Brigham Young University’s Center for the Preservation of Ancient Religious Texts is one of the leading archival conservation and preservation projects in the world. The Center has been working to preserve ancient and religious texts since 1997. The main focus is on biblical texts and their historical importance. This mission was undertaken to give scholars better access to manuscripts in order to facilitate information sharing and better scholarship. It is involved in several major manuscript projects.

This paper will highlight some of the key manuscript projects.

The Herculaneum Papyri

The Syriac manuscripts from the Vatican Library

In the area of Biblical Studies there are three sub-categories of importance:

The Dead Sea Scrolls
Early Christianity
Eastern Christianity(1)

The Brigham Young University Institute for the Preservation of Ancient Religious Texts was created by order of BYU President Merrill J. Bateman on March 7, 2001. ISPART encompasses the efforts of all of the independent University based preservation projects. Under this new structure, the following projects are now being administered by ISPART:

BYU’s Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS)
The Middle Eastern Texts Initiative (METI)
The Center for the Preservation of Ancient and Religious Texts(2)

I have also included some links to articles that outline some of the important work that is being accomplished by the Center.

References
1. BYU.EDU/CPART/About the Center
2. Campus Notes. BYU Magazine; Summer 2001.