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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."
/.ing this site is blasphemous.
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
UT is my school. It is waaay underrated as a geek school. It's the #5 engineering school in the country, but no one ever mentions it. They have a lot of projects like this going (plus way geekier ones, like the robot soccer team that recently won a championship, the mechanical engineer's indy car team, and petrol's rig in the basement thing). Hook 'em horns.
====
Crudely Drawn Games
The Gutenberg Bible is definitely a work of art and a historical treasure, but as a study Bible it falls quite short.
To begin with it's all in Latin. Seeing as how Latin is not quite the popular language as it used to be, it is doubtful that a student would be understanding the nuances and meanings of the GB.
Also, it is simply not available to the general public. While this digitization of it goes a long way to providing easier access to the book, it remains largely inaccessible to those who live in foreign countries without easy access to Internet (those who would probably best be served by having Bible access).
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 and 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.
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.
Of what I heard, Gutenberg made the movable type so he could make books cheaper. But he also made the "Publishers' Guild" and wreaked what he could have made known to the public.
He put back knowledge for 100 years by allowing of such a guild that muchg power.
... Imagine the time spent on a project like this. By doing this, it opens wide the possibility for a younger generation (the "internet generation" as it were) to really consider going into history, anthropology and many other studies that could easily be drown out by this IT boom, which is going on now.
Kudos to all involved in the project
Game Overdrive - Gaming News
The Library of Congress (Jefferson Building, IIRC) has a copy on display. (Yep, that's me). Closeup available here
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
I already read it, what else you got?
Are you insane? This is probably one of the most valueable books in existance - there are only like 3 fully intact ones surviving.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
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.
Anyone can scan an entire book as a bunch of JPG's. Give me a .lit or ebook format and I'll be impressed!
And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to make illegal copies of my words and destroy my IP rights. And you will know I am the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon you.
Yours etc.
Supreme non existent being
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
I knew it, God is a blogger!!!
Wait, cowboyneal uses Movable Type. Hmmmmmm.
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.
THank goodness for years I have been relying on dilbert comics as a religious alternative ~
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
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
...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.
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.
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.
In a related story, God is suing Johannes Gutenberg ...
I've found that my posts don't format quite right w/o a sig.
A man went to a rare book shop and noticed an old bible on display. He struck up a conversation with the book shop owner.
"Yeah, actually, I had an old bible which I threw out last week. It was by someone called Guten... something."
"Not Gutenberg, I hope?"
"Yeah, that's the one."
Upon seeing the look on the book shop owner's face, the man replied:
"Ah, don't worry. It wasn't worth anything. Some guy called Martin had scribbled in it."
sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
I don't like the ending in many of those Bible stories. Can I rewrite them? Goliath pummles David, The walls of Jerico stay up, the Tower of Babble works, Eve does the Wild Thing with a snake, and the Isrealites die at the edge of the sea after Moses gets Carple Tunnel trying to command it to part.
Hey, the Mormons made their own Bible, why can't I? What does Joseph Smith have that I don't? (well, maybe a loyal following and charisma, but those are overrated. Aren't they?)
Table-ized A.I.
...that SCO is not claiming any rights on that digital copy of the bible?
Hmmm, it looks to me like they missed the page at the beginning that reads:
Yaz.
How many times have I told you kids? No coffee in the digitizing lab!
<a href="http://www.joblessjimmy.com">Work is dumb and so is Jobless Jimmy.</a>
Well, looks like I won't have to snatch any more Bibles from hotel rooms.
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.
Bible, schmible! I much prefer Guttenberg's movie.
"Yeah, well, Dracula called and he's coming over tonight for you and I said okay."
Now I have a reason to take my comp to church!
Or a reason not to go to church... no thanks, mom. I'm just going to sit here in front of my computer and read my, uh... "bible".
-a
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 ?
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.
That's where I go to take a crap when I'm on campus.. No joke, they have nice, clean shitters. And if you're quick, you can have gutenberg toilet paper...
You can probably safely ignore it. If it's simply an accurate scan of the pages, then it is simply a reproduction of someone else's work (namely, Gutenberg's), not an independent creative work, and as such is only subject to Gutenberg's copyright, not an independent copyright. As the original copyright has obviously long expired, you can safely reproduce the work.
A similar principle applies to ignoring claims of copyright on digitized paintings painted before 1923 -- if it's simply an accurate copy of the painting, only the original (expired) copyright is in effect.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Erm, actually there are several different versions of the Quran. Just like the Torah, the Quran was originally written without vowels or diacritical marks. Consequently, differences have emerged over the centuries as marked-up text with vowels and diacritical marks have been produced. For instance, surah 5:54 has yartadda in the Quran according to Hafs, but yartadid according to Warsh.
In general, as well, your contention about the universality of Islam implies that you are closing your mind to the bewildering diversity of Islamic belief and practice, from the Sunni/Shia split to the four traditional Maddhabs to Wahhabism. Not to mention the many religions related in some way or derived from Islam, including but not limited to Sufi'ism, Ahmaddiya, Druze, Nation of Islam, Sikhism, Yazidi, Ismailism, Babism and Bahai'ism.
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.
I certainly wouldn't mind a GPL-ed bible. I'd be more than happy to release my modifications to the world...
*evil grin*