We’ve been on Patmos now for over a week and have taken over 7000 hi-res digital photographs of Greek New Testament manuscripts. These are housed in the Monastery of St. John the Theologian, which sits atop the infamous island where John penned the Apocalypse over 1900 years ago. The Orthodox have rolled out the red carpet for us, showing us extreme hospitality and kindness. We have enjoyed our time immensely, even if it is, at times, back-breaking work.
We photographed thirteen manuscripts while here. The longest one was over 1000 pages. It filled 13 DVDs; each image was 48 megabytes (TIFF format). And get this: the text covered was only the Gospels! The reason is that there was a commentary attached to the scriptures and it was, well, not given to brevity.
Although we brought 150 DVDs with us to burn, we soon discovered that that was not nearly enough. We will have enough for the monastery, but only about half of what we need for ourselves. So, we will be flying home with most of the data only on hard drives. Pray that we don’t hit too many air pockets!
Below are a couple of pictures to show our work. I thought you’d enjoy these. Our first day on the job, one of the priests asked us why we wore black. My response: “To honor the priests of the Monastery of St. John the Theologian.†He was pleased with our response.
We had a wonderful and important weekend here on Patmos. The Abbot invited us to the grand opening of the Museum of the Convent of the Life-Giving Spring (a nunnery close to the monastery). The nunnery is about 40 years old (a real youth on this island!) but the museum is brand new. We were honored to be among the invited guests for this event! The inauguration started in the sanctuary. We all stood for about 75 minutes, while the service took place. The incense got a little strong and the air was thick, warm, and humid. After the service, there were speeches and more consecrations in the museum courtyard. Then, after about an hour we were allowed to tour the small museum. Remarkable icons were on display. What a treat to be part of this grand opening!
On Sunday, we went to the Holy Liturgy of the Orthodox Church, also held at the nunnery. The service started at 7 am; we showed up at 10 am and it was still going. Afterward, the museum was again consecrated. And we were invited for this event as well. There was a PowerPoint presentation, followed by fellowship with Greek coffee and some desserts. During our time here, cheese and other milk products have not been eaten by the faithful, nor has meat; they are fasting in honor of St. Peter and St. Paul. But the Greeks know how to celebrate anyway! We finally left at 12.30 pm.
I was able to spend some time with one of the priests of the monastery on Sunday as well. It was an important contact. Sunday night we went to dinner and Andy captured a beautiful sunset on video on the west side of the island. He also shot two people riding on a small motorcycle with a dog in lap! Typical of Patmos to have motorcycles with multiple passengers, including dogs!
By Monday, we got back to photographing manuscripts. We were actually able to complete all the photography today except for perhaps one retake photo. 7000+ photos in six days is pretty decent work. All proofed and processed.
As well, one friend prayed that we would be able to discover another manuscript while here. Well, that didn’t quite happen… yet. But we did notice that the last few pages of a manuscript had been scraped over; the Unterschrift (or undertext) was written perhaps two or three centuries earlier than the uppertext. Someone discovered it a few years ago, but was unable to identify it. We are still working on the identification. We know it is not from the New Testament or the apostolic fathers. It may not even be a copy of any known Greek text. Pray that we can discover what lurks beneath the clearly written text! We had to use UV light to bring out the letters and even then we could not make out the whole thing.
8 replies to "Patmos Update"
Amazing work Dr Wallace!!
Thanks, Chad. Just wait till you see the pictures. I finally got a good enough internet connection and poor enough quality pics to upload. They show the kinds of manuscripts we look at and how we go about filming them.
fascinating!
One correction: below the second picture it says “Dan Wallace on June 18.” I realize that that note is to sign off on the blog, but to the unsuspecting viewer it might be seen as a caption for the second picture. That picture is actually of Billy Todd, handling a small 1000-year-old Greek New Testament manuscript. It was very difficult to shoot because it was so small. The first picture is of a large Greek New Testament–equally difficult but because it was so large.
Take me with you next time. I’ll carry your bags, stand in line for you at the airport, just take me with you! I can hardly wait to see the images that have been preserved.
Thanks for your work!
Richard
Very kind of you to offer, Richard! Unfortunately, we already have a backlog of folks who want to go, but very few who are truly qualified. Ideally, I’d like to be able to train twenty teams of four people each for these expeditions. But the people have to know Greek, computers, digital cameras, have strong social skills, tremendous discipline. They also need to be able to speak the language to some degree of the local site and be respectful of the owners of the manuscripts. Last of all, they need to help raise their own support. These trips are very expensive because of the equipment, DVDs (we are burning 150 for this trip and we will run short!), housing, meal, travel, miscellaneous costs, etc.
BUT: if you want to come to Dallas, take the course on textual criticism, learn how to handle manuscripts properly, and can raise the funds, then maybe… (:-)…
so it’s not enough to just be your water boy?
Seriously, after reading your concluding post about meeting with the Abbot, I’m incredibly envious of your experience. I have so much respect for the Eastern Orthodox church, and am so pleased to know that you have represented Protestants as well as you did.
I’m looking forward to seeing the images posted at http://www.csntm.org .
Richard, I agree. There is an awful lot that we can learn from the Orthodox. And I’m in the process of learning from them all the time. So much more to know, however!