RP Byzantine Text in Free Digital Formats

This may be old news to some of you but I pass the info along anyway. Norman Simón Rodríguez maintains the public domain repository for the Robinson-Pierpont Greek Byzantine text. The following info is from him.

The repository includes the following resources:

• The beta code files of the Robinson-Pierpont 2018 text, including Byzantine variants and the Byz vs. critical text apparatuses. There are both accented and unaccented versions, and one version has grammatical parsing data. These files are the official source files created by professor Robinson for his edition.
• Converted Unicode files in CSV (Excel) format.
• TEI-XML files of the Unicode text. This format is especially convenient for creating collations against the transcriptions made by the INTF, as those transcriptions also follow the TEI-XML standard.
• The code used to convert the beta files into Unicode and XML. The code is written in the Python programming language and is open source.
• Plain-text versions of the 'The case for Byzantine priority' essay in both English and Spanish.

The repository can be found at https://github.com/byztxt/byzantine-majority-text. More information about the Byzantine text can be consulted at https://byzantinetext.com/study/editions/robinson-pierpont/

Book Notice: Evangelicals and Digital Bible Use

I’ve just ordered the new book by John Dyer from OUP titled People of the Screen: How Evangelicals Created the Digital Bible and How It Shapes Their Reading of Scripture. John is a longtime evangelical and has been programming Bible software for years (for example). He’s also written a very well received book on the theology of technology. This new book is a version of his PhD thesis, I believe. I’m sure our ETC readers will be interested in this. Here is the description: 

People of the Screen traces the history of Bible software development, showing the unique and powerful role evangelical entrepreneurs and coders have played in shaping its functionality and how their choices in turn shape the reading habits of millions of people around the world. Examining advancements in Bible software from the first desktop applications to pioneering Bible websites, and later to mobile apps and virtual experiences, this book argues that evangelical creators have a distinct orientation toward societal change and technology called “Hopeful Entrepreneurial Pragmatism” that uniquely positions them to lead the digital Bible market, imbuing their creations with evangelical ways of understanding the nature and purpose of Scripture.

This book offers a blend of historical research, interviews with developers, and field work among digital and print Bible readers, offering a nuanced look at the interconnected ecosystem of publishers, developers, pastors, institutions, and software companies. Digital Bibles aren’t replacing print Bibles, author John Dyer shows. Rather, the future of Bible engagement involves readers using a mix of print, audio, and screens to suit their needs. He shows that sometimes the God of the page seems to say different things than the God of the screen, suggesting that we are still in the early stages of a multimedia approach to scripture.

I would also like to add that this is the first and only book cover I’ve seen that can appropriately use Verdana. It was designed for screen use and was one of the world’s most ubiquitous fonts for at least a decade. Please, publishers, do not use it for other books.

New Brill Series on Digital Biblical Studies

The first volume of a new series on Digital Biblical Studies has just appeared from Brill. It’s edited by Claire Clivaz, Paul Dilley and David Hamidović. Table of contents is here.

I’ve only looked at the chapters that piqued my interest.

The chapter by Houghton and Smith gives a nice overview of the process of producing the ECM. This article is free, by the way.

Chapter four gives a nice summary of what materials are available for Syriac studies and it’s also free. If you haven’t used syriaca.org, it’s a great resource.

Chapter nine gives a look at spectral imaging and may be of interest to ETC readers but I’ve only skimmed it myself.

I’m not sure what the plan is beyond edited volumes, but this might be a series to watch.