture and use. Common examples include [http://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=iron iron], [http://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=bronze bronze], [http://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=gold gold], [http://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=silver silver], [http://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=refine refine], [http://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=metal metal], [http://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=tool tool], [http://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=instrument instrument], [http://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=wheel wheel], [http://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=cook cook], [http://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=wine wine], [http://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=craft craft], [http://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=build build], [http://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=cloth cloth], [http://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=city city], [http://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=shield shield], [http://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=helmet helmet], [http://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=armor armor], [http://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=arrow arrow], [http://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=sword sword], [http://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=weapon weapon] [http://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=spear spear], [http://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=chariot chariot], [http://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=boat boat], [http://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=ship ship], [http://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=door door]. Each of these imply that people created technologies to augment their abilities, to control the environment, to improve their lives, to communicate, etc.<br /> <br /> <br /> The following tables collates more significant references to technology:<br /> <br /> ==Old Testament==<br /> <br /> {| class=&quot;wikitable&quot;<br /> |-<br /> ! Verse<br /> ! Summary of Content<br /> ! Observations and Implications<br /> |-<br /> | [[Genesis 1]]<br /> | Creation by God's word.<br /> | God has a technique but requires no technology.<br /> |-<br /> | [[Genesis 2:7]]<br /> | &quot;The Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.&quot;<br /> | More of God's technique.<br /> |-<br /> | [[Genesis 3:7]]<br /> | Fig leaves sewn together constitute the first clothes<br /> | (From [http://donteatthefruit.com/2009/07/from-the-garden-to-the-city-technology-in-the-story-of-redemptive/ John Dyer]) &quot;Adam and Eve quickly recognize that they can overcome one of the effects of the Curse by inventing clothing to cover themselves. We don’t normally think of clothing as technology, it is a product of human creation and an expression of the creativity of God. Sadly, Adam and Eve use their creativity not to glorify God, but in a way that is representative of humanity’s rejection of God and attempt to live apart from him. But rather than condemn them, God pours out his grace and “upgrades” their clothing from leaves to the skin of an animal ([[Genesis 3:21]]). God’s action seems to support humans inventing things that overcome the effects of the Fall, yet he also shows the inadequacy of our solutions.&quot;<br /> |-<br /> | [[Genesis 4:17]]<br /> | First mention of a city.<br /> | (From [http://donteatthefruit.com/2009/07/from-the-garden-to-the-city-technology-in-the-story-of-redemptive/ John Dyer]) &quot;The city, in all its technological glory, becomes a symbol of man’s quest to restore the comfort and power of Garden without the presence of God. Babylon, Ninevah, Sodom, and others come to represent the enemies of God and the collective human desire to live happily without him.&quot;<br /> |-<br /> | [[Genesis 4:22]]<br /> | Tubal-Cain forged all kinds of tools out of bronze and iron.<br /> | The first use of bronze was about 3200 BC, and iron about 1800 BC ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_historic_inventions])<br /> |-<br /> | [[Genesis 6]]<br /> | Building Noah's Ark<br /> | A detailed design was provided by God, but there is no mention of instructions regarding ''how'' to build it.<br /> Note that the Ark itself is a new technology, i.e. a boat.<br /> |-<br /> | [[Genesis 9:20]] - [[Genesis 9:21]]<br /> | Noah grows grapes and brews wine.<br /> | <br /> |-<br /> | [[Genesis 11:1]]; [[Genesis 11:9]]<br /> | human languages<br /> | ''does this really count as a technology?''<br /> |-<br /> | [[Genesis 11:1]] - [[Genesis 11:9]]<br /> | Tower of Babel <br /> * built with bricks, not stone (v3).<br /> * God was impressed by humanity's achievement (v6).<br /> | Here we see humanity attempting to use their creative powers to build their way into heaven. Part of the lesson here is that we should not arrogantly think that our own abilities are unlimited.<br /> |-<br /> | [[Genesis 11:31]]<br /> | Abraham came from Ur.<br /> | Ur was a Sumerian city where the Euphrates River ran into the Persian Gulf. This is in present-day Iraq, 1200km east of Jerusalem. <br /> Abraham born about 1800 BC and hence would have seen the Great Ziggurat of Ur. A couple of centuries before, Ur might have been the largest city in the world, with a population of about 65,000. <br /> It was quite close to Uruk, which was probably the world's first city, holding more than 50,000 within a 6km&lt;sup&gt;2&lt;/sup&gt; space a thousand years before Abraham.<br /> (See articles on [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham Abraham] and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ur Ur] in Wikipedia.)<br /> |-<br /> | [[Genesis 17:12]]<br /> | Money<br /> | <br /> |-<br /> | [[Genesis 20:16]]<br /> | Silver<br /> | Implies mining, refining (which needs a furnace) and weighing.<br /> |-<br /> | [[Genesis 21:25]]<br /> | Well<br /> | Does this imply buckets and rope?<br /> |-<br /> | [[Genesis 24:22]]<br /> | Gold nose rings and bracelets<br /> | <br /> |-<br /> | [[Genesis 27:3]], [[Genesis 27:40]]<br /> | Weapons: bow and arrow, sword.<br /> | Note that the first mention of a weapon is the sword wielded by an angel to keep people away from the tree of life ([[Genesis 3:24]]). Other references to God using a manufactured weapon include [[Isaiah 27:1]], [[Isaiah 34:5]], [[Isaiah 66:16]].<br /> |-<br /> | [[Genesis 28:12]]<br /> | Stairway (or ladder) in Jacob's dream.<br /> | <br /> |-<br /> | [[Genesis 30:29]] - [[Genesis 30:43]]<br /> | Jacob (the deceiver) does some selective breeding and genetic modification to make his flock better than Laban's.<br /> | <br /> |-<br /> | [[Genesis 31:27]]<br /> | Tambourines and harps.<br /> | First musical instruments mentioned in the Bible.<br /> |-<br /> | [[Genesis 35:14]]<br /> | Oil<br /> | <br /> |-<br /> | [[Genesis 37:25]]<br /> | Ishmaelite traders: spices, scent, slaves<br /> | <br /> |-<br /> | [[Genesis 41:47]] - [[Genesis 41:49]]<br /> | Grain storage specifically to counter famine.<br /> | <br /> |-<br /> | [[Genesis 46:5]]<br /> | Jacob and family travel in carts.<br /> | <br /> |-<br /> | [[Genesis 49:5]] - [[Genesis 49:7]]<br /> | Jacob curses Simeon and Levi for gratuitous use of weapons.<br /> | <br /> |-<br /> | [[Genesis 50:2]]<br /> | Physicians, embalming<br /> | Were these techniques learnt by Joseph during his time in Egypt?<br /> |-<br /> | [[Genesis 50:26]]<br /> | Joseph is embalmed and placed in a coffin.<br /> | <br /> <br /> <br /> |-<br /> | [[Exodus 2:3]]<br /> | Moses' baby basket was coated with tar for waterproofing.<br /> | <br /> |-<br /> | [[Exodus 4:2]] - [[Exodus 4:5]]<br /> | Moses' staff was designed by God &quot;so that they may believe in the Lord.&quot;<br /> | See the staff in use in [[Exodus 7]], [[Exodus 17:6]], [[Exodus 14:16]].<br /> Is this God's style of technology?<br /> |-<br /> | [[Exodus 5]]<br /> | Israelite slaves in Egypt are set a quota on brick-making.<br /> | <br /> |-<br /> | [[Exodus 14:25]]<br /> | Wheels on the Egyptian chariots.<br /> | Note the Egyptian influence on Israeli technology: chariots, embalming.<br /> |-<br /> | [[Exodus 15:25]]<br /> | Moses uses a piece of wood to make bitter water drinkable.<br /> | Magic or chemistry?<br /> |-<br /> | [[Exodus 17:14]]<br /> | Writing <br /> | <br /> |-<br /> | [[Exodus 20:1]] - [[Exodus 20:17]]<br /> | The Ten Commandments<br /> | <br /> * Don't make technology into an idol that replaces God (v4).<br /> * Don't covet your neighbour's technology (v17).<br /> |-<br /> | [[Exodus 20:24]] - [[Exodus 20:25]]<br /> | Altars should be made of unhewn stones, not defiled by using iron tools.<br /> | Why no iron? <br /> * The altar is temporary, not the final one<br /> * The altar is made from the earth – natural materials, not manufactured.<br /> * Should be unadorned: no symbols or images that might detract from the worship of God alone, and perhaps lead to superstition<br /> * Jesus is a cut stone, formed not by human hands ([[Daniel 2:34]], [[Daniel 2:44]] - [Daniel 2:45]]). On the other hand there was nothing amazingly attractive about him ([[Isaiah 53:2]]) and he was rejected by the builders ([[Psalm 118:20]], [[Luke 20:17]]).<br /> See also [[Deuteronomy 27:5]].<br /> |-<br /> | [[Exodus 21:6]]<br /> | Use of an awl to pierce the ear of a slave.<br /> | <br /> |-<br /> | [[Exodus 23:10]] - [[Exodus 23:11]]<br /> | Letting land lie fallow every seventh year.<br /> | <br /> |-<br /> | [[Exodus 25]] – [[Exodus 31]]<br /> | Design of the Tabernacle.<br /> | God gives detailed descriptions of the Ark of the Covenant, furniture, lampstands, curtains, altar, utensils and clothes. But (like Noah's ark) God does not give instructions about ''how'' to make these things: he leaves the techniques of construction to us. <br /> |-<br /> | [[Exodus 28:3]]<br /> | Although the &quot;skilled workmen&quot; are to do the work, their wisdom comes from God. <br /> | The work is to be done by skilled craftsmen. This implies dedication, training and care.<br /> |-<br /> | [[Exodus 31:1]] - [[Exodus 31:11]]<br /> | God's selection of the chief craftsman: &quot;I have filled him with the Spirit of God&quot; as well as with &quot;skills, ability and knowledge&quot;.<br /> | The role of the craftsman (and technologist) is no less spiritual or dependent on God than those who serve in other ways. This reminds me of the selection of deacons in [[Acts 6]]: even for the menial task of handing out food, the candidates needed to be &quot;full of the Spirit and wisdom&quot;.<br /> |-<br /> | [[Exodus 32]] – [[Exodus 34]]<br /> | The Golden Calf and the second set of Ten Commandments.<br /> | <br /> |-<br /> | [[Exodus 32:4]]<br /> | Tools were used to fashion the Golden Calf.<br /> | See how Aaron denies the use of tools in [[Exodus 32:24]]!!! This may imply a belief that what occurs naturally is good, but that manufactured goods are not. But more likely, it is simply a denial of responsibility, like a child's &quot;I didn't touch it, it just broke&quot;.<br /> |-<br /> | [[Exodus 32:20]]<br /> | Moses grinds the Golden Calf, scatters it on water and makes the people drink it.<br /> | [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10VhvCQjYUI Dana Ullman claims] that this is Biblical support for homeopathy!<br /> |-<br /> | [[Exodus 34:1]], [[Exodus 34:28]]<br /> | Moses uses a chisel to prepare the second set of stone tablets and then writes the Ten Commandments on them.<br /> | <br /> |-<br /> | [[Exodus 35]] – [[Exodus 40]]<br /> | Construction of the Tabernacle<br /> | Note the sandwich here: God's design of the Tabernacle, the people's failure, restitution, and then God's will is realised and the Tabernacle built.<br /> |-<br /> | [[Exodus 35:10]] - [[Exodus 29]]<br /> | <br /> | Not just a trained few, but ''all who were willing'' are invited to help in the construction. Each brings their own resources and skills.<br /> |-<br /> | [[Exodus 35:30]] - [[Exodus 35]]<br /> | Re-affirmation of the chief craftsmen.<br /> | Similar to [[Exodus 31:1]] - [[Exodus 11]], but extends their mandate to teaching others.<br /> |-<br /> | [[Exodus 39:22]]<br /> | Weaving<br /> | <br /> <br /> <br /> |-<br /> | [[Leviticus 19:35]] - [[Leviticus 19:36]]<br /> | Do not use dishonest measuring instruments or standards.<br /> | Also [[Deuteronomy 25:13]] - [[Deuteronomy 25:16]], [[Proverbs 11:1]], [[Proverbs 20:10]], [[Proverbs 20:23]], [[Amos 8:5]], [[Micah 6:11]].<br /> |-<br /> | [[Leviticus 25:1]] - [[Leviticus 25:7]]<br /> | Letting land lie fallow every seventh year.<br /> | <br /> <br /> <br /> |-<br /> | [[Numbers 10:1]] - [[Numbers 10:10]]<br /> | Two trumpets made out of hammered silver – used to call the people together.<br /> | Communication technology: one trumpet for the leaders to gather, two for everyone. Paul makes reference to this in [[1 Corinthians 14:8]].<br /> |-<br /> | [[Numbers 21:4]] - [[Numbers 21:9]]<br /> | Moses makes a bronze snake. When someone is bitten by a snake, if they look at the bronze snake they live.<br /> | Pre-figures Christ's healing of us ([[John 3:14]] - [[John 3:15]]).<br /> <br /> <br /> |-<br /> | [[Deuteronomy 1:28]]<br /> | The spies sent into Canaan reported that &quot;the cities are large, with walls up to the sky&quot;.<br /> | Should God's people fear the technology of their enemies? (Also [[Deuteronomy 20:1]].)<br /> |-<br /> | [[Deuteronomy 3:4]] - [[Deuteronomy 3:6]]<br /> | God enabled the Israelites to destroy all 60 of the walled cities in Bashan.<br /> | <br /> |-<br /> | [[Deuteronomy 6:10]] - [[Deuteronomy 6:12]]<br /> | When God gives you houses and wells and vineyards, be careful not to forget the Lord.<br /> | Warning about thinking that we achieved technological Utopia by our own cleverness. (Also [[Deuteronomy 8:10]] - [[Deuteronomy 8:18]].)<br /> |-<br /> | [[Deuteronomy 19:5]]<br /> | Cities of Refuge for people who kill someone unintentionally. The example is an axe-head accidentally flying off and hitting someone.<br /> | What happens when technology has negative, unintended side-effects? The user of the technology is not to blame, as long as there is no malice aforethought.<br /> |-<br /> | [[Deuteronomy 19:14]]<br /> | ''Thou shalt not remove thy neighbour's landmark''<br /> | also [[Proverbs 22:28]], [[Proverbs 23:10]], [[Deuteronomy 27:17]]. If this refers to artificial landmarks created by surveying and placing a boundary stone, it implies several technologies.<br /> |-<br /> | [[Deuteronomy 22:8]]<br /> | Build a railing around the roof of your house so nobody falls off. <br /> | Israel's first OH&amp;S policy! <br /> We have a responsibility to pre-empt technological dangers.<br /> Compare [[Deuteronomy 19:5]] and [[Deuteronomy 22:8]] and [[Leviticus 19:16]] with modern legal interpretations of duty of care and negligence.<br /> |-<br /> | [[Deuteronomy 24:6]]<br /> | Do not take someone's millstones as security for a debt.<br /> | Technology is valuable and important for a person's livelihood. Don't deprive people from making a living by taking away the technology they need to do so.<br /> |-<br /> | [[Deuteronomy 27:5]]<br /> | Build an altar of stone and do not use any iron tool for the job.<br /> | See [[Exodus 20:24]] above.<br /> These instructions were carried out in [[Joshua 8:31]].<br /> <br /> <br /> |-<br /> | [[Judges 1:19]]<br /> | Israel could not defeat an enemy because the enemy had iron chariots.<br /> | <br /> |-<br /> | [[Judges 3:15]] - [[Judges 3:23]]<br /> | The Israelite leader Ehud had a double-edged sword, about 50cm long. He used it to assassinate Eglon, king of Moab.<br /> | <br /> |-<br /> | [[Judges 4:13]] - [[Judges 4:16]]<br /> | Israel routes 900 iron chariots.<br /> | <br /> |-<br /> | [[Judges 4:17]] - [[Judges 4:22]]<br /> | Tent peg used to kill an enemy's commander.<br /> | <br /> |-<br /> | [[Judges 6:11]]<br /> | Gideon hid in a winepress.<br /> | <br /> <br /> <br /> |-<br /> | [[1 Samuel 13:19]] - [[1 Samuel 13:21]]<br /> | The Philistines don't allow the Israelites to have blacksmiths and charged the Israelites a fee to sharpen their garden tools.<br /> | This is an example of restricting an enemy's technological abilities for military advantage. Dominant nations still benefit from technological superiority, creating a cycle in which technology provides a power advantage and that power allows the technological superiority to be maintained.<br /> |-<br /> | [[1 Samuel 16:23]]<br /> | David plays harp to Saul.<br /> | Soothing effect of musical instruments.<br /> |-<br /> | [[1 Samuel 17:4]] - [[1 Samuel 17:7]], [[1 Samuel 17:49]]<br /> | David kills Goliath.<br /> | Goliath has advanced bronze armoury, but it is futile against a stone and sling. Our trust in technology to save us is not always warranted.<br /> |-<br /> <br /> <br /> |-<br /> | [[2 Samuel 20:15]]<br /> | Siege ramp<br /> | First mention of a siege ramp in the Bible. It was probably just a pile of dirt. Also in Kings, Job, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel.<br /> |-<br /> <br /> <br /> |-<br /> | [[1 Kings 4:33]]<br /> | Solomon's wisdom was not only in the fields of politics, leadership, literature, spirituality etc: he was also famed for his scientific work in botany and zoology.