tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-254613612024-03-07T18:34:38.513-08:00Book - ThinkUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger51125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461361.post-40211430239696654602009-02-02T10:29:00.000-08:002009-02-02T10:35:41.661-08:00NT Wrong, Biblical Studies, and Autobiography.I had the misfortune of reading Kierkegaard in between classes at a relatively conservative institution during my undergrad initiation into biblical languages, theology, and the history of all the critical and historical constructs that we label “Biblical Studies.” Not only did it throw the master plan off course, that being the attempt of Evangelicalism to pass on its disaffection with continental discourse to my as of yet unformed theological nerve center (which was further stymied by spending afternoons in Donald Bloesch’s office at a different school up the street, and then hearing Vanhoozer talk about Ricoeur ad infinitum in the very heart of Evangelicalism itself.). But Kierkegaard’s playful autonomy and ability to refute himself at will corrupted my sense of authorship (specifically in his pseudonymous work). It ran at odds with the interpretative strategies I employed in my coursework, but lingered in the back of my mind as a reminder that these things are provisional, open to revision. Even matters of historical criticism are open to Kierkegaard’s insistence that we learn to think in more playful ways about increasingly serious concerns. It was an odd, hermeneutically magical time that I have since been trained to shake off like a daydream in the course of writing properly annotated articles and theses, preparing indexes of data pools, or delivering papers at conferences that proclaim my irrefutable identity on a nametag. <br /><br />Here is a truly Kierkegaardian question: Can Biblical Studies be written in the mode of David Foster Wallace? With his characteristic networks of footnotes, asides, self-refutations, and ominously uncritical and immediate perceptions of “what is at stake” in religious discourse. It is a question as silly as it is important, one hinted at in Staley’s (literally) phenomenal essay on <a href="http://fac-staff.seattleu.edu/staleyj/web/documents/publications/whatiscritical.pdf">autobiography in biblical criticism</a>, but seldom broached within the guild. The possibility that scholarship could actually exist in pseudonymous or intentionally biographical modes, or even in the language of satire, is something that the history of biblical studies scholarship can’t quite wrap its head around. It is also one that has been posed to the biblioblogging world by the pseudonymous NT Wrong, whose blog has recently been abandoned with the promise of a new project in the near future. I know where I would probably fall in his famous <a href="http://ntwrong.wordpress.com/biblioblogs/">spectrum</a> (conservative, though this blog never actually appeared upon it, and doesn’t actually leave that many ideological clues in this respect). But I have followed the whole ordeal with rapt attention. <br /><br />Part of this is due to my own lifelong struggle to understand how I am supposed to practically correlate all my disparate roles as New Testament Studies academic, historian of book forms, practicing book artist, and part-time <a href="www.film-think.com">film critic</a>. It can get difficult to say the least. But I hope to see this discussion continue, especially as biblioblogging so effectively expands our research identities beyond SBL catalog abstracts into the flux of current events and changing minds. That is to say, blogging is not just another output for data, but actually involves a more nuanced conception of authorship and a geometrical expansion of what has always been referred to as the “academy.”<br /><br />Some reactions to the recent <a href="http://www.biblioblogs.com/featured-blogs/200902/">NT Wrong interview</a>:<br /><br /><em>NTW: This was one of the most absurd things I’ve seen in a long time. There were dozens of posts dedicated to discovering N. T. Wrong’s identity, thousands of words written, with greater or lesser degrees of seriousness. I loved it. I felt like I was watching from the box-seat at the theatre of the absurd… It also made me wonder whether this is how the Historical Jesus quest got started — as a joke which some slightly anal fellow didn’t quite get, and then it sort of snowballed from there, gradually gathering momentum until everybody thought it was actually very serious.</em> <br /><br />And to think that this grand prank has been played right as the new Jesus Seminar has convened. I would be more happy to compare the NT Wrong quest with the Historical Jesus quest if NT Wrong had been cruising the Usenet by that handle since 1980, and had left traces of long posts about his purpose and identity that now only exist as fragments in the Wayback Machine and the recesses of what is now Google Groups. And then there were a few biblioblogging predecessors on Yahoo or Live Journal in the early 1990’s that began to collect what NT Wrong posts they could recall from these old bulletin boards. And now this broad discussion would exist on the internet about who NT Wrong really was, and whether we can really trust that one guy’s Live Journal Entry #334 that claims he said this or that. And why does that WebEx post #0922456 agree verbally for several sentences, but then ascribe it to a different Usenet discussion context? And was NT Wrong ever actually on any of the UNIX platforms, or are all those just translations from BITNET? That would be far more thrilling and absurd.<br /><br /><em>NTW: It’s a strange ‘discipline’, isn’t it, in which one of the most well-known practitioners of biblical studies ends up quite high up in the hierarchy of the group which should really be the object of his study. Now, there are a few anthropologists and sociologists who do something similar as a form of total immersion or for some reason (I’m thinking, say, of Barbara Tedlock, both academic anthropologist of mysticism and practising shaman). But the difference is that these people not only use the emic experience to inform the etic conception, but continue to recognize the benefit of an etic conception to inform the emic experience. In the case of so many biblical scholars today — and N. T. Wright is merely just one of the most visible ones (and not only because he’s wearing a bright purple frock) — the academic-religious mix only goes, tendentiously, in one direction. Biblical studies is considered to ultimately be a mere tool for the service of the Church, so that everything done within the discipline is not primarily for the sake of knowledge itself, but for constructing new apologetics.<br /><br />It goes without saying that I continue to see a valid distinction between ‘use’ and ‘interpretation’ (and I like Umberto Eco’s theoretical approach here), and I place scholars whom I encounter somewhere along the continuum between them. Frustratingly, in reading the publications of biblical studies, there are too many of these scholars far closer to the ‘use’ end of the continuum, so much so that it is just annoying to have to continually second guess whether a particular biblical scholar is interested in discovering what is true or only has an interest in defending what is already believed to be true.</em><br /><br />I am not sold on this distinction between the emic and etic experience in biblical studies. Any attempt to discuss it simply shifts the etic axis from historical issues to history of interpretation, which then swings the pendulum of the emic back to a different, but equally academic-religious, category of “use.” And isn’t the pseudonymity of NT Wrong an expression of a particular category of “use” that only expresses his emic familiarity with the guild itself? I sense the same problem with his commentary on scholarship that he finds in most commentaries themselves.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461361.post-38434217034699306772009-01-16T09:50:00.000-08:002009-01-16T09:54:11.364-08:00Jacqueline Rush Lee: INTROspective at the Center for Book Arts<a href="http://cailun.info/">Cailun</a> has a scanned image of the <a href="http://www.centerforbookarts.org/exhibits/archive/showdetail.asp?showID=186">Jacqueline Rush Lee exhibition</a> currently at The Center for Book Arts:<br /><br /><em>This exhibition of work will showcase sculptures created entirely out of used books with selections from the 2005 Biennial of Hawaii Artists (Epic) and her 2002 exhibition Volumes. VOLUMES (2002) is a body of work that was created entirely from used books. This body of work followed a “petrified” books series of 2000 in which Ms. Lee used kiln processes to transform books. In Volumes water was used to transform the books further. When soaked in water the dyes of the book fore edges bleed and the pages warp into beautiful striations. Once dried the books were then built into geometric forms. EPIC (2003-2005) is an installation consisting of a collection of gypsum cement panels that Ms. Lee calls “Imprescoes; a joining together of the words “imprint” and “fresco.” Using the discarded books of anonymous book owners, the work emerged from an experimental casting process in which book covers, edges, and raw book spines were embedded into gypsum cement, and then removed. As the dyes in the book covers and fore edges “bleed” into the curing gypsum, soft, painterly traces of the books are left behind.</em> <br /><br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_i7bOjXGGMW4/SXDJhEgQ7FI/AAAAAAAAAw0/E0qXFTMoOY4/s1600-h/introspective.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 261px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_i7bOjXGGMW4/SXDJhEgQ7FI/AAAAAAAAAw0/E0qXFTMoOY4/s400/introspective.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5291951132142267474" /></a><br /><br />Lovely.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461361.post-34568549736600045072009-01-13T08:50:00.000-08:002009-01-13T09:04:00.352-08:00Textual Criticism in the 21st CenturyAt ETC, <a href="http://evangelicaltextualcriticism.blogspot.com/2009/01/helmut-koester-on-century-of-nt.html">Peter Head has blogged</a> about the recent article by Koester in the <em>Harvard Theological Review</em>. In his overview of the subjects covered by HTR in the last century, one can see a sharp decline in papers on NT textual criticism in this most recent era of scholarship. A snippet:<br /><br /><em>"New discoveries of manuscripts, particularly of New Testament papyri, brought new excitement to the scene of New Testament study, and American scholars, some educated in Europe, such as James Hardy Ropes, or coming from Europe, such as Kirsopp Lake, played an important role in this discussion. Later, the center of these investigations had moved to the text-critical institute in Munster, where it became streamlined without achieving any significant progress, as J. Eldon Epp (sic) has so aptly argued in several publications."</em><br /><br />It will be interesting to see what responses this generates at the ETC blog. On the one hand, Koester is right, and I wager that this statistic applies to other journals as broad in scope as the <em>HTR</em>. But on the other hand, the article ignores the idea that textual criticism has moved out of journals and into emerging databases and research programs that are simply taking a long time to put together. I consider what is happening at <a href="http://itsee.bham.ac.uk/">Birmingham</a>, <a href="http://www.uni-muenster.de/INTF/">Muenster</a>, somewhere in <a href="http://www.csntm.org/">Texas</a>, and in similar organizations to be more intriguing than a few <em>HTR</em> papers. And what percentage of biblical studies blogdom in the last five years or so involves discussion of text-critical matters? Enough to characterize this discussion as active and fruitful.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461361.post-17826768323975737452009-01-13T07:27:00.000-08:002009-01-13T08:29:25.595-08:00Coptic Bindings at the Morgan (the Coptic Tracery Binding)A new <a href="http://www.themorgan.org/exhibitions/exhibition.asp?id=13">exhibition at the Morgan Library and Museum</a> features one of the key items from its collection of Coptic bindings (a nice overview at the <a href="http://www.aber.org.br/v2/noticia.php?IdNoticia=1949">ABER</a>:<br /><br /><em>"Another work in the show, the Coptic cover of the Gospels, is one of sixty Coptic bindings that Pierpont Morgan purchased in 1911, the year after they were found near the Monastery of St. Michael in Egypt. Almost all works were found with their original bindings and constitute an essential collection for the study of Coptic bookbinding. The Coptic Tracery Binding is regarded as the finest surviving Coptic binding. At its center is a cross surrounded by interlaced designs composed of two intertwined squares within a circle. All of these elements were cut from a single piece of red leather and sewn over gilt parchment."