Category: History

Lectionary 2258: A Most Unusual Manuscript, with Update (2026)

On By Daniel B. WallaceIn Bible Translation, Contemporary Issues, CSNTM, Early Christianity, History, New Testament Studies, Textual Criticsim

Lectionary 2258—A Most Unusual Manuscript

Daniel B. Wallace

11 June 2011. Meteora is one of the most stunningly beautiful and other-worldly places on earth. Nearly a millennium ago, monks traveled throughout Greece in search of a place where they could get close to God and spend their days praying in undiluted solitude. Ultimately, six monasteries were established there, all but one perched atop stone pillars rising hundreds of feet above the plain below.

“Metéora (Greek: Μετέωρα, ‘suspended rocks,’ ‘suspended in the air’ or ‘in the heavens above’) is one of the largest and most important complexes of Eastern Orthodox monasteries in Greece, second only to Mount Athos. The six monasteries are built on natural sandstone rock pillars, at the northwestern edge of the Plain of Thessalynear the Pineios River and Pindus Mountains, in central Greece. The nearest town is Kalambaka. The Metéora is included on the UNESCO World Heritage List.”

OK, I confess. The previous paragraph is lifted verbatim out of Wikipedia. But it’s a decent geographical description of the place. But nothing quite prepares you for Meteora’s rock formations that tower over the town below, the monasteries that melt into the sandstone pillars effortlessly, flush with the edges of the majestic columns, the eerie view of the ever-changing scenery as you drive on the perilous mountain switchbacks. 

But I’m getting ahead of myself. It’s just a few hours to get to this unique place from Athens. You get on National Highway 1 and travel up the eastern coastline, stopping to see where King Leonidas and 300 Spartans held off the original million-man march at Thermopylae. Then, the road begins to wind inland until you arrive at Kalambaka, where you must find lodging if you are to visit the monasteries. Kalambaka strikes me as a town that grew up around the convents, bringing visitors to the brick and stone cloisters that were built and inhabited for seclusion. For centuries, the only way to the top was via a basket attached to a line that must have been cranked for hours before unloading its cargo of personnel and necessities. When asked how one would know when to change the cables, the priests drolly replied, “God lets us know.” Beginning in the early twentieth century, pathways from adjacent mountains were built for the many visitors. One too many ropes had snapped, leaving those in the baskets barely enough time to collect their thoughts and offer a final prayer to God. 

In this place are scores of biblical manuscripts. As the only nunnery among the abbeys, St. Stephen (or Μονὴ Ἁγίου Στεφάνου) has a small collection of fascinating handwritten scriptures. But one in particular caught my attention—lectionary 2258. 

The manuscript is a 230-leaf paper codex with parchment covers glued to cardboard. The parchment jackets have minuscule handwriting, with a majuscule text previously glued on top of them, both for the front and back covers. It is these covers that are of interest to us, since just the majuscule writing is the lectionary.

At first glance, the manuscript appeared to be a palimpsest—a text that was scraped over and reused in later centuries for writing. By the middle ages, the practice of reusing vellum was so ubiquitous that Charlemagne had ordered an empire-wide order to cease and desist. This codex looked to be one such palimpsest, produced by some recalcitrant scribe who scoffed at the Carolingian edict. By definition, the under-text of a palimpsest is older than the upper-text. And majuscule handwriting was exclusively used for the first eight hundred years in biblical manuscripts, with minuscule codices coming into play beginning in the ninth century. The minuscule text was obviously later than eleventh century, the date that scholars had determined for the majuscule lectionary. But the majuscule text looked to be on top of the minuscule text. How could this be? It was impossible, of course, but there it was, staring us in the face, mocking us with its mysteries.

We looked closer at the text, hoping against hope that it would somehow reveal its secrets to us by some mystical union between man and manuscript. We tried to read the text, and this proved impossible as well. Although it had Greek letters, they did not form Greek words. 

Typing out each letter, there was nothing unusual about the Α, Δ, Η, Θ, Ι, Λ, Μ, Ν, Ο, Π, Τ, Υ, Φ, Χ, or Ω. But the other letters were different: they actually were written backwards. Because in majuscule script most of the letters look the same whether forward or backward, it took us some time to unlock the secret of this document. How did such a reverse image happen? That took some noodling, but the mirror image provided a sufficient clue. A majuscule text was apparently pressed against the minuscule text cover, got damp, and left a residue of letters. The majuscule leaf then vanished, but a shadow of its letters as a mirror image remained. For part of the majuscule handwriting, the outer layer of skin had completely peeled off, adhering to the paper below. We were reading the backside of the top layer of parchment, as though we were the parchment looking out as the scribe penned his words. 

