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GAIDZ-USA Program Annoucement 2024
30 July 2023
GAIDZ to sponsor the "Armenian Bible Research Institute"
14 December 2022
GAIDZ to invest in Armenian manuscript to reading technologies
16 November 2022
GAIDZ-USA Program Announcement 2024
PROGRAM ANNOUNCEMENT
GAIDS-USA
Program: Biblical Heritage Research Initiative (BHRI)
July 30, 2023
Introduction:
GAIDS-USA, a registered U.S. 501(c)(3) charity, is launching the “Biblical Heritage Research Initiative” (BHRI), designed to make early Christian commentaries from the Middle East accessible to English-speaking audiences worldwide. This Initiative will utilize advanced technologies to ensure the efficient digitization and accurate translation of manuscripts. We will employ state-of-the-art digitization techniques to systematically identify, locate, and preserve these early Biblical commentaries, which are primarily written in Arabic, Armenian, and Syriac. Following digitization, these texts will be translated into English, accompanied by scholarly introductions and commentaries. The BHRI aims to transform these crucial theological resources into published books and online materials, making them widely available to students, educators, researchers, and missionaries. This initiative will not only preserve and disseminate invaluable historical texts but also support educational projects for children, youth, and adults, enriching Christian education globally.
Our charity has already secured commitments from several scholars specializing in Biblical studies and Classical Armenian language to participate in the BHRI. These scholars, proficient in the relevant languages, will translate the commentaries, prepare introductions, and analyze their content, emphasizing their contribution to Biblical study and everyday life. The final outputs will be published in English as books and online resources, accessible to the public.
The initial phase of our program (Phase I), for which we are seeking financial support, will focus on commentaries preserved in the Classical Armenian language, dating from the 7th to the 16th centuries. These manuscripts are located in various repositories worldwide, including Armenia, Lebanon, Jerusalem, Italy, the UK, and the USA.
Currently, we are in contact with repositories of Armenian manuscripts containing Biblical commentaries, both in the USA and worldwide, to secure access and negotiate digitization rights. Additionally, the charity is in negotiations with digitization companies to ensure these manuscripts are digitized and made available on our website for further study.
Program Components (Phase I):
1. Manuscript Identification and Digitization:
Identify and locate manuscripts of Biblical commentaries in Classical Armenian across diverse global repositories and collections, and secure access to them.
o Objective: Identify manuscripts of interest to the program, and digitize the ones containing commentaries on the Bible to preserve them to provide global access to all interested.
o Activities:
▪ Identify manuscripts and their locations, preparing a master list.
▪ Prioritize manuscripts for digitization.
▪ Contact and collaborate with libraries, museums, and institutions worldwide.
▪ Utilize advanced technology for high-quality digital archiving.
2. Research:
Engage theologians and scholars proficient in classical Armenian, granting them access to the digitized version of a selected commentary, to translate into English. Each translation will be accompanied by scholarly introductions providing historical context and theological analysis, highlighting the importance of the commentary and its relevance for contemporary preaching, teaching, and research.
o Objective: Secure academic research in manuscripts containing non-published early commentaries on the Bible in the Classical Armenian language, including their assessment, translation and preparation of their contents for public access.
o Activities:
▪ Identify and classify the manuscripts to prepare a diplomatic version of the commentary in Classical Armenian.
▪ Translate the text of the diplomatic version of the commentary into English.
▪ Secure the academic services of scholars in the Classical Armenian language and Biblical theology, to evaluate and prepare introductions and commentaries to the works.
3. Educational Outreach and Dissemination:
Publish translated works with their introductions and commentaries through professional publishers as books and articles in journals, and digitally to ensure global accessibility.The program will also develop educational resources and workshops to elucidate theological and doctrinal insights from early Christian commentaries, and their contribution to pastoral and outreach programs
o Objective: make results of the scholarly works concerning the early commentaries on the Bible available to the English-speaking public.
o Activities:
▪ Publication of books and articles in journals.
▪ Publish research papers, journals, and books to disseminate
▪ Organize annual research symposiums and conferences for presenting and discussing findings.
▪ Finance the designing of an interactive website, to share the results of BHRI with the public.
GAIDZ to sponsor the "Armenian Bible Research Institute"
The Board of the Armenian Seminary in its regular meeting on November 4, 2022, has approved a request by Bishop Vahan Hovhanessian, made on behalf of the Board of Directors of GAÏDZ for the creation of the “Armenian Bible Research Institute (ABRI)”.
The Institute will serve as a center to pursue research and to develop the various programs which form the core of the mission of GAÏDZ, including the preparation of the classical Armenian text of the early Armenian commentaries on the Bible from the surviving manuscripts as well as their translation into English and to other modern languages.
The center will help the seminary, and other institutions in the areas and around the world, in offering courses and lectures concerning the Armenian version of the Bible and our centuries-old treasures of commentaries on the Bible. The center can also serve as the base for visiting scholars to pursue their research in the Armenian Bible and contribute to the teaching ministry of St. Nersess Seminary.
GAIDZ to invest in Armenian manuscript reading technologies
Many Armenian manuscripts were destroyed during the centuries of our history. Many of those which survived these destructions, especially the ones preserved outside Armenia, are not maintained and kept up to the standards of today’s technology.
More importantly only a small percentage of these manuscripts have been examined and even a smaller percentage of those have been published in Armenian. Consequently, only a few of these manuscripts are known to Armenian and non-Armenian reading scholars and the general public. This is especially the case when it comes to manuscripts of Armenian commentaries on the Bible, biblical exegesis, Armenian spirituality and mysticism.
Concerned about this situation, in their regular meeting under the chairmanship of Mr. Richard Dabagian on Thursday, October 13, the members of the Board of Directors of the GAÏDZ foundation focused on a variety of ways to enhance research utilizing Armenian manuscripts.
They listened to a report presented by board member, Armen Meyer, JD, concerning the latest on the Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology that converts images containing written or printed text into a machine-readable format. Based on Mr. Meyer’s suggestion, the board unanimously voted to collaborate with leading OCR research companies to develop a software that is capable of distinguishing Armenian alphabet characters in handwritten texts copied on manuscripts.
This will tremendously expedite the time it takes to read the Armenian text in a manuscript and to input it electronically. In its turn, this will then enable scholars and the public to read the contents of these manuscripts and conduct research on the subjects associated with the contents of these manuscripts.
With the latest technology available online, GAÏDZ aims at making the treasures contained in these Armenian manuscripts easily accessible to the interested readers.
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Diramayr Seta Hovhanessian’s ILOF for GAIDS-USA
Members of Diramayr Seta Krajian Hovhanessian’s family allocated the In Lieu Of Flowers (ILOF) donations in memory of their beloved mother to the GAIDS-USA foundation. “This is a small gest to highlight mother’s faith and her love for the Bible and Christian education. She remains a source of inspiration for all of us”, said the family members.
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Signing of the GAÏDZ Foundation agreement
On Thursday, December 9, 2021, signing of the articles of law concerning the creation of the GAIDZ Foundation led by
Mr. OUGHOURLIAN, Mr. BUKER, Mgr. HOVHANESSIAN, Mr. AMIR-ASLANI and Mrs. MINASSIAN.
Singing on behalf of the Institut français, was its president Xavier Darcos, previous Prime Minister of France.