Just a Few Days Left

We are down to our last couple of days on Patmos. After 7 days in the Monastery and about 7000 photographs of 13 New Testament manuscripts, our job here is nearly done. In a couple of hours, we will present the Abbott with approximately 100 DVDs of the manuscript photograph that we have taken. I forget how tiring this job can be but it is so rewarding to know that these manuscripts are preserved so that they can now be studied anywhere. There is also the fact that the actual codex will be handled much less, hopefully increasing its life.

Tomorrow night we begin the first leg of our trip home. We will be in Athens for a few days and will study more manuscripts in the National Library. I hope we will also go to the Archaeological Museum there. Then we go home. I really miss my family so I'm ready to get back home. Patmos is nice, but Athens is pretty much a big, noisy city. I really wouldn't mind if we went straight to the airport from the ferry, but we will have to wait a few more days.

There are a few new things I have done this trip...

• Visited the ancient ruins at Corinth.
• Visited Hadrian's Arch in Athens.
• Visited the Temple of Zeus in Athens.
• Visited the ancient Agora in Athens.
• Attended the opening of a new museum at another Monastery on Patmos.
• Visited the Icon restoration room at St. John's Monastery.