Vatican/HP To Put Library Online

darkuncle writes "I first read it in the LA Times print edition this morning, but the story is also available on several websites via news.google.com. Apparently the Vatican has enlisted Hewlett-Packard in an effort to put the contents of the Vatican Library online, including many rare Bible texts and previously unavailable manuscripts, including handwritten notes by the likes of Martin Luther and Michelangelo."

Address for the Archive

[Tha_Big_Guy23]

Here's the address for the current Archive http://212.77.1.230/en/vhomebav/homebav.shtml [212.77.1.230]

Or you can try: http://www.vatican.va/ [vatican.va]

Re:Good!

[pizza_milkshake]

I already looked it up... Eziekiel 25:17 iirc. The passage in my copy was way more bland than Sam's -- hence I quote a different passage when *I* kill ppl. ymmv.

Re:Actually, wait... "Rare Bible Texts"?

[JanneM]

The bible started out as a pretty diverse collection of documents. These have been somewhat arbitrarily pared down and collected together. It's also changed substantially waht with translations and reeditings, to the point where it can be argued that there really is no 'original' bible.

The 'Suffer not a witch to live', for example, really is a mistranslation from Attic Greek. Could have saved quite a bit of suffering there if the editor/translator had got it right...

Re:Good!

[Christopher Whitt]

Yeah OT but who cares?

The Bible Gateway [gospelcom.net] is a convenient resource for looking up Bible verses. Multiple language options as well as an advanced search that lets you compare many English translations.

Ezekiel 25:17 [gospelcom.net]

I don't know the quote in question so I can't say which version is closest, but NIV seems strong enough, or perhaps the CEV.

Re:Open Source, Omitted Works and Theological Uphe

[zeus_tfc]

Actually, If I understand you, Ester (Esther?) is only omitted in the protestant version of the bible, as well as all the books of wisdom.

The protestant and catholic versions of the bible differ in number of books and content in many areas.

Agreed: Catholics are not Christians!(chick tract)

[SexyKellyOsbourne]

Those are far from the only reasons... Read this:

English - Are Roman Catholics Christians? ©1985 by Jack T. Chick LLC [chick.com]

Re:Copyright issues?

[ender81b]

No it's all public domain, of course. They do, currently, charge a fee for reproduction (i.e. if you want a copy of whatever they have sent to you) but it is fair, and similar to inter-library loan. The vatican doesn't claim copyright ownership other than this - you can reproduce whatever you want but god save your immortal soul (literally =)) if you change/edit the material and claim it is the original. The vatican library isn't anything akin to scientology, the basic tennanents of the catholic church, enumerated in a book called the catechism, can be found at most major bookstores. Also, AFAIK the library is open to the public, and any information can be had similar to Interlibrary loan. The library by no means serves as a 'cash cow' for the catholic church and is designed to be used for scholarly research by the church and others. Remember, a large amount of very important historical texts where/are perserved at the library during the middle ages. Vatican city's copyright law, such as it is, is based off of italian/roman common law and is quite similar to that. Now the vatican website had some additional information on photgraphic reproductions but I couldn't read it - in italian and was only able to guess (shrug, italian kindof similar to spanish) that anything published after 1801 might be copyrighted/unable to be photographicaly reproduced but... I don't know. My god, I actually *learned* something in all those years of catholic school.

Re:A lot will go unseen...

[Sinjun]

If I were wrong, there would be more than enough people to explain why I'm mistaken

Okay, I'll take the challenge.

Myth #1: Catholicism is the first multinational corporation dedicated to its self preservation and profit.

Fact: Catholicism is niether a corporation nor for profit. It is a widely held misconception that the Catholic church is obscenely rich, when in fact it has relatively limited liquid resources (everything is in priceless sacred art, buildings, etc). And the vast majority of what money that comes into Rome goes into making the Church the world's #1 providor of care of AIDS, and countless other charitable activities.

Myth #2: It's an entire heirarchy built around the practice of duping people into coughing up cash for rewards in a future life.

Fact: Buying indulgences was never a licit practice in the Church and has been soundly rejected over and over again.

Myth #3: The crusades were financial ventures, that much is common knowledge

Fact: Many historians would disagree (Hillare Belloc for example). In fact, the Crusades were incredibly costly, rather than profitable. And a question: While you're bashing, why not claim they just wanted to masacre Jews and Muslims? That's another common one you seemed to have missed. Most anti-Catholic historians seem to take that position.

I could go on, but frankly, there's no point. You haven't provided any support for your points, so there's really nothing to argue against rather than your opinions.

Read the freaking article! Gah!

[Arcaeris]

Once again the Slashdot lemming mentality strikes.

Had anyone but a few people bothered to read the article, or even the headline of it at the LA Times link, they'd see that only documents from 1922-1939 would be opened. They seem to be doing this to reduce criticism of the papacy's role in pre-WWII events. (With all the bad press they've been getting lately, who can blame them?)

