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:
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.
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.