Jewish News: More than 36 volumes of work by Rabbi Lord Sacks to be made digitally available

Jewish News: More than 36 volumes of work by Rabbi Lord Sacks to be made digitally available. “A digital library, leading publisher and The Rabbi Sacks Legacy are collaborating to bring previously unpublished literary works by the late Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks to the digital realm…. Ultimately, all of Rabbi Sacks’ works published by Koren, which focus on Jewish texts and teachings, will be available to the public on digital platform Sefaria—more than three dozen volumes in total.”

Jerusalem Post: A digital Jewish library aims to add women’s Torah scholarship to its shelves

Jerusalem Post: A digital Jewish library aims to add women’s Torah scholarship to its shelves. “Sefaria, the app that contains a digital collection of Jewish texts, has made everything from Genesis to an essay on Jewish law and gambling accessible at the tap of a finger. But in one way, it’s the same as nearly every other Jewish library in history: Almost all the texts, from ancient times to the present, are written by men. Now, Sefaria is hoping to chip away at that gender disparity by organizing and supporting a group of 20 women Torah scholars who are writing new books on Jewish texts.”

The Tablet: New Discovery Finds Hidden Text Between the Lines of Biblical Passages

The Tablet: New Discovery Finds Hidden Text Between the Lines of Biblical Passages. “The findings stem from the research of Grigory Kessel, a medievalist from the Austrian Academy of Sciences, who believes the hidden texts may date back 1,750 years…. Kessel was able to rediscover the hidden text, which could be found in Matthew chapters 11 and 12, with ultraviolet photography. The hidden words were found under three layers of text in a manuscript.”

Smithsonian Magazine: How an Unorthodox Scholar Uses Technology to Expose Biblical Forgeries

Smithsonian Magazine: How an Unorthodox Scholar Uses Technology to Expose Biblical Forgeries . “As it turns out, [Michael] Langlois is a professional musician, having played bass on some 20 French studio albums, from soul to gospel to pop. He had recently laid down the bass tracks on an album of Celtic music by the French composer Hélène Goussebayle, and that summer he would perform in France with the Christian rock singer Chris Christensen. But he is also perhaps the most versatile—and unorthodox—biblical scholar of his generation.”

Library of Congress: The Giant Bible of Mainz Digitized by the Library of Congress

Library of Congress: The Giant Bible of Mainz Digitized by the Library of Congress. “The Giant Bible of Mainz, one of the last handwritten giant bibles in Europe, has now been digitized by the Library of Congress, ensuring online access to an important national treasure from the 15th century…. The Giant Bible is famous for having been copied by a single scribe, who precisely dated his progress between April 4, 1452, and July 9, 1453. These dates are remarkable because they place the creation of this manuscript bible in proximity to the first printed bible crafted in Europe, the Gutenberg Bible.”

Jewish News Service: First digital translation of Mishneh Torah interconnected with other Jewish texts goes online

Jewish News Service: First digital translation of Mishneh Torah interconnected with other Jewish texts goes online. “A complete English translation of the Mishneh Torah interconnected with other Jewish texts is being digitally offered for the first time ever by the nonprofit organization Sefaria, which digitizes and shares Jewish texts for free in Hebrew along with translations and commentaries.”

My Modern Met: You Can Now Explore All of ‘The Book of Kells’ for Free Online

My Modern Met: You Can Now Explore All of ‘The Book of Kells’ for Free Online. “When people think of Ireland, the rolling green hills, Guinness beer, and twisted Celtic knots might be what comes to mind. The small island nation has a storied history of resistance to oppression and perseverance through famine, but the most iconic piece of Irish history dates to the early medieval period. The Book of Kells—held in the library of Trinity College Dublin—is a masterpiece of medieval illumination and manuscript craft. The legendary volume is now available in new high-resolution scans for free online browsing.”

Jerusalem Post: German Talmud translation from 1935 goes online

Jerusalem Post: German Talmud translation from 1935 goes online. “Scholars of Judaism in Germany have sought to make Jewish texts available in German for decades, but the Talmud translation project gained steam after [Igor] Itkin and his colleagues, German and Austrian scholars, took on the project after he realized that [Lazarus] Goldschmidt’s work would enter the public domain at the beginning of this year.”

ABC 15 Arizona: Inside the massive effort to translate the Bible into American Sign Language

ABC 15 Arizona: Inside the massive effort to translate the Bible into American Sign Language. “It is a book that has been translated into thousands of languages. Yet one of the biggest challenges churches all over the country have faced is translating the book into a language the deaf community can understand. Within the last year, the Bible was finally available in American Sign Language. It took Deaf Missions Ministry and their partners 39 years to complete the translation, and it took the Jehovah’s Witnesses 15 years to put together the New World Translation of the Bible.”

University of Birmingham: Recovering the text of the earliest Greek New Testament Commentary manuscript

University of Birmingham: Recovering the text of the earliest Greek New Testament Commentary manuscript. “The manuscript first came to scholarly attention two hundred years ago this year, when it was presented to a British dignitary on the Greek island of Zakynthos. On the face of it, the manuscript is a lectionary containing the portions of the gospels used in Christian worship throughout the year. However, this twelfth-century document is a palimpsest, created by erasing the ink from an earlier manuscript in order to re-use the parchment to make another book. The original text is a commentary on the Gospel according to Luke known as a catena, bringing together extracts from early Christian writers which explain the biblical text. However, given the overwriting of the manuscript and the fading of the ink, much of the commentary is unreadable to the naked eye.”