On Restoring Sacred Objects

In On Restoring Sacred Objects (1998), Jack C. Thompson, engages thoughtfully the conflicts that can arise between a community with strict religious standards about who may handle a sacred text and professional conservators with strict professional standards about how to restore that text. This issue has generated discussion among museum curators and conservators: see, for example, Virginia Greene, "'Accessories of Holiness': Defining Jewish Sacred Objects" (1992), and Daniel D. Stuhlman, "The Preservation of Torah Scrolls" (2006).