(under development)
[Registered WBSC Members thus far: 3]
[Expressed/Claimed Interest (but no follow through): 5]
Pertinent Biblical & Prophetic basis, and derived establishment endeavor history (cf. here), of WBSC.
College Objective
If you are like me, you have, in your Biblical Studies/Research endeavors, been quite disappointed to not find much more achievable concrete and/or exhaustive documentation or studies on certain topics. Many times this is solely due to the researcher/writer having undertaken his/her study alone, and thus, for a lack of various resources, the study was not exhaustively, and thus, in most cases, not conclusively, done.
The mission and purpose of WBSC is to have these various incomplete studies, and much more, completely done, and that by, and to, the equal benefit of all contributors involved in it. The goal is here not to “re-invent the wheel” of Biblical Research, but to make these wheels as functionable and effective as possible, and also to “invent/produce wheels” where they are presently not found, or in use.
Therefore WBSC is being established to have an organized venue where scholarly Biblical Research can be done and in a most collaborative fashion. This Institution is being called a College to reflect both the fact that it will be “a society of persons joined together for literary or scientific purposes, and possessing exclusive privileges” and also, as knowledge is still not finite, even Biblical knowledge, especially for those who are “seeking to advance” (Dan 12:4, 10), it will simultaneously be a place of teaching and learning for all participants. So even if you currently may not be skilled in scholarly Biblical Research, but aim to, you are welcome to participate.
To mainly the benefit of all participants, the College will be formally registered as an Institution/Business to the extent that is applicable.
College Name Significance
The mission and goals of WBSC have been incorporated in its chosen name - the World Biblical Society of Christ as seen here:
World - The College’s outreach endgoal is to have an equal and balanced worldwide accessibility and impact, which tangibly involves producing works for as many language groups as possible. So this is indeed what it will deliberately strive to do. (Matt 24:14; Acts 1:8)
Biblical - The project will focus, through indepth, scholarly research, to bring to light all of what the Bible has to teach for the Believer today. (Psa 119:105; 2 Tim 3:16, 17)
Society - What will be researched and produced will have more than just an intellectual impact, but will also aim to contribute to the everyday life, in terms of fully living it inline with what the Bible teaches. (John 10:10)
of Christ - Here, a deliberate focus is being made on Jesus as the prophesied Messiah of this fallen world, and indeed this project is dedicated to uphold, and make Him known to, and understood by, the world as more than just a good historical teacher, but as “the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” (Matt 16:16; Mark 12:10; John 5:39)
Contributing Members
All of the participants in this College are being term “contributors” as everyone will be expected, and required, to indeed make an equal and/or equivalent contribution to the research work, and output production, of this Institution.
Organizational Structure
As it is being planned now WBSC will be comprised of up to 400 such contributors. The main benefit of this planned large collaborative research body is indeed to be able to conduct large projects in the fastest time possible. Therefore project can literally be exhaustively done 400X faster than by a lone writer/researcher. There is also much more conclusive/convincing trust in such a large consensus, even on decision solely based upon opinion.
WBSC also will aim to be as transparent, factual, truthful and accessible as possible. It thus believes, and sees that this will only be done in such numbers as 400 participants.
The planned, full organizational structure of this College of Biblical Research, into “Departments of Research” is posted below, at the end. Again it must be emphasized that studies from scratch will not necessarily be done by these Research Departments. Much quality work has indeed been done in each of these areas of Biblical research. Instead these WBSC Research Departments are for the efficient processing of the wealth of information in these various areas of biblical research. Still where original or further studies need to be done, it will be done.
As it will be explained below [Available Positions], each Department/Section director will be expected to be able to competently guide, direct and supervises the rest of WBSC participants into effectuating proper pertinent Bible studies in a certain area of research, which they specialize in, so that all can in turn be reliable and equally productive contributors for each study.
Participants Recruiting
While it may seem large at first, this goal of 400 participants can actually easily, and ideally, be reached by personal references, if each person that signs up for this project themselves in turn get at least 3 other people who they know would be interested, and capable of doing such work, to also sign up. By this exponential expansion, mathematically this 400 figure will be reached within 6 such recursive steps at the most, and with each person indeed only having to successfully sign up 3 more people. So if you would like this project get off the ground as quickly as possible, do just seek out 3 such willing, and capable, people!
WBSC Operation
The way that WBSC will operate is rather simple in itself: If any of its participants has an idea for a research, they simply suggest it to the rest of the online College, and if needed, after a brief evaluation of the merits, upon a favorable vote [see in the next section], it will be undertaken as a full-fledge, research topic, by all, through this web-based collaboration.