As we followed this hunch, a text emerged. On the recto, we could make out the following letters:

λεια (in the first column, about four lines down)

κνα και παντα οσα (second column, about halfway down)

εν και αποδοθη (the underscoring = underdots, the traditional way to indicate uncertain letters)

The only text that fit this was Matthew 18.23, 25. The reconstructed lines thus read:

βασιλεια

τεκνα και παντα οσα

ειχεν και αποδοθη

The verso had the following (with brackets indicating our educated guess as to what was in the gaps):

ν]ηανι

σκος το]ν λο[γον

απη]λθεν λυπου

μενος ην γ]αρ εχ[ων 

κτ]ηματα πολλα

This was Matthew 19.22, with the variant spelling νηανισκος for νεανισκος. This confirmed that we were dealing with a lectionary. Before the lines that contained βασιλεια on the recto, there must have been the previous lection as well. The lections thus detected were: 

Unconfirmed

Lection κυριακη ια (12th week) for Sunday: Matt 18.23–35

Lection κυριακη ιβ (13th week), Sunday: Matt 19.16–26.

So, here was a manuscript that technically has no material on which it is written (except for the thin layer of skin for a small portion), because the material has vanished. All that is left is the shadow of letters, in mirror image, on another manuscript. I hesitate to call this unique; there may be other manuscripts that went through a similar process. But of the hundreds of biblical codices I have examined, this was a first for me. 

Update 29 April 2026. Elijah Hixson was able to determine new info from a mirror image deposit of ink in the infamous Codex Beza; the ink of the Greek text of Acts 10.4–9 was imprinted on the facing Latin page of this infamous diglot. (See Elijah Hixson, “A Lost Page of Codex Bezae: Traces of the Bezan Greek Text of Acts 10.4-9,” New Testament Studies 64 (2018):213–230. And Garrick Allen just published 42 new ‘pages’ of Codex H (015), an important sixth-century majuscule of Paul’s letters that is spread throughout many libraries in Europe. The new pages are mirrored ink traces found on other pages; thus, the 42 new pages are really ‘ghost pages,’ with only the ink residue remaining. The photographs were taken with multispectral imaging equipment. For more information, see here.

How Tall Would a Stack of New Testament Manuscripts Be?

On By Daniel B. WallaceIn Early Christianity, History, New Testament Studies, statistic, Textual Criticsim

If you could stack up all handwritten manuscripts of the New Testament—Greek, Syriac, Latin, Coptic, all languages—how tall would the stack be? 

I was recently challenged on my numbers in a Facebook discussion in the group “New Testament Textual Criticism.”

I have said in many lectures that it would be the equivalent of c. 4 & 1/2 Empire State Buildings stacked on top of each other. How did I come up with that number? 

First, I needed to figure out the total number of pages of all our Greek NT manuscripts. Ancillary to that, but helpful for estimating versional witnesses, is determining the average number of pages in the manuscripts. For Greek NT MSS, my wife did the addition. When I was on sabbatical in Germany in 2002–03, I spent a few months in Tübingen (after several months in Münster). Pati added up all the leaf counts of Greek NT MSS listed in the 1994 Kurzgefaßte Liste. Then, she doubled it to get the page count. The average-sized MS was well over 400 pages long. Total number was something like 2.5 million pages. Of course, now we have the online K-Liste, and quite a few more MSS on the list, but the ’94 was the latest available at the time. Keep in mind that the folio count of those MSS that had been mislabeled were not listed in the 1994 K-Liste, although the official number of MSS was (which was higher than the actual number by a couple hundred or so). Today, the official number is, at last count, 5999. The actual number, I believe, is closer to 5800.[1] Many other researchers suggest the actual number to be about 5500, but I have reason to believe it’s higher than this. Regardless, all our numbers are approximations, but we do need a ballpark figure to give us some sort of a benchmark. 

Next, I needed to estimate the thickness of the average MS. This was trickier to do and could only be an estimate since the depth of MSS is almost never measured in any metadata write-ups. But CSNTM has been measuring depth on all MSS since 2015. I had previously guesstimated 3.5” thickness per average MS. After sampling twenty MSS at the National Library of Greece, whose average number of leaves came to 239, the depth came out to 2.9″ (that’s a shortfall of 6/10th of an inch from my original guess). 