<br /> | <br /> |-<br /> | [[1 Kings 7:13]] - [[1 Kings 7:14]]<br /> | Solomon contracts Huram to manage the bronze work for Temple furnishings.<br /> | See also [[2 Chronicles 2:13]] – Huram was sent by the King of Tyre in response to Solomon's request for help. Huram could work with all types of material, including stone, wood, metals and cloth, and was also a skilled engraver. Although he was from Tyre, he was Jewish.<br /> |-<br /> | [[1 Kings 7:23]] - [[1 Kings 7:26]]<br /> | The Temple included an indoor swimming pool that held 44,000 litres.<br /> | See also [[2 Chronicles 4:2]] - [[2 Chronicles 4:5]].<br /> |-<br /> | [[1 Kings 7:46]]<br /> | The bronze furnishings were fashioned using clay moulds.<br /> | See also [[2 Chronicles 4:17]]. All the Temple furnishings and the bronze Sea were taken away by the Babylonians about 420 years later ([[Jeremiah 52:17]] - [[Jeremiah 52:19]])<br /> |-<br /> | [[1 Kings 10:22]]<br /> | Solomon has a fleet of trading ships .<br /> | See also [[2 Chronicles 9:21]].<br /> |-<br /> <br /> <br /> |-<br /> | [[2 Kings 2:11]]<br /> | God uses a chariot of fire to take Elijah away.<br /> | <br /> |-<br /> | [[2 Kings 20:7]]<br /> | A poultice of figs is used to heal a boil.<br /> | This same remedy is used in [[Isaiah 38:21]]. Where else in the Bible is medicine used for healing?<br /> |-<br /> | [[2 Kings 20:20]]<br /> | Hezekiah builds a tunnel to bring water into the city.<br /> | See also [[2 Chronicles 32:30]].<br /> |-<br /> | [[2 Kings 21:13]]<br /> | &quot;Measuring line&quot; and &quot;plumb-line&quot;<br /> | See also [[Isaiah 28:17]] where these tools represent justice and righteousness, as well as other references listed for [http://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=%22measuring-line%22 measuring line] and [http://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=%22plumb-line%22 plumb line].<br /> |-<br /> <br /> <br /> |-<br /> | [[1 Chronicles 22:15]] - [[1 Chronicles 22:16]]<br /> | Israel had many craftsmen in David's time: stonecutters, masons, carpenters, metal-workers.<br /> | <br /> |-<br /> | [[1 Chronicles 23]] - [[1 Chronicles 27]]<br /> | Priests (Aaron), temple workers (Levites), musicians, gatekeepers, treasury, military, tribal leaders, administrators of royal property.<br /> | Israel's public service structure did not include a portfolio for technology.<br /> |-<br /> <br /> <br /> |-<br /> | [[2 Chronicles 1:14]], [[2 Chronicles 1:17]]<br /> | Solomon had 1,400 chariots. They were imported from Egypt, and Israel also resold them to other nations.<br /> | <br /> |-<br /> | [[2 Chronicles 20:35]] - [[2 Chronicles 20:37]]<br /> | Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, forms and alliance with Ahaziah, king of Israel and they built a fleet of trading ships. But since the alliance did not have God's blessing, the fleet was wrecked.<br /> | <br /> <br /> <br /> |-<br /> | [[Ezra 6:1]]<br /> | The Babylonian King Darius searches for, and finds, an earlier decree regarding the Israelites rebuilding their temple.<br /> | Government archives in 5th century BC. The first example of this was probably the Hittite archives in 1300 BC (back around the time of Judges). That included a systematic library catalog ([http://fathom.lib.uchicago.edu/1/777777190247]).<br /> How different this was from storage and retrieval of docs over the Internet!<br /> <br /> <br /> |-<br /> | [[Esther 2:12]]<br /> | Twelve months of beauty treatment!<br /> | <br /> |-<br /> | [[Esther 5:14]]<br /> | Mordecai is to be hanged on a gallows.<br /> | <br /> <br /> <br /> |-<br /> | [[Job 7:6]]<br /> | &quot;My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle and they come to an end without hope.&quot;<br /> | Woven cloth was first evident in 7000 BC ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_historic_inventions#7th_millennium_BCE]).<br /> |-<br /> | [[Job 19:24]]<br /> | &quot;Oh that my words were now written! oh that they were printed in a book! That they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever&quot;<br /> | <br /> |-<br /> | [[Job 28]]<br /> | Humanity mines for silver and iron, refines gold and copper, turns dark into light, digs deep for sapphires, tunnels through rocks, and explores the sources of rivers (vv1-11). But do they find wisdom (v12, v13, v20)? It cannot be bought (vv15-19). It is hidden from the eyes of every living thing (v21). &quot;God understands the way to it and he alone knows where it dwells&quot; (v23). &quot;The fear of the Lord – that is wisdom, and to shun evil is understanding&quot; (v28).<br /> | We will never find wisdom or understanding from science or technology or any other human achievement.<br /> <br /> <br /> |-<br /> | [[Psalm 3:3]]<br /> | God is a shield around us.<br /> | Also [[Psalm 5:12]], [[Psalm 7:10]], [[Psalm 18:2]], [[Psalm 18:30]], [[Psalm 34:20]], [[Psalm 115:9]] - [[Psalm 115:11]].<br /> |-<br /> | [[Psalm 20:7]]<br /> | &quot;Some trust in chariots and some in horses but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.&quot;<br /> | See the converse in [[Isaiah 31:1]].<br /> |-<br /> | [[Psalm 38:2]]<br /> | God's arrows discipline us.<br /> | <br /> |-<br /> | [[Psalm 44:3]], [[Psalm 44:6]], [[Psalm 44:7]]<br /> | Israel's victories did not come by their prowess with the sword but by God's right hand.<br /> | <br /> |-<br /> | [[Psalm 64:7]]<br /> | God's arrows shoot down evil-doers.<br /> | <br /> |-<br /> | [[Psalm 68:17]]<br /> | God has tens of thousands of chariots to bring against his enemies.<br /> | <br /> |-<br /> | [[Psalm 115:2]] - [[Psalm 115:8]]<br /> | God is superior to idols.<br /> | In the modern world this is more of a comment about a materialist worldview than about religious idols. The materialist atheist cannot see God in the world and asks us where he is, blind to the fact that God is sovereign. They can manufacture all manner of goods, even computers and robots. But they are a poor imitation, not really seeing or speaking or hearing or smelling. Of course, in this age, the manufactured goods are far more sophisticated than the idols of old, and computers can indeed perceive and respond to the environment. Nevertheless, they are mere machines, lacking the inner life of humans. Those who believe otherwise end up suggesting that we too are mere machines: perfectly fulfilling the prediction in v8. And even if they were to succeed in making machines with human powers, they would be no closer to understanding the God who made heaven and earth nor being open to God's blessing (v15).<br /> Key verses are repeated in [[Psalm 135:15]] - [[Psalm 135:18]].<br /> |-<br /> | [[Psalm 118:22]]&lt;br/&gt;<br /> [[Luke 20:17]]&lt;br/&gt;<br /> [[Acts 4:11]]<br /> | &quot;The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone.&quot;<br /> | <br /> |-<br /> | [[Psalm 119:105]]<br /> | &quot;Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path.&quot;<br /> | <br /> |-<br /> | [[Psalm 150]]<br /> | Praise God with trumpet, lyre, dancing, strings, flute and cymbals. &quot;Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.&quot;<br /> | We should use not only musical instruments, but everything we create – houses, church halls, shopping centres, cars, boats, space shuttles, pencils, iPhones and kitchen sinks – to praise the Lord.<br /> <br /> |-<br /> | [[Proverbs 3:9]] - [[Proverbs 3:10]]<br /> | &quot;Honor the Lord ... then your barns will be filled ... and your vats will brim over ...&quot;<br /> | Maybe it's not too much of a stretch to infer that if we honor God, then our technology will succeed.<br /> |-<br /> | [[Proverbs 8:12]]<br /> | &quot;I wisdom dwell with prudence, and find out knowledge of witty inventions.&quot;<br /> | <br /> |-<br /> | [[Proverbs 17:3]]<br /> | &quot;The crucible for silver and the furnace for gold, but the Lord tests the heart.&quot;<br /> |<br /> |-<br /> | [[Proverbs 18:10]] - [[Proverbs 18:11]]<br /> | &quot;The name of the Lord is a strong tower, the righteous run to it and are safe. The wealth of the rich is their fortified city; they imagine it an unscalable wall.&quot;<br /> | We might imagine that our money makes us impregnable like a well-built castle, but in the end security only comes from trusting God.<br /> |-<br /> | [[Proverbs 20:26]]<br /> | &quot;A wise king winnows out the wicked; he drives the threshing wheel over them.&quot;<br /> | <br /> |-<br /> | [[Proverbs 25:5]] - [[Proverbs 25:6]]<br /> | Removing the dross from silver compared to establishing a righteous kingdom.<br /> |<br /> |-<br /> | [[Proverbs 27:21]]<br /> | &quot;The crucible for silver and the furnace for gold, but man is tested by the praise he receives.&quot;<br /> |<br /> |-<br /> | [[Proverbs 27:22]]<br /> | &quot;Though you grind a fool in a mortar, grinding him like grain with a pestle, you will not remove his folly from him.&quot;<br /> |<br /> <br /> <br /> |-<br /> | [[Ecclesiastes 2:4]] - [[Ecclesiastes 2:6]]<br /> | The Teacher built houses and made reservoirs to water his gardens, but it was meaningless (v11).<br /> |<br /> |-<br /> | [[Ecclesiastes 2:17]] - [[Ecclesiastes 2:23]]<br /> | <br /> | It can seem as though the whole of our life's work is just meaningless toil.<br /> |-<br /> | [[Ecclesiastes 10:9]]<br /> | &quot;Whoever quarries stones may be injured by them; whoever splits logs may be endangered by them.&quot;<br /> | Working with technology can be dangerous.<br /> |-<br /> | [[Ecclesiastes 10:10]]<br /> | &quot;If the axe is dull and its edge unsharpened, more strength is needed but skill will bring success.&quot;<br /> | This probably generalises to most tools. If your equipment is sub-standard then it takes a lot more effort to get results. Nevertheless, a good tradesman never blames his tools. If you have the skill, you can still succeed -- maybe by sharpening the axe!<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> |-<br /> | [[Isaiah 2:4]]<br /> | Turning swords into ploughshares and spears into pruning hooks.<br /> | The same materials can have different technological applications. Indeed, the same technology can be used for both war and peace, for good and for evil.<br /> Repeated in [[Micah 4:3]], so maybe this became a common saying. If so, then the reversal in [[Joel 3:10]] would have been quite striking.<br /> |-<br /> | [[Isaiah 2:12]] - [[Isaiah 2:22]]<br /> | The Lord has a day planned when all human arrogance -- lofty towers, fortified walls, trading ships, idols or silver and gold -- will be be brought low.<br /> | This is a condemnation of arrogance rather than of technology. But how often does humanity show its arrogance by seeking power and control through technology? In the end, humans are an insubstantial breath (22).<br /> |-<br /> | [[Isaiah 5:28]]<br /> | God calls nations to battle against Israel, knowing that their weapons (bows, arrows and chariots) will overpower Israel.<br /> |<br /> |-<br /> | [[Isaiah 10:15]]<br /> | &quot;Does the axe raise itself above him who swings it ...&quot;<br /> | Tools are subservient to their user. In context, God is wielding Assyria as a weapon against Israel and it is inappropriate for Assyria -- as the tool -- to think that they acted independently. A similar point is made in several places (e.g. [[Isaiah 29:16]], [[Isaiah 45:9]], [[Romans 9:21]]) about the relationship between a clay pot and the potter. <br /> As a more general saying, however, this verse points out that no technology is greater than it's wielder, but merely a tool in the wielder's hand. Does that continue to be accurate in the age of intelligent machines?<br /> |-<br /> | [[Isaiah 40:18]] - [[Isaiah 40:19]]<br /> | To whom will you compare God? Certainly not to any idol crafted by human hands!<br /> |<br /> |-<br /> | [[Isaiah 41:15]]<br /> | God will make Israel into a threshing-sledge to thresh/crush/winnow their enemies.<br /> |<br /> |-<br /> | [[Isaiah 44:12]] - [[Isaiah 44:20]]<br /> | A blacksmith or a carpenter may fashion an idol, but so what? The blacksmith still gets hungry, tired and thirsty like anyone else. The carpenter uses the same wood as his carved idol for kindling a fire to cook on! But he can't see that the wooden idol he created is a lie.<br /> | Craftsmen and technologists should have a sense of humility about their work.<br /> |-<br /> | [[Isaiah 64:8]]<br /> | &quot;We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand.&quot;<br /> | God as craftsman and technologist: a potter who chooses the raw materials, follows an intentional process, and makes use of tools (such as a potting wheel and kiln) in order to turn a design into a product.<br /> See also [[Jeremiah 18:1]] - [[Jeremiah 18:6]].<br /> <br /> |-<br /> | [[Jeremiah 1:18]]<br /> | Jeremiah was as strong as a fortified city, an iron pillar and a bronze wall<br /> | Also in [[Jeremiah 15:20]].<br /> |-<br /> | [[Jeremiah 2:13]]<br /> | Israel has forsaken God, the spring of living water, in favour of their own broken cistern.<br /> | In this modern world, we often think that our technological creations are making a perfect life for us. But in reality, we accept something far inferior to the abundant life that God intended ([John 10:10]]). <br /> |-<br /> | [[Jeremiah 6:27]] - [[Jeremiah 6:30]]<br /> | God uses Israel to 'test the metal' of other nations<br /> |<br /> |-<br /> | [[Jeremiah 8:22]]<br /> | &quot;Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there?&quot;<br /> | <br /> |-<br /> | [[Jeremiah 10:1]] - [[Jeremiah 10:16]]<br /> | Against idols. A craftsman shapes it with a chisel, adorns it with silver and secures it with a nail to stop it falling over -- but it is no more powerful than a scarecrow in a melon patch! Every goldsmith should be shamed but their idols: the images are a fraud.<br /> | See also [[Jeremiah 51:17]].<br /> |-<br /> | [[Jeremiah 35:6]] - [[Jeremiah 35:11]]<br /> | The Recabites don't drink wine, build houses, sow seed or plant vineyards.<br /> | While not strictly anti-technology, the Recabites took a kind of Amish stance. God congratulates them on upholding their ancestor's command and contrasts them to the rest of Israel who don't even obey ''God's'' commands.<br /> |-<br /> | [[Jeremiah 50:9]]<br /> | &quot;Their arrows will be like skilled warriors.&quot;<br /> | Intelligent weaponry: a very advanced notion! Heat seeking missiles?<br /> <br /> <br /> |-<br /> | [[Ezekiel 1:15]] - [[Ezekiel 1:21]]<br /> | In a dream, Ezekiel sees fantastic creatures with intersecting wheels.<br /> | A description of a UFO landing, according to [http://www.bibleufo.com/zezekiel.htm] and [http://www.themystica.com/mystica/articles/h/hight-technology_in_the_bible.html].<br /> |-<br /> | [[Ezekiel 10]]<br /> | More &quot;wheels intersecting wheels&quot; (v. 10) as part of a strange machine involving cherubim.<br /> |<br /> |-<br /> | [[Ezekiel 27]] - [[Ezekiel 28:19]]<br /> | Lament for Tyre. Although Tyre had been built to perfection, renowned for her beauty, expert in ship-making, powerful as a trading nation, she would become shipwrecked, break to pieces and sink into the sea.<br /> | Once again, material prosperity and skills in technology (in this case ships and seamanship) are no guarantee of lasting success. Chapter 28 makes clear that their downfall was a result of pride that made them feel like gods.<br /> |-<br /> | [[Ezekiel 40]] - [[Ezekiel 48]]<br /> | In a vision, Ezekiel sees a man with a measuring rod measure in detail the dimensions of a future Temple, its surrounds and the sub-division of the whole land.<br /> |<br /> <br /> <br /> |-<br /> | [[Daniel 2:31]] - [[Daniel 2:45]]<br /> | Daniel relates and interprets Nebuchadnezzar's dream in which a succession of kingdoms (gold, silver, bronze and iron) are smashed by a kingdom established by God (a rock).<br /> | The point of the story is not about technology, the power of the metaphor is based on an assumption that what is God-made and natural can overpower anything made by human hands.<br /> |-<br /> | [[Daniel 3]]<br /> | Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego thrown into a fiery furnace<br /> | <br /> |-<br /> | [[Daniel 5]]<br /> | King Belshazzar is drinking wine and praising &quot;the gods of gold and silver, of bronze, iron, wood and stone&quot; when suddenly a disembodied hand writes a message on the wall.<br /> | Belshazzar is criticized for placing himself (and his faith in gold, silver, bronze, iron, wood and stone) above God. As in Chapter 2, the power of this comparison in underpinned by an implication that what God can do is superior to anything achievable by human fabrication.<br /> <br /> <br /> |-<br /> | [[Amos 7:7]] - [[Amos 7:8]]<br /> | God sets a plumb-line against which to judge Israel.<br /> |<br /> |-<br /> | [[Jonah 1]]<br /> | Jonah tries to escape from God's call on a ship<br /> | No technology, and nothing human-made can hide us from God or take us out of God's reach.<br /> The human-made ship takes Jonah away, but the God-made fish brings him back. I wonder how many people have been drawn away from God by technology -- perhaps a belief that technology makes God an unnecessary assumption, or perhaps just being side-tracked by an attraction to technology (addition to Internet gaming?) -- and I wonder how many are brought towards God by the majesty of God's creation?<br /> |-<br /> | <br /> | <br /> | <br /> <br /> |}<br /> <br /> ==New Testament==<br /> <br /> {| class=&quot;wikitable&quot;<br /> |-<br /> ! Verse<br /> ! Summary of Content<br /> ! Observations and Implications<br /> |-<br /> | [[Matthew 2:1]] - [[Matthew 2:11]]<br /> | The Magi follow a star.