Subject: Photocopies of MSS

From: "Vinton A. Dearing" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 22 Aug 1997 16:50:24 PST

Photocopies are notorious for failing to reproduce the 
characteristics of their originals. I remember struggling with a MS 
in the Bodleian library where I had to read the scratches the pen had 
made in the parchment (holding the volume so that the light would 
shine across it at an angle) because the ink had entirely 
disappeared. On the other hand, ultraviolet light and other 
photographic techniques recover traces of ink that everyday 
photography and the human eye cannot recognize. I remember how the 
starch in my white shirt cuffs shone blue under the ultraviolet light 
in the little cubicle for such research in the British Museum (now 
the British Library), where readers were not allowed to remain for 
long lest the MSS be damaged. So much for war stories.
      There are two major repositories of photographs of biblical 
MSS, one at the Institut fur neutestamentliche Textforschung at the 
Westfalsichen Wilhelms-Universitat in Munster, Germany, and one at 
the ancient Biblical Manuscript Center in the Claremont Colleges, 
Claremont, CA. The Institut pioneered in collecting microfilms of NT 
MSS, the Center pioneered in new methods of photography developed as 
part of the U.S. space program, and has become the repository for the 
work of the Greek New Testament Project as well as for photographs 
of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Huntington Library in San Marino, CA, 
has a set of photographs of the Scrolls, but these have been 
published. At least one of our listers, Ulrich Schmid, is in Munster. 
There is an account of the work of the Center and its address in the 
most recent issue of either Biblical Archaeology Review or Bible 
Review. Many years ago I was kindly received at the Institut and 
served on the governing board of the Center and can testify that 
their directors are anxious to serve our community of scholars. 
Some contributors to the holdings of these institutions will not 
allow free reproduction of what they have deposited, but one can 
always write to the contributing libraries, research groups, or 
individual owners for permission to have a duplicate made, 
remembering that a duplicate is not guaranteed to be of the same 
quality as what was deposited. Ideally, one should see the original 
documents wherever possible, and have war stories of one's own to 
tell.
   Vinton A. Dearing

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 22 Aug 1997 21:16:16 -7000

> published.

I understood that the library had made the photos available to anyone 
who wants to examine them, but I didn't hear about them being 
published.  Is this in printed form, and if so, do you have 
bibliographic info?

While I'm at it, does anyone have the address (snail or e mail) of 
the Huntington Library?
 
Dave Washburn
[email-masked]
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur/home.html

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From: "Mr A.J.A. LABOUCHERE" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 23 Aug 1997 05:22:41 -0400

>From Bill Petersen, abroad at the moment:

While I am not sure of the exact status of the project, E.J. Brill
(publishers) of Leiden have--to the best of my knowledge--the *entire* set
of Dead Sea Scrolls (entire works, fragments of works, and unidentified
scraps) on CD-ROM, in photographic form.  I am unsure of the price ($1,250
sticks in my mind...), but that can be checked in their catalogue, or via
their web site (whose address I don't have at hand--it is not a
straightforward one).  I can't recall whether a diplomatic text accompanies
the recognizable works, but my memory also tells me they are working on
such a project, as an outgrowth of the already-available CD-ROM version.

--Petersen, Penn State Univ., Netherlands Inst. for Adv. Studies