A Newly Customized VMR

Last week Troy Griffitts was in town and he showed me how to make a custom VMR. In the meantime he’s helped me do some extra editing as well and the result is that I’ve put together my own public version of the VMR. You can use it at ntvmr.uni-muenster.de/web/pgurry/peter-s-vmr.

The basic functionality is the same. But I’ve changed the layout a bit and tried to clean up the interface. Specifically, I’ve kept the Liste from popping in and out from the left side and made the image viewer much wider. I also tried to clean up the Full Search quite a bit. I find it much easier to use now. By the way, did you know you can search for things like MS features by page? I did not. It’s handy.

The new interface. Hopefully a bit easier on the eyes.

Full search before (left) and after (right)

A few issues I’m aware of:

• My version does not list Elliott’s bibliography. For that you need to use INTF’s Liste.
• Some transcriptions look bad because of the narrower column.
• Not all the blue buttons in the MS viewer are what they should be.

Otherwise, I’d be grateful for any feedback from people. Troy is quite happy to let me play around with things which has been great. Ultimately, I’d like to make the three columns re-sizable and maybe simplify the functionality of the Liste Catalog if possible.

P.S. A massive thanks to Troy and others for all their work on the VMR over the years. It’s hard to imagine doing NTTC these days without it.

New (and Old) INTF Website

The website for the Institut für Neutestamentliche Textforschung (INTF) is being updated. The new URL is uni-muenster.de/EvTheol/intf and not all the old content is available there yet. But they’ve just put up a link to the old website which is available at egora.uni-muenster.de/intf.

Moving websites can be tricky. So it’s worth keeping an eye out to make sure everything gets moved safely.

UPDATE:

The NTVMR website has also just been updated with a new design and updated backend. Troy Griffitts explains, “You should notice many new things on the NTVMR starting this week. We’ve upgraded to a newer version of our portal framework, and many new features are available for you to use.” If you look at Troy’s own page you’ll notice some interesting new items like Matthew Transcriptions, Coptic Collations, and Apparatus Builder etc. Not all of these seem to be working at the moment, but lots to look forward to.

NT.VMR 2.0

All great movies have a sequel.  Like a Terminator returning from the future to change the course of history, the Virtual Manuscript Room has now officially reappeared with a new scholarly edge.  The old VMR (1.0) was like the musuem that you visit to gawk at the manuscripts.  The new VMR (2.0) is a laboratory, designed to house scholarly activity online.  Whereas earlier scholars relied upon technical support to upload images and transcriptions, the newer version allows even the slowest of us to manage our own digital editions.  (I will launch my own edition of the Sahidic Apocalypse in the Fall).

The new VMR offers extensive possibilities for discussing and sharing manuscripts.  It's Facebook meets a cyborg-reanimated Bruce Metzger robot.  You want to show your friend a page of Sinaiticus.  No problem.  A page with a transcription -- easy.  Has a paragraph break got you all riled up, and you need to tell the world about it? You can learn more from the following instruction video or visit the VMR and experience the raw power for yourself. You will need to create an account to gain full access. Do not forget to check out the Coptic Apocalypse manuscripts.



Here is the official announcement from the VMR nerve center in Münster:

NTVMR 2.0 Announcement

The New Testament Virtual Manuscript Room (NTVMR) from the Institute for New Testament Text Research (INTF) is a community portal for scholarly research of New Testament Greek manuscripts.  For decades, the INTF (producers of the Nestle-Aland Greek New Testament) has housed the most comprehensive collection of manuscript resources for Greek New Testament studies, and now this resource is finally coming online for public access.  Over 2.1 million pages have been cataloged with nearly half a million images published in cooperation with holding institutes around the world, including P45, P46, and P47 from The Chester Beatty Library and University of Michigan, The Freer Gospels from the Smithsonian Institute, and Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus reordered from the Bibliothèque Nationale de France.

This is the first public invitation to join this portal, make use of these scholarly resources, and contribute to this public repository of New Testament manuscript research.

Gordon Fee Donates Specialized Collection to NOBTS

The H. Milton Haggard Center for New Testament Textual Studies (CNTTS), New Orleans, happily announces its receipt of Gordon Fee’s personal textual criticism library. The specialized volumes and other materials have been designated The Gordon D. Fee Collection on the New Testament Text.

The collection is comprised of rare and newer books which Dr. Fee amassed in his half century as a text critic. The collection also includes extensive documentation supporting his work on textual criticism projects.