<br /> | Putting aside the unscientific notion of stars heralding a new king, the Magi were clearly both knowledgeable and observant about the night sky. They were presumably not Jewish (i.e. not one of God's people) and yet God used their pre-scientific astronomy to draw them into God's plan. Is there any reason why we should not expect the same today -- that people who study the created world are drawn towards the Creator, even those who are outside the Christian faith?<br /> |-<br /> | [[Matthew 7:24]] - [[Matthew 7:27]]&lt;br/&gt;<br /> [[Luke 6:46]] - [[Luke 6:49]]<br /> | Wise and foolish builders<br /> | An engineering metaphor. Every wise builder understands the need for a solid foundation, just as every software engineer needs a solid development platform, every scientist needs a well-formed experimental method, every mathematician relies on the axioms of set theory, every mobile phone carrier needs a solid infrastructure, etc. Do we build our worldview with the same attention to the foundation?<br /> |-<br /> | [[Matthew 9:16]] - [[Matthew 9:17]]&lt;br/&gt;<br /> [[Mark 2:21]] - [[Mark 2:22]]&lt;br/&gt;<br /> [[Luke 5:36]] - [[Luke 5:39]]<br /> | New cloth to patch old clothes; new wine in old wineskins.<br /> | I don't know if there is any spiritual lesson here about technology, but the principle is certainly still true: don't try putting new software onto an old computer!<br /> |-<br /> | [[Matthew 10:9]] - [[Matthew 10:10]] &lt;br/&gt;<br /> [[Mark 6:8]]<br /> | The disciples are sent out, without money or luggage or shoes or walking stick.<br /> | Christians do not ''need'' technology or any other baggage to carry out God's work. Like the birds and the lilies in [[Matthew 6:26]] - [[Matthew 6:30]], all we need is supplied by God. That does not mean that accessories such as technology are not helpful: just not necessary.<br /> And note that later on, [[Luke 22:36]] records Jesus telling his disciples that they should now take money and a bag and even a sword.<br /> |-<br /> | [[Matthew 26:51]] - [[Matthew 26:53]]&lt;br/&gt;<br /> [[Luke 22:50]]&lt;br/&gt;<br /> [[John 18:10]]<br /> | During Jesus' arrest, one of his companions cuts of someone's ear with a sword, but Jesus rebukes the use of the sword.<br /> | Like the comment on Matthew 10:9 (above), Jesus does not need technology to achieve his goal.<br /> |-<br /> | [[Matthew 27:60]]<br /> | Jesus is buried<br /> | Is the stone that was rolled across the tomb's entrance &quot;technology&quot;? It is no barrier to God.<br /> |-<br /> | [[Mark 3:9]]<br /> | Jesus plans ahead by having a boat ready.<br /> | Nothing special here, but this is obviously one of many time that Jesus happily used technology. <br /> |-<br /> | [[Matthew 13:55]] &lt;br/&gt;<br /> [[Mark 6:3]]<br /> | Jesus is the son of a carpenter.<br /> | As a carpenter he would have used tools frequently. <br /> According to W.E.Vine's ''Expository Dictionary of New testament Words'' these are the only two occurrences of the Greek word ''tektōn'' (τέκτων) &amp;ndash; from which we get the English &quot;technology&quot;.<br /> |-<br /> | [[Mark 4:21]]&lt;br/&gt;<br /> [[Luke 8:16]], [[Luke 11:33]]<br /> | Metaphor: you don't put a lamp under a bowl.<br /> | Jesus draws on his audience's knowledge of common technology. Here and elsewhere he seems happy to accept our attempts to make life easier via technology. It is also testament to his communication ability that he makes such effective use of concepts with which his audience is familiar to draw them towards a new idea.<br /> |-<br /> | [[Mark 13:1]] - [[Mark 13:2]]<br /> | The disciples marvel at the magnificent Temple, but Jesus is not impressed. The Temple will be destroyed.<br /> | No building (or anything else built by people) is as magnificent or as sturdy as God. From [[John 2:19]] we see that it is only the Temple of Jesus' body that can be destroyed and yet remake itself.<br /> |-<br /> | [[Luke 1:63]]<br /> | Zechariah uses a writing tablet<br /> | <br /> |-<br /> | [[Luke 2:1]]<br /> | Roman census<br /> | <br /> |-<br /> | [[Luke 2:7]], [[Luke 2:16]]<br /> | Manger<br /> | <br /> |-<br /> | [[Luke 3:17]]<br /> | Winnowing fork used metaphorically for sorting wheat from chaff<br /> | <br /> |-<br /> | [[Luke 5:1]] - [[Luke 5:11]]<br /> | Boats and fishing nets<br /> | Jesus honours the work of Simon and other fishermen, but calls them to leave their technology in order to follow him. Jesus is happy to make use of boats for his own purpose of teaching. Jesus also shows that nets and boats are not enough: not even enough to catch fish -- you also need knowledge and, by implication, spiritual insight.<br /> |-<br /> | [[Luke 5:31]]<br /> | Jesus likens himself to a doctor.<br /> | <br /> |-<br /> <br /> | [[Luke 9:62]]<br /> | If you put your hand to the plough, don't look back.<br /> See also [[Luke 14:28]] - [[Luke 14:30]] about the need to plan before building a tower.<br /> | Don't start working for God if you aren't committed to the long haul. <br /> |-<br /> | [[Luke 12:16]] - [[Luke 12:21]]<br /> | The rich fool who builds big barns to store his wealth but then dies<br /> | A lesson in priorities: spiritual wisdom over wealth. But also a comment that technology (barns) cannot satisfy life's real needs.<br /> |-<br /> | [[Luke 12:35]]<br /> | Keep your lamps burning<br /> | Metaphor for being alert and prepared. But also an acceptance that it is quite appropriate to use artificial light sources. Thus nothing earth-shattering, but it is one of many examples where God accepts and even commends the use of technology. God does not expect us to just take the world as it is, but encourages us to create technologies to help us.<br /> |-<br /> | [[Luke 13:4]]<br /> | A building accident causes 18 to die, but it is not because the victoms were evil.<br /> | <br /> |-<br /> | [[John 1:3]]<br /> | Through him all things were made<br /> | The Word of God, i.e. Jesus, was the tool of choice for God.<br /> |-<br /> | [[John 2:1]] - [[John 2:10]]<br /> | Water into wine<br /> | The process of making wine usually requires substantial technology: agricultural implements, irrigation, fertiliser, grape press, chemistry, temperature-controlled vats, etc. But Jesus gets a better result by his own authority.<br /> |-<br /> | [[John 2:15]]<br /> | Jesus makes a whip to drive the animals out of the Temple grounds<br /> | <br /> |-<br /> | [[John 6:19]]<br /> | Jesus walks on water<br /> | Even though Jesus frequently uses boats, he actually doesn't need them. Jesus can achieve his purpose without any need for technology of any sort.<br /> |-<br /> | [[Acts 7:48]]<br /> | &quot;The Most High does not live in houses made by man&quot;<br /> | God cannot be contained by anything humans construct. We cannot limit God, nor can we exceed or control God with technology or anything else we create.<br /> |-<br /> | [[Acts 8:26]] - [[Acts 8:40]]<br /> | Philip ministers to the Ethiopian eunuch in his chariot.<br /> | The chariot is a symbol of affluence and authority rather than war. Perhaps like a Rolls Royce car today. But that doesn't daunt Philip! The pedestrian jogs along, hears Isaish being read through the window and offers advice. He gets to sit in the Rolls and preach to the rich and famous!<br /> Apart from [[Revelation 9:9]], this is the only chariot mentioned in the NT.<br /> |-<br /> | [[Acts 18:3]] - [[Acts 3:5]]<br /> | Paul, Aquila and Priscilla were all tentmakers. <br /> | When necessary, they earned money by their trade to support their ministry. But when others were able to support him, Paul would devote himself exclusively to preaching.<br /> |-<br /> | [[Acts 19:23]] - [[Acts 19:41]]<br /> | Riot in Ephesus<br /> | Silversmiths (and perhaps other craftsmen) see their livelihood threatened by the Gospel<br /> |-<br /> | [[Acts 21]]&lt;br/&gt;<br /> [[Acts 27]] - [[Acts 28]] and numerous other passages in Acts<br /> | Paul travels by sailing boat<br /> | As a principle, Paul tries to become &quot;all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some&quot; ([[1 Corinthians 9:21]]). So it is not surprising that he would use whatever technology was available to further his cause.<br /> |-<br /> | [[Romans 6:13]]<br /> | Our bodies can either be instruments of wickedness or instruments of righteousness.<br /> | In the ''Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words'', Vine says the meaning of &quot;instruments&quot; here is most likely as a weapon. <br /> We as people are like tools that, in the cosmic war, are used to advance one side or the other. Our bodies, as technology, are not neutral, nor mindlessly forced into service: Paul calls us choose to which purpose we will offer ourselves.<br /> |-<br /> | [[1 Corinthians 3:6]] - [[1 Corinthians 3:15]]<br /> | In rebuking divisions in the church, Paul points out that we are God's co-workers. It matters not whether we plant or water: it is God's work that matters. It doesn't matter who laid the foundation and who builds on it, as long as the foundation is Jesus Christ. Whatever the building is made of -- gold, silver, wood, stones, or even straw -- will all be tested by fire.<br /> | Interesting mixing of metaphors, from agricultural to construction engineering. In our context, Paul could have written that the technology does not matter, only that our joint work seeks a common purpose and a common foundation, that of Christ. Paul returns to that theme in [[1 Corinthians 15:58]], assuring us that such labours are not in vain.<br /> |-<br /> | [[1 Corinthians 9:10]]<br /> | Ploughs and threshers<br /> | <br /> |-<br /> | <br /> | <br /> | <br /> |-<br /> | <br /> | <br /> | <br /> |-<br /> | <br /> | <br /> | <br /> |-<br /> | [[2 Timothy 2:20]] - [[2 Timothy 2:21]]<br /> | All sorts of artefacts may be used for good or evil. Even people can become &quot;an instrument for noble purposes, made holy, useful to the Master and prepared to do any good work&quot;.<br /> | <br /> |-<br /> | [[Hebrews 13:16]]<br /> | &quot;But to do good and to communicate forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.&quot;<br /> | Maybe it's not to much of a stretch to apply this to communication technology.<br /> |-<br /> | <br /> | <br /> | <br /> |}<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> {{returnto}} [[Christianity]] -&gt; [[Christianity and technology]] -&gt; [[Technology in the Bible]]</div> DavidCary http://www.wikichristian.org/wiki/en/index.php?title=Talk:Christian_wikis&diff=145822 Talk:Christian wikis 2007-07-31T19:12:08Z <p>DavidCary: history of wiki</p> <hr /> <div>[[Talk:Christian wikis/Archive 1]]<br /> <br /> ==An open letter to users and administrators of the various different Christian wikis==<br /> <br /> Hello,<br /> <br /> Thanks for reading my two cents worth. As a bit of background information, my name is G. Grove and you can contact me at graham_grove@yahoo.com.au to discuss any of the following issues. I've been involved in Christian wikis for a while now. In fact, I first tried to set up a Christianity book in wikibooks 2 years ago, but then I discovered that there were three other Christian wikis at the time and I left the wikibook and joined WikiChristian. At the time there was also Compass and Theopedia, but not anything else. In an attempt to try and get WikiChristian used more I started the wikipedia article &quot;Christian wikis&quot; and have since watched an explosion of links appear. That there are all these people wanting to be involved in spreading the gospel and knowledge of Jesus and Christianity through wikis is a wonderful thing. I especially respect those users and administrators who acknowledge other Christian wiki sites as well as their own. Every one of these wikis has some excellent points. Theopedia is full of academic articles; wikible is intelligently set out; biblewiki is commendable for its extensive linking; wikiChristian is admirable because of its attempt to cover all things Christian including be a directory for all the churches of the world; and I could go on and on about each wiki.<br /> <br /> Despite all these wonderful qualities and the hearts behind them, I believe Christian wikis are failing in what I see as their two most important objectives in glorify God. Firstly, to be a body of knowledge where Christians actually come to learn about a topic, and to actively be involved in writing and updating articles; and secondly, to be a witness to non-Christians about what Christianity is all about. It is obvious to me that the wikis are not used by more than a couple people for each site, and that non-Christians are not reading them either. Why is this failure occurring?<br /> <br /> I believe there is one very important overriding fact that is stifling the use and growth of all of these wikis. They are all essentially modelled closely on Wikipedia. Why is this a problem? Well, wikipedia is a great encyclopedia – a fantastic reference and very useable and helpful. So, if I want to know about say, the “Coptic Orthodox Church” why would I go anywhere else?! I would only go anywhere else if that anywhere else presenting the information differently and allowed me to easily see what I was most interested in. I might for example be interested in knowing about the persecution of the Coptic church in Egypt today. To learn about that, I am going to want read testimonies about peoples experiences living in Egypt. I might want to know about the formation of the Coptic church. To learn about this, I am going to want to firstly read an encylopedia style overview article about the council of Chalcedon and monophysitism, but then I going to want to read different peoples views on interpreting these topics – their opinions are important because I know that there are many interpretations – there is not perhaps one “Christian viewpoint” for this. However, I might want to find a local Coptic church to visit – and so I would need a list or index of Coptic churches – their addresses and service times and what language they were in. Now Wikipedia wouldn’t be a particularly useful source for some of what I want and certainly isn’t set out in a way that it is easy to find some of that information. No, the wiki I am looking for would be different, however, it just doesn’t exist currently.<br /> <br /> There are also lots of other little factors that I believe stifle the growth of the various Christian wikis. These include<br /> <br /> # The use of unhelpful usernames. Why can’t we all use our real names as our user names. It makes us less anonymous<br /> # The complaints that seem to arise whenever someone writes an article in an essay style presenting his viewpoint, rather than in an encyclopedia style. Articles should be able to have sentences starting with “I think”. Now these are clearly individual opinion articles, and so need to be marked as such. But Christianity is a personal religion, and people have opinions which differ. “I think” is valid.<br /> # Vandalism – but I don’t know what to do about that – perhaps the only way to stop it is to have a critical number of users<br /> # The unwritten rule that an article about the local church down the road is not acceptable. What is wrong with writing an article about my church down the road and writing about its minister, congregation, teaching, music and service times? Nothing as far as I can see!<br /> # The layout is never particularly logical.<br /> <br /> There are I’m sure lots more issues that other people have thought of. And of course you may vehemently disagree with me on each or every point. I welcome comments. Please leave comments on WikiChristian's “Christian wikis” talk page (http://www.wikichristian.org/index.php/Talk:Christian_wikis) (so others can read them, or email me. I have been fiddling with ideas, templates and trialling out different formats for a Christian wiki that I believe would work – it would hopefully be acceptable to those who want an encyclopedia, those who want testimonies, those who want opinions and discussion, those who want stacks of information with directories of churches, lyrics of songs and public domain texts. Please take a look at [[Christianity]] for an example of what a template of one possible way this could be done. <br /> <br /> Thanks for your time. I think those of us who want a Christian wiki need some discussion, and perhaps we need to put together a larger group of people to work on one encompassing wiki rather than dozens of small wikis.<br /> <br /> Graham<br /> <br /> (--[[User:Graham grove|Graham grove]] 21:55, 24 July 2006 (PDT))<br /> <br /> ===Point-by-point responses from Tom===<br /> I appreciate the comments. I don't really disagree with any of it. I think some of the similarity with Wikipedia is an effort not to re-invent the wheel. For example, in the area of organization of the Wiki. Of course there are other aspects than just organizational and logistical things. In addition, we also need to remember that there are many people in the world that haven't even heard of Wikipedia, so it shouldn't be too surprising that Christian wikis are lacking in editorial support. Here are some responses to your points... --[[User:Ymmotrojam|Tom]] 06:41, 25 July 2006 (PDT)<br /> # The use of unhelpful usernames. Why can’t we all use our real names as our user names. It makes us less anonymous<br /> #:Interesting idea, I think I like it. Especially for citing articles. --[[User:Ymmotrojam|Tom]] 06:41, 25 July 2006 (PDT)<br /> #:Some people prefer to remain anonymous. I, for example, don't mind using my first name on my signature, but I'd rather not advertise my last name to, literally, the whole world. Also, most people like &quot;unhelpful usernames&quot; because they can use the same one across different websites. I also think it's a good brain excercise for all of us to make the effort at associating a username with a person's real name (if the user even chooses to give it to us in the firstplace). --[[User:RockOfVictory|J. J.]] 16:40, 25 July 2006 (PDT)<br /> # The complaints that seem to arise whenever someone writes an article in an essay style presenting his viewpoint, rather than in an encyclopedia style. Articles should be able to have sentences starting with “I think”. Now these are clearly individual opinion articles, and so need to be marked as such. But Christianity is a personal religion, and people have opinions which differ. “I think” is valid.