The Jubilees Palimpsest project will use the latest developments in imaging technology to make available to all what has not been readable to the human eye for hundreds of years. The project will recover an ancient collection of books attributed to Moses and an interpretation of the Gospel of Luke. These writings reflect major movements and debates in early Judaism and Christianity. Later, they were rejected by the mainstream and nearly lost forever. The technology will allow us to distribute without cost, not only the textual discoveries, but the experience of working with the manuscript as a cultural artifact. For many students and scholars, this interactive online copy, proposed for completion in 2015, will be the closest they come to handling a sixth-century manuscript.
The 144-page manuscript is often referred to as the “Jubilees” palimpsest in reference to its oldest text, eighty pages of a Latin translation of a Hebrew composition from the 150s BCE, fragments of which were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran. The codex also includes sixteen pages of a first-century CE Jewish work called the Assumption or Testament of Moses, and forty-eight pages of a fourth-century CE Arian commentary on the Gospel of Luke. All reflect major developments in Judaism and Christianity, and all were eventually suppressed. Jubilees was treated as scripture among those responsible for the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran, and “Arians” represented a major form of Christianity in the fourth century. Scholars of Judaism and Christianity will be most interested in evaluating the images to determine the oldest form of the ancient texts, which are known best or only from this manuscript. The manuscript itself tells the story of the “erasure” of alternative views of the Law and Christ, and replacement with a view that retained dominance, namely an anthology of Augustine, On the Trinity.
This manuscript, now at the Ambrosiana Library (Biblioteca) in Milan, has not been thoroughly edited since 1828 (Commentary on Luke) and 1861 (Jubilees and the Assumption or Testament of Moses). The manuscript is a palimpsest, which means that the writing from the sixth century was erased so that the parchment could be reused to copy another text in the eighth century. Based on technology available in the nineteenth century, many readings of the erased text were uncertain or entirely impossible. Our team believes that current imaging technology can make more text readable and will preserve a digital copy of the complete visual experience of the manuscript. This project will combine two technologies which have proven successful in the past. Spectral imaging is particularly useful at producing enhanced images that distinguish materials (such as different types of ink or discoloration) well beyond the capability of the naked eye. Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI) captures the texture and depth of a surface otherwise lost in a two-dimensional image. At high resolution the technology can make apparent the thickness of the ink, or the corrosion where lost ink has eaten into the parchment. Combined, the technologies allow a user to interact with the digital version of the manuscript. The spectral enhancements simulate rolling back the clock to show the appearance of the manuscript in the sixth or eighth centuries. The RTI images simulate holding an artifact up to a light at different angles, controlled by the user. Digital technology allows perfect duplication of the archive and transmission of the interactive experience over the Internet without cost.
The online user will experience the enhanced digital manuscript more fully than is possible in reality. The manuscript is now available only in Milan, and only to specialists under extreme restrictions for preservation, and even still is not readable. This project will recover lost traces of the history of Judaism and Christianity, and make available to the world a unique artifact of western cultural heritage.
update history
July 18, 2011, TRH