Mike Bird, my advisor, is proofreading something for me— and he keeps bugging me about the fact that I regularly cite electronic editions of texts. Of course, he also adds in some little digs like “are you too lazy to go to the library and look up the page number?” (Well, yes, as a matter of fact I am.) Craig Evans, my previous teacher and now colleague and mentor, says the same thing— he would rather I cite the book version of something.

More seriously though, this does raise what I think is an issue that needs some official resolution, so I take it upon myself to offer that resolution here today. Since I know this blog is read by millions, I know it will practically become canon law within a matter of days.

First off, it needs to be recognized, particularly by more senior scholars, that electronic editions are valid forms of the text. They are not bastard children (to steal a phrase from an email i had with Joe Weaks on this subject). In fact, I would argue that they are far superior forms of the text, at least the Accordance versions that I use. Take the IVP Dictionary of New Testament Background as an example. Many of you have a 1328 page book sitting on your shelf, all well and good. But can you do a full-text search of that sucker? Can you search for specific scripture passages? What about Greek or Hebrew words? And if you want to quote a section, can you just copy and paste? What more needs to be said? Electronic editions are highly valuable and are not lesser apparitions of their paper twins. It is akin to telling a student who has read and cited a paperback copy (which has a different ISBN), to go cite the hardback version. Electronic copies are excellent tools that are here to stay. This is something that needs to be acknowledged throughout the discipline. It also needs to be recognized that electronic editions, while packaged and implemented by bible software companies, stem from the actual publisher.

I think this recognition of equality for electronic texts needs to be ‘officially’ recognized by a better citation style. After all, it is the way the citation looked in my footnotes that caused Mike and Craig to object to them.

First off, unless I am mistaken, there are at least three categories of electronic texts that are not addressed by the SBL handbook of style. I am not laying blame here, these kinds of things change all of the time and the SBL handbook is almost 10 years old now (for what its worth, I think the SBLHS should go entirely electronic, that would keep it up to spped)

CITATION TYPES NOT IN THE SBL HANDBOOK
The first are texts which have no print counterpart. This may be a primary text or an in-house module by the bible software creator. I’ll use 2 examples from Accordance:

1. The first is a primary text example, the Greek OT Pseudepigrapha module for Accordance. Craig Evans is the primary editor, with Rex A. Koivisto who did 3-4 Macc, and Accordance (OakTree) the publisher. I suggest that a citation from this module be foonoted like so:

Craig A. Evans, et al., eds., The Greek Pseudepigrapha (Accordance Bible Software, 2006).

The bibliography should expand the information slightly to include the version of the module and all the editors names:

Evans, Craig A. and Rex A. Koivisto, eds., The Greek Pseudepigrapha. Accordance Bible Software, Version 4.1, 2006.

2. The second citation type is electronic editions of books which have print counterparts that are not reference works. Currently, the SBL handbook only covers CD-rom citations of reference works that have a corresponding print edition (which I’ll discuss below). We are going to run into a major problem here, but first lets stick to an easy one. Here is my example for citing Daniel Wallace’s Greek Grammar. First the footnote:

Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament (Accordance Electronic ed.; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), 10.

See how simple that is? It is just as you would expect the book to be cited, except that it is the electronic edition. It recognizes the publisher as well as the software platform, without being overbearing. The bibliography is where some more detail would come in.

Wallace, Daniel B. Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament. Accordance Electronic edition, Version 2.4. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996.

Now here is where it get tricky— Sometimes electronic editions do not have the page numbers. This is not a big deal for lexicons or encyclopedia/dictionary articles, as these are short anyway, so the “n.p.” (no page) is not a big deal. But citing a book is another story. It is unfortunate that sometimes page numbers do not appear, but software companies always include the page numbers if at all possible.

i propose that electronic book citations that have print counterparts but no numbers be cited by which subheading the citation falls under. Using the IVP Old Testament Background Commentary as an example, here is how I would footnote a section on Psalm 2:7:

John H. Walton, et al., The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament (Accordance Electronic ed.; Downers Grove: IVP, 2000), n.p., section: Psalms 2:7.

