Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Toto · 01-03-2009, 11:19 AM

Forgotten hoard lays bare vanished Jewish lives: An extraordinary cache of Hebrew documents in Cambridge is being prepared for the digital age

Quote:

... Nearly a third of the materials are scattered around the world in universities and research institutes; the remaining two thirds are in Cambridge.

Now, documents in all locations are being scanned and catalogued and within five years should be available to the world via the web, thanks to an initiative launched in 1999 by the Friedberg Geniza Project, an international foundation. The main player in the project is the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit (widely called the Geniza Unit), set up in the mid-1970s to manage the Cambridge collection.

The importance to Jewish studies research of this online archive is expected to be revolutionary. The Geniza is “the greatest single hoard of primary sources for the study of Judaism and Jewish history ever uncovered,” says the University of Manchester professor Philip Alexander. The Dead Sea Scrolls, he argues, “have gained huge publicity because they are earlier in date and because they throw light on the origins of Christianity.” But the Cairo documents “are much larger in bulk and more varied in content, and they illuminate the ‘mainline’ rather than a sectarian ‘branchline’ of Judaism — Christianity.”

:constern02:

Let's hope he was misquoted.

Philip Alexander is "Professor of Post-Biblical Jewish Studies." His publications cover the 1st century to later.

DCHindley · 01-03-2009, 11:54 AM

Since that last paragraph brings together parts of several other statements, it may have left out something about the Nag Hammadi finds of Gnostic "sectarian" mss, which were discovered around the same decade as the DSS.

DCH

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Forgotten hoard lays bare vanished Jewish lives: An extraordinary cache of Hebrew documents in Cambridge is being prepared for the digital age

Quote:

... Nearly a third of the materials are scattered around the world in universities and research institutes; the remaining two thirds are in Cambridge.

Now, documents in all locations are being scanned and catalogued and within five years should be available to the world via the web, thanks to an initiative launched in 1999 by the Friedberg Geniza Project, an international foundation. The main player in the project is the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit (widely called the Geniza Unit), set up in the mid-1970s to manage the Cambridge collection.

The importance to Jewish studies research of this online archive is expected to be revolutionary. The Geniza is “the greatest single hoard of primary sources for the study of Judaism and Jewish history ever uncovered,” says the University of Manchester professor Philip Alexander. The Dead Sea Scrolls, he argues, “have gained huge publicity because they are earlier in date and because they throw light on the origins of Christianity.” But the Cairo documents “are much larger in bulk and more varied in content, and they illuminate the ‘mainline’ rather than a sectarian ‘branchline’ of Judaism — Christianity.”

:constern02:

Let's hope he was misquoted.

Philip Alexander is "Professor of Post-Biblical Jewish Studies." His publications cover the 1st century to later.

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