Digital Tools, New Testament and Manuscript Access

Χριστός ἀνέστη!, June 24, 2011 | © Courtesy of fusion-of-horizons/Flickr.
Χριστός ἀνέστη!, June 24, 2011 | © Courtesy of fusion-of-horizons/Flickr.

On May 22, 2019, Garrick V. Allen has published an article entitled “Digital Tools for Working with New Testament Manuscripts” in Open Theology.

A Blog Post by Pablo Markin.


In his paper, Garrick V. Allen has examined the possibilities of deploying digital tools, such as virtual reality, for “the study of Greek New Testament manuscripts” (13). This researcher has also probed questions relating to “digital representations as proxies for primary sources, challenges for managing the materiality of artefactual and digital objects, the collaborative nature of digital scholarship, and the implicit interpretations of the Greek New Testament tradition inherent in digital workspaces” (13).

As Allen confirms, “digital tools and online repositories have significantly increased the efficiency of manuscript consultation through the medium of digital images and bibliographic databases” (14). This article, thus, primarily analyzes “the New Testament Virtual Manuscript Room (NTVMR), the image library of the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts (CSNTM), and the Pinakes database” (14) as digital tools for Bible research.

This author concludes that “the tools both reflect and enable interpretation. Representing the combined labour of hundreds of scholars working over many years, they enable researchers to begin to grapple with the quantity and quality of the Greek witnesses to the New Testament” (26). Allen, likewise, adds that “these sites also enable more sophisticated forms of engagement with the tradition: greater access to marginalia and commentary, idiosyncratic aspects of each manuscript, [and] the ability to immediately compare manuscripts side-by-side that are housed in different countries” (26).

By Pablo Markin


Featured Image Credits: Χριστός ἀνέστη!, June 24, 2011 | © Courtesy of fusion-of-horizons/Flickr.


Cite this article as: Pablo Markin, "Digital Tools, New Testament and Manuscript Access," in Open Culture, 08/09/2019, https://oc.hypotheses.org/2290.

You may also like...

Search OpenEdition Search

You will be redirected to OpenEdition Search