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IT’S NOT EXACTLY where you’d expect to find the oldest surviving copy of all four gospels and the Acts of the Apostles.
One of Dublin’s gems of a museum, the Chester Beatty Library, has got one of the oldest and most unusual collections of Biblical manuscripts in the world – which, given the weekend that’s in it, could be something to go see if you’re looking for an alternative to overdosing on Easter eggs.
As well as the gospels, there are also large portions of St Paul’s letters, parts of the Book of Revelation, and an account of Jesus’ crucifixation by John the evangelist.
All four gospels and the Acts of Apostle are in a codex (which mean in book form), something that is unique to early Christian writers – many other classical texts from the same time would have been written on a scroll.
The manuscripts are believed to have been discovered in Egypt in 1929, and are all written on papyrus.
The texts all date back to the 2nd century: St Paul’s letters have been dated to around 200 AD, while part of the Gospel texts come from between 150-200 AD, showing how early the Christian Bible was put together by followers of Jesus.
One of the things that makes the library’s collections unusual is that they were all acquired by one person.
“In large museums, the texts would often have been acquired over a long period of time by different collectors, or after being donated by different people,” explains Jill Unkle, the curator of Western collections.
It is unusual, but you have to think about the time that Chester Beatty was building up his collection. Back in the early 20th century, museums didn’t really have the funds that they do now. They’d often have been competing with millionaires in auctions.
Beatty, who made his fortune by building a huge mining company, was cautious once he set his sights on the texts, which had ended up in a dealer’s shop in Cairo. Beatty, who had good relations with dealers in the city, got wind of the find quite early, had a look, and send some coded telegrams to researchers in the British Museum who acted as his advisors.
“The researchers sent a coded telegram back saying that it was an excellent find and that he should definitely acquire them,” explains Unkle.
The people who come to see the manuscripts – which are on view for free – come for a mixture of historical and religious reasons. “You get both,” says Unkle.
The documents have been photographed and put online – “it’s a huge project” – by a team in Texas, in order to make them viewable to a wider audience – and to those who may want to see how a little library in Dublin ended up with one of the strongest collection of biblical manuscripts in the world.
The man behind the collection
Chester Beatty was born in New York in 1875 before moving to Ireland in 1950 and building a library for his art collection.
Not a lot of people came to see the collection at first – it was on Shrewsbury Road, slightly outside the city centre and surrounded by residential areas – but after his death, the board appointed to look after the collection decided to move to a more central location.
“He’d spent so much time and effort on the collection and building up his knowledge about these things, he didn’t just want to donate it to a museum and have it dispersed among the various collections, or wind up just sitting in a store room, he wanted it to be together,” explains Unkle.
In the 1990s, the board appointed to look after the collection found a spot in Dublin Castle, sold the plot on Shrewsbury Road, and moved. The purpose-built gallery opened in 2000.
The Chester Beatty Library is open every day over Easter. Admission is free.
So what they’re saying is that the government bailed them out and they’re doing nothing with that money except for hoarding it and loaning to their buddies? What a total shocker. I never saw that coming.
Fair play to ISME for keeping this issue highlighted, many businesses are trying to keep going and even develop on cash flow knowing it is a time consuming and costly waste of time even applying for credit, business is being strangled and bled to death by government inaction on credit and high costs.
SMEs are possibly the worst exploiters of workers in Ireland. They flaunt labour laws, hide behind the likes of ISME and the SFA.
When it comes back buy a safe .
What?
No mention of the 90% of applicants told by bank staff not to bother applying for a loan?
Considering the banks were in such deep denial in 2008 it’s no wonder since the same cronies are still running the shop that they are hording cash. And whilst they continue to keep their bonuses, from the money we bailed them out with – the rest of the SME’s can sink – with us along with them. The business page of the Sunday Indo had the finest example of how the ‘enterprise challenged’ heads of BOI behave, letting a Jemie Jenkins business fold through lack of a credit line backed by letters of credit from his export customers – he had export orders worth thousands in the states for crying out loud! Just shows even when they promote enterprise week in may and dragons den they are apathetic to any economic need – other than the economy of their own pockets! – Pillar bank my ole!
Ye! forgot about that one – dead right Harry, I was one of them !
The banks are protecting themselves at the direct cost, not only to small and medium enterprises but to the whole economy. While this government waffles and dithers about bank interventions, SMEs are being terrorised and ultimately shut down by discredited bailed-out bankers, arrogant at top level and ignorant at branch level. With 96% of business owners of the opinion that Government have either a negative or no impact on SME lending, this Administration must act now and install active management into the banks, representing the owners, the taxpayers, to ensure honest reporting, sustainable reform and a return to proper banking.
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Get your friends together and sign a petition. Bring that petition to your local TD’s, tell them that they need to confront the banks…all of the banks in your area, that you expect that your TD will write to the local banking institutions informing them that all of the signatories will take their money out of the bank, close their accounts and refuse to do business with them until they begin to loan to the SME sector again. You get 10 or 15 TD’s involved with that (and many TD’s would be delighted of the photo opportunity and to be seen on the side of the little guy) get some air time and a little public anger going and the threat that deposits might suddenly en masse start walking out the door…watch the little piggies squeal then!!
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