The hyperspectral imaging technique that will be used to scan the Bible was originally designed for medical purposes, by Costas Balas at the Technical University of Crete. It works by looking at each image in very narrow bands of wavelength�specific shades of red, green and so on. However, the imaging spans more than just the visible part of the spectrum of light, going from the ultra-violet (light that has shorter wavelength than violet) to the infra-red (light with wavelength longer than red). Because both the ink used to write on the vellum and the vellum itself are transparent at various wavelengths, this technique will allow scholars to see all the layers of the manuscript in at least some wavelengths, and thus perceive the various rewrites it has gone through.
Dr McKendrick says that it is one of the first projects of its kind, and one the library hopes to emulate with other manuscripts. It is only now, he says, that the technology has advanced to the point where digital copies can be as good, if not better, than the original. And the democratisation of access to the text will have a big impact on biblical scholars. Dr [Scott] McKendrick [of the British Library] points out that even the privileged few who had access to the original could spend only a short time examining it. Once the scanning is completed, the many will be able to examine it for as long as they like.
This is the most detailed account I've seen of the process of recording the information from the manuscript.
As for the rest of the article, I'm skeptical that the new information will tell us much about the process of canonization in fourth century which we don't already know. But we'll see. Certainly we'll be able to learn lots of interesting details about the making of codices, scribal conventions, the transmission of this particular manuscript, etc., and some of this may ultimately help us understand better the social context of the manuscript when it was copied.
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