Handwritten epidemic bibles

Writing in Christian Century, Heidi Haverkamp reports on her personal experience participating in hand-writing part of the Bible. The idea began in at the Abbey of St. Gall (which, btw, has a famously iconic library):

In the early days of quarantine, the Roman Catholic Abbey of St. Gall in northeastern Switzerland invited more than 1,000 parishioners to create a completely handwritten and
illustrated Corona-Bibel while they sheltered in place. The project inspired clergy in Chicago and Lincoln, Nebraska, to launch similar projects. While the American iterations are smaller in scope than the Swiss Corona-Bibel, focusing on select books of the Bible rather than all 66, the projects all share a common purpose: to gather people into community during a crisis and encourage them to experience the healing, comforting power of God’s word.

Haverkamp signed up to take part. She reports that

copying the text of Matthew made God’s Word sacramental in a new way. I had to pay attention to the text of the chapter as a whole, and it felt like I was reading with a part of my brain I have never used for Bible study before. The result was a deep and tangible immersion in scripture; I was inside each passage, not just looking on from a distance.

... Alone at my desk, I joined that vast spiritual family, the communion of saints, with Hebrew scribes, medieval monks, and kids and adults in Chicago and around the world, picking up our pens together.

This is a creative response to the isolation of the epidemic. But some European churches have sponsored and displayed bibles hand-written by the parishioners for some time. 

Here is an example I saw in a church in Muenster, Germany, in 2015. The page is open to the Beatitudes:

Copying the Whole KJV

The Wall Street Journal reports the story of a man who, though in poor health, is hand-copying the entire King James Bible. He has completed about three-quarters of the text and hopes to finish in 2012.

Intellectual curiosity, rather than religious fervor, led Patterson to the project. The idea came out of a conversation with his partner of 20 years, who died of a liver disorder in February 2010. A Muslim who owned a collection of handwritten Korans, he suggested that Patterson transcribe the Bible. The concept instantly appealed.

But he plans to donate the finished set of volumes to his church in Spencertown, New York. And a local artist has created a photographic journal and blog about his work.

The article cites an expert in Christian history on the rarity of such practices, citing the lack of a devotional manuscript tradition in modern Christianity. But I suspect that the practice is more common than we suspect, but poorly documented. Aside from well-publicized efforts like the calligraphed and illuminated St. Johns Bible using the NRSV text, the Missouri Springfield Journal reported in 2007 about a man who spent 40 years copying the KJV.

(One benefit of a blog like this is the ability to document such phenomena to get a better idea of how rare or common they are. If anyone has heard of other examples of modern Christians hand copying the BIble, please let us know!)

Writing Torah and the Power of Prayer

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports on the ceremonial restoration of a Torah scroll.

While inking ceremonies are a tradition when a synagogue gets a new scroll, the honor of lettering in the last words typically goes to the rabbi or congregation president.

But like most of the immigrant rowhouse synagogues of a century ago, Shivtei Yeshuron, founded in 1876, does not have its own rabbi. And so it allowed any adult Jew who came through the doors yesterday to step up to the bimah, or Torah platform, and take up Youlus' quill pen.

Participating in such a miqveh "good work" is generally believe to bring blessings, but Torah scribe Menachem Youlus was very specific as he explained the importance of the act:

"This is the highest form of charity. When you fill in your letter you will have God's undivided attention.

"Even with all the six and a half billion people in the world, God will be listening at that moment only to your prayers. And so you can change the world.

"You can ask God for peace in the Middle East," he said. "You can ask for an end to world hunger. And if there is someone you know who is deceased, you can ask God to move that person's soul closer to him."

"This is your one opportunity to change things," Youlus said, grinning broadly. "You get to play God. And there's nothing wrong with playing God."

Many participants were overcome with emotion:

After each inking of a letter with Youlus' help, a member of the congregation recorded in a notebook the precise chapter, verse, line, and letter - an aleph, or lamed, or shin, or resh - that each person filled in.

One of the many women who lettered the Torah also said she felt overwhelmed by the occasion.

"Just being allowed, as a woman, to do something like this was an honor, a thrill," said a woman who gave her name only as Phyllis.

After identifying the exact letter - a tau - she had inked, she pulled open an English translation of her Torah portion and studied it closely.

It was Genesis 1:2. "Now the Earth was unformed and void," she read.

"From now on," she said, "that's going to be my verse."

Selling Books in Imperial Rome

Mary Beard has a fun article, "Scrolling Down the Ages," on the ancient Roman book trade in the New York Times.