Taking the average of 2.9″ per MS above as depth (including covers, which I estimated at c. 1/2″; these I have not measured but after looking at hundreds of MSS, this number seemed to be on the conservative side), times 5800 MSS = 1402 feet, almost as high as the Empire State Building (1454′). 

Third, I added the number of versional witnesses. I have estimated somewhere between 15,000 and 20,000 versional witnesses, with the Latin making up for the bulk of these. In our many expeditions, I have seen numerous Coptic MSS, far more than I had thought were extant. And I have assumed c. 10,000 Latin MSS. If this number is as low as 8,000, that is offset by the more sumptuous medieval Latin MSS than their Greek counterparts. The depth, thus, would be larger than 2.9″, but I’m assuming 10,000 (perhaps too high) at 2.9″ depth (probably too low). Assuming that other versional witnesses are similar in size (though, since none of them is as early as the earliest Greek NTs, and thus not as fragmentary, they will tend to be fuller, with quite a number of them being very large), we come up with the following numbers:

20,800 total number of MSS (5800 Greek + 15,000 versions): = 5027 feet

25,800 total number of MSS (5800 Greek + 20,000 versions): = 6235 feet

This number is a bit smaller than I had estimated previously. I have adjusted my presentation in light of the new polling of the average MS depth. Incidentally, four stacked Empire State Buildings would be 5816 feet tall (and yes, I’m counting the antennae on top).

Bibliographical comparison. I tried to compare apples with apples: the NT in all handwritten copies compared to classical Greek works of all handwritten copies in any language. For the latter, I did not do any scientific count but gave a broad estimate based on selective data of a number of authors. 15 MSS seemed to be a generous estimate. That stack came to 3.625 feet tall, but I rounded it up to 4 feet.

Significance—this IS helpful and not misleading when properly used. Some of the comments on the Facebook discussion appear to have made many false assumptions—e.g., that our NT MSS are written on a scroll (or roll), that they are single-leaf MSS, or that I was counting Greek only. “When properly used”: In my lectures on this topic, I don’t use these figures in isolation. I offer four questions that need to be answered. The first question is pertinent to this discussion: How many variants are there? I use Peter Gurry’s estimate of 500,000 (Greek MSS only), but since he didn’t count nonsense readings and most spelling variants, when they are included the numbers are exponentially higher. In other words, I do not minimize the number of variants in the slightest. At this point in the lecture, many Christians tend to squirm in their seats; many others are rejoicing in their minds! Recovering the autographic wording appears to be hopeless. 

Then I put things into perspective. The context of the number of MSS was simply that, as Richard Bentley argued three hundred years ago, the more MSS, the more variants. I also compared the date of the earliest NT fragments with the average earliest copies of Greco-Roman writings. Even the earliest copies of (just about) any Greco-Roman literature come many centuries after the autographs were written. Although only about 1% of our Greek MSS are complete NTs, the average size is well over 400 pages. I assume the same for versions. 

Significance continued: Why specific numbers? I would argue strenuously that giving numbers in this context is quite helpful for most people. Some think abstractly and such numbers may seem meaningless. But I believe that many, if not most, think more concretely, especially in lay circles and on college campuses, when trying to get a handle on textual criticism. Grasping the topic in a one hour presentation is challenging enough without seeing concrete numbers! As an apt analogy, consider the Wong-Baker FACES® Pain Rating Scale. Created in 1983 to help children identify the intensity of pain on various parts of their body, this 1–10/happy-face-to-sad-face model soon mushroomed into an international standard for doctors across the globe—for adults as well as children. So it is with giving numbers on MSS. The analogy breaks down, however, because the pain index is completely relative. Logically, if the pain index is considered quite helpful for medical practitioners and their patients, in spite of its relativity, how much more so would the number of NT MSS be for those interested in textual matters? However, it would be misleading to give only the official number because of numerous caveats (see Jacob Peterson’s chapter, “Math Myths: How Many Manuscripts We have and Why More Isn’t Always Better,” in Myths & Mistakes). So, I give an estimate that is well within the ballpark of actual. And I show, century by century through the first millennium, how many MSS we have. I have tried to be very circumspect when dealing with the data, though of course in a popular lecture I dare not show my homework for fear of losing my audience! 

