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."
/.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
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.
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?
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.
No. Not Latin. It ("The source") would be Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic.
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.
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.
Personally, I think it was a mistake to translate the gospels from Aramaic, too.
Realistically, this Bible is less useful for the study of modern theology than it is other things -- art, the history of print and bookbinding, the evolution of the scriptures, etc. I mean, look at the cover of the thing -- it's a stunning piece of work.
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.
IMO, the King James versions still suffer from their poisioned past. The NIV makes a good effort, but I disagree with some of the interpretations they make (although I do agree with the need to draw those interpretations).
The key to really understanding the Bible is to understand its sources and inspiration, examining the roots of the mythology being presented and the way in which things would have been intended. This isn't easy to do, but IMO is worthy of at least ameature study.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
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.
Actually, 48 out of a print run of approximately 200, to be exact.
Not a bad survival ratio, actually.
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
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's a good thing to have school pride, but don't let it run away with you. UT Austin gets the recognition it deserves (e.g., it's rated highly, etc.). However, the tendency of Texans to give themselves too much credit for stuff like this is all too common, and is a turn-off to the rest of the nation and to those who come to visit. Listing a couple of obscure accomplishments and mentioning that it's "waaay underrated" is only going to invite deign laughter from those in positions similar to mine.
Just letting you know...you may mod me down now.
...just my 2 gil.
...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.
In a related story, God is suing Johannes Gutenberg ...
I've found that my posts don't format quite right w/o a sig.
"Let me give you a little inside information. God hates it when it's referred to as "mythology." - Rufus, Dogma
Mikey-San
Karma: +Eleventy billion (mostly affected by watching Celebrity Jeopardy)
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."
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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)
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.
Hmmm, it looks to me like they missed the page at the beginning that reads:
Yaz.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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!
http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/cain. html
Anyone can see that there is no contradiction here. Here's what I wrote to him (excuse how it sounds a bit of a mouthful at the end):
He responded:
If he's not willing to change on the simple things, then I'm not going to spend my time pursuing his more important list. I needed to establish first that my time was going to be well spent (the list he referred to was http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/cr_short.html)
To me a contradiction is when two opposite, and irreconcilable things are said to be simultaneously true. Such as saying an object is only blue yet it is also only purple. Which is it? Blue or purple? In this Cain story, however, I gave a scenario under which both the statements were true. And that is not a contradiction no matter which way you look at it.
As you can see, he responded politely, I have no bitter feelings. I'm posting this so that others realise that much of the information presented is not contradictory or a problem unless you only look at it from one of many angles.