To take advantage of different online communities a person must constantly toggle and maintain various digital identities. Aside from being a complete hassle, having so many identities has made trust on the Web a difficult thing to garner.

People devote time to becoming trusted sellers on eBay, only to find that their reputation means nothing when they contribute to political Web sites like Campaigns Wikia. Others build karma points on Slashdot only to find it means nil when exchanging goods or services on Craigslist. And in journalism it leaves every citizen muckraker suspect. We can only guess how this makes a mob, even a “smart mob” look.

It’s difficult, if not impossible, for one’s reputation to universally precede them on the net and this leaves a large gap in communication. Every journalist that I explain NewAssignment.Net to asks the same first question, “how can you trust the information you are going to receive?” And recently Tim Berners Lee said that if the Internet is left to evolve unchecked in this manner, “bad phenomena” will develop.

For many Jews, raised with a strong sense of cultural identity but lacking a formal religious education, accessing the lessons and wisdom of their heritage can seem daunting. The essential texts of Judaism, the Torah, the Midrash, the Talmud, conform to stylistic conventions thousands of years old that make the texts frustrating, if not impossible, to decipher for the casual reader.

But the Internet has enabled people to offer their own commentary on religious texts, building a new collective wisdom — an open source approach to religion.

For the past seven months, Slate.com editor David Plotz has been leading the “idiosyncratic” Blogging the Bible project. “This is a book which shaped my life, the religion I believe in, but I’ve never read it for myself,” Plotz told NewAssignment.Net. Calling himself a “not very observant Jew,” Plotz started with chapters of Genesis, reading the text for the first time as an adult. He then summarizes the passage online, adds his own personal thoughts and observations, and invites his readers to respond.

“The response has been overwhelming,” Plotz said. “Every time I put something up, I get this flood of e-mails about it.”