Dead Sea Scrolls to be available online!
Israel to make Dead Sea Scrolls available online
Scientists and scholars in Jerusalem have begun a programme to take the first high-resolution, digital photographs of the Dead Sea Scrolls so they can be made available to the public on the internet.
The Israel Antiquities Authority this week ends a pilot project that prepares the way for a much larger operation to photograph the 15-20,000 fragments that make up the 900 scrolls which were discovered 60 years ago by shepherds in caves close to the Dead Sea.
The scrolls were first photographed in the 1950s, after their discovery, and have since then been kept in specially monitored conditions in a vault in Jerusalem. Only four specially-trained curators are allowed to handle them.
Now, in a project that could take five years and will cost millions of dollars, the fragments will be photographed first by a 39-megapixel colour digital camera, then by another digital camera in infra-red light and finally some will be photographed using a sophisticated multi-spectral imaging camera, which can distinguish the ink from the parchment and papyrus on which the scrolls were written.
Eventually all the fragments will be available to view online, with transcriptions, translations, scholarly interpretations and bibliographies provided for academic study. "The aim in the end is that you can go online and call up the scrolls with the best possible resolution and all the information that exists about them today," said Pnina Shor, head of the Artefacts Treatment and Conservation Department at the antiquities authority. "We want to provide opportunities for future research on the scrolls. We feel it's part of our duty to expose them to the world as a whole."
Written around 2,000 years ago, the scrolls contain the oldest written record of the Old Testament. They contain almost all the Old Testament books, often with more than one copy of each, as well as other religious material that came afterwards and writings from a religious sect dating to the time of Jesus. They are written in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, mostly on parchment, with some written on papyrus, both of which are extremely fragile and brittle and which age and darken over time.
The work is carried out under particular conditions in a small laboratory, with chilled air and walls painted grey to provide the correct light. Among those helping are Simon Tanner, an academic from King's College, London, who has worked on more than 500 other digitalisation projects around the world, and Greg Bearman, a retired scientist who worked at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology and with NASA.
guardian.co.uk ©
Then you mean this one
Pope Alexander VI
Also known as
Rodrigo de Borja; Rodrigo Borgia
Profile
Took Borja as his surname from his uncle Alfonso (Pope Calixtus III). Cardinal in 1456. Vice-chancellor of the Church in 1457. Dean of the sacred college in 1476. Elected pope by a corrupt conclave in 1492.
Proclaimed the line of demarcation that split the western hemisphere between Spain and Portugal. Patron of the arts. Foreign relations during his reign were dominated by the increasing influence of France in Italy, which culminated in the invasion of Charles VIII in 1494. Alexander prevented Charles from taking church property in Rome, but he turned over the valuable Ottoman hostage Djem, brother of Sultan Beyazid II.
Prior to his papacy, Alexander fathered four illegitimate children by a Roman woman, Vannozza, among them Cesare and Lucrezia Borgia. Cesare became the principal leader in papal affairs, and papal resources were spent building up his power; Alexander arranged suitable marriages for Lucrezia. The favouritism shown his children, the lax moral tone of Renaissance Rome, and the unscrupulous methods employed by Cesare and other papal officials have made Alexander’s name the symbol of the worldly irreligion of Renaissance popes.
How the hell do you know that this one is from 1045??
I was talking about the Popes in the 15th to 17th Centuries.. Eopecially the Borgias..
Alex: Pope
brit: renaissance
Look back in European history during the renaisance period and see what the Popes got up to.. Corruption, nepotism, s@x, lies, scandals, alchoholism , desease..
You name it...
The powers that be would never allow it.. Too many vested interests..
I bet the Israelis have already taken those with the juicy bits and stuffed them in a vault deep underground somewhere..
There are numerous books about the possible impact of the rolls on Christianity. Imagine: everything Jesus said, somebody else said 200 years earlier. The foundation of the Christian Church might crumble.
Here they are
I agree that not all will be open top the public..We don't want any orthodox Jews or Christians getting uptight..
Also, I read an old article once which said that the Vatican has one of the largest colections of erotic artwork dating back to the Renaissance period..
As I understand, brit, you refer to the Qumran roles. They contain the religious scripts of the Essens, a sect which John the Baptist is believed having belonged to. They have something called "The Master of the Light" which was later transferred into the Messaiah figure. Basically the Essenic texts say a lot of what later is to be heard in Jesus's preachings. Therefore (Red_Pope) the Christian church must be considered.
From what I've read, they contain books of the Old Testament and some other books , psalms we don't know about..
Will be worth reading..
...doubt disagree on the translations and meanings of the text anyway!
...still, it would be interesting to find out!
You mean I'm going to Texas ??
Anyhoo, getting back to the post.. It will be very interesting to see what the scrolls actually have to say..
Don't worry about someone trying to read your mind.
Where you going, mind reading is not allowed, due to the fact that you will force to cover your cranial cavity and your voice will be muffled.
You better off in practicing, some silent eye language and some morse code to express your thoughts with your eye lashes.
I hear St. Patrick was an Englishman!"
What you mean "easier " ??
There's an easier way..
Get married.. They always know what you're thinking, even when you're not thinking it..
that's probably bad news for the Roman Church to come, when everybody can read that somebody said what Jesus said 200 years later. I wait for the day when they can photograph my brain so that I would know what I'm thinking.