Binding Decision-Making
As everyone contributing in this Institute will inherently, and equally/equivalently have much invested in the works and productions to be done, each participant will therefore have a vote in this College’s decision-making. However as there may exists a quite tangible educational dichotomy between those who have done formal Biblical Studies, and those who have not, where thus, some issues may not be factually perceived/understood in the same way by both groups, a democratic, bicameral voting system will be used, where those who have had a formal Theological Education, and/or have qualified to function mainly as various levels of Directors (87) will form one House/Chamber; and those who are functioning mainly as Contributors/Researchers (313) [See WBSC Positions below] will form the other House/Chamber. Both of these Houses/Chambers will have an equal voting voice, however in cases where a decision cannot be made after even a deliberate attempt to reconcile both groups, a sort of Judicial process will be applied where the 4 Associate Directors will judicially decided between each distinct difference at issue. The cumulative voting total of their judgement will either decide the issue at hand, or if they have opted to differ the final decision to the Director, or in the case of a tie, the Director will undergo a similar judicial analysis, and/or, use discretionary decision power to make a final, binding decision for the Institute. Still, subsequent to that decision, each voting member of the College can still decide, if they abide by the decision and will participate in the research in question, but a vote involving the same decision process will determine, if this is to be a temporary exclusion, or a permanent one, largely dependent on the actual issue under discussion.
Sub-dividing the voting here along the lines of actual scholarly knowledge will assure that researches that are factually meritorious are indeed done, and not dismissed by those who may think that there it is not worthwhile; and that those studies which are factually known to be void of any merit will not waste the Institutes resources. So in summary this is to make sure that all decisions are based upon concrete facts.
To ensure that decision-making processes/voting never escalate beyond the base bicameral voting, each participant will be expected to each make factually-based, and judicious decisions from the very start, and not whimsical decisions based upon pre-concieved assumptions and suppositions.
A complete, formal and binding “Constitution” for the decision-making of the College, among other related issues, will be collectively drafted and ratified by all participants. However, to ensure that the foundational purpose of WBSC are upheld and maintained [See e.g. above in College Name Significance], expect for the above mentioned process in regards to decision-making voting to be the one that is indeed implemented.
Planned Projects
Currently WBSC has over 100 projects already lined up, with more surely to come as more people become involved in its works. As mentioned above, the vast majority of these present works has just come from the observed deficiency in some actual publications, media releases and/or studies.
A small sampling of some of the types, and depth, of studies that can, and will be, undertaken by this project can be seen in here in this related blog.
WBSC Productions
All of the various works that WBSC accomplishes will be made available and accessible to the general public, and that in all applicable media types from books/ebooks, to CD’s/DVD’s to online publications, among others. This will, in some cases, be done commercially and to the equal compensation of all pertinent work contributors/participants.
Public Seminars
As the goal of WBSC is to make scholarly works fully accessible to anyone both tangibly and intellectually, opportunities to publicly present various topics will be sought in e.g., local church seminars. These seminars will involved presentational aids such as power-point graphics. With the wide reach and access of the internet, and the many topics that WBSC will undertake, these presentations will not have to be each repeatedly, publicly presented. Each initial presentation will be fully documented and recorded (audio/video, transcript, etc) and then electronically redistributed via e.g., Internet, CD/DVD, etc. Other churches/groups/individuals, will then have an opportunity to view these publicly presented seminars.
Available Positions
In order to function as efficiently as possible, WBSC is sub-divided in various Departments which will be dedicatedly managed by at least one person, however they will each be supported by all members of the College.
Various positions of such managing responsibility are available for filling and are literally each “self-fulfilling”, meaning that if one is willing to properly do all of the work required/involved in such a position, they are free to fill it. However if they prove that they cannot appropriately fill it, then they will be demote. So find your area of genuine interest in Biblical Research, and if willing and able, request to direct it.
While no formal Biblical Education (i.e., Bible College/University, Seminary Education/Training) is a pre-requisite to participate in this project, each participants will however be required to become, as needed, both educated and provedly functional in these areas of scholarly Biblical research. It is therefore recommended that participants who have a greater amount of education and training in Biblical Research seek to fulfill the higher level positions of responsibility as these are the ones that will require such capabilities in order to be done as readily and easily as possible. In this self-fulfilling way, each participant still will be equivalently contributing to the final research productions of this college. There is no financial benefit for filling such a position of responsibility, so it will depend on the will of a person to contribute according to their full capabilities and as expected, the more formal education/training one has had in Biblical Research, the easier it will be to fill and function in such a position.