</em> <br /><br />This is the <a href="http://www.themorgan.org/collections/collections.asp?id=382">catalog item</a> in question, which is an exemplary cover (though the link to the catalog description is incorrect). There is a nice large high-res image halfway down <a href="http://arttattler.com/manhattanmorgan.html">here</a>. I wonder if it is a misnomer to refer to this as a "binding," as it is actually just the extant cover of an original book. In fact, some Coptic bindings are so elaborate and integral to a book's structure that they cease to exist as they are unbound. But the use of "bindings" to refer to the covers in the Pierpont collection goes all the way back to their original purchase, and is sustained in the literature. The exceptional nature of the Coptic Tracery binding is highlighted in Deborah Evetts <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=fVXqiTNjsxcC&pg=PA6&lpg=PA6&dq=pierpont+morgan+coptic+bindings&source=bl&ots=howlJ7rXJ4&sig=yE1bWg5ZnNWQKtPlQT3HoWW4uS4&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=6&ct=result#PPA6,M1">lively account</a> of how she crafted the Pierpont collection's current display cases. <br /><br />On their origin:<br /><br /><em>"The manuscripts were found in 1910 at the site of the Coptic Monestary of St. Michael whose ruins are near the village of al-Hamuli in the Faiyum district of Egypt, southwest of Cairo. The Faiyum despression, an ancient jungle swamp covering 700 square miles, once stretched from Lake Birkat almost to the Nile and is renowned for the fossils found there. It was here that local farmers, digging for natural fertilizer for their fields, found the long buried manuscripts. This was the first of three big finds of ancient mss of the last hundred years, and is the only one composed solely of ancient Christian documents. The Nag Hammadi codices were found in 1945, and the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947."</em><br /><br />On their condition:<br /><br /><em>"To understand the problems involved in designing houses for these covers, one has to appreciate the wide variety of sizes, thicknesses, and conditions to be accommodated. They range from complete bindings, complete covers, an partial covers to small fragments; from solid healthy boards to those whose papyrus is so riddled with insect tunneling that they "drape" like a Dali watch; from leather crazed by the kiln heating and blackened with leather dressing to leather that is remarkable for its color and quality after more than a thousand years internment; from papyrus boards with no leather covering to leather with no papyrus board."</em> <br /><br />So to have a cover in such fine condition as the one featured in this exhibition is remarkable. It not only withstood the ravages of time, but a series of failed attempts at preservation. Evett's point concerning the importance of this find is interesting, as it is seldom referenced within the context of codicology as practiced in the service of NT textual criticism. These manuscripts are so late in origin, and varied in subject matter, that they have limited value in providing witness to variants and text-types in the first few centuries. But their importance as witnesses to the technological development of the codex may outweigh both the Nag Hammadi and Qumran finds. Having had little interaction with the Morgan collection other than through its various published catalogs (one of the earliest of which can be read <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=JfpiL9Um-P4C&pg=PR12&dq=pierpont+morgan+coptic+bindings&lr=&ei=j71sSbHrN4jiNJ360M4L#PPP1,M1">here</a> - if you can't already tell, I love Google Books), I say this hesitantly. The amount of data that can be gleaned from the Nag Hammadi find from an artefactual perspective is still undetermined for the most part, and the more I probe, the more I find. But suffice it to say, these bindings and covers are a unique witness to a particular stage of early Christian publishing.<br /><br />Here is an article on <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=T2JSElz6tXQC&pg=PA267&dq=pierpont+morgan+coptic+bindings&ei=kb9sSaXVEpDckASipam7Cw#PPA267,M1">Pierpont's M579</a> by Leo Depuydt. The colophon of this particular Sahidic codex contains the oldest known date in any extant coptic manuscript (539 of the Era of the Martyrs, or 822 CE). There are some interesting descriptions of the codex in relation to the rest of the collection on pg. 269.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461361.post-62042778598011380092009-01-09T14:44:00.001-08:002009-01-09T15:44:49.326-08:00A Tour of a Torah ScrollI recently had the chance to spend some time with a few joined sections of an early to mid 18th century Eastern European copy of Numbers. And thanks to my handy new camera, I was able to take a bunch of pictures that are handy illustrations for the recent post on the production of <a href="http://ekthesis.blogspot.com/2008/10/how-to-make-torah-scroll.html">Torah scroll parchment</a>. In these pictures you can clearly see the medieval sewn parchment descendent of papyrus collesis (the organic adhesive process by which sheets of papyrus were joined), as well as a few examples of repairs that were made to the parchment due to small mistakes made during the final scraping process. (Click the picture for hi-res.)<br /><br /><strong>Joining Stitches</strong>:<br /><br />Here on the reverse of one of the joins you can see the simple running stitch that comprises the bulk of the joint, a simple and sturdy use of the natural thread with a low profile that makes it easy to roll up the scroll. The third picture of the reverse tail is a good example of the makeshift adjustments required by the uneven edges left by the curing and stretching process. <br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRm3BswPubjXuGHGTx9JKb31CVmcefOHBTYD6kCH2LQze_so9s83WnbY0OrZLETw0Nt_UqNdo_0pShi6OC2xyLfLnqm7zfuvNc_A_eKbu2F8LXjiTyDRwMbrYrigaqPe8TCz3iRw/s1600-h/IMG_0459.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRm3BswPubjXuGHGTx9JKb31CVmcefOHBTYD6kCH2LQze_so9s83WnbY0OrZLETw0Nt_UqNdo_0pShi6OC2xyLfLnqm7zfuvNc_A_eKbu2F8LXjiTyDRwMbrYrigaqPe8TCz3iRw/s400/IMG_0459.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5289432028756583122" /></a><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt0uNIM7cuHe7aHkVdR7WI1M1MHWuegOqTqbg7pz98QOpjIppP0lY7w8yP1LGnrSnjFjp_w1EiXlOy13Im17F3z_Iikmsh0jMoIQbyKgOvrPj92yb3rWO4mow8_Ii1XU5BKzHvHg/s1600-h/IMG_0460.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt0uNIM7cuHe7aHkVdR7WI1M1MHWuegOqTqbg7pz98QOpjIppP0lY7w8yP1LGnrSnjFjp_w1EiXlOy13Im17F3z_Iikmsh0jMoIQbyKgOvrPj92yb3rWO4mow8_Ii1XU5BKzHvHg/s400/IMG_0460.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5289443444266798226" /></a><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbywxXPjNXKm4awtTvWMEQf1xQ6OTezhAiAniUn4I0OKXLtq0OkBKfbWrXdFVV8deJLixCJxBRn63-KlhV3LT1rIQzXcQziEzD0NGR5Jwr2D29nCJ2R7fmz4dWBE3X1PtaMg_-Eg/s1600-h/IMG_0468.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbywxXPjNXKm4awtTvWMEQf1xQ6OTezhAiAniUn4I0OKXLtq0OkBKfbWrXdFVV8deJLixCJxBRn63-KlhV3LT1rIQzXcQziEzD0NGR5Jwr2D29nCJ2R7fmz4dWBE3X1PtaMg_-Eg/s400/IMG_0468.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5289433188207374130" /></a><br /><br />On this detail of the same interior tail, you can see that this stitch is not passed through the scroll itself, but joins one flap from each section, the second of which (on the left hand side) is actually folded under, forming a gutter on the reverse.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghvFG74eBF2gLdlxvNhBVI3LCp3KtgV3d585C5ohYL0qdh6b-Pl2RO3S3z8xJRTwaW-iU0ytrUaGMS9gjVNUNR3kOpPnHvGcqZXwe6NAlCEj5QzySLnGW_MU3A18FOJpaXT_5zqQ/s1600-h/IMG_0481.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghvFG74eBF2gLdlxvNhBVI3LCp3KtgV3d585C5ohYL0qdh6b-Pl2RO3S3z8xJRTwaW-iU0ytrUaGMS9gjVNUNR3kOpPnHvGcqZXwe6NAlCEj5QzySLnGW_MU3A18FOJpaXT_5zqQ/s400/IMG_0481.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5289434953760981858" /></a><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCxCTr-4kTFXU0GMqnIHWaDEouZs62h2jWpvD5o7w91tKXYmzdZ0rB1QH_Dx73SKnJRkP6iJ0NNWMQmHkLmBgr2yZMaFbML921FsoeIhULoJYFAC70BMxAvhbRoOWiMznUDW2pXg/s1600-h/IMG_0476.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCxCTr-4kTFXU0GMqnIHWaDEouZs62h2jWpvD5o7w91tKXYmzdZ0rB1QH_Dx73SKnJRkP6iJ0NNWMQmHkLmBgr2yZMaFbML921FsoeIhULoJYFAC70BMxAvhbRoOWiMznUDW2pXg/s400/IMG_0476.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5289434086597137842" /></a><br /><br />Here are these joining stitches on the interior, the points of which can just barely be seen.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9XNOwQXPQ5U9cV4yD9xIJSPktxsBIz7UUmO9R0Biu2GFGeLlVXAwlEdyHaHLc8JeWSVx0Nj88qc6s5wlIUcRWz7AD9BxifTeHG3_8SY7E8FD4rBRhuXLKfVEfHiTFEoIdU9I1Jw/s1600-h/IMG_0475.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 267px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9XNOwQXPQ5U9cV4yD9xIJSPktxsBIz7UUmO9R0Biu2GFGeLlVXAwlEdyHaHLc8JeWSVx0Nj88qc6s5wlIUcRWz7AD9BxifTeHG3_8SY7E8FD4rBRhuXLKfVEfHiTFEoIdU9I1Jw/s400/IMG_0475.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5289436056809894642" /></a><br /><br />While rolling the scroll, the entirety of the running stitch exposes itself.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYBzV1MRuEdOn2KV51vFBe4AP6I6eLN2_HPTVe7ahP90PLe49ZBTGmLWtIOOxSxARjb0-vbjfw2OfF3N_xe8yMLSm-ldMdhAcbIq3mXErGuIVr9w-c-JhL5fPOpjMoOLiyoRTZLA/s1600-h/IMG_0501.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 267px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYBzV1MRuEdOn2KV51vFBe4AP6I6eLN2_HPTVe7ahP90PLe49ZBTGmLWtIOOxSxARjb0-vbjfw2OfF3N_xe8yMLSm-ldMdhAcbIq3mXErGuIVr9w-c-JhL5fPOpjMoOLiyoRTZLA/s400/IMG_0501.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5289436906654544882" /></a><br /><br /><strong>Parchment Patches:</strong><br /><br />In these next few pictures you can see what small tears and repairs look like. They usually take their shape from having been small slices in stretched skin - leaving an ovoid shape when relaxed. These would then be patched with small pieces while the skin was still moist and naturally adhesive.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjLat5DALdSg0tUaZ7RVTOQX500roAdeCX-8QD29ptSGiFx18pAssVGrdsdDITqtU8ZVzobaPsjQVHd6Uaf9nKLRT0_rGGIgIkdHxhwnoFCw-pHvCOLVpfCksjaf0sDaxx-PoiWA/s1600-h/IMG_0497.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjLat5DALdSg0tUaZ7RVTOQX500roAdeCX-8QD29ptSGiFx18pAssVGrdsdDITqtU8ZVzobaPsjQVHd6Uaf9nKLRT0_rGGIgIkdHxhwnoFCw-pHvCOLVpfCksjaf0sDaxx-PoiWA/s400/IMG_0497.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5289440288090593986" /></a><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKAzp6DUezSkBYnQT8ytuWENXVpIP-TafAL9jFEYW66_h0iKi1uBao7yleOUIgW8q_HQEokg2YO12dtmGnzYfjWqF7650gDZrl0p3h1mJ1xGqPyViiHnemr3htJKwI3nrHMFsIoQ/s1600-h/IMG_0499.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKAzp6DUezSkBYnQT8ytuWENXVpIP-TafAL9jFEYW66_h0iKi1uBao7yleOUIgW8q_HQEokg2YO12dtmGnzYfjWqF7650gDZrl0p3h1mJ1xGqPyViiHnemr3htJKwI3nrHMFsIoQ/s400/IMG_0499.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5289441529731203922" /></a><br /><br /><strong>Ruling</strong>:<br /><br />Here is a chance to see both the ruling that takes place before any inscription begins, as well as the large degree of variance that would characterize the exterior layer of these parchment sections. The ruling would have been pretty painstaking, but is the only way to maintain the high degree of regularity you see in this beautiful script (characteristic of the provenance of this scroll, the scribal hand here is lovely). The variance you see in the exterior is much greater than that of the interior, which is prepared more carefully and evenly:<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBR3awND8j1cc75MnrfgnC6c3cf6P04AxD_yW4yM5x_4E0DBhSYNEacohYebEeqV2yXwwoSKJezoi5DP0qNi5we6drDfEcHSLrg8JWSk1tU5Vehz2cjXYYJoXi7SkdbLUmtnw4RQ/s1600-h/IMG_0493.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBR3awND8j1cc75MnrfgnC6c3cf6P04AxD_yW4yM5x_4E0DBhSYNEacohYebEeqV2yXwwoSKJezoi5DP0qNi5we6drDfEcHSLrg8JWSk1tU5Vehz2cjXYYJoXi7SkdbLUmtnw4RQ/s400/IMG_0493.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5289439818851112706" /></a><br /> <br />So there is a quick tour of this simple, yet effective, device known as the scroll. Its preperation in the 1700s would not have been significantly different than its construction in the first few centuries of parchment use. Is this type of running stitch the oldest successful book stitch in the history of books? Probably.