Tag Archives: Divinity

Christ or Confucius, Which?

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Christ or Confucius, Which? is just one of the book titles now on display in New College Library, in honour of the conference being held on James Legge and Scottish Missions to China at New College on 11-13 June 2015.

Macgowan, John. Christ or Confucius, Which? Or, the story of the Amoy Mission. London : London Missionary Society, 1889. New College Library sMR 5 McG

Macgowan, John. Christ or Confucius, Which? Or, the story of the Amoy Mission. London : London Missionary Society, 1889. New College Library sMR 5 McG

Henry, B.C. The Cross and the Dragon ; or, Light in the Broad East. London: S.W. Partridge & Co, 1885. New College Library sMR 5 Hen

Henry, B.C. The Cross and the Dragon ; or, Light in the Broad East. London: S.W. Partridge & Co, 1885. New College Library sMR 5 Hen

 

The authors of these works were contemporaries of James Legge (1815-1897), who was a missionary and scholar of Chinese. He became Principal of the Anglo-Chinese College in Malacca established in 1818 by the pioneering protestant missionary Robert Morrison (1782–1834). In 1842 he was put in charge of the London Missionary Society’s mission house in Hong Kong where he spent a third of his life. He became an accomplished translator of Chinese Classical texts. Returning home to Scotland in 1873, he then  took up the newly endowed chair of Chinese at Oxford University. Many editions of his works are held in the University of Edinburgh Library, with several at New College Library.

Legge, James. The notions of the Chinese concerning God and spirits : with an examination of the defense of an essay, on the proper rendering of the words Elohim and Theos, into the Chinese language, by William J. Boone ... / Hongkong : Printed at the "Hongkong Register" office, 1852. New College Library Z.1763

Legge, James. The notions of the Chinese concerning God and spirits : with an examination of the defense of an essay, on the proper rendering of the words Elohim and Theos, into the Chinese language, by William J. Boone … / Hongkong : Printed at the “Hongkong Register” office, 1852. New College Library Z.1763

Legge, James. The sacred books of China : the texts of Confucianism / Part 1, The Shû King The religious portions of the Shih King The Hsiâo King. Oxford : Clarendon, 1899. New College Library C2/a4

Legge, James. The sacred books of China : the texts of Confucianism / Part 1, The Shû King The religious portions of the Shih King The Hsiâo King.
Oxford : Clarendon, 1899. New College Library C2/a4

Christine Love-Rodgers, Academic Support Librarian – Divinity

New digital resources for Puritan thought

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Herbert, John Rogers. Assertion of Liberty of Conscience by the Independents of the Westminster Assembly of Divines (c) Palace of Westminster; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

Herbert, John Rogers. Assertion of Liberty of Conscience by the Independents of the Westminster Assembly of Divines (c) Palace of Westminster; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

I’m pleased to report that we now have access to digital collections from Oxford Scholarly Editions, including the seventeenth-century prose collection. This contains several titles of interest to researchers in Puritan history and thought, including the Minutes and Papers of the Westminster Assembly 1643–1652 and the Calendar of the Correspondence of Richard Baxter, Vol. 1 & 2.  Scholarly editions of the works of John Bunyan –  Pilgrim’s Progress, Grace Abounding and the Holy War as well as thirteen volumes of smaller works by this Puritan writer are also now available. All titles can be access via the online library catalogue.

Christine Love-Rodgers – Academic Support Librarian, Divinity

John Knox and the Scottish Reformed Kirk

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At 4pm today, Tuesday 19 May, in the Assembly Hall, Prof Jane Dawson will address the General Assembly on the topic of John Knox, following publication of her recent biography. Prof. Dawson’s new book is on display in the Funk Reading Room and in the main display case we have early printed books from the time of John Knox selected by Prof. Dawson to illustrate key themes about his ministry and the development of the Scottish Reformed Kirk from 1560 onwards.

Knox, John. Sermon on Isaiah. London, 1566. New College Library LR1/7

Knox, John. Sermon on Isaiah. London, 1566. New College Library LR1/7

This sermon by Knox was preached on 19 August 1565, in St Giles’ Kirk where Knox was minister and is the only full text of one of Knox’s sermons to have come down to us. It was printed because Knox had been given a temporary preaching ban having offended King Henry [Lord Darnley and husband of Mary, Queen of Scots] by Knox’s pointed use of the Old Testament story of Ahab and Jezebel.

tUR 77 1596

Psalmes of David [Henry Charteris ] 1596 New College Library tUR 1596

The ‘Psalm Buik’. This metrical Psalter was used by the Reformed Kirk after the Scottish Protestant Reformation and this volume comes from the end of the sixteenth century because multiple editions were produced to satisfy demand. John Knox’s congregation in Geneva had started the project [1555-9] and it had been further developed in Scotland after 1560. Psalm singing played a central role in Reformed worship and in the lives of ordinary Scots, especially those who could not read but could sing and so remember the words of the psalms.

