St. Catherine’s Monastery (left), also known as the Monastery of the Transfiguration, is the world’s oldest monastery.
Built in the 6th century at the foot of Mt. Sinai in Egypt (or at least the traditional location of Mt. Sinai, since we’re not sure of its exact location), the monastery houses the largest collection of ancient Christian manuscripts besides the collection belonging to the Vatican.
Now the monks there are using hi-tech means to try to read some of the more faded manuscripts in its collection.
The monastery’s librarian, Fr. Jusin (a fellow Texan! Yee-haw!) has been digitizing manuscripts with a camera capable of 72 megapixel resolution. Many will be online later this year.
The process holds out the prospects of helping us better understand the history of the text of the Bible (including potential new evidence regarding the original reading of uncertain passages) and may even turn up previously unknown texts, as at Oxyrhynchus.
MORE ON ST. CATHERINE’S MONASTERY.
“World’s Oldest Monastery?”
Didn’t Saint Benedict live before the 6th century, and don’t a couple of his original monasteries still survive?
So does that make it a Horeble monastery?
World’s oldest monastary? Nothing a little vinyl siding can’t rejuvenate.
Of all the places I’ve been, St. Catherine’s is very near the top of my favorite list. Seeing the life there in the monastary and some of the manuscripts along with the three or four hour climb up Mt. Sinai were all the highlights. Then there’s the room with hundreds of skulls of the former monks all piled up to the ceiling. Very sobering for the monks there I’d think. BTW, it is the oldest monastary in the world.
Didn’t Saint Benedict live before the 6th century, and don’t a couple of his original monasteries still survive?
Eric,
Saint Benedict lived in the late 5th and early 6th Century, and you are correct that some of the monasteries he founded “survive” as far as their communities go, e.g. Monte Casino. However, this latter monastery was destroyed three times and rebuilt. So the statistic might possibly refer to the oldest original structure still housing a religious community.
Who makes the 72 megapixel camera they are using and how much does it cost? For digital archiving I’d think they would contact http://www.gigapxl.com — they have a GIGA pixel camera.