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461361.post-29851692017357955132009-01-08T09:02:00.000-08:002009-01-08T09:31:37.918-08:00Cologne Mani-CodexThe <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cologne_Mani-Codex">Codex Manichaicus Coloniensis</a> has made an appearance in blogdom today because April DeConick found it in its high-res glory (<a href="http://www.uni-koeln.de/phil-fak/ifa/NRWakademie/papyrologie/Manikodex/bildermani.html">Der Mani-Kodex</a>) at the website for the Cologne Papyri collection, which has provided quality images of its catalog items for some time now. The codex is interesting for a few reasons. What is left of it has provided a great deal of previously unknown information (firm dates and background info) about the founder of Manicheism. But it is also very tiny, only about 38 x 48 mm. As you can tell from the photos, its 96 parchment leaves are of a high quality, which permitted the clarity of its tiny and exacting script. Scattered throughout are remnants of thread, a lot of stitching stations, and curiously graphical marginal notations. Due to its size and presentation, many take it as an <a href="http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/psco/year25/8803c.shtml">amulet</a>, but I agree with <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=tdJF1xVewuQC&pg=PA175&lpg=PA175&dq=mani+codex+amulet&source=bl&ots=AFfOlHDd7J&sig=S969dVT5UPiQ3Kj1wlkxxqhJPFM&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=8&ct=result">Lee</a> that the incredible amount of scribal artistry involved with such miniatures suggests alternative uses. I am inclined to think that the size of CMC is a radical example of the use of codices as a far more convenient and transportable format over the scroll. "Amulet" as a designation gets tossed around very quickly when dealing with artifacts of this size - it may be that these kinds of books were to their larger ancestors what a Kindle download of <em>Infinite Jest</em> would be to its massive counterpart.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461361.post-5269402057484028912009-01-07T08:00:00.000-08:002009-01-08T09:01:32.116-08:00New Series on "Bible in Technology": Learning and Teaching in a Post-PowerPoint Age.Excellent news via Mark Goodacre about a new series from <a href="http://www.gorgiaspress.com/bookshop/default.aspx">Gorgias Press</a> about the impact computer technology can (and could) have on biblical studies: <a href="http://ntgateway.com/weblog/2009/01/bible-in-technology-series-at-gorgias.html">Bible in Technology</a>:<br /><br /><em>"The Bible in Technology (BIT) is a series that explores the intersection between biblical studies and computer technology. It also includes studies that address the application of computer technology to cognate fields of ancient history. The series provides a forum for presenting and discussing advancements in this area, such as new software or techniques for analyzing biblical materials, online projects, and teaching resources. The series also seeks to reflect on the contribution and impact of computer technology on biblical research and teaching methods."</em> <br /><br />Besides the obvious impact these tools can have on scholarship, it is entirely possible that the current exploration of various <a href="http://ekthesis.blogspot.com/2006/05/day-conference-on-tc-and-na-text-3-of.html">database packages</a>, imaging programs, and <a href="http://ekthesis.blogspot.com/2008/11/speaking-of-virtual-geographies.html">online virtualization platforms</a> will change the appearance of biblical studies classrooms within the next generation of teaching. I can imagine walking students through Paul's missionary journeys via a set of Google Earth reconstructions of major Greco-Roman urban centers. Consider the ease with which students can be trained to deal with textual variants through the evolving online NA 28, and schooled in the basics of NT manuscript features with reference to commonly available hi-res images. Even just the potential similar software holds for rooting the student's first experience of NT theology and narration in physical materials is provocative. We are moving quickly beyond PowerPoint here. In terms of emerging forms of pedagogy, I look forward to the possiblity that this series may provide the practical tools for teachers eager to provide more immersive contexts for learning. <br /><br />And beyond this, the wikification of biblical studies in a plethora of blogs and twitters is but one facet of the changing face of the Bible in Technology. It is the increased functionality of text-critical databases that will move debate about text-types forward. We can't even quite predict what the increased focus on digital imaging (as at <a href="http://www.csntm.org/">CSNTM</a>) will produce, at least an increase in knowledge of both the breadth and depth of existing fragments and manuscripts. Every year I attend papers on ANE archeology more to see what impact tech is having on that guild than anything else, and one can see such innovation clearly in the first volume to be published by Gorgias Press on virtual Qumran. It is important to note that new technologies can affect academic scholarship in the same the way technology affects other disciplines or industries. The shift towards the internet as a news source, for example, has affected the very form of advertising and journalism. In the same way that the printing press affected literacy habits, so has digital publishing begin to create seismic shifts in the way we relate to texts. This is all entry-level McLuhan, but the effect of technology on the way we percieve antiquity and historiography has been tested more specifically by Walter Ong (<a href="http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=q6qIHSeGgGQC&dq=walter+ong&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=fHqjaia1W6&sig=biowXQeRR0IIgyCqrcolbM05OK4&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=3&ct=result">Orality and Literacy</a>) and <a href="http://fac-staff.seattleu.edu/staleyj/web/publications.html">Jeffrey Staley</a> (<em>The Print's First Kiss</em>). Beyond the ability of emerging technology to arrange and articulate large fields of data that NT scholars, textual critics, and papyrologists have been wrapping their heads around for centuries, software can actually create new disciplines of thought that otherwise could not exist. <br /><br />Consider, for example, a visual updating of Turner's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Eighteenth-publication-Foundation-University-Pennsylvania/dp/0812276965/ref=sr_11_1/189-4588671-9096448?ie=UTF8&qid=1231347010&sr=11-1"><em>Typology of the Codex</em></a>, which would lay out the same data (including minor modifications and updates) with hypertexted reference to each manuscript and feature listed. Such a tool would provide the codicological database that doesn't currently exist, but it would also enable us to further root our understanding of the scribal process in more clarified historical forms. It would enable us to think of this newly accessible record as a searchable collection of artifacts rather than a set of figures which could only previously be "seen" through charts and graphs. The odd effect of a continued use of technology may not be the disembodiment of New Testament history through the same virtualizing processes that have characterized effects of the internet in other industries, but the evocation of an historical realism that has otherwise been inacessible to the casual student.<br /><br />So, other than the possibility that this series may eventually alight on the topic of what current tech can reveal about books and literacy in the first and second century (as if there were anyone that could speak to this specific topic), it will be well worth keeping tabs on it for two reasons:<br /><br />1. It may provide the post-PowerPoint practical tools that enable teachers to create more immersive learning contexts and student access points to all the fields of data that copy machines can't really provide.<br />2. It may not just track the ways in which technology is increasing the accuracy, adaptability, and searchability of current databases, but it may also chart the movement of scholarship towards schools of thought that can only be enacted within these emerging technologies themselves.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461361.post-5327066107736354112009-01-05T12:47:00.000-08:002009-01-08T09:01:54.004-08:00Nein to Umlauts. Long Live Distigmai!Breaking news is a common thing in textual criticism in terms of interesting fragments, variants, and digitized bits and bobs popping up on the blogosphere and discussion lists. But in a breathtaking blitz on the common use of "umlaut" to describe the pairs of dots in the margin of Codex Vaticanus, Philip Payne has officially declared* that they henceforth be called "distigmai" (pl) or "distigme" (sing) for the following reasons:<br /><br /><em>1. It will be readily recognized as a technical term with a specific<br />meaning, namely the presence of two (di) points (stigmata).<br />2. It has no other meaning that might distract from its use to<br />identify the locations of textual variants.<br />3. It is related to other expressions that described textual variants<br />in antiquity and is the most in keeping with the standard lexicon of<br />Greek paleography.<br />4. It is the expression most likely to gain universal acceptance.</em><br /><br />Thanks to this modification, we will also know what to call the marks discovered by James Snapp in <a href="http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/en/csg/0050/174/large">Codex Sangallensis 50</a> (a beautiful 9th century gospels codex, see the covers and pastedowns in the "binding" menu). It is generally accepted that they indicate textual variants in Vaticanus, but this is not indicative of their purpose in other contexts. This clarification is helpful, in that umlaut has always been a silly makeshift designation - I just tended to call them double stigmai when not in mixed company. See <a href="http://evangelicaltextualcriticism.blogspot.com/2009/01/old-has-gone-new-has-come-umlaut.html">Evangelical Textual Criticism</a> for the whole story behind this shift in terminology. I don't expect to hear about this on Paul Harvey anytime soon. <a href="http://www-user.uni-bremen.de/~wie/Vaticanus/umlauts.html">Willker has an excellent page</a> on these distigmai (which is just today outdated!), from which this image is shamefully stolen:<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT_DuBzEMq2fpiKPMAzXjiSKOf-CNaSfq-_WsKzpXRPZ3Z-8LX39bBzznP1z3OkfqkzxN9FqP11GjlqibJazrPD-FwIN0SbuZKc1Oa2O313Y-cKvJd_fCeDeXy7bJ5cfW9Zc_3AQ/s1600-h/umlaut3.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 397px; height: 132px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT_DuBzEMq2fpiKPMAzXjiSKOf-CNaSfq-_WsKzpXRPZ3Z-8LX39bBzznP1z3OkfqkzxN9FqP11GjlqibJazrPD-FwIN0SbuZKc1Oa2O313Y-cKvJd_fCeDeXy7bJ5cfW9Zc_3AQ/s400/umlaut3.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5287914432714739410" /></a><br /><br /><br />*Apparently this will be codified in the forthcoming: Philip B. Payne and Paul Canart. "Distigmai Matching the Original Ink of Codex Vaticanus: Do they Mark the Location of Textual Variants?" pages 191-213 in Patrick Andrist, ed., <em>Le manuscrit B de la Bible (Vaticanus gr. 1209): Introduction au fac-similé</em>, Actes du Colloque de Genève (11 juin 2001), contributions supplémentaires. Prahins, Switzerland: Éditions du Zèbre, 2009Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461361.post-41199973775464239962009-01-03T09:01:00.000-08:002009-01-04T14:17:50.161-08:00An Intermission - The Machines That Made UsBear with me during this time of re-designing the site (it is horrific at the moment). In the meantime, enjoy Stephen Fry's <em>The Machines that Made Us</em>, which is the best introduction to Gutenberg and bookbinding tech around:<br /><br /><object width="480" height="295"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/4Zqgs4iS76c&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/4Zqgs4iS76c&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="295"></embed></object><br /><br /><object width="480" height="295"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/7TxwWpLp0HY&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/7TxwWpLp0HY&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="295"></embed></object><br /><br /><object width="480" height="295"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/a-r906mG1s4&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/a-r906mG1s4&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="295"></embed></object><br /><br /><object width="480" height="295"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/-GDysLZ6Npo&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/-GDysLZ6Npo&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="295"></embed></object><br /><br /><object width="480" height="295"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/lLxK5y-aR1w&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/lLxK5y-aR1w&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="295"></embed></object><br /><br /><object width="480" height="295"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/084fECtwxOo&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/084fECtwxOo&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="295"></embed></object>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461361.post-84583825845666548932008-11-16T06:39:00.000-08:002009-01-04T14:16:14.990-08:00More Medieval Rebindings - Hebrew Manuscript Institute<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_i7bOjXGGMW4/SSA6LHxy5_I/AAAAAAAAApc/s3meBIHvDTw/s1600-h/innsbruck_wilten_premonstratens__DSC00480a.