4.0476 "Interpreting Manuscripts" Availability (1/72)

Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear (EDITORS@BROWNVM.BITNET)
Tue, 11 Sep 90 23:48:01 EDT

Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 4, No. 0476. Tuesday, 11 Sep 1990.

Date: Tue, 11 Sep 1990 17:23:39 EDT
From: "Allen Renear, CIS, Brown Univ. 401-863-7312" <ALLEN@BROWNVM>
Subject: Humanist Listserv Announcement


Tim Seid's INTERPRETING MANUSCRIPTS Hypercard stacks are now available
on the Humanist server. The files are:

HCMSS01 SITHQX
HCMSS02 SITHQX
HCMSS03 SITHQX
HCMSS04 SITHQX
HCMSS05 SITHQX
HCMSSDOC TEXT

To retrieve them send mail to LISTSERV@BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU with the lines
GET HCMSS01 SITHQX HUMANIST
GET HCMSS02 SITHQX HUMANIST
GET HCMSS03 SITHQX HUMANIST
GET HCMSS04 SITHQX HUMANIST
GET HCMSS05 SITHQX HUMANIST
GET HCMSSDOC TEXT HUMANIST

See the GUIDE TO HUMANIST for more information on retrieving files
from the fileserver.

The SITHQX files contain the Hypercard stacks. Once downloaded to your
Mac convert them to Stuffit documents with BinHex (v. 5.0 or later)
and then use Stuffit (v. 1.5.1 or later) to extract the stacks.

---------------------------

INTERPRETING MANUSCRIPTS

Interpreting Manuscripts is a series of HyperCard stacks (800k) which
teach about the procedure involved in analyzing ancient Manuscripts.
Since the stacks are designed for the course Earliest Christianity, all
of the examples are from the New Testament and deal specifically with
that area. The purpose of this exercise is to help the undergraduate
student be aware that interpretation of a text not only concerns
judgment of the modern translation or of the critical text but has to do
with how one deals with the ancient manuscripts themselves:
reconstructing the original from the copies, editing the ancient text
(deciphering characters, making divisions between words and sentences,
punctuating), and finally translating and exegeting ("drawing out" the
meaning of) the document.

The main stack creates the simulation of going to the New England Museum
of Antiquity in order to begin work on some newly found manuscripts.
With a little animation, you are brought to your office in the Ancient
Manuscript Center. From here you will be able to learn about
Paleography and Textual Criticism. After you have mastered these
disciplines, you are ready to go to the basement to the Manuscript Vault
(Be careful on the stairs!). The last task, after analyzing the four
manuscripts (Codices Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, and Rhode Island) and
dating them, is to start up the computer that is on your desk in the
office--a Macintosh, what else?-- and run the program MacEdit. You
first have to edit each manuscript. Then determine the relationship
among the four. The key here is to see if manuscripts share the same
mistakes or are completely different (the scribes who produced these
copies were really bad). Finally, you must attempt to reconstruct the
manuscript from which the others were copied. When you have finished,
you can compare your reconstruction with the actual original, something
we don't get a chance to do in reality.

This project was funded by an Educational Computing Grant from Brown
University in the name of Dr. Stanley K. Stowers, Associate Professor of
Religious Studies, Brown University. The author, Timothy W. Seid, a
graduate student in the Religious Studies Department at Brown, received
funding from the Graduate School in the form of several Computer
Proctorships. You are encouraged to make use of this stackware without
cost.

If you make changes or have comments, send
them to Tim Seid, Religious Studies Dept., Brown University,
Providence, RI 02912 or electronically to ST401742@BROWNVM.