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Gutenberg Bibles Online
Richey writes: "The British Library is making the Gutenberg Bible, the first major bible printed in the West available online. (Direct link to the book)." This isn't the first high-res copy of the Gutenberg Bible online; a German university library has already done it with their copy, but it's still cool. Update: 11/23 8:25 AM by michael : For the people that skipped those boring history classes, this was the first book printed in the western world with movable type, a huge leap in printing technology.
This isn't just some religious thing. The Gutenberg Bible is important because it was the first book printed with moveable type in the West (The Chinese Empire actually had a moveable type several centuries prior, but as with their invention of gunpowder, they failed to use it effectively -- they were sort of the Xerox PARC of civilizations, I guess).
The thing about moveable type is that it made books afffordable. Like the Internet, it suddenly made a lot of information available to people.
From the creator that brought you Life On Earth and The Great Flood, comes an epic story of a carpenter's son:
You've read the first. But you don't know the whole story...
Jesus is back. This time, it's personal.
FluX
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"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
What did the stooopid UK government decide to waste hundreds of millions of pounds on a couple of years back? A new reading room for the British Library. Waste of money. They could have converted hundreds of thousands of books into electronic form for that amount of money, and they would have been accessible to 50+m Brits rather than just the few hundred thousand that live a short bus ride away from Euston. (Yeah, I'm gonna pay #4.80 to travel on the underground to go read a book, right).
At last someone's seen some sense.
1 book, it's a start...
FatPhil
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The typeface was damned near unreadable, but it looked an awful lot like latin to me. Talk about a perfect way to brush up on the latin you learned in high school or college and have since then forgotten. If I remember right the catholic church was not happy about the printing press, especially the printing of bibles. The last thing they wanted was for the common man to study and understand the bible his or herself. After all, the bastion of religion is ignorance. Lee Reynolds
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Public domain means "not copyrighted". Copyright is not permanent. The copyright on the Gutenberg Bible (if there ever was one) has long since expired. It has been public domain for centuries.
A typical page of the British Museum rendition seems to be about 60kbyte JPEG, barely legible, with heavy JPEG artifacts. The German work is much higher resolution, typically 500 kbyte JPEG, and quite legible.
Books have 2400, 4800 or even 9600 lpi. Even the cheapest laser printer does 300lpi. Screens typically have 72. There is a LONG way to go before any screen can get the resolution we're used to on paper.
It was a good 20km away. would you walk that distance to just read a book?
Damn straight I would.
I posted the story, and I meant to say BOOK. D'oh! I felt sure it wouldn't get posted simply as the first bible.
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Prove to me the your life has value.
:)
Trivial. Attack me, and the proof will become self-evident.
Dahlmann tightly grips the knife, which he may have no idea how to use, and steps out into the plain.
I submitted this story. It's meant to say the first BOOK published in the West. I cocked up. Sorry. *holds hands up*.
To be honest I don't think it's that interesting just having a major bible online. The British Library has done it well though.
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What a perfect example of the kind of secular thinking that has led Western culture down the road to decadence and immorality.
A road traveled by so many great civilizations before. The road signs are not "Godlessness" but "Success, beware"
Rather than embracing over two thousand years of our cultural heritage,...
If two thousand year old theories are better than current ideas, then I guess pre-christian religions must be even better?
Funny, replying to someone calling christianity a myth by calling it the *undoubted* truth. Apparently at least someone has doubts... Actually a few billion people have.
The Truth is that the Bible teaches us of our place in the Universe and how to live our life in a decent, moral manner, so that all mankind will better itself and rise up to Heaven when they die. But oh no, you'd rather accept concepts like "moral relativism", an excuse for atheists to do what they want without fear of consequence
The bible has some nice ideas about how to live in a moral manner. Ideas that followers of most religions as well as atheists would agree upon. But why the emphasis? If the bible is correct, why should the God fearing worry? They are on the right side. The only reason to look down on the less God-fearing would be if you had your doubts about wether your moral behavoiur will pay off and you don't want others to have the benefits of a less godly life.
