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The Electric Talmud anyone?
I'm reading Synergetics by R. Buckminster Fuller, and as I'm reading, I'm
noticing that each paragraph is numbered and I'm thinking that applying the
techniques I did to the King James Bible [1] would be appropriate for this as
well. At the same time I'm making notes in a notebook, prefaced by the
paragraph number I'm making notes on.
But I've also been reading the WikiWikiWeb, [2] which allows anyone to edit
the text.
My mind then wanders to the Talmud, used by Jewish scholars to study the
first five books of the Old Testament (aka the Pentarch). The Talmud not only
contains the text of the books, but commentary added by various scholars and
authors over the years as they interpret and reinterpret the passages.
So then I got this idea—mix the Electric King James Bible [3] and the
WikiWikiWeb [4] to allow people to leave commentary on the Bible. Or maybe
set it up with the Constitution of the United States. The actual text from
the work in question (the Bible or the Constitution) can't be edited, but the
commentary (like the WikiWikiWeb) can.
I like the idea but there are details to work out. For instance, there's a
lot that could be said for Genesis 1.1 [5], yet the commentary for just that
verse might not be appropriate for Genesis 1 [6] as a whole. So the problem
is how to handle commentary that is particular to specific portions of the
work, with portions that might overlap. I have a few ideas but I need to
think on this a bit more.
As well as finish some of the work I've already started.
[1]
http://literature.conman.org/bible/
[2]
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki
[3]
http://literature.conman.org/bible/
[4]
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki
[5]
http://bible.conman.org/kj/Genesis.1:1
[6]
http://bible.conman.org/kj/Genesis.1
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