Manuscripts Are Cool and Other Cultures Are Wise

(January 19, 2009)

As a practicing archivist, I was excited to listen to this program. I have heard about the Hill Museum & Library's efforts to preserve ancient manuscripts before from a church publication, but it was great to think that the word is getting out to a wider audience through SOF.

There is definitely a cool factor to the idea of people going out into the field to digitize and thereby make accessible these rare and endangered manuscripts. As the program pointed out, these works are bearers of culture for small and or forgotten minorities or, in some cases, communities which have gone out of existence. How wonderful that we can get a glimpse of that culture, that world through these books and that we can learn and be enriched by the wisdom they have to share with us.

I was once again touched by the richness and wisdom that is found is found in other peoples and other cultures. As Krista so eloquently points out, we in the Western world have lost touch with a living manuscript tradition. We have in many ways lost a living connection with the ancient world of the Greeks, Romans, and others who our civilization is built upon, while people in seemingly remote and backwards parts of the world have a richness and wisdom which we lack, in spite of our seeming sophistication.

I intend to share the news of this program and the links to it various audio and video components with my colleagues and others. Keep up the good work!

Pino Sacerdote
Valley Stream, New York (WNYC, 93.9 FM)

A Reminder

(January 18, 2009)

When you first began to introduce the subject of a manuscript library, it instantly brought to mind the library of manuscripts written on every imaginable surface described by George Ritchie which he recorded, along with the rest of his journey in a near death experience, in the book Return From Tomorrow.

David Chidester
Grantsville, Utah (KUER, 90.1 FM)

Manuscripts and Torah Scrolls

(January 18, 2009)

Today's program featuring Father Columbia Stewart about saving manuscripts referenced someone who rescues Torah scrolls, without mentioning his name. It can be none other than Rabbi Menachem Youlos, someone the Christian Science Monitor calls "The Indiana Jones of rabbis." The scribe and proprietor of the Jewish Bookstore of Greater Washington in Wheaton, Maryland finds, repairs, documents, and brings endangered scrolls back into circulation when he offers them to communities needing a Torah. He did that for my synagogue by matching us up with a scroll rescued from the Russian town of Slonim, where the Torah had been buried for more than 70 years. Menachem is a tzaddik (righteous person) and all around mensch. I strongly encourage SOF to interview him for a future program.

De Herman
Takoma Park, Maryland (WAMU, 88.5 FM)

Manuscripts and Torah Scrolls

(January 18, 2009)

I had the fortune of visiting monasteries on islands in Lake Tana, Ethiopia, last spring following a conference on Large Lakes of the World near Addis Ababa. I was struck by the use of colorful paintings from the floor to the ceilings in all of the churches and monasteries I visited. Our guides told us that the paintings were used by the priests to teach biblical stories. I was amazed how well the paintings were preserved over the centuries (in most cases) and that they were still being used as part of church services.

Likewise, the books of the Bible with highly colorful illustrations on goatskin pages were available for tourists to view in museums (small shacks with no means for preserving the manuscripts) adjacent to the monasteries. I suggest in a future program you may want to return to Saint John's (an "excuse" to revisit one of your favorite places to delve more deeply into the use of illustrations in these churches, monasteries, and manuscripts as a tool in communicating faith and beliefs over the centuries.

Because of my interest in this topic, I certainly enjoyed your recent program on the Jewish wood cut illustrations. As an aside, I am an avid organic veggie gardener. We visited one island monastery that was men-only. They entirely depended on handouts from the mainland for food. in contrast, the female-only island monastery nearby had vegetable and fruits growing in all of the very few places where it was possible to grow anything on the rocky knob. So, on second thought, skip going back to St. Johns and do the story in Ethiopia! I found the people, countryside and the living religious history truly fascinating!

John Gannon
Dexter, Michigan (WUOM, 91.7 FM)

Krista's Tone

(January 18, 2009)

While a man spoke of an Ethiopian Christian manuscript in an interview, I found Krista's constant little moans completely annoying; while she may like to daydream about Yahweh touching her soul while other people talk, it made me sick hearing it. I almost stopped listening! Maybe Krista is Hindu, but I can hardly imagine her sounding like she's getting a neck-rub while someone describes a non-Christian manuscript. Please excuse the speculation. Unless Krista loses the deliberately relaxed tone of "Christian peace" (or whatever she does), I'll not listen as often. I hate modern faith, especially when it seems to give an NPR employee moments of emotional bliss on air.

Toby Saunders
Carrollton, Georgia (WUWG, 90.7 FM)

HMML = Heaven

(January 17, 2009)

Can you identify for me the cello selection used on this program? It is familiar yet I could not fully recognize it. I particularly enjoyed today's show about HMML. I suppose it did not escape anyone's notice that HMML (pronounced himmel) is German for "Heaven." Not a coincidence I'll bet.

Marjorie Johnson
Long Beach, New York (WNYC, 93.9 FM)

Old Books

(January 16, 2009)

I found the video of HMML and the printing of the 21st-century Bible very interesting. In the other older book slideshows, I was very surprised that the curators did touch all the books with their hands, no cotton gloves!

Leona Klerer
Stamford, Connecticut (WEDW, 88.5 FM)