Now in October, this blog has been around for five years. Actually, the founding father, Peter Williams, wrote the first blogpost on 14 Oct 2005, "What this blog is about".
A few days later Peter Head, now my co-editor of the blog, wrote his first main post on 26 October. However, he was present from the very beginning posting the first comment to the first post, in his characteristic way:
I think a white background would be more appropriate for an evangelical blog:
a) more echoes of positive biblical symbolism;
b) better approximation to brightness of original manuscripts (both parchment and papyrus);
c) better reflection of the history of the Bible as a published book;
d) I could probably read it without squinting.
Note, that this blog had a different lay-out in the beginning (hence, Peter's remarks), first briefly with a black background, but then with old burgundy and white letters (a combination which caused problems to some readers). You can see how it looked in the good old days here in the way back machine. As one can see, we were already in November, one month after the launch, a group of 11 ETC contributors.
In the end of 2006, blogmeister Williams was appointed the new warden of Tyndale House, and from about that time he handed over the main responsibility for the blog to Peter Head and myself, although we managed to persuade Pete to stay on the blogteam, which we are still very happy about.
Last year we made some serious updates and experiments with colors and design: here, here, here, and here. Most ETC bloggers and readers who expressed their opinions agreed that we should somehow keep the old burgundy, which gave this blog a distinct characteristic, and so it is still there in the header and the letters.
Over these years we have posted 1510 posts on various topics in textual criticism (and occasionally some other stuff). There have been discussions of manuscripts, passages, reviews, announcements of books, conference reports, quizzes, annual achievement awards, and many other things, not least a good deal of humour. Our circle of readers has steadily increased.
What are your own favourite ETC-blogposts? You can browse through the archives in the right sidebar to refresh your memory.