MSU Uses New Humanities Grant to Digitize Ancient Religious Texts

Michigan State University (MSU) is using a National Endowment for the Humanities grant to digitize 20 pages from two Israelite Samaritan Pentateuchs, texts that were written more than 500 years ago.

According to excerpts from the article: 

From book to Web, some of the world’s rarest religious documents will soon be available to anyone, anywhere, thanks to work provided by a Michigan State University research center.

A Pentateuch, known to Jews as the Torah or the first of three sections of the Hebrew Bible, is also known to Christians as the first five books of the Old Testament.

“Our project aims to provide an online space where two distinct groups of stakeholders in the Samaritan collection—biblical scholars and members of the Samaritan community—can both access and make use of these texts,” said William Hart-Davidson, co-director of the research center. “A digital archive has the potential to simultaneously preserve artifacts for posterity while broadening access.”

And the archive will build community, much like social networks Facebook or MySpace.

Read the entire article here.

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