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_i7bOjXGGMW4/SSA6LHxy5_I/AAAAAAAAApc/s3meBIHvDTw/s400/innsbruck_wilten_premonstratens__DSC00480a.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5269275526764357618" /></a><br /><br />On the heels of a <a href="http://ekthesis.blogspot.com/2008/11/jewish-book-materials-at-modena.html">previous post</a>, Dr. Ezra Chwat passed along a photo from a Latin manuscript at an Innsbruck monastery (I am assuming the Wilton Basilica based on the file name). It is a rather pretty Latin text, you can see the column rules really well even from this picture (16th? 17th?). It has been rebound relatively recently in red cloth with some nice looking page repair. But whoever rebound it included the Hebrew folios that I am guessing lined the interior of the boards. You can see how intact and useful they are. In his email, Dr. Chwat made the point that if such folios had not been reclaimed and used as material in re-bindings, then they would have simply been read and handled until no longer viable and then buried according to custom. Such is the great blessing of bookbinding, which often recycles important literary artifacts simply because they were handy at the time. <br /><br />Thanks for the helpful photo!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461361.post-62524644916415411142008-11-13T07:29:00.000-08:002009-01-04T14:05:09.879-08:00Speaking of Virtual Geographies - Manufacturing RomeCrossley recently blogged about the interesting SBL section on <a href="http://earliestchristianhistory.blogspot.com/2008/11/sbl-reading-theory-and-bible-on-reading.html">"Reading, Theory and the Bible on Reading, Space and Imagined Geographies."</a> And then Google Earth announces the unveiling of a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/13/arts/design/13anci.html">GE reconstruction of ancient Rome</a>:<br /><br /><em>"Soaring above a virtual reconstruction of the Forum and the Palatine Hill or zooming into the Colosseum to get a lion’s-eye view of the stands, Google Earth’s 400 million users will be able to explore the ancient capital as easily “as any city can be explored today,” Michael T. Jones, chief technology officer of Google Earth, said Wednesday at a news conference at Rome’s city hall."</em><br /><br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_i7bOjXGGMW4/SRxPJPGhiqI/AAAAAAAAApU/l3GesNekeLc/s1600-h/googleslide6.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 135px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_i7bOjXGGMW4/SRxPJPGhiqI/AAAAAAAAApU/l3GesNekeLc/s400/googleslide6.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5268172684207950498" /></a><br /><br />Talk about your killer apps. Are they going to resurrect Jerusalem as well? Rebuild the temple? Answer some lingering questions about Galilean urban planning? Despite the potential this tech has for the classroom, what an invigorating collaboration between printed and digital scholarship. It is like a virtual incarnation of all the recent movements in New Testament Studies towards social-scientific reconstructions of early Mediterranean culture. Think of it as <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Manufacturing-Religion-Discourse-Politics-Nostalgia/dp/0195105036">Manufacturing Rome</a>.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461361.post-25482442819711912562008-11-05T15:58:00.000-08:002009-01-04T14:16:26.380-08:00Jewish Book Materials at ModenaSomething similar to the project at Perugia I recently blogged about is <a href="http://imhm.blogspot.com/2008/07/summary-of-hebrew-manuscript-findings.html">occurring at the Hebrew Manuscript Institute</a> with volumes from the Biblioteca Estense Universitaria in Modena. There are some extensive notes at the above link on the contents of these reclaimed folios, as well as a few descriptions of the actual bindings. I emailed Dr. Chwat for links to or attachments of some more helpful images, as it is still tough from the descriptions alone to determine how these folios were used in the rebinding of 16th century volumes. He responded with the link to the photo at the top of the <a href="http://jnul.huji.ac.il/imhm/index.html">IMHM</a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_i7bOjXGGMW4/SRI1NnjemUI/AAAAAAAAApM/-MeT9dC78nM/s1600-h/IMHM+Rebinds.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 396px; height: 268px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_i7bOjXGGMW4/SRI1NnjemUI/AAAAAAAAApM/-MeT9dC78nM/s400/IMHM+Rebinds.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5265329422421891394" /></a><br /><br />Though I would love a few dozen more, including shots of some heads and tails, corner folds, pastedowns, etc... this shot is actually pretty helpful. In Dr. Chwat's original blog post, he notes a few somewhat difficult to decipher things. If by "plates" he means "boards," the bindings are fairly regular in that they consist of three bifolia - two for each board (interior?), and one used as a cover material. In the photo you can see that at some point labels in Italian were pasted on each spine. The organic pastes undoubtedly used on these labels are easy to remove. Seeing this photos, I can understand the impulse some bookbinder had - that stack of fine Jewish vellum in the corner of the shop would make excellent cover material. He also notes that there has been some text transfer and imprinting due to the proximity of each folio to another. And then:<br /><br />"All but two (or possibly three) of the original Hebrew manuscripts are unique (that is- the sole remnant of this particular copy). This is highly unusual, as we are used to finding circulation of folios from particular manuscripts among many locations in Northern Italy and beyond."<br /><br />Which is pretty nifty for Hebrew scholars. Without more images, I can't think of much else to say about this fascinating collection from a binding standpoint.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461361.post-31344813991203994392008-10-30T10:33:00.000-07:002009-01-04T14:17:07.663-08:00How to Make a Torah ScrollAn odd resource for codicologists popped up a few years back when <a href="http://www.philobiblon.com/">Philobiblon</a> started a bookbinding journal called Bonefolder (which refers to one of the most basic bookbinding tools). Every now and then they publish an article that would be of interest to someone involved with the study of early Christian origins, such as an article on <a href="http://www.philobiblon.com/bonefolder/BonefolderVol3No1.pdf">The Preservation of Torah Scrolls</a> by Daniel Stuhlman. The big contribution of the article is a plea for more Jewish involvement with the preservation of Jewish book and scroll materials, as most conservation departments don't have someone on hand that is schooled ways to deal with artifacts that are still holy even if they are no longer useful. But leading up to this interesting point are some helpful descriptions of how parchment is made, and a survey of its most important preservation factors. At the very least, having some of this process in mind is helpful when <a href="http://www.csntm.org/Manuscripts/deHamel/GA_0311_recto.jpg">looking</a> at <a href="http://www.csntm.org/Manuscripts/deHamel/GA_0312_pageB_pageC.jpg">bits</a> of NT parchment fragments. (Those fragments are from <a href="http://www.csntm.org/Expedition/NTFragmentsInCambridgePhotographed.aspx">de Hamel's collection</a>, recently photographed.)<br /><br />The process of making parchment hasn't significantly changed since antiquity. There are references to the making of parchment in Pliny and Herodotus, and a slew of different words for the material, but by and large our knowledge of parchment preparation has been handed down to us through some Middle Age references and instructions that had been standardized centuries beforehand. Oddly enough, modern parchment preparation uses chemicals and enzymes that create weaker book materials.<br /><br />From the article: <br /><br /><em>"The source for the skin is from kosher animals slaughtered for meat. Animals may not be killed solely to use the hides. The finest leathers and parchment come from fetal calves. The next grade comes from young calves. Older animals have hides with stains from the environment that are a challenge to remove. After skinning the animal, the skin is soaked in water. Lime is used to help removed the hair. The skin can be made into either leather or parchment... In general, the younger the animal at time of slaughter the thinner the hide, the smaller surface area, the smoother and finer the grain structure, and the less likelihood of damage due to disease, injury, or insects."</em> <br /><br />There was allowance in Jewish law for scrolls to be written on leather, but leather scrolls of any length are far heavier and more cumbersome than the alternative, which is parchment. Parchment is made by soaking the skin in lime for weeks, which softens the epidermis in such a way that hair can then be easily removed. In the Middle Ages, lime was predominantly used for dehairing, but in antiquity fermented organic pastes were used. The Dead Sea Scrolls, for example, were prepared in a characteristically Jewish way that involved smearing the skins with rotten flour paste and stacking them up for a few days. The old Jewish process made very fine parchments, but as the heat and enzymes built up during this process can quickly destroy skin, they eventually began to use the less volatile lime. (Throughout history, urine has also been used as a dehairing catalyst, which is why curators will ask you not to touch parchment materials directly.) After this, remaining fat and tissue are scraped from the other side. The skin is then carefully stretched, which aligns the skin fibers into a consistent grain, and it is scraped again while drying. By now the skin is pure collagen, and these additional scrapings allow the tanner to determine the final thickness and quality of the parchment. There are many ways to polish stretched parchment. Pumice, or rolls of bread with bits of glass baked into them, make the skins smooth and receptive to ink. Lime, egg whites, and other materials made the skins whiter. This process produces a writing material that is very receptive to ink and other sorts of decoration. It is more durable than paper from the binder's perspective, and very pleasurable to work with as its stiffer properties make it easier to sew and arrange in complex ways. But long term, parchment is more susceptible to poor environmental conditions. It is easy to see this difference in the curling, discoloration, and chemical reactions to various inks that characterize early parchment fragments (see this excellent summary of <a href="http://www.kb.nl/cons/leather/chapter3-en.html">how leather and parchment decay</a>).<br /><br />In scholarship on fragments of biblical texts, parchment and vellum are sometimes used as interchangeable terms. Vellum is actually a subcategory of parchment made from the skin of calves, and graded by the age of the calf as noted above from the article. Technically, Hebrew scrolls are written on vellum, as parchment can be made from sheep, goats, horses, or cows. The Mishneh and Talmud call the vellum most scrolls were written on "gevil," which refers to the outer layer of a split-calf skin. (I am pretty sure the DSS were written on this layer of skin, which is a handy example from antiquity.)<br /><br />There is a nice short summary of this process as applied to the medieval codex <a href="http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/making/">here</a>. Either way, I think it is helpful to have these processes in mind when looking at fragments and folios. Not only does it help explain some of the physical anomalies that pop up every now and then in the form of bumps, splits, and holes - but it further helps to remind us that texts and textual variants aren't the only history told by manuscripts and codices.