The numbers, caveats, context, and other features I use in this lecture have been tweaked over the years, and the Facebook discussion has helped me refine them further. I’m sure some folks will quibble over what I have presented (textual critics are the most hyper-critical scholars I know!), but implications of indolence coupled with suggestions of sham estimates, without giving me the benefit of the doubt, seeing what I have said, or even contacting me about this (only one friend did, and that’s how I learned about the discussion), are not particularly helpful. A little more charity will go a long way.

 

[1] Note too that a number of kinds of witnesses, in particular certain types of lectionaries, that Gregory had counted were abandoned when Aland took over the numbering system. Hundreds more of these unregistered MSS exist. (Dozens are at the National Library of Greece alone, but we did not shoot them.) So, in a sense, the numbers could go both ways—to a degree. If we counted all these, the total would swell to well over 6000 MSS. If we didn’t count Gregory’s at all, the numbers would drop by 225, or just under c. 5600.

New Discoveries on Every Page: P45, P46, P47

On By Daniel B. WallaceIn Bible Translation, Contemporary Issues, CSNTM, Early Christianity, Exegesis, Greek Grammar, History, New Testament Studies, Textual Criticsim

Nearly nine decades ago, three of the earliest and most extensive New Testament papyri were made available to scholars through color photographs. These facsimiles, together with their authoritative transcriptions, have remained the primary access that biblical scholars and papyrologists have had to them. Until now. With the multi-volume publication of New Testament Papyri 𝔓45, 𝔓46, 𝔓47 coming out later this year, new, exquisite, exact-size images will become available in print. After digitizing these priceless manuscripts at the Chester Beatty in Dublin and the University of Michigan, CSNTM has collaborated with Hendrickson Academic in the endeavor to offer fresh, library-quality images of these third-century copies of large portions of the New Testament.

P45 cover

The facsimiles will be published both with a white background and a black background, each of which offers different views of the texts. Perhaps surprisingly to many, the black background images were found to be much more helpful for creating accurate transcriptions.

For this initial offering, the transcription of just 𝔓47 will be included with the images of all the manuscripts. 𝔓45 and 𝔓46 will follow in coming years, as the task of transcription still continues. The process of transcribing, however, which has been done in large part on the other two papyri, should yield far more precise results than Sir Frederic Kenyon’s editio princeps of the 1930s. It is no exaggeration to say that thousands of corrections to Kenyon’s transcriptions are in the offing. To be sure, most of these are quite minor, but some are fairly stunning. But every correction to Kenyon’s brilliant but somewhat rushed efforts bring us one step closer to understanding the text of the New Testament in third-century Egypt.

By the use of careful measurements, rigorous comparisons with multiple close-ups of individual letters and ligatures, and intense arguments (!), the editors (Stratton Ladewig, Robert Marcello, and Dan Wallace) are able to offer a new standard transcription of each papyrus. In this short blog, I offer but one animation that lays out our procedure. (Thanks go to my son, Andrew Jon Wallace, for producing this illustration.)

The 28th edition of the Nestle-Aland text in Mark 8:22 reads Καὶ ἔρχονται εἰς Βηθσαϊδάν. Καὶ φέρουσιν αὐτῷ τυφλὸν καὶ παρακαλοῦσιν αὐτὸν ἵνα αὐτοῦ ἅψηται. One variant is listed—Βηθανιαν for Βηθσαιδαν in D and a couple other witnesses. What is not mentioned is the variant for ερχονται. The majority of manuscripts here, along with the key majuscules א* and A, have the singular ερχεται. Kenyon reconstructed the wording of 𝔓45 as having the plural, though underdotting every letter as dubious. But this identification is almost surely incorrect. The space for the word and the shape of the letter fragments fits like a glove for ερχεται. Due to the difficulty of making out the letters in the old plates, one can understand the wrong guess. But with better photographs coupled with the comparisons that digital images readily afford, the CSNTM editors have concluded that 𝔓45 here has ερχεται.

