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for transformation between ThML, OSIS, Zefania XML, and even older non-XML systems like General Bible Format (GBF) as a way of combating the Babel that has arisen. This prevalence of crosswalking, however, ultimately further removes disincentives from the use of narrowly tailored standards and has arguably helped to facilitate their proliferation.

Lack of Specific Tools

These small encoding languages have survived principally because they offer tools fitted to theological work that are still not to be found elsewhere. Given the difficulties already noted in encoding verses in TEI, for example, and the common use of chapter/verse structures to organize not only the Bible, but the Qur’an and other important texts, it is somewhat unaccountable that there is no specific element to be found for this among the 567 elements defined by TEI. ThML and OSIS, as we have seen, both offer one. This and many other features of those markups could, potentially, be seen simply as streamlining the encoding process for aspects of a text that can also be represented in a technically equivalent fashion by standard TEI. In many cases, this is true, but the streamlining should not be underestimated, especially when it helps to reduce ambiguity in element selection.

TEI’s emphasis on flexibility and extensibility has made it extremely powerful for the encoding of literary material, where unexpected permutations of format or style are common. For literary texts, it is unquestionably the present best practice.24 It is also appropriately favored where there is strong emphasis on exact transcription of source documents and manuscripts, where one must also expect the unexpected.25 That TEI should predominate even in biblical studies is not without reason. Theology, ethics, and other such disciplines, however, extract little benefit from the flexibility and extensibility offered by TEI, as they are generally concerned with texts in the abstract more than specific documents (with their attendant idiosyncrasies) and particularly with texts that have long-established standards of structure and reference already in place. In these cases, trying to apply overly broad tools to represent such structures creates needless vagaries hindering interoperability and can even compromise the integrity of the text, insofar as the attempt to map traditional textual structures to more general categories in the markup can introduce problematic forms of interpretation, not unlike translation into another language.

The streamlining enabled by the highly specific elements and attributes of ThML and OSIS had a practical benefit as well, in that it lowered barriers to learning the system for individuals with little technical background. This category generally includes scholars in theology and religion, whose departments are often severely under resourced compared even to other humanities faculties, such as English (which generally dominates discussions of digital humanities). Additionally, theology and religious studies departments and centers are, in Western countries, focused on the study of Abrahamic traditions. If usefully interoperable encoding is possible only for projects able to recruit and support dedicated encoding specialists, these traditions will remain significantly overrepresented in the corpus of encoded documents as compared with Eastern religions, indigenous religions, and New Religious Movements. TEI thus carries the potential to parochialize digital theology as a result of the need for intensive institutional support.

For many years, it has been expected that the development of new software tools would enable wider participation by reducing the need for specific technical skills, but this has not happened at nearly the speed or to nearly the extent that was generally anticipated, largely because, as Schmidt recognized, even when individual projects successfully customize appropriate, consistent, and streamlined implementations of

24 UCLA Center for Digital Humanities, “Text Encoding.”

25 H. A. G. Houghton, “The Electronic Scriptorium: Markup for New Testament Manuscripts,” pp. 31–60 in Digital Humanities in Biblical, Early Jewish, and Early Christian Studies. Claire Clivaz, Andrew Gregory, and David Hamidović, eds. (Leiden: Brill, 2013).