ECM Revelation intro material coming online

Reading the Preface to the ECM Revelation volume, I would like to note that it says the following (p. xii):

The edition is published both electronically and in print. Both media have their own advantages. The text and its apparatuses are electronically linked to third-party data (relevant to paratexts, etc.), and we encourage discussion online (e.g. in the NTVMR forum).

The cooperation with the publisher, the German Bible Society, went smoothly and shows a way forward: The German Bible Society, represented by Dr. Florian Voss, agreed to comply with the DFG’s request for “open access” of all the project outputs. The edition of the text (part 1 of the edition) will be included into the NTVMR. The publisher plans to make PDFs of the introduction to the text volume, as well as all of the Supplementary Material and Study volumes available online one year after the publication. For this we are very grateful.

ECM Revelation (photo credit)

The part in bold is really significant. Unless I am mistaken, this is the first ECM volume to put this extra material online. To give you a sense of what we’re talking about, the four volumes that make up ECM Revelation amount to some 2000 pages! Granted, some of this is duplicate (German and English), but actually, quite a bit is only in one of those two languages. So this is a LOT of material. For anyone working on the text of Revelation, these materials will be a tremendous resource.

Perhaps most importantly, putting the Introduction online means that, for the first time, the digital ECM is truly usable for someone without the print edition. Why do I say this? Because the introduction explains how the apparatus works. Without it, there really is no way, beyond mere intuition, of knowing some of the key ins-and-outs of the ECM digital apparatus. For those with the print edition, this is no problem. Once you learn to use the print apparatus, the online one makes sense. But I have often wondered how I could recommend the ECM digital edition to someone without the print edition’s introduction. This seems to be my answer and I am very glad to have it.

Exactly when in 2025 and exactly where these PDFs will be online, I don’t know. But I will try to let you know as soon as I know. Or perhaps one of our readers can leave the answer in the comments.