Knox, John. An Answer Geneva, 1560. LR1/7

Knox, John. An Answer Geneva, 1560. LR1/7

Knox’s ‘Answer’. This was Knox’s longest book and dealt with the doctrine of predestination. It was published in Geneva in 1560 after Knox had returned to Scotland. Following the lead of John Calvin on predestination, Knox refuted an anonymous author who had championed free will. As was common practice, Knox challenged each of his opponent’s arguments in turn – this makes the book long and not an easy read!

*With thanks to Prof Jane Dawson for this blog post text*

Christine Love-Rodgers – Academic Support Librarian – Divinity

Jewish scholarship on display at New College Library

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Babylonian Talmud. Sulzbach,1766. Folio, in 12 volumes

Babylonian Talmud. Sulzbach,1766. Folio, in 12 volumes. Longforgan Collection.

In celebration of the public lecture on The Bible and the Mishnah by Professor Shaye J D Cohen, Harvard University on Tuesday 5 May, we currently have Jewish texts from our Special Collections on display in New College Library.

This Babylonian Talmud is part of the Longforgan Free Church Ministers Library, an extremely well preserved example of a Manse library which came to New College in the 1960s. It is currently being catalogued as part of the Funk Donation projects. As well as this 12 volume Babylonian Talmud, works by Maimonides and Isaac ben Jacob Alfasi ha-Cohen are evidence of the importance of Hebrew scholarship to the Scottish Church.

Seder Ṭohorot Mishnayot mi-Seder Kodashim im perush / ha-Rambam. Venice : Daniel Bomberg, 1528.

Seder Ṭohorot Mishnayot mi-Seder Kodashim im perush / ha-Rambam. Venice : Daniel Bomberg, 1528. New College Library Dal-Chr 58

This image is from Maimonides’s commentary on the Mishnah which was one of the first to be published. It is part of the the Dalman-Christie Collection, which was transferred to New College Library in 1946 from the Church of Scotland Hospice in Jerusalem. This collection was recently catalogued as part of the Funk Donation Projects.

Mischna, sive, Totius Hebraeorum juris : rituum, antiquitatum, ac legum oralium systema. Amsterdam : Gerardus & Jacobus Borstius, 1698. New College Library Dal-Chr 45

Mischna, sive, Totius Hebraeorum juris : rituum, antiquitatum, ac legum oralium systema. Amsterdam : Gerardus & Jacobus Borstius, 1698. New College Library Dal-Chr 45

This is the frontispiece from one of the volumes in this six volume set of the Mishnah with text in  Hebrew and Latin. It also contains commentaries of Maimonides and Bertinoro in Latin. New College Library holds copies in both the Dalman-Christie and the Longforgan Collections.

Christine Love-Rodgers, Academic Support Librarian – Divinity

Rare New College Library book is an international success

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Perush ha-Torah / leha-Rav rabenu Mosheh bar Nahman ... [1514]

Perush ha-Torah / leha-Rav rabenu Mosheh bar Nahman … [1514]

 A rare and early commentary on the Pentateuch from New College Library has just arrived back in Edinburgh, after travelling all the way to Latvia to be part of the exhibition “1514. The Book. 2014“. New College Library staff worked together with exhibitions, museum and conservation staff from Library & University Collections to ensure that the volume has a safe journey. The exhibition was held until April 2015 at the National Library of Latvia. It included 80 books drawn from the collections of 18 different European libraries with rich collections of sixteenth-century publications. They were all published in 1514, a year of great change, 60 years after Gutenberg and on the cusp of the Reformation in Europe.  Opened by two presidents – Latvian HE Andris Berzins and Austrian HE Heinz Fischer, the exhibition received more than 101,200 visitors over the year, including other political leaders of EU countries such as Angela Merkel. 

This work,  Perush-ha Torah, is just one of the early works of Jewish scholarship in the Dalman-Christie collection of Hebrew books, which was recently catalogued as part of the Funk Donation Projects at New College Library.  The Dalman-Christie Collection was transferred to New College Library in 1946 from the Church of Scotland Hospice in Jerusalem.

Christine Love-Rodgers, Academic Support Librarian – Divinity

New digital access to Divinity theses collection

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New College Theses

I’m delighted to announced that nearly two hundred and fifty theses dating from 1921-1950 from the New College Library collection are now available online in the Edinburgh Research Archive, part of the Divinity Dissertation and Thesis Collection. While later theses are held in 2 copies, one at the Main Library, we believe that New College Library holds the only copy of theses from this early period.  The New College Theses collection was catalogued online in 2012 as part of the Funk Projects.

The digitisation project was managed by Gavin Willshaw, Digital Curator in Library & University Collections, who explains : “We worked with the digitisation company Restore to digitise 250 unique theses from New College – these are now available open-access for anyone to download at: https://www.era.lib.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/133“
The theses are fully searchable on the ERA platform but also discoverable via Google, making New College scholarship accessible to a much wider audience.
The collection includes a wide variety of research topics, such as Comparison of Chinese and Hebrew wisdom, as exemplified in the Book of Proverbs … [1933] by Elizabeth G.K. Hewat, or The Christian Inscriptions of North Africa … [1943] by Ian Thomson Gillan. Do you recognise any of the authors? We’d love to know more about what happened next to these Divinity alumni.
  • Gavin Willshaw, Digital Curator
  • Christine Love-Rodgers, Academic Support Librarian – Divinity

Divinity student book recommendations now available

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All these books (and more) were recommended by Divinity students and are now available to University of Edinburgh Library users – more details on the library catalogue. 100+ book recommendations from Divinity students have been received over since August 2014, via the student recommendation form on the Library website.