So no really important mystery-solving and faith-smashing texts will be released. Boo hoo.

Anyway, I can understand why people didn't go look. I mean, you had to click on the link in the post, and then click on the "The World" link, and then scroll down half a page, and maybe even click again. That's a lot of effort to not sound like an ignorant jackass. Hell, I did it, and I probably still do.

Re:Open Source, Omitted Works and Theological Uphe

[jdavidb]

Esther is in my Bible, as well as Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon. There are some books the Roman Catholic Church considers to be Scripture such as Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, the Maccabees books, III and IV Esdras (I think?), etc., that most Protestants do not.

Not sure where the poster above got the idea that Esther was omitted in Catholic or Protestant Bibles...

I figure I'm capable of examining each book myself on its merits and deciding if it is Scripture or not myself. People were doing so long before any councils decided what was canon and what was not.

Re:Actually, wait... "Rare Bible Texts"?

[Loki_1929]

"And that's only the last 30 or 40 years, imagine how much its changed in 800 or 1000 years!"

That's not the worst of it, as those are intentional changes, usually meant to clarify something or to make it fit better into context. The worst happened before printing presses were widely available. Monks would sit copying Bibles by hand, sometimes translating them into other languages as they went. Ever take a foreign language? Say a sentence in a foreign language, then translate it on paper; first putting it into context, then translating word for word literally. Meanings are lost/changed any time you translate something, and many sections of the Bible have been translated a dozen times or more. As another neat idea, type a sentence into Babblefish and start translating the same sentence over and over (copying the results into the translation window each time). Finally, translate it back into English. Does it look anything like what you started out with? More importantly, does it mean the same thing? (This used to work and was fun, haven't tried it recently.)

Pseudepigrapha and Apocrypha

[Valdrax]

When the Bible was first assembled from the Gospels, Acts, Revelations, and the various letters of the apostiles to the early churches, there was much debate as to which versions of various books to include. Most of the books of the Bible had various differences as they were copied by various scribes attempting to preserve them before the first collections of them were gathered. Here's a good timeline [literatureclassics.com] of the history of the Good Book.

Furthermore, there's the Pseudepigrapha [innvista.com]. These are rejected books of the Bible that scholars of various times either considered falsified or otherwise not worthy to include in the Bible. Usually, they purport to be written by a Biblical figure, but were generally not believed to have actually been written by them at the time of the Council of Laodicea. Then you have the books where are in the Catholic Old Testament but not in the Protestant Old Testament. These are the books most commonly labelled as Apocrypha [nnu.edu].

Here's some more info on early church texts [iclnet.org].
Here's a FAQ [thesumners.com] on the history of the Bible.

You can find a lot of this on Google if you know what to look for, but I've been nice and included links without bizarre obscurist religious or UFO ranting. The "lost" books of the Bible are a rich source of material for people with fringe beliefs that are looking to justify them or people who have an axe to grind with mainstream Christianity.

Re:Babelfish

[Computer!]

A great many of the Vatican's (and many other Church libraries') works are actually in other languages besides Latin. German, Greek and French works outnumber those in Latin at any theological library I've seen.

Digital Archive Project

[DaytonCIM]

For the last 15 years, the Vatican has been working on transferring many texts and artwork to a secure digital format in hopes of saving it for all future generations.

Most of the text that the project has successfully transferred (and a good majority of text that has not been transferred) is available here [vatican.va]. You do have to fill out some forms and then the materials are copied and sent to you.

All jokes and criticisms aside, the Vatican possesses the majority of the world's greatest works of literature, art, and historical documentation. I hope that they make all of it available to the world very soon.

Re:Open Source, Omitted Works and Theological Uphe

[jdunlevy]

'King James Version .... For example, '"Esther" is omitted (yes, I'm serious).'

Actually, Esther [virginia.edu] was in the original King James Version of the Bible. The 14 books of the Apocrypha were officially removed in 1885. See, e.g., this google search [google.com].

Re:Open Source, Omitted Works and Theological Uphe

[caudron]

Inclusion of text into the bible was not arbitrary. Texts were chosen based upon a set of fairly clear criteria that became established over centuries of debate. Not everyone agrees with the final decision, but that hardly makes it arbitrary.

Additionally, BS Catholic conspiracies aside, they have no earthly reason to hide works that they disagreee with. In fact the works they are putting onine were already available to visiting scholars and practically anyone with an interest. I, for instance, have the full text on the 20-something different Gospels we have discovered to date at home on my shelf...and if you read them all, you'd see pretty quick why some were excluded. I also have the many of the other non-canonical texts. No great hidden secret. Just order them from Amazon like I did.

There is no great scholastic coverup to keep the juicy religious bits away from the masses.