Noteworthy is Dr. Fee’s collation files on Luke and John, including his signature graphic depiction of the textual variants. The quality of the graphic depiction of the variants in Luke and John is such that the center hopes to digitize the data, make them freely available, and to use them for the center’s own research. Also included are Dr. Fee’s files on the text of various church fathers.

In 2005, Dr. Fee was honored with Evangelical Textual Criticism blog’s Lifetime Achievement Award, 2005 (award; cf. nomination).

In donating his collection, Dr. Fee was passionate that his materials be made available for the advancement of the discipline. In this regard, CNTTS is particularly suited to receive the collection. There are currently nine students working toward a textual criticism PhD at the center’s home at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, and 10 part-time researchers at the center. CNTTS has produced its own extensive apparatus of the variants of the Greek New Testament (Bible Works, Accordance), and has commenced a ten year exegetical commentary project on the meaning of the (non-original) variants; the project will be made accessible on the web in due course. CNTTS also cooperates with the International Greek New Testament Project and with the Virtual Manuscript Room project sponsored by the Institut für neuetestamentliche Textforschung (INTF) in Münster.

The acquisition was coordinated by James M. Leonard (PhD cand., Cambridge) who is the current recipient of the CNTTS’ post-doctoral research grant as Visiting Scholar. Leonard served as Dr. Fee’s teaching assistant and worked under him in the capacity of Exegesis Assistant at Regent College (1991-1993). Both Leonard and 2008 recipient of the center’s post-doctoral grant Michael Theophilus (PhD, Oxford) studied with Fee at Regent College, Vancouver.

News from the Virtual Manuscript Room

Great news from the Virtual Manuscript Room in Münster. Martin Faßnacht reports that eight new minuscules are available: 579, 1661, 1751, 2174, 2403, 2411, 2429 und 2743. Three of them are commentary MSS of Revelation.

Further, one of the Turin MSS, Greg.-Aland 338, which we reported on here asking for help with identification has now been identified to a large extent with the assistance of several users, e.g., Maurice Robinson and Steven Whatley who posted their identifications in the comments section to the post above. Bruce Morrill entered the data into the VMR. There is still work to do e.g. on B.VI.43 (=90002) half of which pages have been identified.

Further, Jairo Paes Cavalcante Filho has worked extensively on 339 (in B.V.8) and identified the following NT books: Mark, John, Acts, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians and James. There is still work to do here too, there are some litte fragments which must be identified yet. The data will be entered into the system, but at this point it has been made available in a PDF-file: List → GA 339 → Dossier_CavalcanteFilho_1.

Martin also says, in connection to our post on P126, that he has "expanded the possibility to link in the Handchriftenliste not only resources from the INTF Archiv but also from external links. Now one can find the articel of Claire Clivaz also in the Handschriftenliste under the GA number P126."

Update (22 May): I have corrected some errors in the post above.

Help to Identify Manuscript Fragments

With the introduction of the Virtual Manuscript Room, new possibilities open up for collaboration with scholars and interested public worldwide. About three weeks ago, the Institut für Neutestamentliche Textforschung (INTF) uploaded several MSS from Biblioteca Nazionale, University of Turin: 333, 334, 335, 339, 2350, 2594, L1942 which can now be examined in the VMR.

In addition, numerous fragments of minuscule manuscripts were uploaded. These fragments have previously undergone a restoration and were subsequently placed in boxes in the library registered under three shelf marks: B.V.19, B.VI.43, and B.VII.33, but these unfortunately do not correspond to three MSS, because fragments of GA 338 have been found in two boxes (B.VI.43 + B.VII.33) and fragments of GA 612 have also been found in two of the boxes (B.V.19 + B.VI.43) - talk about contamination and block mixture!!!

Moreover, the fragments contain not only New Testament text but other texts and other MSS. The INTF staff says the process of identification will require some time and effort. And this is where the VMR users come in! The fragments have already been photographed and included in the VMR where anyone can look at them and contribute to their identification and subsequent registration. In the meantime the items are registered under temporary object id. numbers:

Turin B.V.19 ==> ObjID 90001
Turin B.VI.43 ==> ObjID 90002
Turin B.VII.33 ==> ObjID 90003

It is important to read the background and further description of these boxes and fragments in Martin Fassnacht's report here (click on "zeigen" to see the whole report). As you can see, we can expect more fragments to turn up in the future. Read also my earlier report here.

