The British Library in London and the National Library of Israel announced a joint project that will digitize and publish one of the oldest surviving Hebrew manuscripts of the Bible online, according to the Associated Press. This manuscript dates back over 1,000 years. The manuscripts will be available online in a few years, according to AP.
Not only will this Bible, called the Gaster Bible, be available, but 3,200 other rare Hebrew manuscripts will be available at curious people’s fingertips, according to AP. The British Library and National Library of Israel will digitize the entire manuscript collection, one of the largest and most significant in the world, said AP. Both libraries have also partnered with other libraries with Hebrew manuscript collections across the world, reported AP.
Manuscripts in the collection date back to the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. They contain Hebrew literature, Bibles, prayer books, biblical commentary, and texts on the Kabbalah, according to AP. “It’s astounding to me,” said Teri Lee Bixby, a junior studying history with an English minor from New York. “Stuff like this happens and nobody really grasps the gravity of the situation. It’s crazy that what’s only been available to locate in Israel and Britain will now be available to the world.”
Kaliki Unga, a senior studying history with a minor in psychology from Hau’ula, said, “I think it’s great that they were able to collaborate together and digitize such a rare collection for everyone to access. Lots of research and new discoveries will be made with this collection by people all around the world.”
A lot of work will go into this project to bring manuscripts to user-friendly websites. “I know first hand how much work goes into selecting, digitizing, and creating user-friendly space where people can easily access it,” said Unga.
“Having worked with our own University Archives and Internet Archives, one of the biggest online libraries on the web today. Digitizing collections as rare as those Jewish documents must have taken a lot of manpower by trained professionals, and probably cost thousands of dollars. People don’t realize how much actually goes into digitizing books and then hosting it on a public domain. I’m sure they weren’t able to digitize everything they wanted just because how [of] much money it would’ve cost.”
Despite the writing being in Hebrew, students have expressed the desire to take a good look at the manuscripts. “Whenever you go to a world history museum, you can’t read any of the languages that it’s in,” said Bixby. “But it’s still really awesome to just be a part of it and to be able to see an artifact that existed thousands of years ago, and just think of the people that wrote on it and the people living around them and their whole lifestyle back then.”
Some of the manuscripts online will be available to scholars who can do new research and discover new information. “The information that may come from these manuscripts could change history,” said Unga.
“That’s the most exciting part about new research being discovered and shared with everyone. It gives everyone a chance to do their own research and draw their own conclusions, instead of relying on one person or source and their opinion, that just so happened to be published in a popular high school history book used across the world.”
With the progress of technology, things like this project could be brought to life and more research can be done. Christine Burgess, a junior studying English from New Hampshire, said, “I think we live in an amazing era where we have access to all these things that people couldn’t even imagine.”