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Digitized Gutenberg Bible Available
Prince_Ali writes "A digital copy of the Gutenburg Bible, the first major Western book printed from movable type, has been made available by The University of Texas, available through the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center. The Ransom Center's copy of the Bible is claimed to be the finest in the world, and is now freely available to anyone who would like to examine it. More information can be found via this CNN.com article."
Excuse my ignorance, it is a wonderfully crafted document, but why go to all the trouble of digitizing a document that you can barely read the digital version of. It might just be my eyes, but its awufully hard to read the text even in latin!
My 2c
No. Not Latin. It ("The source") would be Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic.
Don't forget the New American Standard translation, the other major English translation.
Be careful with the NIV, though. It's quite a good translation, but you have to be aware of what you're getting when you read it. The translators used the "dynamic equivalence" philosophy, to make it easier to read. That means they took the more difficult sentences and rephrased them, changing both grammar and vocabulary to a more straight-forward reading level. (Every translation involves interpretation, but dynamic equivalence adds a second layer of "putting it in your own words.")
Here's some good resources:
Unbound Biola -- Bible search. Most of the major English translations, along with 30 or 40 other languages, ancient and modern.
Read the Bible -- 50 or 60 translations, English and otherwise. Some are available for download, as are the necessary fonts.
Actually, 48 out of a print run of approximately 200, to be exact.
Not a bad survival ratio, actually.
There are only three copies in the United States. It's currently believed that only 51 out of the original 200 copies still exist. The sad part about this story is that the British Museum has two complete copies and put them on the webalmost 3 years ago. So UTexas posting them really adds nothing to the web, except provide another mirror.
It is nice they put this thing online, but it is nothing else than a marketing gag for mmore funds or something.
at the current size it is totally useless, you click on enlarge image - and you get an image at a size where it is barely readable. am i supposed to use a magnification glass on my screen or something? If you do it, do it right (read: at right size) or leave it.
Personally, I think it was a mistake to translate the gospels from Aramaic, too.
Weren't they orginally written in Greek to be applicable to a wide audience? It would have been good of the apostles to also provide an Aramaic version too of course, but they were never written. Not that they were literal translations either.. how many years after Jesus's death were they written? Almost 100 years for John's gospel?
-molo
Using your sig line to advertise for friends is lame.
Rather than use this as a bible reference, a better source is the Skeptic's Annotated Bible. That'll give you the true dope on the [ahem] "Good" book.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Still wrong. He said "fully intact", and there are only twenty-one complete copies in the entire world. From the site:
"It is one of forty-eight surviving copies and one of twenty-one complete copies in the world."
Mikey-San
Karma: +Eleventy billion (mostly affected by watching Celebrity Jeopardy)
Well, I must say. You have the uber-large geek testicles. However, I have been other places. This time around, I turned down a lot of those "higher rated" schools (i.e. MIT, CalTech) because I didn't feel like putting up with the loans for school who didn't really have anything special to offer (accept more grant money). And the obscure accomplishments were not "hurrah hurrah for the program", I was just pointing out that UT can be a 'geeky' place too.
====
Crudely Drawn Games
If you are truly serious about studying the Bible as a living book, and not as a museum piece, then pick up a New King James or NIV version. These are easily readable and accurately reflect centuries of scholarship.
I see where you are coming from - but you have to keep in mind that the Bible was not written by white - english speaking men. True hermeneutical study of the Bible requires taking into account the historical/cultural context in which it was written. A Language embodies the culture from which it originates. Transliteration provides for a decent bridge between cultures/languages, but never can offer the depth of the original.
This being said - the Bible was not written in Latin - but the Latin Vulgate (Gutenberg) was translated by men who had access to more primary Biblical documents not available to there predecessors. Being that I had 3 years of latin in HS and 3 in College, I can read (sometimes slowly) the Vulgate, and I would have to say that it offers more detail or precision than than english translations. Makes the NIV look like an impressionist painting - thats for sure. The KJV is very similar to the Vulgate. (The Vulgate was used it to help translate the greek and hebrew texts to english)
There are a few sites committed to providing detailed and accurate representation of the Aramaic version of the Bible (often called the Peshitta). Peshitta.org is the most important since it provides not only an interlinear version of the New Testament (English and Aramaic) but also a forum that discusses the nuances of each and every chapter or verse and lessons in modern Aramaic (Syriac).
Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute is also working on collecting, indexing, and digitizing Aramaic (Syriac) manuscripts, books, and other invaluables from University libraries, personal libraries, monasteries, churches, and persons throughout the world.
All of the collected materials will be digitized according to the DjVu format as found at DjVulibre. You can take a look at some high quality samples of such digitized books, namely Liturgy of the Eastern Churches (Syriac) or The Syriac Orthodox Liturgy (English).
"let's see an open source version of this ... "
You mean like this?
And the British one actually has images with a high enough resolution that you can read it. (That is, if your Latin isn't at the level of a three year old Roman.)
Tim
Omnia vestra castrorum habetur nobis.
Don't forget the New American Standard translation, the other major English translation.
I've recently become pretty keen on the NET Bible. It is a fairly new modern translation by a group of scolars, designed for free distribution on the Internet. (I'm still a bit disappointed with their "license", but it's better than most other modern translations. I think there needs to be a good readable modern translation that is as "free" as the KJV.)
Anyway, the NET Bible contains over 50,000 translators notes, some of which are quite useful in determining what the original text likely means. Then there are historical notes and other study notes. Definitely recommended.
how many years after Jesus's death were they written? Almost 100 years for John's gospel?
I'm not 100% sure, but I've heard they were written in the AD60-70-80 area.
In any case, Paul's letters would have been written before AD 60, so we certainly have good ancient witness to the Christian faith.
Then the Catholic church came and decided to take the scriptures away from the people and to try to hide the ceremonies and teachings forcing people to just trust the words of the priests.
Sorry, I don't want to get into a theological debate on this forum, but I respectfully disagree with this; after all, people within the Catholic Church helped establish the modern university and did a great deal to try to educate people.[1] The major problems of getting Scripture to the masses involved widespread illiteracy and the fact that, until the invention of the printing press, Bibles couldn't be easily copied and distributed. It wasn't some sort of high ranking conspiracy that kept Bibles away from the possession of the common people but rather, the issues were essentially of a practical nature.
The history of the Church is very detailed and interesting. Getting into it from a more properly academic perspective would take a bit of time and it's waaaay past my bedtime already
And even today they try to hide the actions of their priests.
That's an overgeneralization that does not apply in the vast majority of cases, but it does underly a very real and valid concern that people have. I'll quote one of Pope John Paul II's addresses at the World Youth Day in Toronto last year. I think he did a pretty good job of summing up the feelings of those of us within the Catholic Church regarding the tragedies that have come to light recently. (Of course, I'm mindful that mere words cannot erase the immense harm that's been done):
[1] Particularly, I have in mind the establishment of cathedral schools which helped address the problem of a mostly illiterate population. See Margaret Deansley: A History of the Medieval Church.
"Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones."
Let's see that with a little context:
Babylon, hmmm... Iraq.I think this is the answer to somebody's sig that reads: Who would Jesus bomb?
:-)
Yes -- what's special is that it's one of the first printed books in Europe. The cultural impact on the free dissemination of information was much greater than that of the Internet. (Yes, books were still expensive, but much more numerous and affordable than hand scribed ones.)
the photographs provided by the HRC are not detailed enough to make out the text clearly.
Following a hint in the story, I found the British Library's edition, which is much nicer. (Though on UTexas they say you can get high res images on application; I suspect that means buying a CDROM.)
For those interested in Gutenberg, Blake Morrison has written a great novel, The Justification of Johann Gutenberg, published by Chatto & Windus and available in paperback. The work is mostly fiction, as details of Gutenberg's life are limited mostly to scanty sources such as legal records. It's a great read, though.
a few years ago one paper, one vellum. Both copies are online in a readable form ( 1045 / 2048 ) and can be viewed side by side. See them here They actually constitute a usefull research tool in this form as all the text including margin notes is readable via the web, assuming you can read latin of course. It's always nice to see things like this being put up on the web for all to use, but the texas copy one is a little redundant in this instance.
The hard part, as even Mark Twain observed, is not learning the Bible, but living it.
A lot of the "doctrinal" disputes actually result from people doing what they want and trying to find Biblical justification for it, instead of studying what the Bible actually says, and honestly evaluating whether their lives match.
Nonaggression works!