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461361.post-88682049473024772952008-10-29T10:17:00.000-07:002008-10-29T10:28:42.205-07:00An Update on This BlogI am finally finishing up a large writing commitment that has kept me from this blog. In the last year a massive backlog of coptic and assorted bookbinding related stuff has stacked up. I have a lot of info culled from a few weeks at the Oriental Studies Library in Cambridge. I have a large stack of Nag Hammadi and related images to wander through, as well as some work on a few neglected Robinson articles that he so kindly directed me towards. I still haven't gotten around to talking about some of the papers on miniature books/amulets from the last SBL. And of course with the explosion of post-copyright stuff on Google Books, a lot of volumes that previously could not be had through inter-library loan now can be had anywhere with a wireless signal. I look forward to exploring some classic and forgotten resources on the history of books, paper, and ancient libraries right here on this blog.<br /><br />Long story short, I look forward to getting back to this blog. And to great many who come here for the coptic bookbinding posts from a few years ago, there is more to come. I have been working on copying some extant coptic sewing and cover patterns, and will share images of that work here.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461361.post-23112410347952105332008-10-29T09:42:00.000-07:002008-11-16T07:28:52.856-08:00Jewish Book Materials at PerugiaA genizah is a room in a synagogue or cemetery that is used as a staging area for books and paper materials that need to be properly disposed. As no writing that contains the name of God can be destroyed, there is a set of rituals in place by which they can be buried in periodic cycles, often associated with various agricultural or religious blessings. Such writings would include anything from personal correspondence to scripture, and intact genizot offer a wide range of secular and religious materials in a variety of languages. The discovery of a genizah, such as the famous Cairo Genizah that contained almost 200,000 items waiting to be disposed, can open up worlds of linguistic and religious data that we have never been able to explore. In a digital age, it can be hard to comprehend how significant this Jewish practice has been for the study of history. But imagine if we lived in world in which no computers existed and then were to seal a reasonably sized library of our most treasured books and letters for archeologists to discover in 800 years. That approximates how important genizot can be. One man’s trash is another man's academic career.<br /><br />But apart from all the historical and linguistic data we pick up from these deposits, there is also a wealth of book data to be had. I used to spend hours in a university rare book collection I curated just randomly selecting volumes and studying spines, sewing patterns, corner folds, etc… What someone interested in bindings would see in a genizah is much different from what someone interested in the actual texts would see. There are extant bindings, stacks of text blocks with similar sewing patterns, ranks of covers in a variety of materials, pamphlets – a book construction bonanza. There is some serious book technology history that comes to light in these finds. <br /><br />In an exhibition of the wryly named <a href="http://documentiebraici.unipg.it/galleriaENG.php">Perugia Genizah</a> (a genizah-in-spirit collection in the Biblioteca del Dottorato at the University of Perugia), we get a glimpse into the history of the construction and use of the Hebrew scriptures during the transition from the hand-written to printed market. Hand-written books were so much more expensive than those mass printed by the growing publishing industry, the vellum of worn out hand-written books often ended up being reused in the bindings of new printed volumes. Indeed, a sizable number of pages from Hebrew manuscripts have been discovered as padding in the binding boards of Italian medieval codices, 24 of which have been "excavated" at Perugia. From the exhibition catalog summary: “Of the twenty-four printed books in question, twenty were rebound with complete double folios, and four detached from two single folios.” Intact double folios are a nice find. The exhibition website summarizes the origins of these folios as mostly 13th to 15th century copies of Hebrew scriptures and rabbinical writings in Hebrew and Aramaic, and a 13th century Spanish copy of the Babylonian Talmud. It is typically thought that the reason we have so many Jewish books ending up in the bindings of later volumes is that after being confiscated during the Inquisition, they ended up as refuse in bookbinding shops. For example, a papal bull in 1553 rounded up all copies of the Talmud in Rome to be burned on Rosh Hashanah of that year, and many pages of these costly vellum books were filched from these fires to be sold to bookbinders. The Talmud pages at Perugia probably come from such an occasion. As similar confiscations often occurred during the emergence of the printing press industry, a lot of these vellum materials ended up on European trade routes, eventually coming to rest in the covers and spines of random codices.<br /><br />So apart from the material historians can glean from these recovered texts what does the Perugia collection have to do with bookbinding? <br /><br />1. The exhibition is a good entry point into this history of rebinding. One can quickly see the rise and fall of cultures via the cycling of paper and parchment materials through later generations of bindings. Is the history of book technology a political history? It certainly is, and the failure to recognize this is in part what led to confusion about the use of codex in the first and second century. <br />2. There are some excellent photos from the conservation process as part of the exhibition. Even the non-specialist can see pretty clearly how these materials were re-used so many centuries ago and then recently reclaimed.<br />3. The story behind how these folios ended up in later codices sheds light on how book materials made their way around European and Mediterranean trade systems. It shouldn’t be a surprise to see materials with a Germanic provenance ending up in volumes bound in Italy. I think this ultimately calls for greater attention by scholars of Christian and Hebrew manuscripts to how basic medieval bookbinding processes relate to the texts that are discovered either intact or as disiecta membra. In this period, as exhibitions like this one at Perugia demonstrate, it is possible for one volume to represent a few generations of written materials.<br /><br />There are some similar projects ongoing in Europe that have released interesting bookbinding info, I will track some of it down.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461361.post-49449240195618453662007-02-07T02:33:00.000-08:002009-01-04T14:06:07.847-08:00The Binding of Codex SinaiticusAfter seeing Sinaiticus at the British Library this weekend, I immediately realized that Cockerell was not only responsible for its conservation, but had re-bound it in precisely the same way. Sewn on meeting guards to cords laced into English oak boards wrapped with pale alum-tawed pigskin. He even used the same "thorn" rolling stamp as was used on Bezae. <br /><br />But after digging a little deeper, I now wonder which Cockerell was responsible for the current binding of Sinaiticus. <a href="http://www.library.dal.ca/duasc/spcoll/cockerell.htm">Douglas Cockerell</a>, author of <em>Scribes and Correctors of Codex Sinaiticus</em>, is credited with the conservation of Sinaiticus in 1935. It is also recorded that his son, Sydney Cockerell, aided him in this restoration before taking over for his retiring father at the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London. And then, as I can only assume, Sydney Cockerell bound Codex Bezae precisely the same way almost 30 years later. (Anyone interested in the genealogy of English bookbinders, click <a href="http://palimpsest.stanford.edu/byorg/abbey/an/an14/an14-1/an14-111.html">here</a>.) Fortunately, I recently met someone who worked under Cockerell the Younger, perhaps he can solve this mystery. It is intriguing to think that Cockerell the Younger would have used the very same "thorn" rolling stamp on the binding of Sinaiticus that was used on Bezae. (Or else this wins as the most irrelevant detail in blogging on New Testament MSS for 2007.)<br /><br />On the history of the binding of Sinaiticus, there is this interesting tidbit from one of Skeat's last articles. The Cockerell he refers to here is Douglas Cockerell, citing the relevant section of <em>Scribes and Correctors</em>. The second binding of the manuscript, previous to Cockerell's, was done by monks at St. Catherine's zealously following Tischendorf's instructions to carefully preserve anything that looked like the 43 leaves he was permitted to take with him: <br /><br />"The monks got as far as sewing the leaves into quires, and then sewing the quires together. They then attached to the back two broad bands which were evidently intended to be attached to the binding boards. By this stage, however, the volume had become very out of shape. As Cockerell describes it, 'While the fore-edge is roughly square, the spine is badly out of shape. When the spine is straightened up, as in the new binding, the fore-edge becomes irregular. It is quite possible that this later binding was never actually completed. The sewing threads were deliberately cut from the bands, perhaps with a view to a fresh start.' However, by this time the monks seemed to have realised that their primary objective, of securing the leaves against future loss, had been obtained, and they took no further action."<br /><br />(T.C. Skeat "The Last Chapter in the History of Codex Sinaiticus" NT 42.4 (2000): 314)Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461361.post-47631525414223306112007-02-05T05:11:00.000-08:002009-01-04T14:07:18.716-08:00The Binding of Codex Bezae“It is indeed defective and not copied correctly enough right from the beginning, nor is it in good enough condition as it should be, as may be seen from several parts in a different hand which have been inserted, and the barbarous notes of some ignorant old Greek monk added everywhere.”<br /><br />- T. Bezae (in a letter to Cambridge University Library about the codex).<br /><br />I was recently afforded a day of consultation with Codex Bezae at the Cambridge University Library. The Manuscripts Room of this library is one of the friendliest and most accommodating I have yet encountered. Much of my understanding of the most recent re-binding of Bezae is indebted to the head of the conservation department there who walked me through its construction and compared it to more recent binding procedures that are distinctly different. <br /><br /><strong>The Current Binding.</strong><br /><br />Part of the catalog item is a two page typewritten treatment report by Stan Cockerell, who rebound Bezae in the 60’s. The treatment report chronicles the status of the manuscript at that time and its conservation process. Cockerell removed the codex from its 19th century binding and found that most of the outside fold of each folio had been severely damaged, as well as many of the interior folio leaves. Additional to this were seven saw cuts in the spine done at the time of its 19th century rebind. Such damage is consistent with a rebind in which the spine has been scraped of any original glue, and then each signature (gathering, quire) is re-sewn at five original points along with two rows of kettle stitching on the top and bottom of the spine. The conservation treatment here was similar to that of Siniaticus in that every leaf was flattened on clips. But unlike Siniaticus, “the number of repairs runs into several thousand.” Page tears and splits were either sewn or repaired with PVA adhesive along with a few different types of toned vellum and paper. Damaged folio backs were guarded with linen. (Bezae is a rather damaged text, lots of corrosive ink, ox gall stains, and tearing.) After all of these repairs were completed, the repaired signatures were sewn to vellum meeting guards with linen thread spaced every ½ inch. A meeting guard is simply a folded piece of material onto which a signature is sewn, they “meet” each other along their respective folded edges: m.g. > < sig. These meeting guards are then bound just like signatures along the spine, in this case on five large cords. The volumes were split at folios 175 and 176 to match the facsimile edition, and then laced onto English oak boards wrapped to about four inches or so in a pale alum-tawed pigskin. Cockerell said he wanted the codices to have a “mellow” feel.