Disclaimer: I am not Catholic, but I do have a degree in Religious Studies.

Re:Open Source, Omitted Works and Theological Uphe

[jbolden]

First off all the King James Version is protestant not catholic. You want something like the Saint Jerome Bible for a Catholic bible. Second the inclusion list for the Kind James isn't arbitrary its following the organization from Martin Luther's Geneva Bible.

Anyway here is an old list with pretty good information about what got included when
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie =UTF-8 &oe=UTF-8&selm=4ne7kh%24qq6%40geneva.rutgers.e du

Re:Copyright Vatican Library?!?!?

[donutello]

Are they simply exerting copyright over the photograph of the document, and not on the contents of the document itself? Is that okay, even?


Yep. And yep.

Their copyright is over the photograph of the document that they took. They are allowed to do that because the original document is not under copyright. Had it been under copyright they would have to get permission from the copyright holder before distributing their content based on that material. The copyright on the photograph means that you are not allowed to distribute the photograph they took without their permission. It doesn't prevent you from taking your own photographs of the original work (which is not under copyright) or even from quoting it verbatim.

It's just like some photographic agency had a copyright on some pictures of Marilyn Monroe. That doesn't mean they owned her or that you couldn't take your own pictures of her - just that those particular photographs were covered by copyright.

Re:Is it a Sin...

[foistboinder]

isn't ".va" the TLD for the state of Virginia? I thought the Vatican was at vatican.it, or vatican.org, or something...

Nope (try the link), the Vatican is a country. I think Virginia might be something like .va.us (I don't feel like looking it up).

Re:Open Source, Omitted Works and Theological Uphe

[superyooser]

Hold on just a second!

Some chapters are omitted from Protestant Bibles... or some chapters are added in Catholic Bibles?

I'm looking at a Jewish Bible right here, and Esther (an Old Testament book) jibes precisely with the King James - same number of chapters and same number of verses in each chapter.

In case you want to verify this, take note of the following: In Christian Bibles, Esther comes between Nehemiah and Job. In the Jewish Bible, Esther (Ester) comes between Ecclesiastes (Kohelet) and Daniel (Dani'el).

Re:Pseudepigrapha and Apocrypha

[glitchvern]

Then you have the books where are in the Catholic Old Testament but not in the Protestant Old Testament. These are the books most commonly labelled as Apocrypha [nnu.edu].

These books are also in the Eastern Orthodox bible. People always leave out the Eastern Orthodox but they are much older than the Protestants.

We were asked to do this 2 years ago..

[droopus]

Actually the Vatican approached us when I was working at a consultancy (not IBM) to do this project. "Mmm, cool," thought I. "They have loadsa money."

Ah, but not so, grasshopper. We met with their librarians and "IT" people and when it came to money, not only did they try and make us feel guilty about charging the Church (I'm Jewish..that didn't work on me) but they wanted us to PAY for the privilege. Yes, we would eat all production costs, hardware, hosting, travel costs, encoding, delivery, etc...AND we were expected to make a "sizable honorarium" to the RCC for the privilege of being permitted to work on the project. (Picture: Ellen Feiss going "nnnnggggh?")

"Hmm, well they have lots of money...they'll pay us for the next project," thought I.

Ah, not so. When I asked as to $$ arrangements for future work we were told that if they liked the library project, we could expect more work, but each project would require an additional honorarium.

"Wow, look at the time, I gotta run," said I. We never even considered doing the work.

Looks like HP got the same treatment, as evidenced by this line in the press release:

"HP's contribution included technical consulting along with donated computer servers, scanners and other hardware items.

Didier Philippe, HP's director of strategy and development in Europe, said the motivation for the donation had more to do with history and art than with business.

But he recognized that the Catholic Church could be a huge buyer."

So they are HOPING the RCC buys some hardware in the future, after they already gave them a couple mil worth of free stuff. Great business sense, eh?

I'm calling my broker now.

Re:Copyright issues?

[Panaflex]

Just a side note..

The American Catholic Bishops have copyrighted the American standard bible. The reason simply being not the issue of illegal copies, but of authenticity of the source.

Pan

Bibles and the Apocrypha

[basso]

First off all the King James Version is protestant not catholic.
Acutally the Authorised/King James version is Anglican. You'll hardly ever see it in the US, but King James's translators definitely did translate the Apocrypha and a complete edition of the KJV will include those texts.

Check the [eskimo.com]
Articles of Religion for the Anglican view of the Apocrypha.

Second the inclusion list for the Kind James isn't arbitrary its following the organization from Martin Luther's Geneva Bible.

The Geneva Bible had nothing to do with Luther. It was the work of English exiles in Geneva during the reign of Mary Tudor. It is much more Reformed (i.e. Calvinist) in outlook than Luther would have been.

The books included in the Protestant canon are those selected in the Masoretic text of the Hebrew Scriptures.