<br /> #:I agree. &quot;I&quot; statements should be included somehow. If you think about it, every statement is an opinion, even encyclopedic writings are opinions from various points of view, although they may be more educated than the average person. The only trouble I see is in how to merge encyclopedia and user commentary. I'd love to see what others think about that! --[[User:Ymmotrojam|Tom]] 06:41, 25 July 2006 (PDT)<br /> # Vandalism – but I don’t know what to do about that – perhaps the only way to stop it is to have a critical number of users<br /> #:I pretty much haven't had any vandalism at Wikible for a few months now. I use keyword filters, captchas, a username registration blacklist, and a user creation log to keep track of who registers. And I still allow anonymous users to edit and add content, and all registered users are free to edit the Main Page. In fact, the only page thta no one can edit but me is the Copyright notice, which I think is self-explanatory why I did that. Other than that, almost anyone can edit it. --[[User:Ymmotrojam|Tom]] 06:41, 25 July 2006 (PDT)<br /> # The unwritten rule that an article about the local church down the road is not acceptable. What is wrong with writing an article about my church down the road and writing about its minister, congregation, teaching, music and service times? Nothing as far as I can see!<br /> #:I agree with that. --[[User:Ymmotrojam|Tom]] 06:41, 25 July 2006 (PDT)<br /> #:Can you give some links to examples of where people have found this to be a problem? --[[User:RockOfVictory|J. J.]] 16:47, 25 July 2006 (PDT)<br /> # The layout is never particularly logical.<br /> #:Layout? What are you referring to? --[[User:Ymmotrojam|Tom]] 06:41, 25 July 2006 (PDT)<br /> <br /> ===Thoughts from JJ===<br /> G. Grove, I've noticed your comments about inter-Christian wikis over the past several months,[http://www.wikible.org/en/index.php?title=Talk:Main_Page&amp;oldid=15783#Joining_together] so I know that there are at least three of us with similar concerns. Tom had actually started a ChristianWikis site to address these concerns, although it kind of fell through the cracks. I have expressed similar concerns on both Wikible ([http://www.wikible.org/en/index.php?title=User_talk:Admin&amp;oldid=15680#Wikipedia_and_Theopedia_collaboration Wikipedia and Theopedia collaboration]) and the BibleWiki ([http://bible.tmtm.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:Main_Page&amp;oldid=226363#Differentiating_BibleWiki_from_Wikipedia Differentiating BibleWiki from Wikipedia]), although I haven't gotten a chance to elaborate on the Christian-point-of-view problems that I've noticed from the beginning. For now, I've been content with concentrating my efforts on BibleWiki and Wikible (see my Theopedia link above for reasons why, as well as the [http://www.wikible.org/en/Wikible:About Wikible:About] page), but particularly on Wikipedia for general articles since there is a larger audience there. While the splintering of the Christian community is frustrating, I think it's also encouraging to know that a lot of people are competing to create the &quot;best&quot; Christian wiki; everyone has different web design skills, so some of the Christian wikis have better features than others&amp;mdash;survival of the fittest, if you will.<br /> <br /> Therefore, in terms of content, I think we're doing well; community, though, is indeed a problem. I haven't explored the options very much at this point, but Tom's ChristianWikis site idea was a good one; a site that concentrates on collaboration and community but completely leaves out the encyclopedic content. This community site would also be helpful for people to standardize wiki codes of conduct and syntax rules, as well as direct visitors to the sites with the most developed articles on certain topics. In this way, content would continue to be developed on the individual wikis since they all have different focuses. Another option is to try to center the inter-wiki discussion on one of the existing wikis, but make a clearly defined statement about the community being separate from the site's own faith-biased content.<br /> <br /> Please see my individual responses in Tom's section above, as well. --[[User:RockOfVictory|J. J.]] 16:34, 25 July 2006 (PDT)<br /> <br /> I've been browsing around WikiChristian a little more, concentrating particularly on the site organization and layout. Graham, your ideas on this page present some major changes to WikiChristian! While I like your suggestions about making WikiChristian more '''testimony-oriented''', I think it presents a lot of challenges. To do this effectively, we really need to think carefully about how the site should be organized and make sure we have documentation on it. The current [[Wikichristian:Tutorial]] is very '''Wikipedia-oriented''', so people are going to need to understand that WikiChristian is very different from most neutral-point-of-view MediaWiki sites. Here are just a few initial things I've thought of. Please feel free to add commentary to them, similar to the way Tom has done it above.<br /> #WikiChristian could learn a lot from Wikipedia/Wikimedia formatting guidelines. See particularly the Organizing links at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Contents#For_editors - Right now, it seems like there are just a bunch of links everywhere, but no organization; the overdose of nav links (world churchs, bible dictionaries, etc.) is distracting, too.<br /> #Christian wikis are traditionally &quot;Wikipedia-oriented&quot; because it's hard to organize user-edited content if a lot of it is personal opinion/experience. We really need a good system of categories and/or list pages that would stay up-to-date as people add content.<br /> #Your topics on the [[Christianity]] page seem to be more like Portals in the Wikipedia-sense. Using &lt;code&gt;(overview)&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;(G.G.)&lt;/code&gt; at the end of article titles seems odd to me. Again, I guess I would put those kinds of details in categories.<br /> <br /> My apologies for all the criticism. I'm just wanting to get the wiki well-oiled so visitors don't take test drives and end up crashing, if you know what I mean. Blessings to you... --[[User:RockOfVictory|J. J.]] 20:22, 26 July 2006 (PDT)<br /> <br /> Since the Christianity Knowledge Base is open for anyone to edit, I've started a collaboration page to focus on these ideas. Graham, I'm not sure if this is what you're interested in, but it's worth mentioning: http://christianity.wikia.com/wiki/Christianity_Knowledge_Base:ChristianKM --[[User:RockOfVictory|J. J.]] 13:49, 15 August 2006 (PDT)<br /> <br /> ===Addressing the issue of brackets for &quot;(overview)&quot; or &quot;(user-name)&quot; etc.===<br /> <br /> Thanks J.J. for your comments. All your criticisms are welcome. Your points are good ones. I suppose my feeling is that portals and categories don't actually work that well. At least, I never really browse for my information by clicking through category or portal listings. Also, they are confusing to new users - at least they were to me when I first discovered wikis. I agree it is odd putting &quot;(overview)&quot; or &quot;(G.G.)&quot; after a title. The reason I've been doing that though is to make the article clear. If it has &quot;(G.G.)&quot; after it, then I mean that it is my original work and is an opinion. If it has &quot;(overview)&quot; after it then it means it is an encyclopedia, neutral point of view article. Also then that leaves room for &quot;(quotes)&quot; for any topic etc. For example, if you look at [[Church]] you'll see the main page is &quot;Church&quot; which has a brief summary and then the sub-links which incluide [[Church (overview)]] which hopefully would become the large encyclopedia style article but then there are also links for sub-topics and links for opinion articles such as [[What is the Church? (G.G.)]] and [[The Church (justforcatholics.org)]] as well as links for quotes about the church at [[Church (quotes)]] and a link for brief forum-style discussion about the church [[Talk:Church/discussion]]. So although it is a little odd, I still think ultimately it allows for growth and personal articles. Let me know what you think. --[[User:Graham grove|Graham grove]] 21:42, 26 July 2006 (PDT)<br /> <br /> :One of the problems with the parenthesis in the title is that there are other non-topic pages that don't have parenthesis; I think it would get confusing as to what's a topic and what's an article/opinion.<br /> <br /> :How about a Topic: namespace instead of Portal? Also, instead of [[Template:Overview]] showing ''An overview of ''[[Church (overview)|Church]], it would probably be less confusing if it showed the actual link, like ''See [[Church (overview)]] for a more detailed article.'' [[Template:Opinions]] and [[Template:Quotes]] would be changed similarly. <br /> <br /> :I think this may work out well if we have a good how-to guide on making topic pages, maybe even using a [http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Substitution subst] template to start from. I may make my own prototype at [[Talk:Christianity/Dev]] (with closer adherence to [http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Contents#For_editors Wikimedia formatting standards]) if you think that would be helpful. --[[User:RockOfVictory|J. J.]] 19:11, 27 July 2006 (PDT)<br /> <br /> ::Please centralize discussion related to my dev page at [[Wikichristian talk:Topics]]. --[[User:RockOfVictory|J. J.]] 11:10, 3 August 2006 (PDT)<br /> <br /> ===Thoughts from Ben (CKB)===<br /> ''I'm copying this from the Christianity Knowledge Base since it brings up some more collaboration ideas. --[[User:RockOfVictory|J. J.]] 11:08, 10 August 2006 (PDT)''<br /> <br /> Here's another problem with Christian wikis: They're hosted on private sites, therefore there is no &quot;centrality&quot; to them. I think ''this'' wiki, since it's hosted by [[Wikipedia:Wikia|Wikia Inc.]], is more &quot;central&quot;. I think it might be good for this wiki to specialize in apologetics.<br /> <br /> What we could do is perhaps form some sort of ChristianWiki Foundation (sort of like the [[Wikipedia:MediaWiki Foundation|MediaWiki Foundation]]) and, under that heading, have a &quot;Christian Meta Wiki&quot;, which would work like [http://meta.wikimedia.org/ Meta-Wiki], and under that heading have different projects: One for encyclopedic articles, one for general Christian apologetics that links to wikis of different denominations to show what they think on different topics, one for an international church directory, one for Christian music of all kinds, and perhaps some other projects as well. New projects and/or the joining of existing projects would be discussed at the &quot;Meta-Wiki&quot;. If it was done this way, we wouldn't be modeled after Wikipedia, but after the foundation that started Wikipedia - so we'd have all of the advantages without the drawbacks, you see? --[http://rlds.wikia.com/wiki/User:BenMcLean BenMcLean] 13:54, 27 July 2006 (UTC)<br /> <br /> :I attempted to respond to this same letter and work with Graham at WikiChristian, but I wasn't getting any interest there; plus, the MediaWiki version there is grossly outdated, making it hard to work on. '''Ben''', I like your thoughts about a Christian Meta, but I think CKB could probably serve as this central hub. It is already on Wikia, providing a reliable server location. We could redesign this Community Portal (CP) (maybe even the Welcome page) to emphasize a &quot;Collaboration&quot; page (or set of pages, maybe featuring the Forum namespace). I don't think we would need a whole, separate, site just for collaboration purposes. This CP could also emphasize a separate CKB-only CP. I like your IRC idea below, too.<br /> <br /> :Also, in working on a [http://www.wikible.org/en/Wikible:Christian_wikis Christian wikis] chart over at Wikible, I noticed that CKB and ChristWiki have very different page counts (528 vs. 11911). Why would ChristWiki have so many more considering that it's a fork of CKB? Does Wikia calculate it differently? See my chart and footnote for more details. --[[User:RockOfVictory|J. J.]] 20:39, 7 August 2006 (UTC)<br /> <br /> ===Ideas of [[User:Denise|Denise]]===<br /> <br /> A few months ago I started my own multilangual Christian wiki project [http://jesus-wiki.org Jesus-Wiki]. But I've only just recently really started to work on it. At the beginning of September I finally noticed that there are other Christian wikis around. But because I've primarily been working on the German version of Jesus-Wiki, that shouldn't be a problem concerning the Christian wiki collaboration.<br /> <br /> As I've only just discovered that there's a discussion about Christian wiki collaboration, I don't really know what has been going on so far. So if I mention something that's already been said and discussed: I apologize for that.<br /> <br /> '''How I think Christian wiki collaboration should be'''<br /> <br /> I think there should be a multilangual wiki collaboration that is organized in a similar way as [http://wikipedia.org Wikipedia]. There should be one &quot;content wiki&quot; (a wiki with articles, etc.) for every language, plus one central Media Pool (or whatever you want to call it). It saves space and work (licensing, uploading, description, etc.). Maybe there could be another wiki with the purpose of organising the collaboration between the different languages. But the Media Pool could have that function. I think [http://christianity.wikia.com/wiki/Christianity_Knowledge_Base:ChristianKM ChristianKM] is a good idea. Maybe it could be used for now. But it should be renamed, as somebody has mentioned. Of course there could be some specialized wikis (like [http://wikible Wikible] and [http://creationwiki.org CreationWiki]) that fill some special needs and concentrate on a specific aspect of Christianity. In general I think there should be a wiki system with general Christian topics written from a Christian point of view. As far as I know there have been [http://christianity.wikia.com/wiki/Christianity_Knowledge_Base_talk:Christian_point_of_view discussions] about what a Christian point of view should be. I haven't gotten involved in those yet.<br /> <br /> Why do I think there should be only one wiki per language?<br /> <br /> #It takes a lot of work to set up a wiki (organisation, structure, getting people involved, etc.)<br /> #We don't have enough people involved to be able to spare anybody. There should be as many people concentrated on one wiki as possible.<br /> #Overlapping articles also are a waste of time and work.<br /> #The whole purpose of Christian wikis should be to unify and create an overview of Christian ideas (and give more details too, of course). We don't all have to have exactly the same opinion, but at least we should find a way to work together. By creating varouns wikis for every set of ideas we would just be avoiding the whole problem and not solving it. If we don't work together, we don't need wikis. And if Wikipedia can do it we should be ashamed of ourselves if we, callins ourselves Christians (= one body!!!) and saying we're being guided by the Holy Spirit, don't manage to do at least as well.<br /> #If the wikis are organized well enough there shouldn't be any problems with being able to find the information we want. It's just a question of structure.<br /> #There should be even more reasons. Please feel free to add them here!<br /> <br /> I also think that the '''wikis should have certain things in common''', for example the Statement of Faith, the Aboutpage, the General disclaimers, the Privacy policy, etc. The General disclaimers and the Privacy policy could be based upon the ones of Wikipedia ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:General_disclaimer General disclaimer], [http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Privacy_policy Privacy policy]). Those articles deal with some problems of this world. So why not use a solution given by an organisation of this world as long as it doesn't conflict with God's word? Wikipedia must have a lot of experience with legal problems and I don't want to waste much of my time on law related stuff.<br /> <br /> There also is a domain problem. What URL should be used? I imagine that we all agree that the wiki system should use one main domain and subdomains. What domain will be used and what will happen to the other domains I do not know. I personally like the domain [http://jesus-wiki.org] because Jesus should be the center of it all. And of course there also is the Logo problem. But as soon as the domain problem is solved, it should be easer to choose a logo or even create a new one.