Slashdot Mirror
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."
wow, who would of thought the ability to see this work of art is as rare today as when it was first printed.
it's a very breathtaking and wonderful object to view.
Mike
Even the average Latin student is not going to be able to read those digitized images or even the actual pages, given the typography.
Cross-referencing does not have to be done in the margins of a book. Do you know how many in-depth studies of texts are done in rare book rooms? Without drawing on the books?
If nothing else, making the GB more available will teach the average huckleberry that the bible wasn't written in english, lol.
How could anyone say the above drivel is informative?
For your information, the Guttenberg Bible is a masterpiece that helped usher in not only the renaissance but also the reformation. The GB and the printing press also aided civilization tremendously by helping spread knowledge throughout the globe in a quick and timely manner.
Of course it is true that the Guttenberg Bible does not make a good study text; that goes without saying. For one thing, its in a museum and for another thing the photographs provided by the HRC are not detailed enough to make out the text clearly.
Further reproduction of any of the Gutenberg Bible images without the written consent of the Ransom Center is prohibited.
So much for a free press and research materials.. This is such a load of crap. The largest images publicly available are 835x600.
Inquiries regarding the availability of higher-resolution digital images for research or publication should be directed to the Center's staff.
All this from a public university. Your tax dollars at work!
-molo
Using your sig line to advertise for friends is lame.
The NKJV and NIV are nice (I prefer the KJV for the fluidness of old english) but the Gutenberg has the historical value.
Ester in the OT was the first to take the holy scriptures and put them on paper so that everyone could read them. Nothing was hidden. Everyone knew what the priests did. Everyone knew the temple. Everyone knew the ceremonies. There were no secrets. Nothing ever was really hidden from the people. But the fact it was now openly in writting instead of just oral tradition was an enormously big deal.
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. And even today they try to hide the actions of their priests.
Luther came along and destroyed their control by doing what Ester had done long before. He gave the Bible back to the people so THEY could determine what was the truth and what wasn't without having to rely on a priest.
"Finally, the Gutenberg Bible does not have an easily accessible concordance. There is a lot of cross referencing that needs to be done to truly understand the teachings of the Bible"
The Bible, like all things takes time to understand. You can rely on others to teach you or teach yourself. Or both as many do. But the idea is that you can read along with the teacher to make sure they're not putting words in God's mouth.
The Gutenburg Bible isn't so much valuable as just a Bible. There are many many Bibles that all say the same thing. It's valuable because of what it represents. A man without study guides and without a concordance who made it his duty to learn what it taught and who made sure anyone and everyone would be able to have that same opportunity. It represents a religion that was no longer based on secrets. And even more secularly it represents the struggle to make information freely available to all.
They're very expensive but Gutenburg Bibles translated to English (with Luther's original notes I believe) have been available for years. So if you want one to study with they're there.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
...but as a study Bible it falls quite short.
Is this the beginning of your strawman argument? Nobody suggested it is a study bible. You threw that out there and you then proceed to back up your blatantly incorrect assertion.
Also, it is simply not available to the general public.
Again, it's not meant to be. Unless the public is clamoring for a latin text, what does it matter that it's only available to those with internet access? The images aren't large enough (even the enlarged ones) to really read comfortably even if you are fluent in latin.
Finally, the Gutenberg Bible does not have an easily accessible concordance.
You mean it has no concordance? Dude, this is of archeological signicance only. Nobody in their right mind would learn latin so that they could study this thing. I get the feeling by now that you're simply trolling, but seeing that you got a +5 Informative, I feel compelled to respond.
the fact that Gutenberg Bible owners won't let you touch the things, much less write in the margins, means that you are pretty much hamstrung as far as study goes.
Dude, I can write in the margins. My Jiffy marker shows up great on my monitor screen, and it's always there for me. And as for being hamstrung, does my lack of speaking Latin hamstring me too?
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.
