Freer Gallery of Art – Biblical Codices(1)

BYU is partnering with the Freer Gallery of Art and the Society of Biblical Literature in a joint effort to digitize 5 Greek biblical manuscripts that are part of the Freer collection. This effort is being undertaken to give scholars access to full color digital images of manuscripts that have, until now, only been available in bad quality facsimile formats. Parts of the Codex of Paul are among the 2700 images that have already been made.

Biblioteca Casenatenza - Psalms of Solomon(1)

The Psalms of Solomon were written in the 1st century BC in direct response to the Roman occupation of Jerusalem. They were originally written in Hebrew and now only survive in the translations of Greek and Syriac that are part of the collection of the Biblioteca Casenatenza. BYU scholars have done multispectral imaging work to improve the legibility of these texts.

Dead Sea Scrolls(2)

The Dead Sea Scrolls were found in the Qumran area near the Dead Sea by a bedouin shepherd in 1947. While some of the scrolls are copies of biblical texts, most are the accounts of a sectarian society that inhabited the Qumran area between the 2nd century BC and the 1st century AD. BYU has been working on behalf of the Dead Sea Scrolls Foundation to develop electronic versions of the scrolls for preservation and scholarly purposes. The Brill Academic Press of the Dead Sea Scrolls database was published in 1999 and is a fully searchable transcription of the scrolls available for the perusal of scholars everywhere.

Early Christianity
Petra - Papyrus Scrolls(3)

In December 1993, during the excavation of a Byzantine church in Petra, Jordan by the American Center of Oriental Research in conjunction with the Department of Antiquities of Jordan, 180 scrolls of payrus dating from 513 to 582 AD were discovered. These scrolls contain the documentary records of the everyday transactions of the church and community in 6th century Petra. Like the papyri that came out of Herculaneum, the Petra scrolls had also been carbonized by a fire. In 1999 BYU was asked to run tests on the scrolls to see if they could be digitized and preserved.

Eastern Christianity
BYU Ancient Studies Collection -Manuscripts(4)

In the 1980’s BYU made microfilm copies of important Eastern Christian manuscripts under the direction of Professor S. Kent Brown. These microfilms were digitized starting in 2001.

To find out more about the work being done by the Center in the area of Biblical Studies, please visit the Biblical Studies portion of the Center's website at http://cpart.byu.edu/biblicalstudies.php.

References
1. BYU.EDU/CPART/Biblical Studies
2. BYU.EDU/CPART/Dead Sea Scrolls
3. BYU.EDU/CPART/Early Christianity
4. BYU.EDU/CPART/Eastern Christianity