manuscritos

Segundo a editora, Os Manuscritos do Mar Morto: Uma História Completa, Volume I, é o primeiro de dois volumes que oferece a mais completa descrição da descoberta dos manuscritos e de sua história nos últimos 60 anos.

FIELDS, W. W. The Dead Sea Scrolls: A Full History. Volume I. Leiden: Brill, 2009, 608 p. – ISBN 9789004175815

Who discovered the Dead Sea Scrolls? When and where were they discovered? How were they saved? Who bought them and who paid for them? Who has them now and who owns them? Will more be discovered? Have all the scrolls been published? Are some still hidden away? Were there conspiracies to suppress some scrolls? Preceded by The Dead Sea Scrolls: A Short History, 2006 [resenha na RBL por Eric F. Mason, 28/03/2009], The Dead Sea Scrolls, A Full History, vol. 1, is the first of a projected two volumes offering a more complete account of the discovery of the scrolls and their history over the past 60 years since the first scrolls were discovered in a cave near the Dead Sea. Weston W. Fields, Th.D., Ph.D., has been Executive Directory of the Dead Sea Scrolls Foundation in Jerusalem since 1991.

Os Manuscritos do Mar Morto serão digitalizados e colocados na Internet. Isto foi amplamente noticiado pelos jornais em 2008. Veja meu post Manuscritos do Mar Morto estarão online, de 1 de setembro de 2008.

Agora, no site da IAA – Israel Antiquities Authority – na seção “Press Office”, com data de 19 de outubro de 2010, se lê:

Israel Antiquities Authority, Partner with Google R&D Center in Israel

Israel Antiquities Authority, Partner with Google R&D Center in Israel – To Make Dead Sea Scrolls Available On-line. With Lead Funding from the Leon Levy Foundation and a Major Donation of the Arcadia Foundation. “Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library” Will Enable Imaging, Digitization of 900-Manuscript Collection.

As part of the celebrations on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of its establishment, the Israel Antiquities Authority is launching a unique project – The Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library – to document the entire collection of the Dead Sea Srolls.

A major lead gift from the Leon Levy Foundation, with additional major funding from the Arcadia Foundation and the support of Yad Hanadiv Foundation, will enable the Israel Antiquities Authority to use the most advanced and innovative technologies available to image the entire collection of 900 manuscripts comprising c. 30,000 Dead Sea Scrolls fragments in hi-resolution and multi spectra and make the digitized images freely available and accessible to anyone anywhere in the world on the internet. This is the first time that the collection of Scrolls will be photographed in its entirety since the 1950’s.

The IAA announced this morning that it is collaborating with the Google R&D center in Israel in this milestone project to upload not only all of the digitized Scrolls images but also additional data online that will allow users to perform meaningful searches across a broad range of data in a number of languages and formats, which will result in unprecedented scholarly and popular access to the Scrolls and related research and scholarship and should lead to new insights into the world of the Scrolls.

The innovative imaging technology to be used in the project has been developed by MegaVision, a U.S. based company, and will be installed in the IAA’s laboratories in early 2011. The MegaVision system will enable the digital imaging of every Scroll fragment in various wavelengths in the highest resolution possible and allow long term monitoring for preservation purposes in a non-invasive and precise manner. The images will be equal in quality to the actual physical viewing of the Scrolls, thus eliminating the need for re-exposure of the Scrolls and allowing their preservation for future generations. The technology will also help rediscover writing and letters that have “vanished” over the years; with the help of infra-red light and wavelengths beyond, these writings will be brought “back to life”, facilitating new possibilities in Dead Sea Scrolls research. Uploading the images to the internet will be achieved with the assistance of Google-Israel and will be accompanied by meta-data including transcriptions, translations and bibliography.