If you want to help with identification, go to the VMR (Münster) and click on VMR. Browse or read the MSS by choosing these ObjID numbers in the menu and go ahead.

Postscript: The majuscule MS GA015, the extant parts of which are divided between eight institutions (– how could this happen!), has also been registered in the VMR under a temporary number, ObjID 90004 (contrary to other items in this category, 90004 is found in the top of the menu). Two folios are in Turin (shelfmark A.1), and there are photos of these.

Sixty Manuscripts Available in the Virtual Manuscript Room (Münster)

Great things are happening in the Virtual Manuscript Room of Münster. Note that the URL has been changed. You can always reach the VMR in Münster and Birmingham, respectively, through the sidebar of this blog.

There are now (as of 11 January, 2010) sixty MSS in the VMR, twenty-four papyri, three majuscules and thirty-three minuscules. However, half of the manuscripts are only available in the "Expert Mode" for which special registration is necessary. The expert mode was announced on 30 November and launched on 12 December 2009. Here is the announcement in my translation:

In cooperation with the holding institutions, the INTF offers access to New Testament manuscripts. In this way, the INTF pursues the goal to be able to make manuscripts freely accessible to all users. In consideration of holding institutions, however, many manuscripts, can still not be made available at this point. In these cases the images are only available to a small circle of experts that are registered in the entry system. The entry system will soon be launched [2009-12-09]. Manuscripts without restrictions are available as before, but also thumbnails and transcriptions (when available) of restricted manuscripts. (2009-11-30).

Read also about the recent visit at the Institut für neutestamentliche Textforschung by Bundespräsident Horst Köhler in connection with the 50th anniversary of the institute here. I suppose this was the official celebration Klaus Wachtel mentioned in a comment to my anniversary note last year. In any case, I am happy to see the work of the institute being widely acclaimed by key persons in the state and the academy.

Aland's Kurzgefasste Liste 1.0 on-line!

Hooray! It is here!

The digital Kurzgefasste Liste is on-line here in the Virtual Manuscript Room of Münster. The VMR has been up for a while, but mainly for testpurposes. Today the "Handschriftenliste 1.0" was released:

Handschriftenliste 1.0
Die Darbietung der Handschriftenliste wurde neu strukturiert. Man kann die Handschriftenliste nach Objekt-ID, nach aktuellen Gregory-Aland-Nummern und nach ehemaligen GA-Nummern selektieren. Wenn eine Handschrift im NT.VMR vorhanden ist, können die Bilder direkt aus der Liste heraus im Viewer angezeigt werden.
(2009-10-08)

Ulrich Schmid, currently in charge of the Liste says that the presentation will be constantly augmented, both in terms of content and functionality. The design and usability of the interface will improve over time, but as it stands in can now be used and tested by the public.

In the Virtual Manuscript Room a number of MSS can be viewed, at this point mainly papyrus witnesses. There is a tool for manuscript indexing (read more here and especially here).

If you want to contact the website authors, Martin Faßnacht or Ulrich Schmid, you can click on the logotype of the INTF (Universität Münster Institut für neutestamentliche Textforschung) and you will be able to e-mail in your suggestions of improvements, reports of errors, etc. Such feedback is very welcome

In the sidebar on this blog you can reach the VMR in Münster and in Birmingham. I hope links will be added also in the respective VMR:s.

GNT Manuscripts in the VMR

After our recent report on the Virtual Manuscript Room a few days ago, several MSS have now been added in the manuscript section here. Among the now accessible Greek New Testament MSS are:

Ming. Chr. Arab. 93 = 0106

Ming. Gr. 2 = L1982

Ming. Gr. 3 = 479

Peckov. Gr. 7 = 713 and L586 (palimpsest)

To my knowledge there are seven more GNT MSS in Birmingham, and we can hope that they will also appear in due course, although only one of them belong to the Mingana Collection which is now being added to the VMR (in Selly Oak College: Ming. Georg. 7; Braithwaite 1-5; and one in Woodbrooke College, s.n.).

Peter Robinson of the ITSEE also made a clarifying comment to our last report here

Update: Ulrich Schmid points out that only a fragment of 0106 is found in the binding of Ming. Chr. Arab. 93 (see comments).

I have also added a link to the Virtual Manuscript Room in the sidebar (links).