Slashdot Mirror
Vatican/HP To Put Library Online
darkuncle writes "I first read it in the LA Times print edition this morning, but the story is also available on several websites via news.google.com. Apparently the Vatican has enlisted Hewlett-Packard in an effort to put the contents of the Vatican Library online, including many rare Bible texts and previously unavailable manuscripts, including handwritten notes by the likes of Martin Luther and Michelangelo."
No it's all public domain, of course. They do, currently, charge a fee for reproduction (i.e. if you want a copy of whatever they have sent to you) but it is fair, and similar to inter-library loan. The vatican doesn't claim copyright ownership other than this - you can reproduce whatever you want but god save your immortal soul (literally =)) if you change/edit the material and claim it is the original. The vatican library isn't anything akin to scientology, the basic tennanents of the catholic church, enumerated in a book called the catechism, can be found at most major bookstores. Also, AFAIK the library is open to the public, and any information can be had similar to Interlibrary loan. The library by no means serves as a 'cash cow' for the catholic church and is designed to be used for scholarly research by the church and others. Remember, a large amount of very important historical texts where/are perserved at the library during the middle ages. Vatican city's copyright law, such as it is, is based off of italian/roman common law and is quite similar to that. Now the vatican website had some additional information on photgraphic reproductions but I couldn't read it - in italian and was only able to guess (shrug, italian kindof similar to spanish) that anything published after 1801 might be copyrighted/unable to be photographicaly reproduced but... I don't know. My god, I actually *learned* something in all those years of catholic school.
Esther is in my Bible, as well as Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon. There are some books the Roman Catholic Church considers to be Scripture such as Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, the Maccabees books, III and IV Esdras (I think?), etc., that most Protestants do not.
Not sure where the poster above got the idea that Esther was omitted in Catholic or Protestant Bibles...
I figure I'm capable of examining each book myself on its merits and deciding if it is Scripture or not myself. People were doing so long before any councils decided what was canon and what was not.
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
When the Bible was first assembled from the Gospels, Acts, Revelations, and the various letters of the apostiles to the early churches, there was much debate as to which versions of various books to include. Most of the books of the Bible had various differences as they were copied by various scribes attempting to preserve them before the first collections of them were gathered. Here's a good timeline of the history of the Good Book.
Furthermore, there's the Pseudepigrapha. These are rejected books of the Bible that scholars of various times either considered falsified or otherwise not worthy to include in the Bible. Usually, they purport to be written by a Biblical figure, but were generally not believed to have actually been written by them at the time of the Council of Laodicea. Then you have the books where are in the Catholic Old Testament but not in the Protestant Old Testament. These are the books most commonly labelled as Apocrypha.
Here's some more info on early church texts.
Here's a FAQ on the history of the Bible.
You can find a lot of this on Google if you know what to look for, but I've been nice and included links without bizarre obscurist religious or UFO ranting. The "lost" books of the Bible are a rich source of material for people with fringe beliefs that are looking to justify them or people who have an axe to grind with mainstream Christianity.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Inclusion of text into the bible was not arbitrary. Texts were chosen based upon a set of fairly clear criteria that became established over centuries of debate. Not everyone agrees with the final decision, but that hardly makes it arbitrary.
Additionally, BS Catholic conspiracies aside, they have no earthly reason to hide works that they disagreee with. In fact the works they are putting onine were already available to visiting scholars and practically anyone with an interest. I, for instance, have the full text on the 20-something different Gospels we have discovered to date at home on my shelf...and if you read them all, you'd see pretty quick why some were excluded. I also have the many of the other non-canonical texts. No great hidden secret. Just order them from Amazon like I did.
There is no great scholastic coverup to keep the juicy religious bits away from the masses.
Disclaimer: I am not Catholic, but I do have a degree in Religious Studies.
-Tom
First off all the King James Version is protestant not catholic. You want something like the Saint Jerome Bible for a Catholic bible. Second the inclusion list for the Kind James isn't arbitrary its following the organization from Martin Luther's Geneva Bible.
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Anyway here is an old list with pretty good information about what got included when
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&i
Are they simply exerting copyright over the photograph of the document, and not on the contents of the document itself? Is that okay, even?
Yep. And yep.
Their copyright is over the photograph of the document that they took. They are allowed to do that because the original document is not under copyright. Had it been under copyright they would have to get permission from the copyright holder before distributing their content based on that material. The copyright on the photograph means that you are not allowed to distribute the photograph they took without their permission. It doesn't prevent you from taking your own photographs of the original work (which is not under copyright) or even from quoting it verbatim.
It's just like some photographic agency had a copyright on some pictures of Marilyn Monroe. That doesn't mean they owned her or that you couldn't take your own pictures of her - just that those particular photographs were covered by copyright.
Mmmm.. Donuts
Actually the Vatican approached us when I was working at a consultancy (not IBM) to do this project. "Mmm, cool," thought I. "They have loadsa money."
Ah, but not so, grasshopper. We met with their librarians and "IT" people and when it came to money, not only did they try and make us feel guilty about charging the Church (I'm Jewish..that didn't work on me) but they wanted us to PAY for the privilege. Yes, we would eat all production costs, hardware, hosting, travel costs, encoding, delivery, etc...AND we were expected to make a "sizable honorarium" to the RCC for the privilege of being permitted to work on the project. (Picture: Ellen Feiss going "nnnnggggh?")
"Hmm, well they have lots of money...they'll pay us for the next project," thought I.
Ah, not so. When I asked as to $$ arrangements for future work we were told that if they liked the library project, we could expect more work, but each project would require an additional honorarium.
"Wow, look at the time, I gotta run," said I. We never even considered doing the work.
Looks like HP got the same treatment, as evidenced by this line in the press release:
"HP's contribution included technical consulting along with donated computer servers, scanners and other hardware items.
Didier Philippe, HP's director of strategy and development in Europe, said the motivation for the donation had more to do with history and art than with business.
But he recognized that the Catholic Church could be a huge buyer."
So they are HOPING the RCC buys some hardware in the future, after they already gave them a couple mil worth of free stuff. Great business sense, eh?
I'm calling my broker now.
"The pie shall be cut in half and each man shall receive.....death. I'll eat the pie."