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."
...to Slashdot the Vatican? I guess we just might find out!
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
I mean there are documents going back to the Roman Empire. Could you imagine if it all was available online? And searchable? The man-hours to do it would be incredible.
I mean, there are rumors of intelligence reports from Pontius Pilate being archived there. Watch all the Bible geeks have a field day.
Plus I imagine, a copy of every forbidden book written since then. Kept around, just as evidence.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
There's a "Holy See Plus Plus" joke here somewhere.
I object to that article, and to the next reply.
Just as a correction, they are releasing their WWII era documents. And try to refrain from making wildly opinionated and unsupported comments about something as sensitive as religion...any religion.
1. Nail decree on church door
2. ???
3. Prophet!!!
Considering all the brainpower that seems to be concentrated(?) at the /.-ers PCs when it comes to more or less mindless trivia like asteroids threatening Earth, new ways to make ultra-thin condoms or whatever, it's rather scary to see all the glibness and plain ignorance at a moment like this.
The fact that a tremendous lot of historical data will be acessible is, in it self, fantastic news.
Of course, it will be selected and skewed, and no, the p)0(rn will not be there, but that's not the point. It will be THERE, to help all those interested to learn more. Like any great museum, if you will.
I'm not a Catholic, I'm not a bit religious, but I think things like this make the Net something great!
"Not to mention, it would bring out a lot of texts that would show just how modern Christianity and Catholicism was practically invented by Roman Councils picking, choosing, and editing text as they pleased, and how all the text of the Bible either came from oral history or history written 70 years after Jesus' death, of which none of the original texts still exist."
Yeah, whatever. You obviously know absolutely nothing about Historical Criticism. Your bias against Christianity has scewed your view of New Testament development so severely that you lack any objectivity. Though, IMHO, traditional authorship (as claimed by Christians) of NT texts has a tendency to be incorrect, save for Paul's writings (and even some of those are up for contention), it's a stetch to say "modern Christianity and Catholicism was practically invented by Roman Councils picking, choosing, and editing text as they pleased" and "written 70 years after Jesus' death". There are some that argue (including myself) that Mark and "Q" predate the revolt/Temple destruction and 'Luke'/'Mat.' reliance on said texts shows a level of care in constructing their gospels that sceptics don't want to admit.
I'm probabally wasting my time...
Learn some Biblical history and take your anti-Christian bias out of the picture, it makes you look immature, even to non-Christians (like myself).
Burn Hollywood Burn
Well, they're putting the notes of Martin Luther online. If you don't know the relation of Martin Luther to the Catholic church, then you might need spend some time with the Googline Oracle.
All in all, that's not very favorable material to the Catholic Church considering what the movement he started was and why he started it.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
"And try to refrain from making wildly opinionated and unsupported comments about something as sensitive as religion...any religion."
While I agree it's never good to make "wildly opinionated and unsupported comments", I don't think that's the case here. After spending all my years in schooling up 'til college in either Sunday school (first 4 years) or a Catholic school (the rest), I learned a great deal about the Catholic Church and its history. And you know what? (S)He's right. The statements made aren't supported by links etc., but generally speaking, facts stand on their own. If you would like to debate anything that was said, feel free. I'm more than willing to find a plethoria of evidence to support each and every claim made in that post.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
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.
The posters here criticizing the Catholic Church have for the most part no clue what they're talking about. Anyone who thinks they can define the actions of billions of people in dozens of countries across 2000 years of history that simply has a screw loose.
In my experience the people who criticize the Catholic Church the most know the least about it (blah blah they only want money blah blah).
Anti-Catholicism doesn't bother me; I personally have a lot of problems with the Church both as a political as well as theological entity, and have no problem criticizing them (I'm not a practicing Catholic because of some of these reasons). Ignorance, however, DOES bother me, and these inane blanket comments about what the Church is about just reek of profound ignorance.
"Rare texts" are rare, because it's easy to use them agains (sic)Catholic Church. I think they'll stay "rare".
No, rare texts are rare because few copies exist. Why not? For one thing, many of the books and manuscripts that we're talking about predate the printing press. No need to come up with conspiracy theories to explain it.
** The opinions expressed here are my own, and do not reflect those of my employers - past, present, or future**
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
What, then, is the Church about?
It's about a lot of things.
In your opinion, should I expect to find the known-to-exist-but-tightly-guarded material regarding Hitler's final solution online? Should I expect to see everything the Vatican has about the Dead Sea Scrolls online?
The Vatican's behavior during the Holocaust does bear scrutiny, but I don't think they deserve all of the bad press they had. There were two options Pope Pius had; protest Hitler's actions and bring the Church openly against him, or maintain diplomatic relations publicly while privately trying to help Jews behind the scenes. The Church chose the latter, and managed to smuggle several thousand Jews out of Germany and provide a safe haven (many ended up in the Swiss Guard). I think it was probably a mistake, considering the horrific loss of life that took place, and that they should have come out publicly against Germany. I think it would probably have saved more lives in the long run by publicizing the plight of Jewish Holocaust victims, but I don't think they were complicit in the deaths as some people feel.
I'm not sure what you mean by the Dead Sea Scrolls; I don't pretend to know everything, or even that much about the Church, so perhaps you can enlighten me. As far as I know the Scrolls are held by the Israel Antiquities Authority, and any information the Vatican has would have had been from the same sources as any scholar; a reading of the scrolls themselves.
But I think that's pretty unlikely. I will be mightily impressed if the Vatican DOES fully disclose all of these secrets. What do you think? What is the Church about and why do you think they will publish everything?
Of course they won't publish everything, but they're not saying they will. The article I read explicitly said "selected".
Besides, every book in the Vatican != every book in the Vatican library. The real secret stuff I'm sure is kept somewhere else.
Don't use python, and don't work on an Apple, and everything will be fine.
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."