ESV Manuscript Maker
One of the struggles I have with a modern published version of the Biblical text is the amount of technology that invades the space where reading is being done. The amount of information crowding in on the biblical text can actually be an impediment to thoughtful study, instead of an aid. The technology that I'm referring to is not just the notes that show up in the footer or margin, but that which actually disrupts the plane of reading, such as headings, versification and the like.
The other night I was particularly frustrated with the amount of headings that communicate the beliefs of the compilers, rather than leaving the reader to form the breaks along lines make sense to him or her. I find this particularly frustrating in the Gospels where most publications note every pericope, drawing attention away from the larger structures in the text.
Thanks to the forward thinking folks at the ESV, I have constructed a small tool based on their web service that allows you to create a manuscript version of the text to your own liking. This is just the first version, and I only a piece of a larger community tool that I (and others) would like to see come together.
The tool can be found here: http://sim.plified.com/manuscript/
Please give it a try and let give some feed back by commenting on this post or sending me an email: cwpollock at gmail
Technorati Tags: bibletech08,bibletech,esv,mansucript
4 Comments, Comment or Ping
kevin maloney
sweet tool - and the fastest text stream i've ever seen (crosswalk.com is SLOW, regreek is too. and its nice to not be banner-added to death)
just a thought…what do you see as the value of removing spaces and vowels from an english text? unspaced greek makes sense because you eliminate artificial word breaks. unvoweled hebrew makes sense because it eliminates artificial words. but once its in english, is taking away spaces and vowels more destructive to the text?
kevin
Feb 11th, 2008
cwpollock
In the tool, removing vowels from the English language seems a bit far fetched (for English has always had a vowel representation). When removing the vowels, the only way for you to read what is there is to call it out of your memory (what you already have inside of you) via the representational characters (text) on the page. This reinforces the part that community plays in text creation. Like or not, the texts we have have been influenced by a community of belief. When calling it out of the memory, instead of simply looking at it with the eye, we may be caused to remember that the Word is something more than just text on a page.
Feb 12th, 2008
bparks64
Great web app. Thanks! I love it. Like the other commenters, I don't see the value of taking out spaces and vowels - for english. But this is great for manuscript study. I'm curious where you learned manuscript study.
May 21st, 2008
GJenks
I really appreciate your tool. I've made two manuscripts for Luke and Acts and posted the pdf versions on my website here: http://www.grantsweb.com/doku.php?id=random:manuscripts Thanks for creating your tool.
Jun 29th, 2008
Reply to “ESV Manuscript Maker”