On this point I have to agree. This is a museum piece and isn't great for studying. After all, looking up Psalm 137:9 in King James Version is much more eloquent:
"Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones."
Gives it a nice Shakespearean quality I'd say. But if you're not into that, the NIV is a lot clearer:
"Happy is he who repays you for what you have done to us- he who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks."
Nothing quite says God Loves You like a little bit of infant seizing and rock dashing.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
If you're truly serious, you'll find that the exact words are unimportant if you're able to understand their intent. That's what the NIV Bible is trying to accomplish (although I don't agree with their results, but that's another matter). This ain't easy, however -- it generally requires a pretty good understanding of the era in which the sources were written, the sorts of mythology from which certain portions are lifted or evolved from, etc.
It seems to me that adherants to western religions are stymied by their need for a literal instruction manual to their faith. It tends to lead to less of an appreciation of the nuances of their beliefs and bogs them down in the literal interpretations, many of which were originally intended to be metaphors to begin with.
It's odd that the progression in the Axial Age moved from what I'd consider the "best" take on religion -- Buddhism, which stresses the style of thinking and individual pursuit of enlightenment versus attachment to single interpretations -- to Christianity to Islam, which is the worst offender in terms of demanding literal interpretation (since the Koran is supposed to be the end-all-be-all Word directly from the Big Guy's mouth).
I suspect that literal, close-to-source literature is attractive to a lot of people because it's easy. "God created heaven and earth, here's what he wants you to do" is a lot easier than approaches to spirituality which demand that you figure a lot out on your own.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
First, I'd like to know what the editors are doing, I had that story 8 hours before...
* 2003-07-23 22:57:45 Gutemberg's bible digitized (yro,books) (rejected)
of course, it got rejected without explanation...
The second thing is that, as I said in that submission, something isn't right... If you read the pages where you can see one of the bible's page, you can read the following legalese.
"Further reproduction of any of the Gutenberg Bible images without the written consent of the Ransom Center is prohibited.
Inquiries regarding the availability of higher-resolution digital images for research or publication should be directed to the Center's staff."
What does that mean, considering this book is old enough to belong to all of humanity, hence these images should be useable by any one for any purpose ?
a truly serious what ?
...
the exact words are important. playing fast and loose with the word of god is a slippery slope that very quickly turns into "the parts of the bible that are convenient for my world view today are the parts that he _meant_, and the rest is just filler!"
imagine this conversation, at the gates:
God: so what was this business about you side stepping the "don't divorce" part ?
Person: well, i thought that was a bit outdated and mostly just a metaphor. what you meant was that i should be faithful while i was married
God: thanks for correcting me. Now, did you miss that part where i said "this is the word of the LORD"
Person: well sure, but you don't cover this...
God: and those other parts where i explicitly say under what circumstances divorce _is_ allowed ? i don't recall inspiring anybody to write "when she gets a bit older" as one of the conditions...
Person: well, i thought that was kind of ambiguous, and my sitation is kind of unique...
God: listen buddy, i made you, and i knew everything you'd ever do before there was anybody around to write a bible. did you think your "unique situtation" would catch me off guard ? that we'd have this chat, and i'd end up revising the bible to fix my oversight ?
Person:
People that ignore the bible may spend a lot of time in church, but probably aren't christians. Nobody can claim to know for sure that they have the correct interpretation of the word, but i think the balance of the difficulty is living as you are commanded, not in understanding the commands. as far as i know, if you read the bible and honestly misunderstand it, you won't be judged. nobody can have a perfect understanding of the word, but as long as you dont knowingly turn against what you have read and understood, you should be alright.
I think accessibility of the bible is virtue. Sure, if the basic message is easy to explain in a few sentences, and any common man can understand it, well, i could see how that would be uninteresting to a weekend theologian intellectual. But why whould it be any other way ? The word of god is for everyone, not just the people too smart and too proud to actually abide in it.
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.