Zotero - a review

For many of us, typing and editing footnotes and the bibliography can be a real chore. Thanks to reference management software, this task has been made easier. However, after a not so good experience with a few programs two years ago (i.e., compatibility issues) and wasting my money, I decided to surf the web and search for a software that will organize my bibliography for free. True enough, a few weeks ago I chanced upon Zotero. For someone who is not computer savvy, I find Zotero very user-friendly, especially with its simple step-by-step user guide. Since Zotero works with the web (i.e., Firefox), it can grab the bibliographical data from materials in those sites that it recognizes, like Google Books. This means no more typing of bibliography entries, although you may need to do a bit of editing for some parts of the entry, like adding the place and year of publication. Finally, what I consider to be the best features of Zotero, are (1) it allows you to store bibliographical data and (2) you can use it to cite sources for footnoting and bibliography in your written work – and both these actions for FREE. However, if you plan to store your pdf files in your Zotero account, you need to increase your storage capacity and this means you have to pay. I still need to explore the other features of Zotero and I don’t know what problems I may find, but for now I am very happy there is a program called Zotero!

If you want to check it out, here is the link to Zotero: http://ica.library.oregonstate.edu/tutorials/626--Introduction-to-Zotero

Joan Infante

Unicode

The continual changes and developments in computer-related technology require that the bibilical scholar stay up to date in a number of areas related to contemporary scholarship. One of these areas in the font world. The new standard for fonts is what is known as Unicode. Please remember, that that the sooner you begin using Unicode, the less work it is and the more you can use its advantages!

• Thanks to Gergely Juhasz we post here his very detailed presentation on Unicode in the biblical scholarhip, to be downloaded here.

The Corinth computer project

http://corinth.sas.upenn.edu/corinth.html

Image Database for Biblical Studies, Yale Divinity School

http://www.yale.edu/adhoc/eikonlinks.html

Dead Sea Scrolls Content Overview

The works of the Dead Sea Scrolls are basically classified under five categories. 1) Rules, 2) poetic and liturgical texts, 3) wisdom texts, 4) Bible interpretation and 5) miscellaneous compositions. They are classified in whatever cave they were found with the designation of the cave and the letter Q. For instance, those texts found in cave 1 are designated 1Q with a corresponding title.

Today I give a brief overview of the Rules contents. This is taken from Geza Vermes, An Introduction to the Complete Dead Sea Scrolls

1. The Community Rule (1QS; 4QS255-264; 4Q502; 5Q11,13
2. Community Rule Fragments (4QS d/e)
3. The Damascus Document (also known as CD)
4. The Messianic Rule (1QSa or 1Q28a)
5. The War Scroll (1QM, 4Q491-496)
6. The Book of War (4Q285)
7. The Temple Scroll (11Q TS)
8. Communal Ceremony (4Q275)
9. Four Lots (4Q279)
10. 4QYohorot B-C (4Q276-277)
11. 4QTohorot G (4Q284a)
12. Observances of the Law (MMT 4Q394-399)
13. The Wicked and the Holy (4Q181)
14. Purity Matters (4Q274)
15. Masters Address to the Sons of Dawn (4Q298)
16. Rebukes (4Q477)
17. Remonstances (4Q471 a)

Wow, this is just what is classified as the Rules. As it becomes very apparent, there is an enormous amount of material in the DSS and to study them opens up our knowledge greatly of the ancient world.

Dead Sea Scrolls Link

In the Useful links section of the blog, I added a helpful link to the Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls. It contains all kinds of information relative to Dead Sea Scrolls research and an extensive bibliography of recent publications. I hope it helps.