<br /> <br /> At least somebody has suggested to host the wikis at [http://wikia.com Wikia]. I don't like that idea.<br /> <br /> #There are ads. Some of them might say exactly the opposite of what we believe.<br /> #There are other free Christian (!) hosting sites without ads. As far as I know, WikiChristian has it's own server. I am hosted at [http://project62.com Project62]. The host is extremely nice and I haven't noticed any server problems. All wikis could be hosted there.<br /> <br /> '''What to copy from Wikipedia'''<br /> <br /> I believe that the content on the wikis should be structured in a similar way as Wikipedia's. This includes the choice of software (-&gt; [http://mediawiki.org MediaWiki]). I don't know what extensions we'd want to install, though - if any at all. It looks more familiar to new users and makes them feel at home a lot faster if they are used to Wikipedia. And of course there just are certain articles (for example the editing help pages) that we can't edit without the help of Wikipedia or information from other wikis of [http://wikimedia.org Wikimedia]. But apart from that I wouldn't collaborate with Wikipedia. It is a secular wiki and has a lot of information that doesn't promote the Christian beliefs. And I would want the Christian wikis to be as independent as possible. There only should be links to Wikipedia pages if some information used on the Christian wikis was taken from there. I'd only mention Wikipedia if it's really necessary.<br /> <br /> '''The wiki structure and organisation'''<br /> <br /> The wikis should be structured and organized in an understandable way. If you take a look at the [http://de.jesus-wiki.org German version of Jesus-Wiki] you'll notice that I haven't even started writing real articles. I want to build a good foundation first. I haven't even uploaded pictures (the only exception is the wiki logo). If I am unsure about how I want to organize the content, why should I expect anybody new to Jesus-Wiki to find anything at all? That person doesn't have a clue whatsoever of what is around! And if there is a good structure, it is easier to add new content and find something to work on as well. I personally prefer working on organizing wikis rather than writing articles.<br /> <br /> Somebody mentioned that '''categories''' don't seem to work. I disagree. I believe that the Categories (would) work if they were/are used right from the beginning. It's work, ut it will pay off in the long run. It could be hard to start or try to fix an unstructured categorising system after a lot of content has been added.<br /> <br /> Another way of linking pages are '''templates''' with overviews. Take [http://de.jesus-wiki.org/wiki/Vorlage:Navigation_Namensräume Vorlage:Navigation Namensräume] and [http://de.jesus-wiki.org/wiki/Vorlage:Navigation Über Jesus-Wiki Vorlage:Navigation Über Jesus-Wiki] as examples. Wikipedia uses them too and I think they work. These templates look the same or at least very similar on every page you use them on. That keeps people from landing on the same page over and over again and goind in circles. If they click on a link of an overview template, it will be easier for them to find the samy information again and it will help them get an idea of how the wiki content is structured.<br /> <br /> We also have to think about how we want to '''organize the main pages''' of the wikis (Home page, Community page, Help page, Aboutspage etc.). Wikipedia seems to have problems keeping the information seperate. I personally don't like it if the same information can be found in various places. I want to be sure I've read all the information that's available on the topic I want. Some examples of how I would structure it:<br /> <br /> *The Home page should welcome people, give a general overview of what is available on the wiki and make it easy to get a feel for the wiki itself as fast as possible.<br /> *The Aboutspage should talk about the general ideas behind the wiki and be linked with the Statement of Faith, the General disclaimers, etc. I have done so on Jesus-Wiki.<br /> *The Community page should help make new users feel at home and give information about the community on the wiki. It should also contain information about what is going on, how you can get involved, help you find other users and make the communication between user easier.<br /> *The Help page only should contain technical help. For people that could be totally lost there also can be links to the other main pages.<br /> <br /> As far as I know the wikis will want to have at least one translation of the '''Bible''' within the wiki. I haven't really thought about how this could be done. I have seen some wikis have one page per verse. This could make it hard to see the verse in a bigger context, but it makes the linking of verses easier. I think it would be helpful to create a separate namespace &quot;Bible&quot;. This causes the linking to be a bit harder, but it makes it easier to look for something in the Bible because you can restrict the search to the namespace &quot;Bible&quot;.<br /> <br /> I've also seen that [http://wikible.org Wikible] uses the same '''usernames''' for all of its wikis. If it isn't too hard to set up such a system, I think it would make sense to do so. It makes it a lot easier to find the same person on different wikis.<br /> <br /> '''Building a community'''<br /> <br /> It is very important for a wiki to have a stable and growing community if it itself is supposed to grow. The Community page should be a easy starting point for that. There also should be something similar to the '''[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Babel Babel system of Wikipedia]''', although we should give it a different name because Babel is connected with too much negative aspects and it isn't just used for language purposes anymore (at least not on the German Wikipedia). It can be used to find people with certain abilities, interests, of certain locations, etc. Another possibility would be to build a '''[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Trust_network Trust network]'''. Both systems could come in very handy and help us build an active community. By using those templates new users can also become familiar with using them and they can get experience in editing pages. I believe a user feels more comfortable editing his/her own page instead of editing the Sandbox page. But I could be wrong.<br /> <br /> We'll also have to talk about getting more people involved sooner or later. But all advertisement and promotion attempts can wait until the wiki system has been set up to a certain extent.<br /> <br /> Well, I hope this post isn't too long. I wanted to say everything I think is important at the moment and hope I've been successful at doing so. Please post your comments.<br /> <br /> - [[User:Denise|Denise]] 02:42, 18 September 2006 (PDT)<br /> <br /> I forgot at least one aspect:<br /> <br /> '''The content of the Christian wiki system'''<br /> <br /> I do agree that the Christian wikis should be more than just normal encyclopedias. You should be able to add information about specific churches, testimonies, etc. But this would have to be organised in a good way. Using 'overview' and 'quotes' in brackets seems to confusing to me. The 'overview' page should be the main page of the topic (without word added in brackets). From there you could use special navigation templates that look the same on every page with similar functions and lead to a subpage with the pagename 'main page/subpage topic'. That way it is clear that it is a subpage. I'd only use subpages if it's really necessary. Most information could be included on the main page. You could start a subpage as soon as the information gets very personal. In general I'm against creating subpages.<br /> <br /> - [[User:Denise|Denise]] 03:51, 18 September 2006 (PDT)<br /> <br /> == WikiNode ==<br /> <br /> Dear neighbors,<br /> <br /> I agree with Denise that every Christian wiki &quot;should&quot; have certain standard pages, in addition to the standard pages (such as the WikiNode) that every wiki should have.<br /> <br /> How should we set up the WikiNode page at wikichristian.org?<br /> <br /> * Set up a standard [[WikiNode]] page, including a friendly welcome message, some info about wikichristian, and a list of the top 10 or so most-closely related wiki. Also maintain another, almost identical, redundant list at [[Christian_wikis]].<br /> * Set up a standard [[WikiNode]], including a friendly welcome message, some info about wikichristian, and &quot;the main&quot; list of Christian wiki. Discuss Christian wiki in general at [[Christian_wikis]], but link to [[WikiNode]] for the full list.<br /> * Make [[Christian_wikis]] our de-facto WikiNode, and make [[WikiNode]] merely a redirect to it. (But what if one of the 10 most-closely-related wiki is technically not &quot;Christian&quot;? For example: We discuss Christian lyrics a lot on this wiki. So our wiki node should include a link to the general &quot;lyrics&quot; wiki, and the &quot;lyrics&quot; wikinode should link back to us).<br /> * ... Or is there some other, better option? Perhaps involving &quot;transclusion&quot; ? ...<br /> <br /> --[[User:DavidCary|DavidCary]] 20:44, 9 March 2007 (EST)<br /> <br /> == other copies of this essay ==<br /> <br /> Originally, this essay claimed that &quot;The history of Christian wikis is much more recent than that of wikis in general.&quot;<br /> That error has long been fixed on the version here at wikichristian,<br /> but I'm starting to notice that that incorrect statement [http://www.conservapedia.com/Christian_Wikis still exists on other wiki].<br /> I supposed I could obsessively seek-and-destroy that error across the entire Internet.<br /> Is there a better approach?<br /> --[[User:DavidCary|DavidCary]] 14:12, 31 July 2007 (EST)</div> DavidCary http://www.wikichristian.org/wiki/en/index.php?title=Christian_wikis&diff=144240 Christian wikis 2007-05-16T01:47:13Z <p>DavidCary: CrossWire wiki; mention wikinode; contradiction?</p> <hr /> <div>__NOTOC__<br /> <br /> ==Synopsis==<br /> <br /> The history of wiki websites specifically related to [[Christianity]] is much more recent than that of wikis in general. One of the criticisms that adherents to various religious groups have had to wikipedia is that in attempting to maintain a neutral point of view, some of the teachings of their religion can be &quot;watered-down&quot; or altered. These critics also state that the neutral point of view is in the eye of the beholder. The first religious wiki was [http://clublet.com/c/c/why? Why Clublet]. Currently the largest Christian wikis include [[Theopedia]], WikiChristian and [[OrthodoxWiki]].<br /> <br /> ==Contents==<br /> <br /> {{topics}}<br /> * [[WikiChristian]]<br /> * [[Theopedia]]<br /> * [[OrthodoxWiki]]<br /> * [[Wikible]]<br /> * [[Christian Knowledge Base]]<br /> * [[CreationWiki]]<br /> <br /> {{opinions}}<br /> <br /> {{links}}<br /> * [http://www.ApologeticsWiki.com Apologetics Wiki]<br /> * [http://www.biblestudywiki.com Bible Study Wiki]<br /> * [http://bible.tmtm.com/wiki/Main_Page Bible Wiki]<br /> * [http://biblewiki.net/Bible_Wiki:About Bible Wiki Net]<br /> * [http://christianity.wikia.com/ Christianity Knowledge Base]<br /> * [http://theconnexion.net/compass/index.php/WikiNode Compass]<br /> * [http://meta.jesus-wiki.org/wiki/Main_Page Christianity Meta Wiki]<br /> * [http://www.creationwiki.net/ CreationWiki]<br /> * [http://www.faithpedia.co.uk Faithpedia]<br /> * [http://www.justsixdays.co.uk/site4/ J6Pedia]<br /> * [http://jesus-wiki.org Jesus-Wiki]<br /> * [http://mormonwiki.org/ MormonWiki Org]<br /> * [http://openbibleproject.org Open Bible Project]<br /> * [http://www.orthodoxwiki.org/ OrthodoxWiki]<br /> * [http://theology.wikicities.com Theology Wiki]<br /> * [http://www.theopedia.com/ Theopedia]<br /> * [http://www.tulipedia.org/ Tulipedia]<br /> * [http://www.thebible.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page Wiki Bible]<br /> * [http://www.wikible.org/en Wikible]<br /> * [http://www.wikicath.org/ WikiCath]<br /> * [http://www.wikichristian.org/ WikiChristian]<br /> * [http://crosswire.org/wiki/ the CrossWire wiki]<br /> <br /> ==Main article==<br /> <br /> A wiki website is a site that allows users to add content, as on an internet forum, but also allows anyone to edit the content.<br /> <br /> The first wiki was set up by Ward Cunningham in 1995 [http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WikiHistory].<br /> <br /> Wikipedia was started in 2001.<br /> As of 2007, Wikipedia has hundreds-of-thousands of articles, and is the most well-known wiki website and is a testimony to the effectiveness of wikis in allowing exchange of information through collaborative effort. It contains thousands of articles related to [[religion]]. One of the criticisms that adherents to various religious groups have however is that in attempting to maintain a neutral point of view, some of the teachings of their religion can be &quot;watered-down&quot; or altered. These critics also state that the neutral point of view is in the eye of the beholder. In response to some of these criticism, explicitly [[Christian]] wiki websites have been set up. The majority of them adhere to a specific Christian [[denomination]] or tradition, including most that claim to be non-specifically &quot;Christian&quot; in nature. They tend to fall into three categories, Online [[Bible]] encyclopedias (of varying completeness and denominational emphases), general Christianity wikis without a specific denominational slant, and wikis devoted to a specific Christian denomination or tradition.<br /> <br /> ===History of Christian wikis===<br /> <br /> The history of [[Christian wikis]] is much more recent than that of wikis in general.<br /> <br /> ''Is that so? What about http://clublet.com/ , begun by Richard Drake in 2000? Other than the original wiki, it's the earliest public wiki I know of. If this wasn't the second public wiki, what wiki was? If this was the second public wiki, wouldn't that mean that Christian wiki history is older than that of &quot;wikis&quot; in general (other than the original wiki)?''<br /> <br /> One of the earliest Christian wiki was Compass, which was set up by Richard Hall in early 2001. Although still online, this has been essentially empty for a number of years now. In 2004 WikiChristian was set up and was for a time the only Christian wiki that was not specifically denominational. Other wikis developed in early 2005 included Orthodox Wiki (for [[Eastern Orthodoxy]]) and Theopedia (for Reformed Protestantism).<br /> <br /> In more recent times there has been an explosion of Christian wikis, particularly &quot;Bible&quot; wikis dedicated to Biblical Christianity, such as Wikible.<br /> <br /> No Christian wikis have achieved anything like the numerical success of editors that wikipedia has. There are regular users particularly of Theopedia and OrthodoxWiki, and to a lesser extent WikiChristian, Wikible and Christianity Knowledge Base. Wikible keeps a running talley on the active user population of the different wikis - see [http://wikible.org/en/Christian_wikis Wikible's article on Christian wikis].<br /> <br /> {{returnto}} [[Christianity and the internet]]</div> DavidCary http://www.wikichristian.org/wiki/en/index.php?title=User_talk:Kuralyov&diff=144116 User talk:Kuralyov 2007-04-20T12:29:51Z <p>DavidCary: welcome.</p> <hr /> <div>== welcome ==<br /> <br /> Welcome to WikiChristian.<br /> I hope you enjoy reading WikiChristian and sharing your insights with us.<br /> A few tips:<br /> * You can &quot;sign&quot; your contributions by typing four tildes &quot;&lt;nowiki&gt;~~~~&lt;/nowiki&gt;&quot; at the end.<br /> * Please do all your experiments in the [[sandbox]].<br /> * Be bold with your editing. If you add information that really belongs on some other page of this wiki (or on [[WikiNode | some other wiki]] entirely), or you accidentally delete some crucial stuff, it's fairly easy for anyone to fix it. Please feel free to revert or otherwise fix-up any of my edits that turn out to be erroneous and/or misguided.<br /> * We are all volunteers here.<br /> If you need help, check out the [[Wikichristian:Tutorial]], post your question to the [[Wikichristian:Village pump]], or ask me on [[User_talk:DavidCary| my talk page]].<br /> --[[User:DavidCary|DavidCary]] 07:23, 20 April 2007 (EST)<br /> <br /> ----<br /> <br /> &lt;div class=&quot;messagebox standard-talk&quot; style=&quot;width:auto; background:White; border: 3px solid crimson; padding:5px;&quot;&gt; &lt;center&gt;'''&lt;font size=&quot;4&quot;&gt;Blocked&lt;/font&gt;'''&lt;/center&gt;&lt;br clear=&quot;all&quot; /&gt; '''''You have been blocked from editing''''' for a duration of 1 day due to the following violation(s) that you have commited: vandalism involving personal attacks. To contest this block, you may email the blocking administrator or any administrator from [[Special:Listadmins|this list]]. Please be sure to include your username (if you have one) and IP address in your email. If you can, you may also leave a message on your talk page requesting an unblock. Please refrain from making any more harmful contributions to WikiChristian, or you may be blocked indefinitely. Thank you.