Christine Love-Rodgers, Academic Support Librarian – Divinity

 

Unwrapping the Martin Hall Collection

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This January we began cataloguing work on the MR Collection from New College Library’s Special Collections. This sequence contains much early and rare material, and carries the shelfmark MR because at one time these books were housed in the Martin Hall in New College.

Image courtesy of Paul Nicholas

Image courtesy of Paul Nicholas

We were really excited to find this lovely item, Historia apostolica illustrata : ex actis apostolorum et epistolis Paulinis. Published in seventeenth century Geneva, the author Louise Cappel writes about the works of the apostles, and Paul in particular. What’s immediately striking about it is that it is covered with a vellum wrapper (waste parchment) with beautiful manuscript lettering.

Image courtesy of Paul Nicholas

Image courtesy of Paul Nicholas

While further research is required on the wrapper, it appears to be a medieval liturgical text. The back cover (pictured) is in honour of St. Nicholas, with his name appearing in the line with the musical notation.

Christine Love-Rodgers – Academic Support Librarian, Divinity

Paul Nicholas – Funk Cataloguer

Elizabeth Lawrence – Rare Books Librarian

 

 

 

Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology now on trial

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New on trial for University of Edinburgh users from 3 March to 31 March is the  Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology.

The Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology is the replacement for the Dictionary of Hymnology produced by John Julian in 1892, with a supplement in 1907.

It is an essential reference resource for scholars of global hymnody, with information on the hymns of many countries and languages, and a strong emphasis on the historical as well as the contemporary. It includes articles on individual hymns, authors from many countries, hymnals, organisations, and themes, as well as information on hymn tunes and their composers. Covering a multitude of hymn traditions from around the world, it is ecumenical and international.

You can access the trial via the link at : http://www.ed.ac.uk/is/databases-trials. Please give us your feedback as this is a key part of making a case to subscribe to resources like this.

Christine Love-Rodgers, Academic Support Librarian – School of Divinity

Tackling a Library time capsule : The Longforgan Free Church Ministers Library

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Longforgan LibraryRegular visitors to New College Library have probably walked past the Longforgan Free Church Ministers Library many times. It sits in custom made glazed bookcases, which are sited on the landing of the entrance to the Library Hall and in the David Welsh Reading Room. The cataloguing of this collection is in progress as part of the Funk Projects, and we’ve recently been pleased to welcome Patrick Murray as our cataloguer, replacing Finlay West who has moved on to new projects.

The Longforgan Library is an attractive part of the New College Library environment, but it’s probably true to say that for many years it has been just that – the books themselves have rarely been consulted. This may have been so from the very beginning – we’ve noticed that books being catalogued recently are in mint condition, some with pages uncut, as though they have never been read.  This may fit with the Longforgan Library’s provenance as a gift to the Free Church at Longforgan, Dundee by Mr David Watson, owner of Bullionfield Paperworks at Invergowrie. Part of the Longforgan Library could have begun life as a showpiece collection for David Watson to illustrate his skills in printing and binding to clients.

Longforgan2All this is changing with the benefits of online cataloguing. The Longforgan Library contains many volumes of the Acts of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland from the seventeenth century onwards and the reports of the General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland in the nineteenth century. For the first time these are being requested by readers, with telltale paper slips the evidence that the volumes are in use.

More than that, online cataloguing has revealed the richness of this collection of patristic and theological books, the earliest text printed in 1618. The works of Eusebius of Caesarea and Irenaeus of Lyon sit alongside those of Jean Calvin and John Foxe in  a microcosm of New College Library’s historic collections as a whole. And it’s held surprises for us – one of them being that we discovered additional books hidden in concealed compartments in the back of the bookcases.

Castori romanorum cosmographi : tabula quae dicitur Peutingeriana / recognovit Conrad Miller. Ravensburg : Otto Maier, 1888 New College Library LON. 416

Castori romanorum cosmographi : tabula quae dicitur Peutingeriana / recognovit Conrad Miller. Ravensburg : Otto Maier, 1888
New College Library LON. 416

 

This included this fantastic facsimile of the Tabula Peutingeriana or Peutinger’s Tabula. Based on an early fourth or fifth century original, the map covers the area roughly from southeast England to present day Sri Lanka and shows the Roman road network. When we unfolded the map it stretched the length of the office!

 

map2

The Longforgan Free Church Ministers Library still has treasures to discover. There are cupboards yet to unlock which have books stacked back to back in them, plus there is a further sequence of Longforgan books in a more secure location which includes three early editions of the Babylonian Talmud. Watch this space.

Christine Love-Rodgers – Academic Support Librarian, Divinity