Unfortunately, science has said nothing, and indeed can say nothing, about the ultimate Truth of creation.
Fortuately, neither can the bible.
The only truth is: We don't know.
You make me sick.
You make me laugh. Gee, that *makes* you a better person!
All opinions are my own - until criticized
Parent links to http://atsm.fr.fm, which points directly to Goatse.cx
Will I retire or break 10K?
god should sue for copyright infringement. It's his work, and he aint dead yet.
Any work created on or before December 31, 1922 (such as the original Hebrew/Aramaic/Greek source of the Bible or the authorized 1611 English translation thereof commissioned by King James), is public domain. Any work created on or after January 1, 1923, is effectively under perpetual copyright in the United States thanks to Congress's "creative" use of a loophole in the Constitution.
Will I retire or break 10K?
One thing is missing:
Latin for Babelfish
__
Although I don't usually find bibles terribly exciting, this thing's a real work of art. Pity they don't make books like that these days.
Incidentally, there is another one (from the University of Keio (Japan) here.
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Think laterally here folks!
This is a very useful, very important use for the internet. You are looking at very high resolution images across the internet of a unique book.
OK so this may not be big news for folks whose idea of important books are the latest O'Reilly's a whole 30 minutes away in your nearest bookshop.But for historians, academics, subject specialists, this means potential desktop access to a whole library of significant works that could previously only be accessed by flying 3000 miles to see. Not all of these have been previously accessible via high resolution facsimile copies, and besides, the facsimile copies that do exist are often very expensive themselves and rare enough (they don't do Harry Potter style print runs of 12th century works...)
This is very good news for historians.
Technologicaly the Gutenberg Bible represents the first step in mass public disemmination of information that that ultimately lead to the internet. Think of it as a religious floppy disk. Previously, Bibles were labouriously hand copied and could not be distributed widely, much like HD's. The Gutenberg and more importantly its printed descendants, could be sneaker netted across the known world relatively easily.
Philosophically, the Gutenberg Bible is important because it is free as in speech. It began the process of opening the Word of God to examination by others than the clergy. Did this cause the reformation? Maybe not, but it certainly contributed. From the Reformation, come the Protestants, from the Protestants, Capitalism and modern democracy whether or not these are good things I leave up to you to decide.
To have this on the net for everyone to see is simply amazing.
Just to state my biases, I am Pagan not Christian, but I still maintain the Bible is the most important work in the Western canon.
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All opinions are my own - until criticized
However, you, of course, don't have to read the whole thing from page to page. This is a sweet link to have bookmarked when some jerk on irc claims he is quoting "Matteus 5:1" or whatever.
"If you think education is expensive, try ignorance" - Derek Bok
And on the 8th day, he created HTML, and he saw that it was good.
Amen.
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
Cool, now I can bring my laptop to church
Mark
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
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While producing the Bible, Gutenberg's team learned fast about the economy of printing. This is reflected in differences between various copies of the Bible.
Three major changes of plan can be detected :
1.It was first envisaged that rubrics should be printed in red. This was soon abandoned, perhaps to save time.
2.It was decided to increase the number of lines per page, presumably to save paper.
3.It was decided to increase the print-run, but as some sheets had already been printed in the number first envisaged, these pages had to be printed again. This is the best explanation for why a number of the pages exist in two different versions.
Times haven't changed that much, now have they?
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"Just believe everything I tell you, and it will all be very, very simple."
It pays to have a good press agent. Printing actually goes back to about 800 AD in China and Korea. Guttenburg also printed on small item before this Bible (a hymnal). Slightly more than half the issue was on vellum. The paper ones were considered to be the inferior copies. The decorations you see on these were added after the printing process was dome.
Chinese invented exposive powder and created fireworks.
Westerners got thier hands on these powders and started to make weapons and started war.
So, who failed to use it effectively?