Such may not seem terribly significant. Yet every small decision, every correction, every change to the identification of the text in question gives us a better sense of what these scribes wrote eighteen centuries ago. Further, the singular here does offer a slightly different interpretation on the passage. Although it is true that Jesus and his disciples came to Bethsaida, whether Mark wrote “they came” or “he came” has some significance. On occasion the evangelists use a singular verb with a compound subject. This throws the spotlight on the first-named subject. And frequently, that subject is Jesus (see John 2:2; 3:22; cf. also Matt 13:55; Acts 5.29; 16:31). Mark concludes his pericope on the healing of the blind man with this idiom (Mark 8:27: Καὶ ἐξῆλθεν ὁ Ἰησοῦς καὶ οἱ μαθηταὶ αὐτοῦ). It is a distinct possibility that he would begin the pericope the same way. Such would be a subtle and fitting inclusio in one of Mark’s better-crafted stories. And 𝔓45 might just tip the scales for us to see it.

Not a statistic to me: V. Beecher Wallace, Jr. in Memoriam (1928–2020)

On By Daniel B. WallaceIn Beecher Wallace, Contemporary Issues, Coronavirus, COVID–19, History, resurrection, statistic, Theology

A Statistic

The month of March 2020 has been etched in my frontal lobe forever. The following dates give the bare facts and little else. But I offer this narrative because it may be helpful to healthcare workers who are battling COVID–19 in a fight to the death. Literally.

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Beecher and Nayda Wallace on their anniversary, March 29 (year unknown)

On March 3, my 91-year-old father, Vard Beecher Wallace, Jr. (“Beecher”), was in good health with a strong heart. He was still driving and lived alone. He was frail, but his doctor had recently told him that he had nothing that was life-threatening. (He’s had frequent accidents in the last few years, always by falling. He even broke his neck three years ago and had to wear a neck-brace at my mother’s funeral in 2017.) The next day, Dad was taken to Evergreen Medical Center in Kirkland, WA, for severe back pain. On March 9, he was moved to a nursing home for rehabilitation, until he could care for himself. The coronavirus was spreading rather quickly in Washington; family members were not even allowed to see him at the nursing home. On March 14, the home determined that two of its patients had caught the virus. This alarmed his family; the next day my sister Keri took Dad to his house and quarantined herself with him. He had to be brought out to her since she was not allowed in the nursing home. Three days later he developed a low-grade fever, but over the next 48 hours it didn’t get over 100 degrees, and it often returned to a normal 98.6. On March 18, he fell, hit his head, and his crown was bleeding. Keri called a local clinic, but they refused to see him because he had a low-grade fever. So, back to Evergreen. They stitched up the wound. Then, they tested him for the coronavirus. All of his children waited by their phones to hear the news, the minutes crawling by at a gruelingly slow pace.

Then the news arrived: Dad tested positive for the coronavirus. His condition continued to deteriorate over several days. He was dying by inches. I had the opportunity to talk with him a few times, but I could not visit (both because I was quarantined due to a recent flight to Greece and because the hospital was pretty much in lock-down).

Beecher was miserable, constantly taking off the oxygen mask, not eating, and in pain. He said the food tasted terrible. Dad had lost his sense of smell years ago, so although that is sometimes a symptom of the virus it was a precondition for him. He also had diabetes and had self-injected insulin daily for the last few years.

His breathing was becoming increasingly labored. He could only utter one word at a time and was very hard to understand. At one point his temperature spiked to 103, but for the most part it was normal or close to it. He was getting very confused, too. Beecher had been moved to three different rooms in Evergreen, but he thought it was three different hospitals. Then he asked if he was in California. He still recognized his children’s voices though. On the evening of March 27, the decision was made to let him decide whether to wear the mask; an IV of morphine was hooked up. He died at 5 o’clock the next morning, March 28. Beecher Wallace became a statistic, number 174 or 189 or somewhere in between, in the state of Washington.

My Father

But he is not a statistic to me. He passed into the presence of the Lord at 5 AM Saturday morning. He could see the love of his life again—Nayda Baird Wallace, my mother. Sunday, March 29, would have been their 73rd wedding anniversary. So, he made it just in time to celebrate with Mom! And he saw his Savior, face to face, for the first time. What a thrill that will be for all of us!

I was able to have two heart-to-heart conversations with Dad in the last few days of his life. Here’s the gist:

I asked him how his faith was.

Beecher: “Oh, it’s strong! If it weren’t, I’d have nothing to live for. Don’t you worry about me.”

Dan: “I wanted to tell you that hundreds of people are praying for you.” I wanted him to know that he’s not facing this alone. He was very appreciative. “Dad, you’ve been a wonderful father. You have taught me more about integrity, responsibility, and humility—all in the Lord—than anyone else ever has.” He appreciated that very much and talked about how incredible his kids are. (I have an older brother, Wally, and a younger sister, Keri.)