According to Shuka Dorfman, IAA General Director, “we are establishing a milestone connection between progress and the past to preserve this unique heritage for future generations. At the end of a comprehensive and profound examination we have succeeded in recruiting the best minds and technological means to preserve this unrivalled cultural heritage treasure which belongs to all of us, so that the public with a click of the mouse will be able to freely access history in its fullest glamour. We are proud to be embarking on a project that will provide unlimited access to one of the most important archaeological finds of the 20th Century, crucial to Biblical studies and the history of Judaism and early Christianity. We are profoundly grateful to Shelby White and the Leon Levy Foundation for their lead major gift and to the Arcadia Foundation for its major gift to this project.”

Professor Yossi Matias, Director of Google-Israel R&D center, said that “We are proud to take part in a project that will share the IAA’s National Treasures with the entire world. This project will enrich and preserve an important and meaningful part of world heritage by making it accessible to all on the internet. We shall continue with this historical effort to make all existing knowledge in archives and storages available to all”.

The announcement this morning comes after 3 years of research in which the IAA investigated the best imaging technologies, information systems, and preservation methods and raised the necessary funds to begin the project. Pnina Shor is the project manger on behalf of the IAA and is assisted by academic institutions and the best professionals in their respective fields in Israel and abroad, including Prof. Steve Weiner from the Weitzman Institute, Prof. Zeev Aizenshtat from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Dr. Gregory Bearman, formerly a principal scientist at the jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Dianne van der Reyden, Director of the Library of Congress Preservation Directorate, Washington, USA, and Prof. Emilio Marengo and Marcello Manferdi from Eastern Piemont University, Italy.

About The Leon Levy Foundation: The Leon Levy Foundation, founded in 2004, is a private, not-for-profit foundation created from the estate of Leon Levy, a legendary investor with a longstanding commitment to philanthropy. The Foundation’s overarching goal is to continue the tradition of humanism characteristic of Mr. Levy by supporting scholarship at the highest level, ultimately advancing knowledge and improving the lives of individuals and society at large.

About the Arcadia Foundation: Arcadia is the charitable foundation of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin. Since inception in 2001 Arcadia has awarded in excess of $192 million. For more details on Arcadia please visit their website.
The Israel Antiquities Authority is the preeminent organization in the field of Israeli and Biblical archaeology. It is responsible for all matters of archaeology in Israel including land and marine excavations, development and protection of archaeological sites, archaeological research, education, publication, conservation and restoration of objects and sites, and presentation of archaeological material in Israel and abroad. It is the custodian of the National Collections, including nearly 1 million archaeological objects among them the Dead Sea Scrolls, and more than 20,000 archaeological sites throughout Israel. The archaeological work conducted in the country is both universal in preserving the heritage of all humankind and the historic record of human culture in the world of Israel, and at the same time uniquely meaningful to the Jewish people and the State of Israel.

Ou seja: o Google entrou no jogo e parece que agora o projeto desencanta.

Leia a notícia, em português, aqui.

Outra nota, em inglês, aqui.

E, finalmente, no blog do Jim, a reprodução completa da nota do IAA.

