Friday, November 30, 2007

A special Bible project


Exhaustive work blends ancient, high-tech in the Good Book


Jesus’ directive to spread the Gospel to the ends of the Earth came a couple of thousand years before the Space Age.

But that did not stop creators of a massive new Bible — handwritten in medieval style, with quills on calfskin — from including an illustration of Earth based on a NASA satellite image.

Green-and-brown land, blue oceans and swirling white clouds accompany the book of Acts in the St. John’s University Bible, commissioned by the Collegeville, Minn., university and a Benedictine monastery.

Theologian Miguel Diaz has given a PowerPoint presentation about the 1,150-page Bible at the University of Dallas in Irving. It is the first handwritten, illuminated Bible to be created in more than 500 years, said Brian Schmisek, founding dean of the Irving, Texas, university’s School of Ministry.

“As Christian theologians, we’ve tended to focus on Martin Luther and the apostle Paul’s emphasis that salvation comes with the hearing,” said Diaz, associate professor of theology at St. John’s University. “But that’s only half the story.

“We’re a visual generation, and one of the things the Bible can do is through the illuminated pages show the beauty of the word.”

While Jews still copy by hand the Torah and Muslims do so with the Quran, Christians stopped the practice of hand-writing the Bible soon after the invention of the printing press in the mid-1400s, Diaz said.

But a decade ago, Ronald Jackson of Wales — senior scribe to Queen Elizabeth — approached St. John’s University with his dream of creating a handwritten, illuminated Bible. Illuminated texts feature decorative borders, illustrations and gold, silver or platinum leaf.

University officials approved the $4 million, 10-year project, and Jackson chose several calligraphers, artists and a graphic designer to help.

The Bible — 24.5 inches long and nearly 16 inches wide — will be in seven volumes in the New Revised Standard Version. It will be completed by April 2008, Diaz said.

While calligraphers and artists used ancient methods, “the layout design of the pages is computer-generated,” he said. “And they came up with a Bible that appeals to the culture of our times.”

Aboriginal rock carvings discovered in Australia sparked the artists’ imaginations in depicting the story of creation.

An image of DNA accompanies Matthew’s account of Jesus’ genealogy, while the artist who depicted the suffering servant spoken of in Isaiah was inspired by an Ethiopian child, Diaz said.

Images of piles of skeletons evocative of the Holocaust represent the prophet Ezekiel’s description of a “valley of dry bones,” symbolic of lost hope.

And a fellow in jeans scatters seeds on the ground, portraying one of Jesus’ parables about God’s abundance.

Already finished are five volumes: one containing the first five books of the Bible; one the Psalms; one prophetic books; one of the “Wisdom” books, among them Job and Song of Solomon; and one of the four Gospels and Acts, Diaz said.

There have been hurdles.

“No one has seen God; how do you represent him?” Diaz said. “Wherever you see gold in the Bible, that represents God — in the midst of chaos, gold.”

Schmisek said he has seen pages of the St. John’s Bible, and “it’s fascinating.”

“It stacks up extremely well” again handwritten Renaissance Bibles he has seen in Catholic archives in Shreveport, La., he said.

Some portions of the Bible already are in traveling exhibits. When completed, the Bible will be bound and housed at St. John’s. Smaller, printed versions of each of the seven volumes will be sold at bookstores and can be ordered online. Cost will range from $40 to $70, depending on the volume.

An official with the American Bible Society in New York City praised the St. John’s effort.

“Our mission is to put the Bible in the hands of all men, women and children in a language they can understand,” said Bob Hodgson, dean of the society’s Nida Institute for Biblical Scholarship. “We cannot say, ‘One size fits all.’ The spiritual requirements of the world are demanding that we put the Bible on DVDs, on the Internet, on YouTube, through iPods — or through tape recordings for a village somewhere in the world that has no written language.

“People have encountered the Bible message in paintings, in catacombs, in cathedrals, in hymns and illustrated manuscripts. We’re delighted by the elaborate craft of the St. John’s Bible, taking us line by line, image by image.”


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