Beecher: “I just hope that I’m not around to see the sun come up tomorrow.”

Dan: “I know. Dad, I suspect I’ll never see you again in this life.” Then I lost control and started to cry.

He was stronger than me; he ministered to me on what we thought might be his last day in this life. He asked, “How’s Pati doing?” Then he told me how much he loved me and my family. And he added, “I’ll see you again in heaven.”

I’m so grateful to be Beecher Wallace’s son. And I look forward to seeing my earthly father once again.

Beecher is survived by two sons and their spouses (Vard Beecher Wallace III or “Wally” Wallace and his wife Carol, and Dan Wallace and his wife Pati), one daughter (Keri Marquand) and her ex-husband (Michael), eight grandchildren: Noah (and his wife Jean), Dustin (and his wife Erin), Benjamin, Jamie (and her husband David Condon), Michael Marquand Jr., Julia Marquand (and her husband Rolando Avila), Andrew (and his wife Danielle), and Zachary (and his wife Samantha); and seven great-grandchildren (Clariana, MacKenzie, Mara Jade, Sadie, Livya, Adlai, and Diego).

A virtual memorial service will be held on May 9. The video will be posted shortly thereafter.

In the midst of a global pandemic, we still need to save Scripture

On By Daniel B. WallaceIn Bible Translation, Contemporary Issues, CSNTM, Early Christianity, History, New Testament Studies, Textual Criticsim, Theology

 

This coming Saturday, the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts (CSNTM.org) had scheduled to have its annual Dallas Fundraising Banquet. Some weeks ago we pulled the plug on that. The coronavirus has spread exponentially since then.

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The world is facing a pandemic right now, and we are all sheltering at home. People are losing jobs, facing personal isolation, depression, and genuine crises. Many are dying, communities are dissolving, and a new normal may be emerging. We are praying that this is not the new normal for very long though!

In the midst of this global scenario, there are some things I am sure of. The sun will come up tomorrow, people need to eat, and our time on this planet is limited. CSNTM was founded 18 years ago because of another thing I am sure of: ancient, handwritten copies of the Bible are deteriorating. They are all written on organic material (papyrus, parchment, or paper), and because of this they are not permanent. Our initial task is to save Scripture. Each manuscript is unique. Every one has a story to tell. These are not books rolling off a printing press; they are individual works of love, gifts to future generations of people, written by men and women whose only thanks is from their Lord. The task of saving Scripture remains, and its necessity is underscored in light of the fragility of life that the whole world is now coming face to face with. Life has always been fragile, but sometimes it takes a crisis to bring this out of the shadows and put it front and center.

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Our mission is still the same. And our need is still the same. When this pathogen runs its course, CSNTM will be back at our preservation work throughout the world. There are more than 250 locales where these manuscripts are housed; our mission is to make sure they are digitally preserved, cover to cover and everything in between, with state-of-the-art equipment, allowing us to post the images on line and make them accessible to all. These images have always been free for all, and free for all time. We are ready to traverse the globe to save these Scriptures; we will pack up our equipment and fly out as soon as we are allowed.

This week, instead of a physical banquet, CSNTM is having its first-ever (and hopefully, only) VIRTUAL banquet! Please follow along this week, enjoy the testimonies, and watch the short videos, on the significant and exciting work that CSNTM is doing. Every day you will see new videos. In the least, you can watch these shorts and learn something about the Bible, its heritage, and the faithful, mostly anonymous scribes who labored in abysmal conditions to bring the Scriptures to generations of people they would never know.

Sometimes scribes penned a personal note at the end of a manuscript they were copying. One of them, Andrew, wrote this note to conclude the copy of the New Testament he had worked on for many months: “The hand that wrote this is rotting in the grave, but what is written will last until the fulness of times.” Andrew penned this note in AD 1079. The manuscript is not in great shape, but CSNTM was able to photograph it and preserve it digitally. Like Andrew, some day all of us will be rotting in the grave. Wouldn’t it be an incredible gift to  our descendants a thousand years from now to be able to read these manuscripts with the same clarity we have today?

Please join us for this virtual banquet. And please partner with us in a mission that is bigger than any of us; it’s an investment that will pay dividends for generations to come.