Protoni per lo studio dei Rotoli del Mar Morto

I ricercatori dei Laboratori Nazionali del Sud (LNS) di Catania dell’Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN) sono riusciti a far luce sull’origine di una parte degli straordinari “Rotoli del Mar Morto”, una raccolta di circa 900 documenti scoperti in varie grotte nei pressi del Mar Morto mezzo secolo fa. Ci sono riusciti grazie all’uso congiunto di un nuovo sistema di analisi, chiamato XPIXE [X-ray and Particle Induced X-ray Emission] e brevettato proprio dai LNS dell’INFN, e dell’acceleratore di particelle in funzione negli stessi Laboratori. I documenti analizzati rappresentano, tra l’altro, i testi biblici piu’ antichi mai conosciuti, datati da uno a due secoli avanti Cristo fino a qualche decennio dopo. I risultati sono stati presentati ieri, 1 luglio 2010, dal professor Giuseppe Pappalardo, dell’INFN, alla PIXE 2010 Conference che si e’ tenuta a Surrey, in Gran Bretagna. La ricerca dei fisici dell’INFN, in collaborazione con i ricercatori dell’IBAM-CNR, ha permesso di scoprire che una parte di questi rotoli (in particolare il “Rotolo del Tempio”, che non fa parte della narrazione biblica ma descrive la costruzione e la vita di un tempio, e detta norme su come trasmettere la legge al popolo) potrebbe essere stata realizzata sulle rive del Mar Morto nella zona di Qumran, la’ dove sono stati trovati i reperti. O meglio, che le pergamene sono state preparate in loco. La ricerca e’ stata realizzata su sette piccoli campioni (dimensione media, un centimetro quadrato) di questi rotoli su richiesta della dottoressa Ira Rabin del BAM (Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung) di Berlino. I reperti provengono dal Shrine of the Book of the Israel Museum e dalla collezione Ronald Reed della John Rylands University Library. Gli strumenti del laboratorio LANDIS dei Laboratori di Catania dell’INFN hanno permesso di effettuare analisi non distruttive e di ottenere alcuni primi risultati sull’origine delle pergamene. Queste pergamene, il supporto su cui si scriveva al tempo, richiedevano, infatti, una grande quantita’ di acqua per essere preparate. Analizzando nella zona del ritrovamento le acque presenti localmente, si era potuta stabilire la presenza di alcuni elementi chimici nelle sorgenti e il rapporto tra le loro diverse concentrazioni. Si sono poi analizzati i valori del rapporto Cloro/Bromo su alcuni frammenti di pergamene del Rotolo del Tempio utilizzando fasci di protoni da 1.3 MeV, prodotti dall’acceleratore di particelle Tandem dei LNS dell’INFN. Si e’ visto così che i valori del rapporto Cloro/Bromo nelle pergamene sono compatibili con una loro provenienza dalla zona in cui sono state trovate. Presentano cioe’ valori affini a quelli dell’acqua presente in loco. La ricerca continuera’ ora con l’analisi degli inchiostri con cui sono stati realizzati i testi…

Protons for studying the Dead Sea Scrolls

Researchers of the National Laboratories of the South (LNS) in Catania of the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN, Italy’s National Institute for Nuclear Physics) have shed light on the origin of one of the extraordinary Dead Sea Scrolls. It is a collection of about 900 documents discovered half a century ago in various caves near the Dead Sea and constituting the oldest known biblical texts, dating back to the period from about 100-200 B.C. to several decades after the birth of Christ. This finding was made possible by the combined use of a new system of analysis known as “XPIXE” [X-ray and Particle Induced X-ray Emission], patented by the INFN National Laboratories of the South, and a particle accelerator located at the same facility. The results of the analyses were presented yesterday, 1 July 2010, by Professor Giuseppe Pappalardo of the INFN, at the PIXE 2010 Conference in Surrey, Great Britain. The analyses, which were conducted by INFN physicists in collaboration with researchers from IBAM-CNR, have revealed that one of the Dead Sea Scrolls, in particular, the Temple Scroll (which is not part of the biblical narration and instead describes the construction and life of a temple and dictates how laws are to be communicated to the people), may have been made near the Dead Sea, in the area of Qumran, where the scrolls were found. In other words, the scrolls may have been created locally. The analyses were conducted on seven small samples of the scrolls (average size of one square centimetre), following a request made by Dr. Ira Rabin of BAM (Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung) in Berlin. The scrolls belong to the Shrine of the Book of the Israel Museum and the Ronald Reed Collection of the John Rylands University Library. At the LANDIS laboratory (one of the INFN laboratories in Catania), non-destructive analyses were performed to obtain results on the origin of the scrolls. To produce a scroll, which was the writing material used at the time, a great quantity of water is needed. By analysing water samples taken in the area where the scrolls were found, the presence of certain chemical elements was established, and the ratio of their concentrations was determined. The ratio of chlorine to bromine in the fragments of the Temple Scroll was then analysed using proton beams of 1.3 MeV, produced by the Tandem particle accelerator at the INFN National Laboratories of the South. According to this analysis, the ratio of chlorine to bromine in the scroll is consistent with the ratio in local water sources. In other words, this finding supports the hypothesis that the scroll was created in the area in which it was found. The next step in the research will be to analyse the ink used to write the scrolls.

