May 29, 2007The Joy of IndexingIndexing is a laborious task that comes at the end of the book-writing process. Often authors are working with a small window of time, under the pressure of a looming deadline. I think some authors are so tired of the book at this point that they wonder why they ever decided to take it on. Moments of wishing the book would just go away are mixed with moments of excitement at the prospect of seeing it published. At times they are probably so doped up on caffeine that they’ll put anything into the index, including a few jokes for their readers. Here are a couple of joking indexers: E. P. Sanders, the father of the New Perspective on Paul, in his Paul and Palestinian Judaism, has an index entry on Truth, ultimate, 30, 32, 430. Okay. So what? Well, it points you to three blank pages! Tom Wright in his IVP book The Challenge of Jesus has these: dog(s) This is where he mentions Crossan’s view that Jesus’ body was eaten by feral dogs. Or how about this: Pelagians You can look these up for yourselves (particularly if you have a “Lutheran” view of Paul)—it’s not unrelated to the debate Sanders kicked off. One can bet that these are not the only wry jokes buried in Wright’s book indexes! Indexing can have its exciting moments too, though not usually arising from the task itself. One September Sunday evening in 1998 I was on the backstretch of completing the indexing for the Dictionary of Biblical Imagery. Working in my home office in Issaquah, Washington, I could hear our Siberian Husky making a serious ruckus outside. So I went out to check on him. There he was, fearlessly holding off a large black bear that wanted to get at our garbage can! Soon after I came out, the bear decided it was not worth the effort and moved on to visit a neighbor. That episode over, I returned to my indexing. But then I wondered—Did we include an article on “bear” in the DBI? Fortunately, while we didn’t have a separate article, we did have a section on “bear” in a large article on “Animals.” Good! That would be on page 30. But I’m afraid I was too tired to realize that the computer generated entry “bear, bears” had also included a lot of instances of the verb “to bear”! Somewhere in Scripture it says, “These eight did milk a bear.” Or was that “Milcha bear”? Never mind. Posted by Dan Reid
at May 29, 2007 9:15 PM
Indexing catalogs is the bane of my existence, even with an applescript to help shorten the time by many hours. Maybe I need to start inserting some inside jokes to help myself overcome the sheer tedium of the job. Thanks for the chuckles. Comment by: Rebecca at May 30, 2007 2:15 PMWhen we wrote one of the first Logos Bible Software user's guides, the writer happened to also run a Shaklee business. In one of the screenshots of the program he inserted the word "Shaklee" directly into the commentary on the screen. Later on he created a bullet list and used S.H.A.K.L.E.E. as the first letter in each word on the list. Comment by: Dan at June 1, 2007 1:24 PMThis was a GREAT post. I immediately jumped up, found my copy of Paul and Palestinian Judaism, and checked the Index. What boldness! I loved it! Now you've got me checking others book indexes for more hidden fun. Comment by: Jason Button at June 5, 2007 7:11 PMIn my index for The Suburban Christian, I included entries for ducks, polar bears, eBay, Starbucks and lemonade stands. The entry for efficiency points to an acknowledgment of my wife as the world's most efficient rights manager. Comment by: Al Hsu at June 11, 2007 2:47 PMComments are closed for this entry. |
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