{"id":7217,"date":"2011-09-19T10:45:53","date_gmt":"2011-09-19T14:45:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/community\/deaconsbench\/?p=7217"},"modified":"2016-09-30T17:37:07","modified_gmt":"2016-09-30T21:37:07","slug":"it-is-finished-remarkable-hand-drawn-bible-goes-on-display","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/2011\/09\/it-is-finished-remarkable-hand-drawn-bible-goes-on-display\/","title":{"rendered":"It is finished: remarkable hand-drawn Bible goes on display"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s quite an achievement and, as those who have seen it can attest, it is a feast for the eye. \u00a0(I gave a copy of the Psalms<\/strong><\/a> to my pastor as a gift for the 40th anniversary of his ordination. \u00a0It\u2019s ravishing.)<\/p>\n

Details: <\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

It was a task of biblical proportions \u2014 drawing every letter and illustration in a Bible painstakingly by hand. Now, 13 years after its inception, the brightly colored and massive St. John\u2019s Bible is complete, and pages from the finished work are about to go on display.<\/p>\n

The Benedictine monks at St. John\u2019s Abbey and St. John\u2019s University in Collegeville, Minn., commissioned the Bible in 1998 to celebrate the beginning of a new millennium. The first words were written on Ash Wednesday 2000, and the seventh and final volume \u2014 \u201cLetters and Revelation\u201d \u2014 was completed earlier this year, with the final word \u2014 \u201cAmen\u201d \u2014 written on May 9, 2011.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has far surpassed what any of us ever imagined in our most optimum moments,\u201d Abbot John Klassen said in an interview at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, where the final pages of the St. John\u2019s Bible go on display Friday.<\/p>\n

Klassen, who leads an abbey of about 145 monks located 70 miles northwest of Minneapolis, estimates the project cost about $8 million. He said the Bible was paid for by donations through the years, and the abbey also expects to make money on full-size \u201cHeritage Edition\u201d facsimiles that cost about $140,000 for a complete set.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis (the Heritage Edition) is a major investment for anyone. But it is truly, I think, of that kind of caliber,\u201d Klassen said Thursday. \u201cThe quality of the workmanship and the quality of the artistry is phenomenal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scribes working in Wales under the supervision of chief calligrapher Donald Jackson used quills cut from goose or swan feathers (Jackson was the sole writer and illuminator of Revelation). Words were written on large sheets of prepared vellum, or calfskin, and paints were hand-ground from such precious minerals or stones as gold, silver or malachite. Gold or silver leaf gild was then used to illuminate or bring pages to light.<\/p>\n

When open, the facing pages measure about 3 feet wide by 2 feet tall. The Bible runs nearly 1,150 pages in seven separate volumes.<\/p>\n

Modern touches dominate the St. John\u2019s Bible, believed to be the only handwritten and illuminated Bible commissioned by a Benedictine monastery in the more than 500 years since the invention of the printing press. Klassen sweeps his hand across a page from Ezekiel, which shows \u201cThe Valley of Dry Bones\u201d at the bottom as a gray pile of skulls of victims of the Khmer Rouge, a crashed car, and victim eyeglasses from the Holocaust. But at the top of the page are shimmering rainbow colors representing God\u2019s covenant with his people.<\/p>\n

Bible scholar Ben Witherington, a professor and author who teaches at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Ky., says he has never encountered anything similar to the St. John\u2019s Bible. He says writing a Bible by hand \u2014 a tradition dating to medieval times \u2014 is \u201cenormously difficult.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read more. <\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

And you can check out more of this remarkable Bible at this link. <\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s quite an achievement and, as those who have seen it can attest, it is a feast for the eye. \u00a0(I gave a copy of the Psalms to my pastor as a gift for the 40th anniversary of his ordination. \u00a0It\u2019s ravishing.) Details: It was a task of biblical proportions \u2014 drawing every letter and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":132,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,18],"tags":[138,11203,11167],"class_list":["post-7217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-great-links","tag-benedictines","tag-bible","tag-books"],"yoast_head":"\nIt is finished: remarkable hand-drawn Bible goes on display<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"It's quite an achievement and, as those who have seen it can attest, it is a feast for the eye. \u00a0(I gave a copy of the Psalms to my pastor as a gift for\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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