<br /><br />These days the binding process would have been different in that rather than a flat-back binding with meeting guards, the entire codex would have been reconstructed and guarded folio by folio, re-sewn, and then bound on a hollow-back binding. Both are secure, lay flat, virtually adhesive free bindings. But the latter method tends to preserve the original codex construction and provide better visual access to the spine.<br /><br /><strong>The Original Binding.</strong><br /><br />My mission in this consultation was to use Bezae as a test case to see if it were possible to find traces of the original binding structure of the earliest major rebound biblical codices. I was looking for hints of its original structure that had survived at least two re-bindings, one far more professional than its predecessor. These would be any of the following: Original alpha-numerical binding aids along the tailpiece of the codex on each signature that would have helped in the original binding process. Any tooling marks or signs of extant original adhesive. Folios on which it was possible to see a definitive and consistent sewing pattern that would most probably have been original.<br /><br />1. Unfortunately, I didn’t find too much. In his monograph on Bezae, Parker enumerates 18 or 19 different hands in the manuscript, one of which is responsible for the Greek alpha-numeric numbering of each signature on the lower inner margin of the last page of each. Additional to this are three different sets of numbering and markings from binders or curators of the manuscript. One of these is in ink Roman numerals at the top fore-edge of each verso and recto. The other two are sets of ordinal numerals written in pencil and ink. I couldn’t find any catalog data on the codex that would link any of these much later hands to a particular time other than a possible match between the hand on one of the sets of folio numbering and a few sentences self-dated to 1898 on a set of folio maps in the box of scraps and whatnots that are part of the Bezae catalog item (see below). Such data would be somewhat irrelevant, however, the original folio numbering is consistent with Roman practice, albeit in Greek script (as they fall on the Greek side of the manuscript).<br /><br />2. As far as tooling marks are concerned, Bezae is a very distinct example of the ruling of text-blocks. All the original adhesive had been removed excepting the possibility that one of the vellum scraps in an envelop with the codex had some adhesive (definitely not from Cockerell’s binding) that could either be from its 19th century or original binding. Other than that, the current codex has been so drastically cleaned and guarded that it would be difficult to find any tooling marks on the spine or endsheets. <br /><br />3. Due to the binding previous to Cockerell’s, the sewing pattern is completely indeterminate. I got as close as Cockerell, who surmised that the original codex was bound on five cords, probably proportionally spaced as they are now (as the original codex was a bit larger than it currently is). And such a sewing pattern would be consistent with early European binding. The saw cuts on each folio have left a set of elongated holes that obscure any original manufactural marks.<br /><br />As a result, there isn’t too much that one can say about the binding of Bezae. This consultation did, however, sharpen my attention to details that could be indication of original binding structure should all the right circumstances be in place. If Bezae had been rebound according to contemporary re-binding procedures, and had not been mangled by a 19th century binder, then it would be possible to surmise how the original codex had been constructed. Even if each signature had been fairly badly damaged, it would really only take three or four solid leads to detail its original sewing pattern with some certainty. Furthermore, extant endsheets and spine lining material would only enhance such conjecture, giving us further clues as to their method of attachment to actual covers. Bezae does not afford such data, but others may.<br /><br /><strong>The “Bezae Box.”</strong><br /><br />There was a box of material that can be seen along with Bezae. Its contents are as following:<br /><br />1. A few exhibition labels, on one of which E.A. Lowe is cited as sourcing the codex in “a near-East centre” (Egypt or Palestine) in the early fifth-century. A different label claims “Sicily” as its provenance.<br />2. Cockerell’s treatment reports along with a remarkable set of photos of the manuscript in various states of repair. A few of these were published in Parker’s monograph.<br />3. Two envelops of vellum scraps presumably leftover from the re-binding.<br />4. The Corpus Christianorum edition of the Vulgate text of the supplemental pages of Bezae by J. Mizzi.<br />5. Several sets of folio maps (a handwritten diagram of each folio) that had been checked and signed by four different librarians (1898, 1949, 1952, 1962) claiming “all here.”<br />6. Blank reconstructions of each folio, probably for re-binding practice.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461361.post-70830483408284188472007-01-31T12:30:00.000-08:002007-01-31T13:11:07.856-08:00Winchester GospelsI can't seem to find much background on this 11th century gospel codex (The Winchester Gospels) on display in the Wren Library at Trinity College, but it is very well preserved right next to a 9th century copy of Paul's epistles and directly across from one of Wittgenstein's actual notebooks and the first, handwritten copy of Milne's Winnie the Pooh:<br /><br /><a href="http://mikeandshayna.smugmug.com/photos/126716469-M.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px;" src="http://mikeandshayna.smugmug.com/photos/126716469-M.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br />verso:<br /><a href="http://mikeandshayna.smugmug.com/photos/126716891-M.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px;" src="http://mikeandshayna.smugmug.com/photos/126716891-M.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br />recto:<br /><a href="http://mikeandshayna.smugmug.com/photos/126716523-M.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px;" src="http://mikeandshayna.smugmug.com/photos/126716523-M.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br />Also next to it in the case is this lovely gem from a manuscript of the writings of St. Jerome. I have forgotton the date, but 10-11th? Regardless, this man teaching a bear to speak is a memorable image of medieval literacy. Though it is far later than St. Jerome, it jogged my memory as to his peculiar desire to make texts more readily understandable and readable through colemetric arrangement ("<em>Per cola et commata</em>," in basic stichometric sense-units rather than scripta continua). There is an interesting brief discussion of this as it relates to NT textual criticism a few pages into an old Kirsopp and Lake article on the text of Acts. (Kirsopp and Silva Lake, "The Acts of the Apostles" <em>JBL</em> 53/1 (1934): 34-45.)<br /><br /><a href="http://mikeandshayna.smugmug.com/photos/126716486-M.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px;" src="http://mikeandshayna.smugmug.com/photos/126716486-M.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461361.post-35331175145869937712007-01-17T03:32:00.000-08:002009-01-08T10:38:02.510-08:00Rebinding Codex Claromontanus<a href="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/138/359900032_b457b3d288.jpg?v=0"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/138/359900032_b457b3d288.jpg?v=0" border="0" /></a><br />While at Tyndale House I have been given the opportunity to do some repair work in the library. Fortunately, Tyndale House is one of the most well preserved libraries I have seen, mostly due to the fact that none of these books circulate. But I have been able to pluck a number of needy volumes from the shelves and give them what attention I can with so few materials and tools on hand. The above cover and spine is from F.F. Bruce's copy of Codex Claromontanus. As is characteristic of German books from this period, the text-block itself is in excellent condition. But the covers and spine were completely removed from the text.<br /><br />Ordinarily, I would have recased the entire book, giving it a new cover, spine, and endsheets. But as I don't have any presses or cover material here, I opted to rebuild the book from the inside out. This above picture is of the spine interior. Note the spine card material, which was just some scrap pulp-based paper that had been lying around the bindery in 1852 (when the book was published). The first step here was to seperate the covers from the spine, leaving as much original material intact as possible. I left the spine itself attached to one of the boards, as this gutter had not completely disintegrated through use. I then scraped all the old padding from the spine while being careful not to damage the first few layers of each signature.<br /><br /><a href="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/151/359900037_b1c6c70950.jpg?v=0"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/151/359900037_b1c6c70950.jpg?v=0" border="0" /></a><br /><br />The second step was to retrace the steps of the original binding, and create enough space to reproduce it with new materials. This book was very sturdily bound on five flax threads that were then laced into the boards. You can see the remnant of one of these threads in the above photo. (Click for more detail.) My plan was to adhere a piece of mull to the spine with overlaps that would correspond to the distance I peeled back the covers on each board. This would replicate the threads that had originally been holding the covers on the book, but much more permanently.<br /><br /><a href="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/150/360428981_36998fb881.jpg?v=0"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/150/360428981_36998fb881.jpg?v=0" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Step three was the process of reattaching the covers to the book. I simply glued the one and a half inch flap of mull to the back edge of each board, and then glued the flap of cover material I had peeled back over this strip of mull. In the above picture, you can see this finished step on the first cover. The spine is rebuilt, and the mull flows neatly onto the back edge of the cover board.<br /><br /><a href="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/157/360429073_fc6a141558.jpg?v=0"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/157/360429073_fc6a141558.jpg?v=0" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Here the other cover is attached the same way. This was much trickier, as the spine material was still attached to this board. The final steps will involve affixing the left edge of the spine to the left cover, adding some archival grade paper to the end-sheet gutter margins, and then putting the book back on the shelf. I apologize for this contemporary diversion from the concerns of ancient books, but the methods you see here aren't that different than the sorts of repair that would have occured from the earliest days of the book.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461361.post-76741603308692281132007-01-15T04:18:00.000-08:002009-01-13T08:45:30.834-08:00Coptic Bookbinding - Between Book Historians and Biblical Studies<strong>Images of Coptic Bookbinding</strong><br /><br />Contemporary bookbinders often refer to any non-adhesive bookbinding in which unsupported stitching across the signatures is laced directly into the covers as a "Coptic Binding." ("Unsupported" simply means that the thread passes through each signature and is linked to the identical stitch on the previous signature, rather than being sewn over a cord or a thong. See below for images.) There are a number of tutorials on the web that demonstrate this technique, which can become complicated when sewing on more than three tapes or cords, with more than one needle, or with actual ancient materials (sewing up papyrus is far more difficult than sewing on modern paper). <a href="http://www.doe.state.in.us/olr/grantprojects/books/Coptic%20Book.htm">This</a> is a good basic tutorial on the sewing method, but <a href="http://meisterin.katarina.home.comcast.net/coptic_book.html">this</a> tutorial takes one much closer the sorts of limp bindings we often see in Nag Hammadi and similar finds.