Fonte: INFN – Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Italia – Press Release n. 248 – 2010 July 02

É o que denuncia o artigo de Robert R. Cargill, Pseudo-Science and Sensationalist Archaeology: An Exposé of Jimmy Barfield and the Copper Scroll Project, publicado em The Bible and Interpretation, agosto de 2009.

Para entender o caso, leia antes: Manuscritos do Mar Morto: o Rolo de Cobre.

Transcrevo os dois primeiros parágrafos do artigo:
There is a scourge that has reemerged to plague professional archaeologists and biblical scholars, not to mention a gullible general public. It is powerful, seductive, ubiquitous, and quite media savvy. It is not confined to the realms of logic, sound judgment, peer review, and cogency, but rather exists in the sphere of circular reasoning and preys on the hearts and wallets of the religious, who want to believe the lies this deceiver is spouting. It scoffs at the educated because they possess the power to refute it, and it relies on their apathy and arrogance to move about unhindered. It champions ignorance and promotes dilettantish claims with a populist message of, “You don’t need no Ph.D. to be a scholar.” And it claims superiority over experience, training, and contrary evidence by invoking God-inspired revelation as its motive. The scourge I speak of is sensationalist archaeology.

Sensationalist archaeology is nothing new. As long as there have been objects discovered in the Holy Land, there have been those that insist the objects prove a particular faith claim. A chunk of wood on a mountain is Noah’s Ark. A chunk of wood in Jerusalem is the Cross of Jesus. And a chunk of wood in the Red Sea is proof of the Exodus. Unsubstantiated claims by amateur archaeologists are not new, nor are their direct-to-the-public media attempts to capture eyes and hearts in the age old effort to capture dollars. As P. T. Barnum prophetically said, “There’s a sucker born every minute.”

Quem gostava de dizer esta frase era o valadarense romanizado, Juarez Dutra, meu amigo, que já era bibliotecário do Colégio Pio Brasileiro nos meus tempos de estudante em Roma.

E ele dizia que a frase era de Zaratustra, quando, na verdade, era uma boa invenção dele mesmo, para ser dita diante de um absurdo desmedido. Daqueles que a gente é obrigado a ouvir com certa frequência…

Pois veja as pérolas de cultura bíblica que você encontra em Will you read the original DEAD SEA SCROLLS when they come to the Internet?

O precioso tesouro foi recolhido por Mike Aubrey e reproduzido hoje em seu biblioblog En Epheso no post Gems in the Biblical Scholarship, que, com o queixo caído, acabei de ler.

The Dead Sea Scrolls verify that the “New Testament” was originally written in Hebrew, not Greek, as the early “church” has claimed and lied about for centuries. In fact, that was why the scrolls were originally hidden. The Jews didn’t want the Romans or Greeks to get their scriptures, so many were hidden for that reason. It’s interesting and exciting to learn about!

NT Greek fans think the New Testament “must” have been written in Greek because Paul’s letters were circulated to groups of believers in some Greek cities like Corinth. But remember that those letters went to Jewish believers first. They had to be circulated to EVERY group of Jewish believers. That could only happen if Hebrew or Aramaic was used, because either of those languages were the common languages understood by all Jewish believers everywhere. So there is nothing problematic about the early letters and New Testament writings being in Hebrew or Aramaic.

É isso mesmo. São as “fantásticas” ideias que as pessoas continuam a ter sobre os Manuscritos do Mar Morto… É urgente que o Emanuel Tov ou o García Martínez tomem conhecimento dessa novidade, já que eles não foram capazes de descobri-la por si mesmos! O R. De Vaux deve estar rolando no túmulo!

