Idiots

Ran into someone saying that ethics and morality are much older than religion. I pointed out that fertility goddesses more than 30,000 years old have been found, and asked him how old he thought religion was.

Someone else in the same place said that the amount of materials up to 2000 years old in the Vatican archives are vast and that no-one is allowed to see anything in them. I asked him, if nobody's allowed to see these materials, how does he know how vast the amount of materials is? I pointed out that, although the Vatican does indeed have secret archives, the vast majority of their manuscript collection is available to scholars.

I didn't mention that some written artifacts owned by the Vatican are well over 2000 years old. I get tired sometimes. I also didn't mention that the collection of manuscripts in the Vatican library, the above-mentioned part available to scholars, is well-known, famous to scholars, even, and that the Vatican has begun putting images of those manuscripts online for one and all to see. See for yourself.

I'm not at all optimistic about getting an intelligent answer, or even a coherent answer, from either of these gentlemen. But I felt I had to do something.

Vatican Manuscripts Going Online

I'm not sure how extensive the Vatican Library's holdings are in other areas, but when it comes to old and important manuscripts of Classical Latin authors, they are second to none in the world. And now they're starting to put images of some of their manuscripts online. Their digitalization process is far from perfect -- for example, the viewer doesn't keep track of which page you're on, as many pdf viewers and other such things do. And for another example, there's an annoying copyright announcement superimposed over the image of each and every manuscript page, not the ideal place for such a thing by any means -- but I'm still not complaining, because this online collection is still stunning. And hopefully they're just getting started.

The manuscripts so far digitalized and put online for free public view so far include, to take just one example out of hundreds, Vatican Latin manuscript 3225, also known as vat lat 3225, a celebrated Latin manuscript made in the 4th or 5th century containing fragments of the works of Vergil as well as some interesting illustrations like this:

If you're into Latin manuscripts, this digitalization project of the Vatican is really something.

And far all I know it may be just as exciting for people interested in other sorts of manuscripts -- Bible manuscripts, Mayan manuscripts, what have you. You'll have to ask them.