WBSC Positions (#) [Preferred/Recommend Education and/or Training or Equivalent]
I. Research Division Supervisors [=Provosts] (4) - [Seminary]
II . Research School Supervisors [=Deans] (12) - [Seminary]
III . Research Department Supervisors [=Chairpersons] (70) - [Seminary]
III . Research Department Supervisors [=Chairpersons] (70) - [Seminary]
IV. Research Program Supervisors [=Professors] (313+) - [Bible College/University (Theology or Religion Major or Minor)]
V. Other (Dedicated) Researchers/Contributors [=Students] (up to all 400 WBSC Members) - [Bible Institute and/or Serious Bible Student (i.e., regularly reads/studies scholarly Biblical works)]
Participants Costs
As this is a web-based college which will also make use of the many resources that are available freely on the internet, there is really very little institutional overhead, per se, for the conducting of this College. Therefore participants are not being required to pay a monetary fee for admission/participation to the college. The actual “cost” to each person really will mostly be of time and effort, but this will really be an “investment” due to the various profits, even pecuniary, that will be made, and equally shared, from the College’s various output productions.
Ideally, it would be best for all of these web services to be hosted and operated directly on the WBSC website, however until the (ideally, volunteer) services of a capable web designer and/or webmaster can be obtained, these peripheral web services will have to be operated on such third-party websites.
Current peripheral categories (with some examples) of these planned web services, and their intended use are:
Instant Messaging - MSN/Windows Live Messenger; Google Talk
Social Network - Facebook
Chat Room -
Free/Low Cost Telephony - Skype
Forum - Proboards.com
Wiki Collaboration Website - www.wikidot.com
Product Sales/Exchange(?) - Ebay
Funding/Money Transfers - Paypal
Blogging - Blogspot.com; Wordpress.com
Online Translation Services - Google Translate
Free Website Hosting - Awardspace.com
(Large) File Sharing - Mediafire, Rapidshare
etc,
Any better suggestion is welcomed. When and where available, a dedicated “group” for WBSC will be formed on these online services.
Also with this College being formally registered, as it is fully planned, valuable group/institutional discounts should be widely available for obtain certains services, research resources and tools.
Research Resources and Tools
A major area of investment that each participant may be required to make is in the necessary procurement and/or access to various (electronic/computer) biblical research tools and resources (i.e., personal books and/or access to the resources of a (university) library) in order to be able to properly do the work involved in these biblical researches. Therefore if there is any front end expense that one will incur in this endeavor, it will be in purchasing these tools resources, if necessary.
As the saying goes “when one has the time, he usually does not have the money and when one has the money he usually has the time” so the type of resources that one will obtain will probably be determined by this saying. Meaning if one has the time to engage in e.g., painstaking manual search, then they may not need to invest ca. $350 USD for Bibleworks software ($250 for official group members). Still, even if not all participants are able to procure such resources they can be assisted by those who have. There is much more analytical work that is going to be done once e.g., a detailed search using one of these powerful software is actually done.