<br /><br />Many images of contemporary "Coptic" binding can be found online, but one of the more interesting collections of such bindings can be seen in the <a href="http://libweb5.princeton.edu/visual_materials/hb/index.html">Special Collections</a> section of the Princeton University Library website. Though most of these images are of relatively late books, the section on <a href="http://libweb5.princeton.edu/visual_materials/hb/cases/earlycodex/index.html">Early Codex and Coptic Sewing</a> and <a href="http://libweb5.princeton.edu/visual_materials/hb/cases/earlysewing/index.html">Early European Sewing and Board Attachment</a> are illustrative of the influence the earliest Coptic bindings had on book technology far into the modern era. The techniques in the "Early European Sewing" section are what characterize "modern" hand-bookbinding, the key difference from their Coptic predecessor being that European bindings introduced a cord or tape onto which each signature was sewn. (If you click on each image, it will take you to an enlarged version with an extremely handy magnifying tool. If only all papyrology sites had the same coding!) You can clearly see the differences in stitching <a href="http://libweb5.princeton.edu/visual_materials/hb/cases/earlycodex/2.magnifier.html">between this 17th century Ethiopic text</a> (though it is late, it is a very clear example of the Coptic stitch) and <a href="http://libweb5.princeton.edu/visual_materials/hb/cases/earlysewing/1.magnifier.html">this 15th century English text</a>. The former "Coptic" stitch would be expected in very early Christian manuscripts, and through a scrutiny of these images one can imaginatively retrace the steps of some of our earliest Christian artifacts.<br /><br /><strong>Articles on Coptic Bookbinding</strong><br /><br />Such materials provide an interesting means of reflection on early Christian manuscripts that runs parallel to, and often complete independent of, the related discussion in Biblical Studies. But additional to archives of images, there are also a number of articles on these trajectories in the technology of books written by historians and practioners of book-bindings that highlight an interest direction of scholarship that Biblical manuscript studies has rarely addressed. A report from a 2003 Guild of Bookworkers seminar summarizes a paper given by Dr. John Sharpe on the <a href="http://palimpsest.stanford.edu/byorg/gbw/chapters/newengland/html/early_codex.shtml">History of the Early Codex</a>. This sort of research provides some material depth to a number of questions that have puzzled papryologists and historians of early Christian literature for quite some time:<br /><br /><em>"The model for the early codex was a wooden tablet. Single-quire text blocks of papyrus bound in simple leather covers with a fore edge flap and a strap for fastening resemble the proportions and shape of many wooden tablets that survived as archeological evidence of the Early Christian Era. The further development of the book structure resulted in the necessity of multi-quire text blocks. Papyrus failed when used for the multi-section structures. Parchment became the material of choice... Covers of wooden boards and leather spines were made separately and attached as “case bindings”. Best examples of early Coptic bindings are books from the Nag Hammadi find (1945, Egypt). A similar single-quire Coptic codex is the Berlin 8502. Leather on its cover is similar to the one used in the Dead Sea Scrolls. It neither resembles tanned leather, nor does it resemble parchment or alum tawed skin. Single-quire text block was not the only codex form during the third and fourth centuries AD. Out of surviving codices from before 400 AD the majority is of the multi-quire type. Early bindings were quite elaborate. They used fringed leather strips that were laced through numerous holes in the board and used as wrapping pieces finished with bone pegs as fasteners. Those early multi-quire text blocks were sewn link stitch and bound in wooden boards with leather spine structures that were assembled separately from the text block and attached in a manner of case bindings. Bindings found under the ruins of the Monastery of Apa Jeremiah near Saqqara (1920) were dismantled and partially described by Lamacraft in 1939."</em><br /><br />The lack of any consistent method in our earliest extant Coptic bindings suggests that this was still a period of experimentation with this format that expresses itself in the use of different stitching patterns and finishes. It was only with the eventual hegemony of parchment that any sort of standardization set in, as it made the fairly regular stitching of multi-quire text blocks possible. I always assumed on the basis of my very limited first hand knowledge of early Christian papyri that our earliest bindings were "case-bindings," which simply means that the top and bottom leaf of the text block were attached directly to the interior of a leather or stiff paper cover. Sharpe's undocumented point here both confirms my suspicion and raises the question of how related contemporary "Coptic bookinding" really is to its ancestor. Many contemporay definitions of Coptic bookbinding will tell you that the stitching is to be laced directly into the cover (as in the Ethiopic cover above), whereas many early Coptic bindings actually skipped this step and just had the covers glued directly to the endsheets of a textblock. I have always assumed that this latter method would have been the original method practiced by early Christians as it is the least technical and least time consuming process. <br /><br />Another interesting article from the Book and Paper Group Annual covers the <a href="http://aic.stanford.edu/sg/bpg/annual/v17/bp17-10.html">Adoption of the Codex</a>. Here the "African" model of the early codex is described:<br /><br /><em>"The model takes two construction types with regard to assembly. The first type is a single quire papyrus codex which can be compared with the single quire parchment notebook from Roman examples. The single quire papyrus codex is associated with a portfolio or wallet like cover made of leather. The text was restitched directly though the cover with interior leather stays positioned in the inner fold to cushion the papyrus from the cinch of the sewing. The cover was frequently reinforced inside with a cartonnage of papyrus. Then, with its protective cover flaps closed and tied with thong, the text was well protected for travel.<br /><br />The second type was used for binding multiple quires. Each quire was stitched from quire to quire forming chains of stitches across the back of the text. A stitch passing through the inner fold of the gathering would pass to the outer fold connecting the separate folios together. The stitch would then drop down to pick up a previous exterior stitch and climb to enter the next gathering. Quire by quire the book would be constructed. Cover boards, of wood or skin, were also sewn to the text. This "sewn board" book would then be covered with pasted leather and perhaps provided with a second, outer leather case for travel. The result was a secure text block with a docile, flat opening provided by the pliant stitch chains. For the following discussion the African bookbinding model combines together the single and multiple quire type. This obscures the possibility that the sewn single gathering codex may be more associated with the genre of letters folded for travel. The sewn multiple gathering would then be used to accommodate assemblies of letters or larger compilations or, eventually whole Gospels."</em><br /><br />He next makes a number of interesting points made about the possible technological backgrounds to the codex. While I haven't ever encountered these in Biblical Studies oriented literature on early Christian manuscripts, such points are frequent in literature on this period by historians of bookbinding. Among many others, these two paragraphs are especially intriguing:<br /><br /><em>The resources of many crafts must have been assimilated into early codex bookbinding. The most apparent parallel to the sewn boards binding technique is found in boat building of antiquity where the shell-first construction method created a hull from sewn boards. The V tunnel lacings connecting the planks and seam battens evoke the whole range of early wooden board book cover attachments. A boat craft connection is also suggested by the role of sea faring trade in materials such as papyrus and by the role of Mediterranean seaports in the production and distribution of manuscripts. Crafts of sewing leather tents and containers would also be relevant. The fourth century Gnostic texts found at Nag Hammadi were generally stitched with leather thongs into leather portfolios. <br /><br />From the perspective of technology, many comparisons of the scroll and codex format focus on text management features of the two formats. However, during this early period all books, both scroll and codex, lacked text management devises such as word spacing, pagination or punctuation. Only the punctuation of the codex page itself could have played a part in the first century selection of the format. The influence of page format on illustration, as opposed to text, would recommend the codex since iconography could be set off into distinct fields. The African model is relevant here since the tradition of illuminating Christian books was advanced, not by Greek convention, but by the heritage of Coptic art. In pharonic times prayers and liturgies were illustrated with figures of deities and protective symbols in bright colors with boarder designs at the top and bottom. The texts were traced in black outline with catchwords written in red.</em><br /><br />The connection here between bookbinding and shipbuilding is as intriguing as it is provisional. At the very least, it points out that we can't simply think of the origin of the codex as something that began in a material void, linked only to early Christian theological or missiological particularities. In the course of bookbinding, I often turn to the construction and engineering of other things when I am stumped on a particular sewing or restoration problem. Likewise, early Christians must have sought better ways to put together books, publish their literature, and circulate these documents about the Roman empire. And they most probably turned to other trades and crafts for material solutions to problems in these processes. As the above article points out, this may not just be the case with the codex format, but also with questions regarding ideal page size, ideal text placement and size, and the best means of illumination and punctuation. In this way, the mystery of the origin of the codex is not simply theoretical or social in scope, but is technological and historical.<br /><br /><strong>Coptic Bookbinding and Early Christian Origins</strong><br /><br />Reading an article about early Christian manuscripts by someone from beyond the guild of papyrology and early Christian studies is like having someone else tell you that your shirt is untucked in the back or you have toothpaste on your lip. From the perspective of book technology there are a number of unnoticed connections, unutilized points of access, and simply unknown practical contexts to early Christian fragments that characterize the practice of NT textual criticism. While the historical particularities of this last article could certainly be debated and more sharply defined, it helpfully demonstrates the point I have made consistently elsewhere that there is a lot of space in the material date to begin talking about early Christians as book-binders rather than just book-readers or book-users. There may be enough data out there from early Christian manuscript holdings to enact a convergence between all this data and scholarship from historians of book-binders and the discussion of textual criticism and early Christian origins currently taking place in Biblical Studies.<br /><br />Update (1/09): Please click the "Coptic Bindings" for additional posts on this subject.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com52tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461361.post-1167921535002522292007-01-04T06:16:00.000-08:002007-01-19T06:07:53.406-08:00The Bog PsalterExcellent news today on the 8th century illumintated Book of Psalms recently found in a Tipperary bog. <a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,13509-2526932,00.html">The Times</a> reports that the book "is still in its original binding." As this book is probably a contemporary to the Book of Kells, which hasn't had its original covers for a long time, this 8th century bookbinding artifact is all the more exciting.<br /><br />The provenance of the Book of Kells is murky, but we know it was in Kells by the 11th century because we have records of its being stolen from there during that period. Fortunately for us, said robbers then tore the text-block from its richly gilded and jewelled cover and ditched the actual pages, which were quickly recovered. They must not have been big readers. Ever since then it has been rebound several times, most of these far less than professional. In one notorious case some illustration was actually cropped from a few pages. In 1953, it was very finely rebound in four volumes of pigskin by Sir Robert Powell (who I have learned is the only person to be knighted for bookbinding). So while the actual pages of the Book of Kells may be in better condition than the Bog Psalter, the extant original binding of the latter makes it nearly as priceless. <br /><br />I can't tell though from one of the last paragraphs in the article whether the binding or the text is of "a very high standard."Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461361.post-1167911322647624482007-01-04T02:45:00.000-08:002009-01-04T14:08:44.147-08:00Coptic Book Covers at Al-GournaAll the way back in February 2005, <a href="http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/730/he1.htm">Al-Ahram announced</a> the discovery of two Coptic payprus codices, one "set of parchments between two wooden labels," and an assortment of ostraca beneath a sixth-century monastery in Al-Gourna near Luxor.<br /><br />They described the contents as following: "The first book has a hard plain cover embellished with Roman text from the inside while the second includes no less than 50 papers coated with a partly deteriorated leather cover bearing geometrical drawings. In the middle, a squared cross 32cm long and 26cm wide is found. As for the set of parchments, Gorecki said it included 60 papers with a damaged leather cover and an embellished wooden locker." (<a href="http://www.egypttoday.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=4479">Egypt Today</a> also picked up the story, explaining that "Theologists cannot wait for the restoration processes to begin..." I know, it is a bit rude to poke fun of foreign news agencies helpful enough to publish info in English. But I can't help but ask: Are there any theologists out there standing by for these results?)<br /><br /><a href="http://en.naukawpolsce.pl/naukaen/index.jsp?place=Lead07&news_cat_id=91&news_id=4545&layout=0&page=text">Science and Scholarship in Poland</a> later described the actual contents of these manuscripts: 1. "One of the books" is the only complete text of the "Canons of Pseudo-Basil" in Coptic, which previously has only been extant in Arabic. 2. "The other" contains the "Life of St. Pistentios." 3. The stack of "richly decorated" parchment turned out to be the only complete translation of Isaiah in Coptic. In the bindings of the two codices were found scraps of "The Suffering of St. Peter," "another religious text," and some tax receipts. Someone has dated the Isaiah manuscript to 9/10th century, the two codices to 7/8th.<br /><br />(Roger Pearse also has a comprehensive <a href="http://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/manuscripts/coptic_codex.htm">page</a> on the find that I will be checking for updates periodically.)<br /><br />Other descriptions of the find have either been too hard to track down, or they don't exist. So far many descriptions of the covers, bindings, and manuscripts are a bit ambiguous, but they sound like remarkable witnesses to Coptic bookbinding, especially in light of their decorative nature. Typically, if a spine and covers are intact enough that their padding and stiffening materials (such as the apocryphal materials recovered from these codices) are both sizable and legible, then that is a good indication that a decent technical description of the binding process can be made. To be fair, I can only state this with certainty on the basis of images of Coptic bindings from which other legible papyrus or parchment manuscripts have been extracted. Unfortunately, I have no first-hand experience with seperating materials of this age from ancient Coptic bindings. (If anyone ever needs a hand in this capacity, let me know.) But I have lifted things like handwritten guard duty records on folded rag-based paper from the spines of Revolutionary War-era American bindings (if I recall correctly, it was a bound book by Thomas Paine). In such a modern context it is the case that the sizability and legibility of spine padding materials is directly related to the overall condition of the covers. I think it would be safe to say the same thing of books from the 7/8th century. All this is to say that even though reported descriptions of the covers claim they are deteriorated, the fact that legible manuscripts have been lifted from the bindings indicates that they may be fairly intact.<br /><br /><a href="http://mikeandshayna.smugmug.com/photos/120925695-L.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://mikeandshayna.smugmug.com/photos/120925695-L.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br />After requesting images and/or more detailed descriptions of the find, I just recieved an email response from the very helpful <a href="http://www.centrumarcheologii.uw.edu.pl/cas/index.php?p=30&sid=a3ce4bba81349c179c29f7ec213ef53e&PHPSESSID=a3ce4bba81349c179c29f7ec213ef53e">PCMA</a>, stating that "Tomasz Górecki, the head of the mission working at Sheikh Abd el-Gurna" will be in the field for a few more months. When he returns, I may be able to get some photographs and/or more detailed descriptions of these covers. If so, I will be more than happy to share them here.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461361.post-1164813191227416642006-11-29T06:55:00.000-08:002007-01-19T06:07:25.921-08:00Reflections on SBL - 20061. The highlight of the conference for me was finally being able to see the covers of Codex W first hand. There hasn't been much written on them since the 1930's, and it is now my mission in life to get access for a fuller autopsy. I don't want to make any premature pronouncements on the implications these covers hold for the study of early Christian book technology, but if manufactural markings on the spine of the (now loose) Codex W indicate that the covers were produced secondary to the text, then a number of interesting points could be made about how early Christian bookbinding affected the use and perception of the canonical gospels.<br /><br />I am crossing my fingers about that access, though, and may just have to proceed on the basis of my time with the covers during the exhibition and the somewhat unhelpful photographs we currently have. <br /><br />2. Lots of good papers in the Textual Criticism and Papyrology seminars. I was particular interested to hear response to Holger Strutwolf's paper (see my summary below from the NA/27 conference at New College). Lo and behold, he fared well in the face of Epp's just criticism that Strutwolf has appeared to have not actually said much about the textual tradition beyond Epp's original work on text types. As it turns out, Strutwolf's suggestion that we conduct criticism within the parameters established by the textual tradition of each text is an intriguing idea.<br /><br />2.5. Peter Head's paper on Tregelles was fascinating, I hope that either shows up in print, or that he will make copies available to interested parties.<br /><br />3. I haven't the slightest idea why they scheduled Hurtado vs. Ehrman at the same time as Gathercole vs. Dunn. Poor programming decision. But in the epic square-off between the "Lord Jesus Christ" guy and the "Misquoting Jesus" guy, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Earliest-Christian-Artifacts-Manuscripts-Origins/dp/0802828957/ref=pd_sxp_f_pt/002-7959381-6936819">Earliest Christian Artifacts</a> emerged as the winner. Ehrman's critique centered around the fact that Hurtado spends a lot of time in the book simply retreading old scholarship on the various issues that occupy each chapter. I really don't have a problem with this, that sort of synthesis needed to occur in this area and many students and scholars of other specializations will benefit from it.<br /><br />4. The Scottish Universities Reception was exactly how I thought it would be. <br /><br />5. My paper in the Bible in Ancient and Modern Media section went quite well. It was a rather polemical paper, which is always a gamble. But the gamble seemed to pay off and I now hope to see it in print some time from now.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461361.post-1164812118312833452006-11-28T06:43:00.000-08:002007-01-19T06:07:08.907-08:00New College Biblical Studies SeminarI will be giving a paper titled "A New/Old Look at John 21: Towards A Literary-Historical Reading of John 21" on 1 Dec. 2007 at the University of Edinburgh.<br /><br />It really is a general overview of my thesis, and I hope at that time to recieve a great deal of criticism on the general flow of my argument as well as a few preliminary conclusions I have reached concerning the function of the Beloved Disciple, high frequency of literary self-awareness, and the provocative shift in narrative time in John 21.<br /><br />Below is a small section of the paper that has direct relevance to this blog:<br /><br /><blockquote>The initially obscure, hyperbolic reference made to “books” in John 21:25 has a clear set of parallels that would have triggered a network of rhetorical echoes in early readings of the text. The use of βιβλία would have conjured up an image of vast libraries of scrolls, such as the one referenced in a story contemporary to John in which Ptolemy asked Demetrius of Phalerum to collect all of the books of the world (which came to around 500,000). Here the narrative of Jesus overwhelms all the official literature of his day, that is, anything that was worthy of being written on a scroll. <br /><br />This sets the stage for reflecting on how this rich seam of rhetoric in John 21 relates to the Gospel as a whole... The rhetoric of John 21:25 attempts to class the Gospel of John with the set of literatures related to the word βιβλία. This certainly comports well with Burridge’s estimation of the genre of John as bios literature, as relevant literatures would have also been published in the format related to the term. And this is contra Hengel’s take the hyperbole: “As all earlier Christian biblical texts were circulated as codexes[sic], i.e. in book form and using nomina sacra, in my view we may presuppose that this would already be the case with the first edition. This is one of the fixed Christian writing practices which goes back to the first century.” Though he arrives at this conclusion based on the papyrological record, there is no lexicographical merit to Hengel’s argument. In fact, I argue that it is the widespread Christian use of the codex in this period that would have pointed the rhetoric, having been specifically crafted by means of βιβλία at this pre-transitional stage in the lexicography of book technology. Hengel is right to characterize the use of the codex as a “fixed Christian practice,” but there is no evidence to suggest that βιβλία would have referred to one this early, and in this context.<br /><br />Due to its position in the composition history of the Gospel, this raises an interesting question regarding the relevance of the rhetoric itself. If this rhetoric comes from the hand of the author, then it is simple to read the verse as a self-conscious attestation of genre. However, if it comes from the hand of a later author, whether of the entire chapter or simply vv. 24-25, it is possible to understand the hyperbole as a misreading of 20:30-31 that results in a series of literary and generic implications not considered by the initial author of the Gospel. This would mean that 21:24-25 sets up a retrospective generic expectation for the Gospel not explicitly intended by its author.<br /><br />Either way, John 21:25 leads one to read the Gospel somewhat differently than the first conclusion of John 20:30-31. [Though I tend towards the former.] And either way, reading this text in light of its rhetorical connections to book culture in antiquity grants us a clear point of access into the self-perception of Gospel writers at the end of the first century... I am sure the writer of John 21 was pleased with stumbling across such an efficient, double-edged rhetoric.</blockquote>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25461361.post-1164811379981628202006-11-27T06:35:00.000-08:002007-01-19T06:06:50.863-08:00CSCO - Gospel of Thomas ConferenceThe <a href="http://www.div.ed.ac.uk/christianorigins">Centre for the Study of Christian Origins</a> will be holding a session on MSS of the Gospel of Thomas on 8 Dec. 2007 from 3:00-4:30 PM at New College, University of Edinburgh.<br /><br />If I am not mistaken, Prof. Hurtado will be walking us through a set of digital images of Thomas MSS, which are listed in the appendix of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Earliest-Christian-Artifacts-Manuscripts-Origins/dp/0802828957/ref=pd_sxp_f_pt/002-7959381-6936819">Earliest Christian Artifacts</a>. (Which I must say, is an awfully interesting monograph. Not that I am biased or anything.)Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1