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;[[User:P.B. Pilhet|P.B. Pilhet]] / [[User talk:P.B. Pilhet|Talk]] 08:02, 18 April 2007 (EST) &lt;!-- [[Template:Blocked]] --&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</div> DavidCary http://www.wikichristian.org/wiki/en/index.php?title=User_talk:Mattfranklin&diff=144115 User talk:Mattfranklin 2007-04-20T12:23:29Z <p>DavidCary: welcome.</p> <hr /> <div>==Welcome! (and thanks!)==<br /> Hi, Matt, and welcome to WIkiChristian! If you have any comments or questions, I'd be happy to take them! Thanks for clearing up the vandalism on [[God]]. I can't believe I had missed it. -- [[User:P.B. Pilhet|P.B. Pilhet]] / [[User talk:P.B. Pilhet|Talk]] 20:13, 16 April 2007 (EST)<br /> <br /> ----<br /> <br /> Welcome to WikiChristian.<br /> I hope you enjoy reading WikiChristian and sharing your insights with us.<br /> A few tips:<br /> * You can &quot;sign&quot; your contributions by typing four tildes &quot;&lt;nowiki&gt;~~~~&lt;/nowiki&gt;&quot; at the end.<br /> * Be bold with your editing. If you add information that really belongs on some other page of this wiki (or on [[WikiNode | some other wiki]] entirely), or you accidentally delete some crucial stuff, it's fairly easy for anyone to fix it. Please feel free to revert or otherwise fix-up any of my edits that turn out to be erroneous and/or misguided.<br /> * We are all volunteers here.<br /> If you need help, check out the [[Wikichristian:Tutorial]], post your question to the [[Wikichristian:Village pump]], or ask me on [[User_talk:DavidCary| my talk page]].<br /> Again, welcome.<br /> --[[User:DavidCary|DavidCary]] 07:23, 20 April 2007 (EST)<br /> <br /> ----</div> DavidCary http://www.wikichristian.org/wiki/en/index.php?title=God&diff=144114 God 2007-04-20T11:36:47Z <p>DavidCary: revert to 3 February 2007; Graham grove</p> <hr /> <div>__NOTOC__<br /> <br /> {{quote | text=In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth... [[Genesis 1:1]]}}<br /> <br /> ==Synopsis==<br /> <br /> God is the central being. He created the earth and he created man in his own image. God is full of mercy and love. Millions of people in the world confess God as their Lord and saviour. He is a personal being, who is three in one - [[God the Father|Father]], [[Jesus Christ|Son]] and [[Holy Spirit]]. God stands ready to come into any person's life when that person confesses him and repent - this is when you are [[born again]].<br /> <br /> ==Contents==<br /> <br /> {{also}} {{ebd}}<br /> <br /> {{topics}}<br /> * [[Character of God]] - [[God is the creator]] | [[God is love]] | [[God is holy]] | [[God is forgiving]]<br /> * [[Trinity]] - [[God the Father]] | [[Jesus Christ]] | [[Holy Spirit]]<br /> * [[Names of God]]<br /> <br /> {{opinions}}<br /> <br /> {{quotes}}<br /> <br /> ==Main article==<br /> <br /> God is the central being. He created everything that exists. He is full of mercy and love. He is a personal being, who is three in one - [[God the Father|Father]], [[Jesus Christ|Son]] and [[Holy Spirit]]. <br /> <br /> ===[[Character of God]]===<br /> <br /> God's nature is beyond our understanding. He gives life to all and he is the author of love and forgiveness. He is completely holy and without any evil.<br /> <br /> ===[[Trinity]]===<br /> <br /> The Trinity is the Christian [[doctrine]] describing the triune nature of God. The doctrine asserts the following: there is one and only one God; the Father is God, [[Jesus]] the Son is God, and the [[Holy Spirit]] is God; the one God eternally exists in three distinct persons.<br /> <br /> ==Links==<br /> <br /> * [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God Wikipedia - God]<br /> <br /> {{returnto}} [[Christianity]]</div> DavidCary http://www.wikichristian.org/wiki/en/index.php?title=Talk:Christian_wikis&diff=143813 Talk:Christian wikis 2007-03-10T01:44:04Z <p>DavidCary: How should we set up the WikiNode page at wikichristian.org?</p> <hr /> <div>[[Talk:Christian wikis/Archive 1]]<br /> <br /> ==An open letter to users and administrators of the various different Christian wikis==<br /> <br /> Hello,<br /> <br /> Thanks for reading my two cents worth. As a bit of background information, my name is G. Grove and you can contact me at graham_grove@yahoo.com.au to discuss any of the following issues. I've been involved in Christian wikis for a while now. In fact, I first tried to set up a Christianity book in wikibooks 2 years ago, but then I discovered that there were three other Christian wikis at the time and I left the wikibook and joined WikiChristian. At the time there was also Compass and Theopedia, but not anything else. In an attempt to try and get WikiChristian used more I started the wikipedia article &quot;Christian wikis&quot; and have since watched an explosion of links appear. That there are all these people wanting to be involved in spreading the gospel and knowledge of Jesus and Christianity through wikis is a wonderful thing. I especially respect those users and administrators who acknowledge other Christian wiki sites as well as their own. Every one of these wikis has some excellent points. Theopedia is full of academic articles; wikible is intelligently set out; biblewiki is commendable for its extensive linking; wikiChristian is admirable because of its attempt to cover all things Christian including be a directory for all the churches of the world; and I could go on and on about each wiki.<br /> <br /> Despite all these wonderful qualities and the hearts behind them, I believe Christian wikis are failing in what I see as their two most important objectives in glorify God. Firstly, to be a body of knowledge where Christians actually come to learn about a topic, and to actively be involved in writing and updating articles; and secondly, to be a witness to non-Christians about what Christianity is all about. It is obvious to me that the wikis are not used by more than a couple people for each site, and that non-Christians are not reading them either. Why is this failure occurring?<br /> <br /> I believe there is one very important overriding fact that is stifling the use and growth of all of these wikis. They are all essentially modelled closely on Wikipedia. Why is this a problem? Well, wikipedia is a great encyclopedia – a fantastic reference and very useable and helpful. So, if I want to know about say, the “Coptic Orthodox Church” why would I go anywhere else?! I would only go anywhere else if that anywhere else presenting the information differently and allowed me to easily see what I was most interested in. I might for example be interested in knowing about the persecution of the Coptic church in Egypt today. To learn about that, I am going to want read testimonies about peoples experiences living in Egypt. I might want to know about the formation of the Coptic church. To learn about this, I am going to want to firstly read an encylopedia style overview article about the council of Chalcedon and monophysitism, but then I going to want to read different peoples views on interpreting these topics – their opinions are important because I know that there are many interpretations – there is not perhaps one “Christian viewpoint” for this. However, I might want to find a local Coptic church to visit – and so I would need a list or index of Coptic churches – their addresses and service times and what language they were in. Now Wikipedia wouldn’t be a particularly useful source for some of what I want and certainly isn’t set out in a way that it is easy to find some of that information. No, the wiki I am looking for would be different, however, it just doesn’t exist currently.<br /> <br /> There are also lots of other little factors that I believe stifle the growth of the various Christian wikis. These include<br /> <br /> # The use of unhelpful usernames. Why can’t we all use our real names as our user names. It makes us less anonymous<br /> # The complaints that seem to arise whenever someone writes an article in an essay style presenting his viewpoint, rather than in an encyclopedia style. Articles should be able to have sentences starting with “I think”. Now these are clearly individual opinion articles, and so need to be marked as such. But Christianity is a personal religion, and people have opinions which differ. “I think” is valid.<br /> # Vandalism – but I don’t know what to do about that – perhaps the only way to stop it is to have a critical number of users<br /> # The unwritten rule that an article about the local church down the road is not acceptable. What is wrong with writing an article about my church down the road and writing about its minister, congregation, teaching, music and service times? Nothing as far as I can see!<br /> # The layout is never particularly logical.<br /> <br /> There are I’m sure lots more issues that other people have thought of. And of course you may vehemently disagree with me on each or every point. I welcome comments. Please leave comments on WikiChristian's “Christian wikis” talk page (http://www.wikichristian.org/index.php/Talk:Christian_wikis) (so others can read them, or email me. I have been fiddling with ideas, templates and trialling out different formats for a Christian wiki that I believe would work – it would hopefully be acceptable to those who want an encyclopedia, those who want testimonies, those who want opinions and discussion, those who want stacks of information with directories of churches, lyrics of songs and public domain texts. Please take a look at [[Christianity]] for an example of what a template of one possible way this could be done. <br /> <br /> Thanks for your time. I think those of us who want a Christian wiki need some discussion, and perhaps we need to put together a larger group of people to work on one encompassing wiki rather than dozens of small wikis.<br /> <br /> Graham<br /> <br /> (--[[User:Graham grove|Graham grove]] 21:55, 24 July 2006 (PDT))<br /> <br /> ===Point-by-point responses from Tom===<br /> I appreciate the comments. I don't really disagree with any of it. I think some of the similarity with Wikipedia is an effort not to re-invent the wheel. For example, in the area of organization of the Wiki. Of course there are other aspects than just organizational and logistical things. In addition, we also need to remember that there are many people in the world that haven't even heard of Wikipedia, so it shouldn't be too surprising that Christian wikis are lacking in editorial support. Here are some responses to your points... --[[User:Ymmotrojam|Tom]] 06:41, 25 July 2006 (PDT)<br /> # The use of unhelpful usernames. Why can’t we all use our real names as our user names. It makes us less anonymous<br /> #:Interesting idea, I think I like it. Especially for citing articles. --[[User:Ymmotrojam|Tom]] 06:41, 25 July 2006 (PDT)<br /> #:Some people prefer to remain anonymous. I, for example, don't mind using my first name on my signature, but I'd rather not advertise my last name to, literally, the whole world. Also, most people like &quot;unhelpful usernames&quot; because they can use the same one across different websites. I also think it's a good brain excercise for all of us to make the effort at associating a username with a person's real name (if the user even chooses to give it to us in the firstplace). --[[User:RockOfVictory|J. J.]] 16:40, 25 July 2006 (PDT)<br /> # The complaints that seem to arise whenever someone writes an article in an essay style presenting his viewpoint, rather than in an encyclopedia style. Articles should be able to have sentences starting with “I think”. Now these are clearly individual opinion articles, and so need to be marked as such. But Christianity is a personal religion, and people have opinions which differ. “I think” is valid.<br /> #:I agree. &quot;I&quot; statements should be included somehow. If you think about it, every statement is an opinion, even encyclopedic writings are opinions from various points of view, although they may be more educated than the average person. The only trouble I see is in how to merge encyclopedia and user commentary. I'd love to see what others think about that! --[[User:Ymmotrojam|Tom]] 06:41, 25 July 2006 (PDT)<br /> # Vandalism – but I don’t know what to do about that – perhaps the only way to stop it is to have a critical number of users<br /> #:I pretty much haven't had any vandalism at Wikible for a few months now. I use keyword filters, captchas, a username registration blacklist, and a user creation log to keep track of who registers. And I still allow anonymous users to edit and add content, and all registered users are free to edit the Main Page. In fact, the only page thta no one can edit but me is the Copyright notice, which I think is self-explanatory why I did that. Other than that, almost anyone can edit it. --[[User:Ymmotrojam|Tom]] 06:41, 25 July 2006 (PDT)<br /> # The unwritten rule that an article about the local church down the road is not acceptable. What is wrong with writing an article about my church down the road and writing about its minister, congregation, teaching, music and service times? Nothing as far as I can see!<br /> #:I agree with that. --[[User:Ymmotrojam|Tom]] 06:41, 25 July 2006 (PDT)<br /> #:Can you give some links to examples of where people have found this to be a problem? --[[User:RockOfVictory|J. J.]] 16:47, 25 July 2006 (PDT)<br /> # The layout is never particularly logical.<br /> #:Layout? What are you referring to? --[[User:Ymmotrojam|Tom]] 06:41, 25 July 2006 (PDT)<br /> <br /> ===Thoughts from JJ===<br /> G. Grove, I've noticed your comments about inter-Christian wikis over the past several months,[http://www.wikible.org/en/index.php?title=Talk:Main_Page&amp;oldid=15783#Joining_together] so I know that there are at least three of us with similar concerns. Tom had actually started a ChristianWikis site to address these concerns, although it kind of fell through the cracks. I have expressed similar concerns on both Wikible ([http://www.wikible.org/en/index.php?title=User_talk:Admin&amp;oldid=15680#Wikipedia_and_Theopedia_collaboration Wikipedia and Theopedia collaboration]) and the BibleWiki ([http://bible.tmtm.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:Main_Page&amp;oldid=226363#Differentiating_BibleWiki_from_Wikipedia Differentiating BibleWiki from Wikipedia]), although I haven't gotten a chance to elaborate on the Christian-point-of-view problems that I've noticed from the beginning. For now, I've been content with concentrating my efforts on BibleWiki and Wikible (see my Theopedia link above for reasons why, as well as the [http://www.wikible.org/en/Wikible:About Wikible:About] page), but particularly on Wikipedia for general articles since there is a larger audience there. While the splintering of the Christian community is frustrating, I think it's also encouraging to know that a lot of people are competing to create the &quot;best&quot; Christian wiki; everyone has different web design skills, so some of the Christian wikis have better features than others&amp;mdash;survival of the fittest, if you will.<br /> <br /> Therefore, in terms of content, I think we're doing well; community, though, is indeed a problem. I haven't explored the options very much at this point, but Tom's ChristianWikis site idea was a good one; a site that concentrates on collaboration and community but completely leaves out the encyclopedic content. This community site would also be helpful for people to standardize wiki codes of conduct and syntax rules, as well as direct visitors to the sites with the most developed articles on certain topics. In this way, content would continue to be developed on the individual wikis since they all have different focuses. Another option is to try to center the inter-wiki discussion on one of the existing wikis, but make a clearly defined statement about the community being separate from the site's own faith-biased content.<br /> <br /> Please see my individual responses in Tom's section above, as well. --[[User:RockOfVictory|J. J.]] 16:34, 25 July 2006 (PDT)<br /> <br /> I've been browsing around WikiChristian a little more, concentrating particularly on the site organization and layout. Graham, your ideas on this page present some major changes to WikiChristian! While I like your suggestions about making WikiChristian more '''testimony-oriented''', I think it presents a lot of challenges. To do this effectively, we really need to think carefully about how the site should be organized and make sure we have documentation on it. The current [[Wikichristian:Tutorial]] is very '''Wikipedia-oriented''', so people are going to need to understand that WikiChristian is very different from most neutral-point-of-view MediaWiki sites. Here are just a few initial things I've thought of. Please feel free to add commentary to them, similar to the way Tom has done it above.<br /> #WikiChristian could learn a lot from Wikipedia/Wikimedia formatting guidelines. See particularly the Organizing links at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Contents#For_editors - Right now, it seems like there are just a bunch of links everywhere, but no organization; the overdose of nav links (world churchs, bible dictionaries, etc.) is distracting, too.<br /> #Christian wikis are traditionally &quot;Wikipedia-oriented&quot; because it's hard to organize user-edited content if a lot of it is personal opinion/experience. We really need a good system of categories and/or list pages that would stay up-to-date as people add content.