Revelation First ≠ Revelation Early. The pre-70 date is the old argument (Robinson, 1976; Gentry, 1989); Revelation First is the priority thesis: the rest of the New Testament unfolds from the Apocalypse.
Vesuvius Challenge is an open science research organization reading the carbonized Herculaneum scrolls without unrolling them.
In its own words: https://scrollprize.org/, read 2026-10-31
| Intersections | AI and ancient texts: machine reading, restoration and dating; Papyrology and textual discovery: manuscripts, editions, new finds and redatings |
| Kind of evidence | machine reading, restoration or datingmanuscript images |
| Unit of record | a scroll, scanned and virtually unwrapped, with ink detected in the scan |
| Which texts | the carbonized papyrus scrolls of Herculaneum, buried in 79 AD |
| Method | virtual unwrapping and machine-learning ink detection on scans, advanced by open prizes |
| Coverage | geography: Herculaneum; period: before 79 AD |
| What it finds | first letters found in a new scroll, and a first title prize awarded, as its news lists |
| Its stated limits | virtual unwrapping still needs human help where sheets are crushed or torn |
op the resource's own statement · 3p a third-party account · obs our observation · rd our reading. Hover a tag for its quote; each opens below with its source.
rd None direct. It shows machine reading recovering text from papyri that cannot be opened, the kind of result that would change what the papyrological record can contain.
| Canonical name | Vesuvius Challenge |
| Also known as | Scroll Prize |
| Address | https://scrollprize.org/ |
| Operator | Vesuvius Challenge, which describes itself as an open science research organization |
| Kind | an open research competition reading the carbonized Herculaneum scrolls without unrolling them |
| Lifecycle | active — Grand Prize deadline 25 June 2027 |
| Count | open prize pool $2,140,000 (as of 2026-10-30) |
| Data access | open data and code (GitHub, Hugging Face), community on Discord |
| Licence | content CC BY-NC 4.0 unless otherwise specified, as the site gives it |
| Versions and dates | grand prize deadline: 2027-06-25; read: 2026-10-30 |
| Observation | 2026-10-30: read |
f33ae8e4e07325a2…3e05dfa21dc14f4f…f33ae8e4e07325a2…f33ae8e4e07325a2…f33ae8e4e07325a2…f33ae8e4e07325a2…f33ae8e4e07325a2…f33ae8e4e07325a2…3e05dfa21dc14f4f…3e05dfa21dc14f4f…3e05dfa21dc14f4f…f33ae8e4e07325a2…3e05dfa21dc14f4f…Lee Sharks, ed. "Vesuvius Challenge." Revelation First meta-aggregator, revelationfirst.com, compiled 2026-10-30. https://www.revelationfirst.com/aggregators/vesuvius-challenge/
Record https://www.revelationfirst.com/aggregators/vesuvius-challenge/ · entity https://www.revelationfirst.com/aggregators/vesuvius-challenge/#entity · the census as data
@misc{rf-vesuviuschallenge2026,
editor = {Sharks, Lee},
title = {Vesuvius Challenge},
howpublished = {Revelation First meta-aggregator, revelationfirst.com},
year = {2026},
note = {Compiled 2026-10-30; every field sourced and dated},
url = {https://www.revelationfirst.com/aggregators/vesuvius-challenge/}
}