O Rolo de Cobre, encontrado entre os Manuscritos do Mar Morto, permanece um enigma para os pesquisadores. E continua a criar problemas, pois, ao falar de um fabuloso tesouro escondido, atrai uma enorme quantidade de “picaretas” que se autodenominam arqueólogos…

Leia sobre isso o artigo de Robert R. Cargill, do Center for Digital Humanities – UCLA, publicado no começo de julho, em The Bible and Interpretation: On the Insignificance and the Abuse of the Copper Scroll

Começa assim:

The Copper Scroll has perplexed scholars and fueled the minds of fringe theorists for decades. It is not that the scroll is “mysterious;” we know what it says and what it purports to be: a list of buried treasure. Rather, the Copper Scroll is so anomalous among the Dead Sea Scrolls that scholars have relegated it to realm of triviality bordering on insignificance. This 30 cm tall document etched on thin sheets of copper, rolled up, and oxidized by centuries of exposure to the environs of the Dead Sea was discovered in Cave 3 near Qumran in the West Bank. But while it was discovered along with hundreds of other documents that have collectively come to be known as the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Copper Scroll remains the mother of all anomalies.

Leia Mais:
Os essênios: a racionalização da solidariedade

Para os interessados nos Manuscritos do Mar Morto e/ou essênios, agora que o assunto voltou aos noticiários – veja aqui e aqui -, observo que atualizei a bibliografia no final de meu artigo Os Essênios: a Racionalização da Solidariedade.

Ainda é óbvio o que anotei em 23 de abril de 2007 aqui:
De repente, dei-me conta de que nossa bibliografia em português está defasada em cerca de 10 anos. Nossas editoras simplesmente pararam no tempo. Não traduziram nenhuma das grandes obras que saíram no final do século XX, quando eram comemorados os 50 anos da descoberta dos Manuscritos. Agora, já são 60 anos desde a descoberta e vejo um grande vazio bibliográfico em português nos últimos dez anos.

Com a soma de mais dois anos às datas acima, a coisa até piora… Pergunto: não há mercado no Brasil para este tipo de publicação? Quais seriam os motivos de nossa carência bibliográfica?

Ainda: minha bibliografia, de modo algum, pretende ser completa, é apenas uma seleção de livros que considero úteis. Há milhares de artigos e livros sobre os Manuscritos do Mar Morto, sobre Qumran e sobre os Essênios. Literalmente.

Bibliografia mais ampla? Veja The Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Asssociated Literature.

Bons posts e muitos links para outros textos podem ser encontrados no Biblia Hebraica de Douglas Mangum.

Recomendo a leitura de Challenging the Essene Hypothesis, publicado ontem, dia 17, e de Shockwaves Blast Qumran Consensus, publicado hoje, 18 de março de 2009.

Sem se esquecer de que um roundup pode ser visto aqui.

Quem é Rachel Elior? Veja aqui.

Segundo a Professora Rachel Elior, da Universidade Hebraica de Jerusalém, especializada em mística judaica, os essênios são uma invenção de Flávio Josefo, nunca existiram.

Os Manuscritos do Mar Morto, por sua vez, foram redigidos por saduceus de Jerusalém e guardados nas grutas de Qumran.

Acho que a proposta não é nova, pelo menos no que diz respeito a uma possível origem saduceia dos Manuscritos.

Mas e a “invenção” essênia de Flávio Josefo?

O que você acha? Há uma boa quantidade de posts nos biblioblogs sobre mais este bafafá envolvendo os Manuscritos do Mar Morto. Quando o episódio Golb ainda nem esfriou…

Leia sobre o caso aqui.

Um bom texto sobre os biblioblogs e a responsabilidade dos acadêmicos que os produzem. À luz do caso Raphael Golb. Por Mark Goodacre.

Leia, no Mark Goodacre’s NT Blog, o texto publicado hoje:

The Ethics and the Practicalities of Blogging in the wake of the Raphael Golb affair

É muito interessante.