<br /> #Your topics on the [[Christianity]] page seem to be more like Portals in the Wikipedia-sense. Using &lt;code&gt;(overview)&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;(G.G.)&lt;/code&gt; at the end of article titles seems odd to me. Again, I guess I would put those kinds of details in categories.<br /> <br /> My apologies for all the criticism. I'm just wanting to get the wiki well-oiled so visitors don't take test drives and end up crashing, if you know what I mean. Blessings to you... --[[User:RockOfVictory|J. J.]] 20:22, 26 July 2006 (PDT)<br /> <br /> Since the Christianity Knowledge Base is open for anyone to edit, I've started a collaboration page to focus on these ideas. Graham, I'm not sure if this is what you're interested in, but it's worth mentioning: http://christianity.wikia.com/wiki/Christianity_Knowledge_Base:ChristianKM --[[User:RockOfVictory|J. J.]] 13:49, 15 August 2006 (PDT)<br /> <br /> ===Addressing the issue of brackets for &quot;(overview)&quot; or &quot;(user-name)&quot; etc.===<br /> <br /> Thanks J.J. for your comments. All your criticisms are welcome. Your points are good ones. I suppose my feeling is that portals and categories don't actually work that well. At least, I never really browse for my information by clicking through category or portal listings. Also, they are confusing to new users - at least they were to me when I first discovered wikis. I agree it is odd putting &quot;(overview)&quot; or &quot;(G.G.)&quot; after a title. The reason I've been doing that though is to make the article clear. If it has &quot;(G.G.)&quot; after it, then I mean that it is my original work and is an opinion. If it has &quot;(overview)&quot; after it then it means it is an encyclopedia, neutral point of view article. Also then that leaves room for &quot;(quotes)&quot; for any topic etc. For example, if you look at [[Church]] you'll see the main page is &quot;Church&quot; which has a brief summary and then the sub-links which incluide [[Church (overview)]] which hopefully would become the large encyclopedia style article but then there are also links for sub-topics and links for opinion articles such as [[What is the Church? (G.G.)]] and [[The Church (justforcatholics.org)]] as well as links for quotes about the church at [[Church (quotes)]] and a link for brief forum-style discussion about the church [[Talk:Church/discussion]]. So although it is a little odd, I still think ultimately it allows for growth and personal articles. Let me know what you think. --[[User:Graham grove|Graham grove]] 21:42, 26 July 2006 (PDT)<br /> <br /> :One of the problems with the parenthesis in the title is that there are other non-topic pages that don't have parenthesis; I think it would get confusing as to what's a topic and what's an article/opinion.<br /> <br /> :How about a Topic: namespace instead of Portal? Also, instead of [[Template:Overview]] showing ''An overview of ''[[Church (overview)|Church]], it would probably be less confusing if it showed the actual link, like ''See [[Church (overview)]] for a more detailed article.'' [[Template:Opinions]] and [[Template:Quotes]] would be changed similarly. <br /> <br /> :I think this may work out well if we have a good how-to guide on making topic pages, maybe even using a [http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Substitution subst] template to start from. I may make my own prototype at [[Talk:Christianity/Dev]] (with closer adherence to [http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Contents#For_editors Wikimedia formatting standards]) if you think that would be helpful. --[[User:RockOfVictory|J. J.]] 19:11, 27 July 2006 (PDT)<br /> <br /> ::Please centralize discussion related to my dev page at [[Wikichristian talk:Topics]]. --[[User:RockOfVictory|J. J.]] 11:10, 3 August 2006 (PDT)<br /> <br /> ===Thoughts from Ben (CKB)===<br /> ''I'm copying this from the Christianity Knowledge Base since it brings up some more collaboration ideas. --[[User:RockOfVictory|J. J.]] 11:08, 10 August 2006 (PDT)''<br /> <br /> Here's another problem with Christian wikis: They're hosted on private sites, therefore there is no &quot;centrality&quot; to them. I think ''this'' wiki, since it's hosted by [[Wikipedia:Wikia|Wikia Inc.]], is more &quot;central&quot;. I think it might be good for this wiki to specialize in apologetics.<br /> <br /> What we could do is perhaps form some sort of ChristianWiki Foundation (sort of like the [[Wikipedia:MediaWiki Foundation|MediaWiki Foundation]]) and, under that heading, have a &quot;Christian Meta Wiki&quot;, which would work like [http://meta.wikimedia.org/ Meta-Wiki], and under that heading have different projects: One for encyclopedic articles, one for general Christian apologetics that links to wikis of different denominations to show what they think on different topics, one for an international church directory, one for Christian music of all kinds, and perhaps some other projects as well. New projects and/or the joining of existing projects would be discussed at the &quot;Meta-Wiki&quot;. If it was done this way, we wouldn't be modeled after Wikipedia, but after the foundation that started Wikipedia - so we'd have all of the advantages without the drawbacks, you see? --[http://rlds.wikia.com/wiki/User:BenMcLean BenMcLean] 13:54, 27 July 2006 (UTC)<br /> <br /> :I attempted to respond to this same letter and work with Graham at WikiChristian, but I wasn't getting any interest there; plus, the MediaWiki version there is grossly outdated, making it hard to work on. '''Ben''', I like your thoughts about a Christian Meta, but I think CKB could probably serve as this central hub. It is already on Wikia, providing a reliable server location. We could redesign this Community Portal (CP) (maybe even the Welcome page) to emphasize a &quot;Collaboration&quot; page (or set of pages, maybe featuring the Forum namespace). I don't think we would need a whole, separate, site just for collaboration purposes. This CP could also emphasize a separate CKB-only CP. I like your IRC idea below, too.<br /> <br /> :Also, in working on a [http://www.wikible.org/en/Wikible:Christian_wikis Christian wikis] chart over at Wikible, I noticed that CKB and ChristWiki have very different page counts (528 vs. 11911). Why would ChristWiki have so many more considering that it's a fork of CKB? Does Wikia calculate it differently? See my chart and footnote for more details. --[[User:RockOfVictory|J. J.]] 20:39, 7 August 2006 (UTC)<br /> <br /> ===Ideas of [[User:Denise|Denise]]===<br /> <br /> A few months ago I started my own multilangual Christian wiki project [http://jesus-wiki.org Jesus-Wiki]. But I've only just recently really started to work on it. At the beginning of September I finally noticed that there are other Christian wikis around. But because I've primarily been working on the German version of Jesus-Wiki, that shouldn't be a problem concerning the Christian wiki collaboration.<br /> <br /> As I've only just discovered that there's a discussion about Christian wiki collaboration, I don't really know what has been going on so far. So if I mention something that's already been said and discussed: I apologize for that.<br /> <br /> '''How I think Christian wiki collaboration should be'''<br /> <br /> I think there should be a multilangual wiki collaboration that is organized in a similar way as [http://wikipedia.org Wikipedia]. There should be one &quot;content wiki&quot; (a wiki with articles, etc.) for every language, plus one central Media Pool (or whatever you want to call it). It saves space and work (licensing, uploading, description, etc.). Maybe there could be another wiki with the purpose of organising the collaboration between the different languages. But the Media Pool could have that function. I think [http://christianity.wikia.com/wiki/Christianity_Knowledge_Base:ChristianKM ChristianKM] is a good idea. Maybe it could be used for now. But it should be renamed, as somebody has mentioned. Of course there could be some specialized wikis (like [http://wikible Wikible] and [http://creationwiki.org CreationWiki]) that fill some special needs and concentrate on a specific aspect of Christianity. In general I think there should be a wiki system with general Christian topics written from a Christian point of view. As far as I know there have been [http://christianity.wikia.com/wiki/Christianity_Knowledge_Base_talk:Christian_point_of_view discussions] about what a Christian point of view should be. I haven't gotten involved in those yet.<br /> <br /> Why do I think there should be only one wiki per language?<br /> <br /> #It takes a lot of work to set up a wiki (organisation, structure, getting people involved, etc.)<br /> #We don't have enough people involved to be able to spare anybody. There should be as many people concentrated on one wiki as possible.<br /> #Overlapping articles also are a waste of time and work.<br /> #The whole purpose of Christian wikis should be to unify and create an overview of Christian ideas (and give more details too, of course). We don't all have to have exactly the same opinion, but at least we should find a way to work together. By creating varouns wikis for every set of ideas we would just be avoiding the whole problem and not solving it. If we don't work together, we don't need wikis. And if Wikipedia can do it we should be ashamed of ourselves if we, callins ourselves Christians (= one body!!!) and saying we're being guided by the Holy Spirit, don't manage to do at least as well.<br /> #If the wikis are organized well enough there shouldn't be any problems with being able to find the information we want. It's just a question of structure.<br /> #There should be even more reasons. Please feel free to add them here!<br /> <br /> I also think that the '''wikis should have certain things in common''', for example the Statement of Faith, the Aboutpage, the General disclaimers, the Privacy policy, etc. The General disclaimers and the Privacy policy could be based upon the ones of Wikipedia ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:General_disclaimer General disclaimer], [http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Privacy_policy Privacy policy]). Those articles deal with some problems of this world. So why not use a solution given by an organisation of this world as long as it doesn't conflict with God's word? Wikipedia must have a lot of experience with legal problems and I don't want to waste much of my time on law related stuff.<br /> <br /> There also is a domain problem. What URL should be used? I imagine that we all agree that the wiki system should use one main domain and subdomains. What domain will be used and what will happen to the other domains I do not know. I personally like the domain [http://jesus-wiki.org] because Jesus should be the center of it all. And of course there also is the Logo problem. But as soon as the domain problem is solved, it should be easer to choose a logo or even create a new one.<br /> <br /> At least somebody has suggested to host the wikis at [http://wikia.com Wikia]. I don't like that idea.<br /> <br /> #There are ads. Some of them might say exactly the opposite of what we believe.<br /> #There are other free Christian (!) hosting sites without ads. As far as I know, WikiChristian has it's own server. I am hosted at [http://project62.com Project62]. The host is extremely nice and I haven't noticed any server problems. All wikis could be hosted there.<br /> <br /> '''What to copy from Wikipedia'''<br /> <br /> I believe that the content on the wikis should be structured in a similar way as Wikipedia's. This includes the choice of software (-&gt; [http://mediawiki.org MediaWiki]). I don't know what extensions we'd want to install, though - if any at all. It looks more familiar to new users and makes them feel at home a lot faster if they are used to Wikipedia. And of course there just are certain articles (for example the editing help pages) that we can't edit without the help of Wikipedia or information from other wikis of [http://wikimedia.org Wikimedia]. But apart from that I wouldn't collaborate with Wikipedia. It is a secular wiki and has a lot of information that doesn't promote the Christian beliefs. And I would want the Christian wikis to be as independent as possible. There only should be links to Wikipedia pages if some information used on the Christian wikis was taken from there. I'd only mention Wikipedia if it's really necessary.<br /> <br /> '''The wiki structure and organisation'''<br /> <br /> The wikis should be structured and organized in an understandable way. If you take a look at the [http://de.jesus-wiki.org German version of Jesus-Wiki] you'll notice that I haven't even started writing real articles. I want to build a good foundation first. I haven't even uploaded pictures (the only exception is the wiki logo). If I am unsure about how I want to organize the content, why should I expect anybody new to Jesus-Wiki to find anything at all? That person doesn't have a clue whatsoever of what is around! And if there is a good structure, it is easier to add new content and find something to work on as well. I personally prefer working on organizing wikis rather than writing articles.<br /> <br /> Somebody mentioned that '''categories''' don't seem to work. I disagree. I believe that the Categories (would) work if they were/are used right from the beginning. It's work, ut it will pay off in the long run. It could be hard to start or try to fix an unstructured categorising system after a lot of content has been added.<br /> <br /> Another way of linking pages are '''templates''' with overviews. Take [http://de.jesus-wiki.org/wiki/Vorlage:Navigation_Namensräume Vorlage:Navigation Namensräume] and [http://de.jesus-wiki.org/wiki/Vorlage:Navigation Über Jesus-Wiki Vorlage:Navigation Über Jesus-Wiki] as examples. Wikipedia uses them too and I think they work. These templates look the same or at least very similar on every page you use them on. That keeps people from landing on the same page over and over again and goind in circles. If they click on a link of an overview template, it will be easier for them to find the samy information again and it will help them get an idea of how the wiki content is structured.<br /> <br /> We also have to think about how we want to '''organize the main pages''' of the wikis (Home page, Community page, Help page, Aboutspage etc.). Wikipedia seems to have problems keeping the information seperate. I personally don't like it if the same information can be found in various places. I want to be sure I've read all the information that's available on the topic I want. Some examples of how I would structure it:<br /> <br /> *The Home page should welcome people, give a general overview of what is available on the wiki and make it easy to get a feel for the wiki itself as fast as possible.<br /> *The Aboutspage should talk about the general ideas behind the wiki and be linked with the Statement of Faith, the General disclaimers, etc. I have done so on Jesus-Wiki.<br /> *The Community page should help make new users feel at home and give information about the community on the wiki. It should also contain information about what is going on, how you can get involved, help you find other users and make the communication between user easier.<br /> *The Help page only should contain technical help. For people that could be totally lost there also can be links to the other main pages.<br /> <br /> As far as I know the wikis will want to have at least one translation of the '''Bible''' within the wiki. I haven't really thought about how this could be done. I have seen some wikis have one page per verse. This could make it hard to see the verse in a bigger context, but it makes the linking of verses easier. I think it would be helpful to create a separate namespace &quot;Bible&quot;. This causes the linking to be a bit harder, but it makes it easier to look for something in the Bible because you can restrict the search to the namespace &quot;Bible&quot;.<br /> <br /> I've also seen that [http://wikible.org Wikible] uses the same '''usernames''' for all of its wikis. If it isn't too hard to set up such a system, I think it would make sense to do so. It makes it a lot easier to find the same person on different wikis.<br /> <br /> '''Building a community'''<br /> <br /> It is very important for a wiki to have a stable and growing community if it itself is supposed to grow. The Community page should be a easy starting point for that. There also should be something similar to the '''[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Babel Babel system of Wikipedia]''', although we should give it a different name because Babel is connected with too much negative aspects and it isn't just used for language purposes anymore (at least not on the German Wikipedia). It can be used to find people with certain abilities, interests, of certain locations, etc. Another possibility would be to build a '''[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Trust_network Trust network]'''. Both systems could come in very handy and help us build an active community. By using those templates new users can also become familiar with using them and they can get experience in editing pages. I believe a user feels more comfortable editing his/her own page instead of editing the Sandbox page. But I could be wrong.