Bar Hebraeus, Chronicon Ecclesiasticum vol. 1 now online

Thanks to Stephen C. Carlson, I learned a few days ago that volume 1 of Bar Hebraeus Chronicon Ecclesiasticum was online in PDF form at Google Books here.  Unfortunately this 1872 book is  kept behind their “US-only” firewall, although it is out of copyright everywhere in the world. 

I’ve placed an ILL for volume 2, which I will scan if it arrives and place online at Archive.org. 

In preparation for this, I’ve also put the volume 1 PDF on Archive.org where non-US viewers can see it.  It’s here.  I suggest US viewers use the Google books link, which is faster.

The work itself consists of short entries on figures in the Syriac church from the beginning down to the author’s own time.  A parallel Latin translation is provided.  The first volume is the important people in the West Syriac church; the second is their opposite numbers in the East Syriac church.  I don’t know what volume 3 is, tho!

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Three Israeli bible mss available for download

At Paleojudaica I learned of this message from Elhanan Adler:

The National Library of Israel, David and Fela Shapell Family Digitization Project, is pleased to announce the digitization of three of the Library’s most important Bible manuscripts… The manuscripts are presented in the DjVu format which provides high quality, magnifiable images compressed into relatively small files for easy downloading. In order to view DjVu images it is necessary to download and install (once) a special free viewer program.

This is a red letter day.  A major library has made manuscripts available in a downloadable, easy-to-use format.  Well done, boys!  That is what we want to see.

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Hippolytus, Apostolic tradition now online

Tom Schmidt writes that he has completed digitizing the English translation of this obscure work, which he has made public domain!  Excellent news all round.  I sympathise with his experiences of doing it, tho, really I do!

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