By: Jacob W. Peterson
In August, CSNTM appointed Jacob W. Peterson to the newly-created position of Research Fellow. Jacob began working with us as a graduate student intern in 2011. Afterward, he joined the staff as Intern Coordinator until he left to pursue a PhD in New Testament Language, Literature, and Theology at the University of Edinburgh. While away, Jacob continued to play an integral role in the Center’s mission by participating in every digitization expedition over the last three years. Now that he is wrapping up his dissertation at Edinburgh, we are thrilled to have him back on our team where he will not only lead worldwide digitizing expeditions, but also will enhance our research agenda. Now, hear from Jacob about what he will initially do in his new role.
One of CSNTM’s missional aims is “to publish on various facets of New Testament textual criticism.” Unfortunately, aside from the occasional conference presentation or journal article, we have been unable to dedicate much time or resources toward this aim. As the Center has continued to grow, both in terms of its size and reach, the time has come to highlight the impact of the work being done on the discovery and digitization side of operations.
CSNTM has historically focused its efforts and resources on the discovery and digitization of manuscripts, and it has been very successful at this task. Since its founding in 2002, CSNTM has digitally preserved almost seven hundred manuscripts at locations around the world. Among these are nearly one hundred manuscripts that were previously unknown to Western scholarship. Approximately seventy of these manuscripts have been officially catalogued with the Institute for New Testament Textual Research in Münster, Germany, yet almost all of them have gone unstudied.
The desire to fulfill the Center’s missional aim combined with the growing number of discoveries the organization has made presented the perfect opportunity for someone to step in and begin doing in-house research. My primary responsibility over the next few years will be examining the manuscripts CSNTM has discovered for the purpose of producing several academic volumes focused on their contents. The aim of the volumes is to provide scholarly treatment of all of CSNTM’s discoveries and, in this way, complete the act of manuscript discovery, digitization, and scholarly presentation. A secondary aim is the publication of volume(s) on images in CSNTM’s manuscript library. These would focus on new research on and editions of known manuscripts resulting from advanced digitization techniques (i.e., multispectral imaging) or in-depth text-critical studies of particular manuscripts. Ultimately, the hope is to increase CSNTM’s research profile, and also to collaborate with up-and-coming students and recent PhDs to give them opportunities to do original research.
We at CSNTM, and I especially, are thankful for your continued support of everything we are doing and are grateful for the opportunity to expand the scope of our operations, which will hopefully only increase our reputation and impact.