<br /> <br /> We'll also have to talk about getting more people involved sooner or later. But all advertisement and promotion attempts can wait until the wiki system has been set up to a certain extent.<br /> <br /> Well, I hope this post isn't too long. I wanted to say everything I think is important at the moment and hope I've been successful at doing so. Please post your comments.<br /> <br /> - [[User:Denise|Denise]] 02:42, 18 September 2006 (PDT)<br /> <br /> I forgot at least one aspect:<br /> <br /> '''The content of the Christian wiki system'''<br /> <br /> I do agree that the Christian wikis should be more than just normal encyclopedias. You should be able to add information about specific churches, testimonies, etc. But this would have to be organised in a good way. Using 'overview' and 'quotes' in brackets seems to confusing to me. The 'overview' page should be the main page of the topic (without word added in brackets). From there you could use special navigation templates that look the same on every page with similar functions and lead to a subpage with the pagename 'main page/subpage topic'. That way it is clear that it is a subpage. I'd only use subpages if it's really necessary. Most information could be included on the main page. You could start a subpage as soon as the information gets very personal. In general I'm against creating subpages.<br /> <br /> - [[User:Denise|Denise]] 03:51, 18 September 2006 (PDT)<br /> <br /> == WikiNode ==<br /> <br /> Dear neighbors,<br /> <br /> I agree with Denise that every Christian wiki &quot;should&quot; have certain standard pages, in addition to the standard pages (such as the WikiNode) that every wiki should have.<br /> <br /> How should we set up the WikiNode page at wikichristian.org?<br /> <br /> * Set up a standard [[WikiNode]] page, including a friendly welcome message, some info about wikichristian, and a list of the top 10 or so most-closely related wiki. Also maintain another, almost identical, redundant list at [[Christian_wikis]].<br /> * Set up a standard [[WikiNode]], including a friendly welcome message, some info about wikichristian, and &quot;the main&quot; list of Christian wiki. Discuss Christian wiki in general at [[Christian_wikis]], but link to [[WikiNode]] for the full list.<br /> * Make [[Christian_wikis]] our de-facto WikiNode, and make [[WikiNode]] merely a redirect to it. (But what if one of the 10 most-closely-related wiki is technically not &quot;Christian&quot;? For example: We discuss Christian lyrics a lot on this wiki. So our wiki node should include a link to the general &quot;lyrics&quot; wiki, and the &quot;lyrics&quot; wikinode should link back to us).<br /> * ... Or is there some other, better option? Perhaps involving &quot;transclusion&quot; ? ...<br /> <br /> --[[User:DavidCary|DavidCary]] 20:44, 9 March 2007 (EST)</div> DavidCary http://www.wikichristian.org/wiki/en/index.php?title=User:DavidCary&diff=143460 User:DavidCary 2007-01-26T13:57:01Z <p>DavidCary: the &quot;sysop&quot; thing. Link fix.</p> <hr /> <div>Dear neighbors,<br /> <br /> What should I say ?<br /> <br /> I am a [[web servant]] at http://BaptistChapel.net/ and http://GatheringHearts.org/ .<br /> <br /> I collect [http://theconnexion.net/compass/index.php/Wiki_verses wiki-related Bible verses].<br /> <br /> I help maintain the list of all known wiki.<br /> It appears (from the history of the [[Main Page]]) that WikiChristian was started on 24 Dec 2004.<br /> I created WikiChristian's [[WikiNode]].<br /> <br /> [http://theconnexion.net/compass/index.php/User:DavidCary CompassWiki:DavidCary]<br /> <br /> --[[User:DavidCary|DavidCary]] 21:47, 8 Mar 2005 (PST)<br /> <br /> Graham Grove made me a &quot;sysop&quot; at Wikichristian.<br /> I hope he won't regret it.<br /> --[[User:DavidCary|DavidCary]] 08:57, 26 January 2007 (EST)</div> DavidCary http://www.wikichristian.org/wiki/en/index.php?title=User_talk:DavidCary&diff=143459 User talk:DavidCary 2007-01-25T20:30:15Z <p>DavidCary: Thank you.</p> <hr /> <div>Hi David<br /> <br /> I've made you a sysop so that you can unprotect and edit pages.<br /> <br /> Thanks for contributing,<br /> <br /> Graham<br /> <br /> ''Thank you.''<br /> ''Remind me every once in a while to use my powers for good, and not for evil, OK?''<br /> ''Ooh, what's this shiny new &quot;Block user&quot; button I see now when I look at [[User_talk:DavidCary]] ? I wonder what happens when I push it ... Doh!''<br /> ''--[[User:DavidCary|DavidCary]] 15:30, 25 January 2007 (EST)''</div> DavidCary http://www.wikichristian.org/wiki/en/index.php?title=Indonesian_Sunday_School_Teachers_Guilty_of_Christianization_(September_5,_2005)&diff=12953 Indonesian Sunday School Teachers Guilty of Christianization (September 5, 2005) 2005-10-04T07:02:12Z <p>DavidCary: Indonesian Sunday School Teachers Guilty of Christianization (Septeber 5, 2005) moved to Sunday School Teachers Guilty of Christianization</p> <hr /> <div>#REDIRECT [[Sunday School Teachers Guilty of Christianization]]<br /> </div> DavidCary http://www.wikichristian.org/wiki/en/index.php?title=New_English_Translation&diff=11156 New English Translation 2005-04-20T04:15:38Z <p>DavidCary: rough draft -- copied from web site</p> <hr /> <div>&quot;The NET Bible was created to be the first major modern English translation available free on the Internet for download and use in Bible studies&quot;<br /> <br /> &quot;Anyone anywhere in the world with an Internet connection is able to use and print out the NET Bible without cost for personal study, preaching, teaching, and training others. In addition, anyone who wants to give away the Bible can print up to 1,000 copies of the NET Bible and distribute them for free without the need for written permission.<br /> ...<br /> This is for personal use, not for posting on other websites.&quot;<br /> <br /> &quot;includes explanatory notes from the translators and editors as to why the preferred translation was chosen and what the other alternatives are&quot;<br /> <br /> &quot;If you come across a phrase or verse you feel needs improvement, you can let us know through our online comments database at http://www.netbible.com/comments .&quot;<br /> <br /> http://bible.org/netbible/</div> DavidCary http://www.wikichristian.org/wiki/en/index.php?title=Bible&diff=3888 Bible 2005-04-18T13:43:44Z <p>DavidCary: slang versions of the Bible in wiki</p> <hr /> <div>{{Christianity}}<br /> <br /> [[An overview of the Bible]] and [[Bible Dictionary: Bible]]<br /> <br /> [[The formation and translations of the Bible|The formation and translations of the Bible - who wrote it, how it was put together and today's versions]]<br /> <br /> [[Characters of the Bible]]<br /> <br /> [[Bible studies and quotes and references]]<br /> <br /> [[Miscellaneous Bible topics]]<br /> <br /> <br /> ----<br /> <br /> <br /> '''[[The Old Testament]]'''<br /> <br /> * [[Books of the Law]] <br /> :* [[Genesis]] | [[Exodus]] | [[Leviticus]] | [[Numbers]] | [[Deuteronomy]]<br /> <br /> * [[Historical Books of the Old Testament]]<br /> :* [[Joshua]] | [[Judges]] | [[Ruth]] | [[1 Samuel]] | [[2 Samuel]] | [[1 Kings]] | [[2 Kings]] | [[1 Chronicles]] | [[2 Chronicles]] | [[Ezra]] | [[Nehemiah]] | [[Esther]]<br /> <br /> * [[Poetical Books of the Old Testament]]<br /> :* Wisdom Books<br /> ::* [[Job]] | [[Proverbs]] | [[Ecclesiastes]]<br /> :* Poetry<br /> ::* [[Psalms]] | [[Song of Solomon]] | [[Lamentations]]<br /> <br /> * [[Prophetic Books of the Old Testament]]<br /> :* Major Prophets<br /> ::* [[Isaiah]] | [[Jeremiah]] | [[Ezekiel]] | [[Daniel]]<br /> :* Minor Prophets<br /> ::* [[Hosea]] | [[Joel]] | [[Amos]] | [[Obadiah]] | [[Jonah]] | [[Micah]] | [[Nahum]] | [[Habakkuk]] | [[Zephaniah]] | [[Haggai]] | [[Zechariah]] | [[Malachi]]<br /> <br /> <br /> '''[[The New Testament]]'''<br /> *[[Historical Books of the New Testament]]<br /> :* [[Gospel|The Gospels]]<br /> ::* [[Matthew]] | [[Mark]] | [[Luke]] | [[John]]<br /> :* Church History<br /> ::* [[Acts]]<br /> <br /> *[[Introductions to the New Testament letters|Epistles]]:<br /> :* [[Pauline epistles]]<br /> ::* [[Romans]] | [[1 Corinthians]] | [[2 Corinthians]] | [[Galatians]] | [[Ephesians]] | [[Philippians]] | [[Colossians]] | [[1 Thessalonians]] | [[2 Thessalonians]] | [[1 Timothy]] | [[2 Timothy]] | [[Titus]] | [[Philemon]]<br /> :* [[General epistles]]<br /> ::* [[Hebrews]] | [[James]] | [[1 Peter]] | [[2 Peter]] | [[1 John]] | [[2 John]] | [[3 John]] | [[Jude]]<br /> <br /> *Prophetic books:<br /> :*[[Revelation]]<br /> <br /> <br /> ----<br /> <br /> '''Bible Versions in the wiki'''<br /> <br /> See [[List of all the English translations]].<br /> <br /> &lt;!-- isn't this following list redundant with the above page ? --&gt;<br /> <br /> {{kjv}}<br /> <br /> [[Bible, English, World English|The World English Bible]]<br /> <br /> [[The American Standard Version|American Standard Version Bible]]<br /> <br /> [[Translation Projects:Urban Slang Version (2005 edition)]]<br /> <br /> [http://www.theconnexion.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?TechnicalSlangRomans TechnicalSlangRomans]<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> ----<br /> <br /> [http://www.biblegateway.com Look up Bible passages at Bible Gateway]<br /> <br /> [http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible See also the extensive notes about the Bible in wikipedia]<br /> <br /> [http://worldebible.com/ Look up Bible in multiple versions]</div> DavidCary http://www.wikichristian.org/wiki/en/index.php?title=WikiChristian_talk:Community_Portal&diff=4724 WikiChristian talk:Community Portal 2005-04-16T05:10:02Z <p>DavidCary: It's legal, but is it a good idea?</p> <hr /> <div>----<br /> I have some information on the book of Hebrews that I would like to contribute. Could that page be unprotected so that I can add the info? [[User:Cpark|Cpark]] 08:37, 4 Feb 2005 (PST)<br /> <br /> ----<br /> <br /> Okay, I've unprotected the main index page for Hebrews (and for all the other books of the Bible)<br /> <br /> == songs and lyrics ==<br /> <br /> I'm not sure where to post this info, so I thought that it'd fit here.<br /> I'm a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to wikis, so I have some ideas regarding the layout of songs. Currently each song has a separate page linking to its lyrics instead of just writing a heading and let the lyrics be underneath. Linking means that there will be a very large amount of pages as soon as we start to really grow, and it might be confusing for especially new users. I also have to object against the same behaviour being practised when it comes to, for example the page about [[Matt Redman]]. Can't his info and/or bio reside in that page instead of the current [[About Matt Redman]].<br /> <br /> Back to songs. Right now all songs have the name in the page title, meaning that it might be a little difficult to see what pages are songs, what pages are articles and so on. On another wiki wer'e using namespaces to make things easier. That means that songs have the page prefix Song: and that it is separately searchable. Free Bible Dictionary does already follow that naming scheme, and it works pretty well to keep it from cluttering, doesn't it? <br /> <br /> Feel free to comment on my ideas. [[User:Etnoy|Etnoy]] 02:08, 18 Mar 2005 (PST)<br /> <br /> ----<br /> Hi,<br /> Regarding the issue of lyrics, [[User:Graham grove|Graham grove]] is doing that wonderful work and you can go ahead and discuss any ideas for improvement with him. It is a matter of style and some times planning for the growth in future. As long as the pages have proper links, it may not be confusing but I think some of the pages that have just one page link can be made part of other pages. Discuss the issue with [[User:Graham grove|Graham grove]] and agree on a plan or agree to disagree.<br /> <br /> Thanks,<br /> [[User:Prab|Prab]]<br /> <br /> == copying articles from wikipedia ==<br /> <br /> There seem to be tons of articles on wikipedia for Christian subjects. Are there any problems in copying these over to here? Any legal ramifications or anything?<br /> <br /> ''No, all wikipedia's content is licensed under [[GNU FDL]] and can feeely redistributed as long as you say the source.''<br /> <br /> Any easy way to port them over here? I'm thinking mainly of the historic and factual entries such as the ones on all the different denominations.<br /> <br /> ''Yes, it's perfectly legal to copy any or every wikipedia article -- see the [[GNU FDL]] for details, and [http://openfacts.berlios.de/index-en.phtml?title=Copies_of_Wikipedia_content OpenFacts] for examples of other web sites doing just that.''<br /> ''However, is copying -- or more accurately, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forking forking] -- really a good idea? I think that for historical facts where we think Wikipedia has gotten it right, we might as well leave it there and just link to it.''<br /> ''Obviously I'm a big fan of http://CommunityWiki.org/ConsolidateInformation . I'm willing to grant that it may be a good idea for *some* articles to be copied over, to gain http://CommunityWiki.org/ProductiveWikiOverlap . But not *every* article on &quot;Christian subjects&quot;. --[[User:DavidCary|DavidCary]] 22:10, 15 Apr 2005 (PDT)''</div> DavidCary http://www.wikichristian.org/wiki/en/index.php?title=WikiChristian:Copyrights&diff=11099 WikiChristian:Copyrights 2005-04-16T04:33:50Z <p>DavidCary: rough draft</p> <hr /> <div>Every person who edits WikiChristian sees this notice on the edit page:<br /> <br /> <br /> :Please note that all contributions to WikiChristian are considered to be released under the GNU Free Documentation License (see [[WikiChristian:Copyrights]] for details). If you don't want your writing to be edited mercilessly and redistributed at will, then don't submit it here.<br /> :You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource. '''DO NOT SUBMIT COPYRIGHTED WORK WITHOUT PERMISSION!'''<br /> <br /> This is basically the default MediaWiki copyright notice. <br /> <br /> ----<br /> <br /> <br /> What ''should'' this notice say?<br /> Some wiki mention<br /> : &quot;Please cite your sources so others can check your work.&quot;.<br /> : &quot;By submitting your work you promise you wrote it yourself, or copied it from public domain resources — this does not include most web pages.&quot;<br /> <br /> == about the GNU FDL ==<br /> <br /> There are many other websites and wiki that have excellent explanations of the GNU FDL. Rather than write yet another mediocre description, I'll try to summarize with a few links.<br /> <br /> * The official version of the GNU FDL is at http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html .<br /> <br /> * The terms of the FDL apparently require a copy of it in every work covered by it. Since WikiChristian is covered by it, it has a local copy (at [[GNU FDL]]).<br /> <br /> * There is a [http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Simple_English_GFDL simplified &quot;translation&quot; of the GNU FDL].<br /> <br /> * An [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_FDL article at Wikipedia discusses the GNU FDL, its pros and cons, and a few alternatives.].<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> [[Copyright]]</div> DavidCary http://www.wikichristian.org/wiki/en/index.php?title=User:DavidCary&diff=10157 User:DavidCary 2005-03-09T05:47:44Z <p>DavidCary: rough draft</p> <hr /> <div>Dear neighbors,<br /> <br /> What should I say ?<br /> <br /> I am a [[web servant]] at http://BaptistChapel.net/ and http://GatheringHearts.org/ .<br /> <br /> I collect [http://www.theconnexion.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiRelatedVerses wiki-related Bible verses].<br /> <br /> I help maintain the list of all known wiki.<br /> It appears (from the history of the [[Main Page]]) that WikiChristian was started on 24 Dec 2004.<br /> I created WikiChristian's [[WikiNode]].<br /> <br /> [http://theconnexion.net/compass/index.php/User:DavidCary CompassWiki:DavidCary]<br /> <br /> --[[User:DavidCary|DavidCary]] 21:47, 8 Mar 2005 (PST)</div> DavidCary http://www.wikichristian.org/wiki/en/index.php?title=Characters_of_the_Bible&diff=2279 Characters of the Bible 2005-03-04T20:16:33Z <p>DavidCary: God</p> <hr /> <div>''In alphabetical order''<br /> <br /> <br /> * [[God]]<br /> * [[Joseph (Son of Jacob)|'''J'''oseph, the son of Jacob (Genesis)]]<br /> * [[Peter|'''P'''eter (Simon Peter)]]</div> DavidCary http://www.wikichristian.org/wiki/en/index.php?title=WikiChristian:Community_Portal&diff=4822 WikiChristian:Community Portal 2005-03-04T20:02:42Z <p>DavidCary: WikiNode: wiki neighbors</p> <hr /> <div>{| cellspacing=&quot;3&quot; width=&quot;100%&quot; <br /> |width=&quot;100%&quot; colspan=&quot;2&quot;| <br /> {|<br /> |style=&quot;padding-right: 1em;&quot;|<br /> [[wikichristian]] is '''both''' a Christian [[encyclopedia]] and a [[wiki]] community. You can [[wikichristian:How to edit a page|edit]] and [[Help:Starting a new page|create]] articles on wikichristian. Learn how to contribute with the [[wikichristian:Tutorial|tutorial]] (or just play around in our [[wikichristian:Sandbox|sandbox]]). Due to the repeated attacks of vandalism on our wiki, we had to protect many immature pages. If you would like to edit a page, please contact one of the sysops or leave a message in the talk page here. Thank you for the understanding and for your help in building and preserving this site.<br /> |}<br /> <br /> You may also be interested in [[WikiNode|our wiki neighbors]].</div> DavidCary