This would allow readers, who own print or electronic copies, to easily find the citation. Some may object that not all electronic books will be so neatly broken up. I agree, but i think “heading” is flexible enough to allow other items. For instance, Accordance’s Gesenius grammar would put in the heading section §8. Another book may have to use an actual sub-heading from the text, which will make for a longer footnote. For example, a footnote to the Accordance electronic copy of Kevin Vanhoozer’s “Is there a Meaning in this Text” would look like this:

Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Is There A Meaning In This Text? The Bible, The Reader, And The Morality Of Literary Knowledge (Accordance Electronic ed., Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998), n.p. Section: Ch.4; Undoing Biblical Theology.

Now, here is the footnote for something like Vanhoozer (which equally applies to the IVP OT background commentary):

Vanhoozer, Kevin J. Is There A Meaning In This Text? The Bible, The Reader, And The Morality Of Literary Knowledge. Accordance Electronic edition, Version 1.0. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998.

3. The third citation type is the final one not currently addressed, and that is a module exclusive to the Bible Software program that is NOT a primary text. i suggest this be roughly similar to the first example, but also like the last example in that they usually don’t have page numbers. So, for my index of Qumran manuscripts in Accordance:

Stephen W. Marler, ed., Index of Qumran Manuscripts (Accordance Bible Software, 2007), n.p. Section: 4Q521.

The bibliography would just need to add the version:
Marler, Stephen W., ed. Index of Qumran Manuscripts. Accordance Bible Software, Version 4.2, 2007.

CITATION TYPE IN THE SBL HANDBOOK
As mentioned above, the only electronic citation type discussed in the SBL handbook are reference works in electronic form. the SBL handbook doesn’t actually mention lexicons, but citing lexicons and dictionary articles are very similar anyhow. In view of my suggestions above, you won’t find my suggestions for modification of this surprising.

Here is the current guidlines for citing a dictionary article from ABD, footnote first:

Duane F. Watson, “False Apostles,” n.p., ABD on CD-ROM. Version 2.0c. 1995, 1996.

for bibliography:
Watson, Duane F. “False Apostles.” The Anchor Bible Dictionary on CD-ROM. Logos Library System Version 2.0c. 1995, 1996. Print ed.: David Noel Freedman, ed. Anchor Bible Dictionary. 6 vols. New York: Doubleday, 1992.

my complaints: The “n.p.” right in the middle and the “on CD-ROM” is not helping my cause. In keeping more with how the print edition of this article would be cited according to SBL style, I suggest this for a footnote:

Duane F. Watson, “False Apostles,” ABD (Logos Electronic ed.), n.p.

Simple. No need for a “heading” citation, as the heading is the title of the article. Same thing would apply for a lexicon— just replace ‘false apostles’ with a Greek word.

For bibliography:
David Noel Freedman, ed. Anchor Bible Dictionary. 6 vols. Logos Electronic edition, version 2.0c. New York: Doubleday, 1992.

__________

There you have it, my magical equations to bring biblical studies formatting into this decade. While it may be true that some of you are rolling your eyes at me, wondering why I would want to use an electronic edition rather than a paper copy, rest assured— electronic editions are here to stay and will continue to grow in popularity.

By the way you SBL CEO’s, this formatting style is copyrighted, so i expect some royalties when the updated edition of the handbook comes out (And i have more suggestions for you too — like why does it matter what city the publisher is in?!? And another big one in view of how bibliographic management software works— why are cited pages in footnotes preceded by commas EXCEPT journal articles that need a semicolon?!? Consistency please)

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 5th, 2008 at 4:14 pm by Danny Zacharias and is filed under SBL, Accordance, Bibliographic management. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.