Project Contact
To send communications in regards to this WBSC institute, please send emails to WBSC400@gmail.com
Planned WBSC Organizational Structure
(Divisions [4], Schools [12] and Departments [70] of Research - (Dedicated Researchers/Contributors)
Foundational Texts & Studies Division
I. Textual Studies - (18)
1. Manuscripts & Their History (OT|NT) [I] - (6)
2. Textual Criticism & Editions (OT|NT) [II] - (6)
3. Extra-Biblical Texts & Papyri (OT|NT) [III] - (6)
II. Biblical Languages & Cognates (Morphology, Lexical, Grammar, Syntax) - (61)
1. Antiquity Languages A (Paleontology, Hieroglyphics) [IV] - (3)
2. Hebrew [V] - (13)
3. Antiquity Languages B (Akkadian, Ugaritic, etc) [VI] - (9)
4. Greek [VII] - (12)
5. Aramaic/Syriac [VIII] - (6)
6. Coptic [IX] - (3)
7. Latin [X] - (9)
8. (Scholastic Works) [XI] - (6)
III. Archeology, Antiquities & World History - (36)
1. Biblical Archeology (OT|NT) [XII] - (9)
2. Egyptian History [XIII] - (3)
3. Babylonian History [XIV] - (3)
4. Persian History [XV] - (3)
5. Grecian History [XVI] - (3)
6. Roman History (BC|AD) [XVII] - (6)
7. Other Kingdoms History (BC|AD) [XVIII] - (6)
8. Modern-Day World History [XIX] - (3)
Biblical Texts Division
IV. Old Testament Studies - (27)
1. Pentateuch-History [XX] - (3)
2. Pentateuch-Law [XXI] - (3)
3. Pre- & Post-Monarchial Times [XXII] - (6)
4. Monarchial Times [XXIII] - (3)
5. The Writings [XXIV] - (3)
6. The Prophets & their Prophecies [XXV] - (9)
V. Extra-Canonical Works - (30)
1. OT Apocrypha & Pseudepigrapha [XXVI] - (3)
2. Dead Sea Scrolls [XXVII] - (3)
3. Josephus I, II & Philo [XXVIII] - (9)
4. Septuagint [XXIX] - (3)
5. Rabbinical Works [XXX] - (6)
6. NT Apocrypha & Pseudepigrapha [XXXI] - (3)
7. The Testimony of Jesus Collection [XXXII] - (3)
VI. New Testament Studies - (33)
1. The Gospels (Life & Teachings of Christ) [XXXIII] - (6)
2. The Acts of the Apostles [XXXIV] - (6)
3. Pauline Epistles & Hebrews [XXXV] - (9)
4. General Epistles [XXXVI] - (6)
5. The Apocalypse [XXXVII] - (6)
Christian Church Division
VII. Church History - (15)
1. New Testament Times [XXXVIII] - (3)
2. Ante-Nicene Period [XXXIX] - (3)
3. Post-Nicene Period/Roman Catholic Church [XL] - (3)
4. Reformation Period [XLI] - (3)
5. Denominationalism & Modern History [XLII] - (3)
VIII. Christian/Religious Works & Arts - (15)
1. Non-Christian Works, Literature & Arts (e.g., Muhammad & Koran) [XLIII] - (3)
2. Bible History & Production (Editions and Translations) [XLIV] - (3)
3. Christian Writings, Literature & Arts (e.g., Church Fathers, Luther) [XLV] - (6)
4. Life, Ministry & Writings of Modern Christian Figures [XLVI] - (3)
IX. Denominationalism - (15)
1. Evangelical Christianity [XLVII] - (3)
2. Fringe Christianity [XLVIII] - (3)
3. Charismatic Movement [XLIX] - (3)
4. Roman Catholicism [L] - (3)
5. Sabbatarians [LI] - (3)
Gospel Ministry Division
X. Eschatology - (12)
1. Bible Prophecy [LII] - (3)
2. The (Apostolic) Remnant [LIII] - (3)
3. The Spirit of Prophecy [LIV] - (6)
XI. Evangelism & World Religions - (24)
1. Judaism [LV] - (3)
2. Islam [LVI] - (3)
3. Buddhism [LVII] - (3)
4. Hinduism [LVIII] - (3)
5. Other Minor World Religions [LIX] - (3)
6. Animism/Occult/New Age [LX] - (3)
7. Philosophy [LXI] - (3)
8. Atheism/Modernism/Secularism [LXII] - (3)
XII. Christian Ministry - (27)
1. Teaching/Scholarly Ministry [LXIII] - (3)
2. Evangelistic Ministry [LXIV] - (3)
3. Pastoral Ministry [LXV] - (3)
4. Administrative Ministry [LXVI] - (3)
5. Outreach & Humanitarian Ministry [LXVII] - (3)
6. WBSC Publishings (Journals, Dictionaries, Topical Books) [LXVIII] - (3)
7. Bibliotheca (The World Christian Library) [LXIX] - (6)
8. Multi-Media Ministry [LXX] - (3)
This is actually an extremely great Idea. I am highly interested in contributing will send you an email shortly.
ReplyDeleteDavid
how do you show the word in daniel 9.24 is prophet rather than prophecy
ReplyDeleteSorry about the delay in addressing your question. I just noticed it. Good question. I gather that you are making reference to my (summary) post on “The Biblical Interpretation of Daniel’s 70 Weeks. As that was a merely a summary blog post, I did not go into all of the exegetical translation and interpretation details. I had however done so in my full book on this topic. If you have not done so already, see the discussion/answer in the pertinent section in the Chapter on Verse 24 of Daniel 9.
DeleteLet me know if you have additional question!...
God Bless!