Copying the Koran

Two very interesting looking exhibits at the Asia Society (725 Park Ave, New York, NY) highlight practically all of the themes of iconic books. From the opening lines of the NY Times review:

“Say it!” the angel Gabriel commanded Muhammad, who had been chosen to channel the message of Allah to mankind. “Write it,” the angel might have said, because the words the prophet recited became a book, the Koran. And in the hands of artists over the centuries that book became a devotional object of surpassing beauty.

The article includes a slide show of various elements, tools, and furniture used in Qur'anic calligraphy here.

Information about the exhibit is at the bottom of the article.

Unusual Bibles by Mainstream Bible Publishers

Two major Bible publishers have unveiled efforts to produce very unusual and limited editions. USA Today reports that

To mark the 30th anniversary of the NIV, which has sold 300 million copies worldwide, publisher Zondervan launches a campaign today to create the unique edition, which will include its 31,173 verses, each handwritten by a different person.

A huge blue RV with the logo "BibleAcrossAmerica.com" splashed on its side and "Inspiration at every turn" on its back takes off on a five-month journey bringing "writing stations" to 90 stops in 44 states at churches, landmarks and popular settings such as NASCAR races.

So to celebrate one of the greatest successes of mass printing and marketing, they create the precise opposite, a unique manuscript! Of course, the marketing potential in both the unique copy and mass reproduction are not being ignored:

A photo facsimile of all the verses will be compiled and published in time for Christmas 2009; the index will list each participant's name and the number of the verse he or she copied.

One set of originals will be bound and offered to the Smithsonian. The second set, also bound, will be auctioned to benefit the International Bible Society, which holds the NIV copyright and is co-sponsoring the project with Zondervan.

(ht Andrew McTyre and Kevin Edgecomb)

Meanwhile, the American Bible Society has produced a limited edition polyglot Bible for use by the Vatican:

Developed in honor of the upcoming Synod of Catholic Bishops, which is themed The Word of God in the Life and Mission of the Church, the production of the Biblia Polyglotta heralds the beginning of a new relationship between the American Bible Society and the Holy See and is the result of an historic collaboration between the American Bible Society and the papacy. The Biblia Polyglotta bears the seals of the Vatican and the American Bible Society. ...

the Biblia Polyglotta features the Old Testament in five languages: Hebrew/Aramaic, Greek, Latin, English and Spanish; and the New Testament in four languages: Greek, Latin, English and Spanish.

One of the things highlighted in the working document for the Synod of Bishops is the importance of Lectio Divina within the Catholic tradition. Lectio Divina, a dynamic centuries-old method for Bible reading and reflection, is an integral part of the devotional life of the Catholic Church. The American Bible Society currently conducts Lectio Divina workshops and training sessions in Catholic parishes around the country.

The 3200 page Bible took biblical scholars at the American Bible Society over a year-and-a-half to complete. Dedicated to His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI, the leather-bound volume is embellished with gold and silver titles. Brazilian artist Claudio Pastro, a specialist in Sacred Art, provided the artwork.

All those attending the Synod will receive copies of this Bible. An additional one thousand copies of the Biblia Polyglotta will become the official biblical gift of the Holy See to heads of state and other dignitaries.

The unique commemorative edition has a very old history in Bible production. Both these efforts show it is alive and well. But it is also very interesting to see both publishers showing interest in the performative dimension of the text, whether the hand writing of the verses or the meditative reading/chanting through lectio divina. This is a big change for these very text-centered organizations!

Congregation Writes Torah

Fascinating story by Glen Collins in the NYT about the ritual of Torah-writing, only this time, a synagogue's ark will house a Torah written by members of its very own congregation, the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in Manhattan.

"In a single stroke, those who join in the ambitious project are both honoring tradition and testing its bounds. Typically, the writing of a Torah has been left to a highly trained sofer, collaborating perhaps with a chosen few in the temple. For many centuries, the process has been a journey into an arcane and proscribed world of recondite rules and spiritual imperatives that are a mystery even to many devout Jews."

Calligraphy in decline?

Several new articles about religious calligraphy: An Iranian manuscript illuminator laments the decline of his art form because his contemporaries "prefer modern art to traditional work." I mentioned a similar complaint from a Indian calligrapher in a previous post. Two other articles show that some calligraphers still find patrons for hand-copied Qur'ans (Muslim scriptures) and Guru Granths (Sikh scriptures) in India and Canada. But both scribes' goal of writing the largest copy of their respective scriptures hints that calligraphic art alone is no longer enough either.

Giant Vietnamese Declarations of Independence

Thanh Nien News reports:

A calligraphy book in wood weighing over 300kg, thought to be the largest in Vietnam, titled Declaration of Independence, is on show in Hanoi.

The 2 m by 84 cm book was created in 21 days by Trinh Van Tuan from rare and durable kinds of wood and paper, and is a reproduction of three works considered national declarations of independence.

The first two documents included in this his new work of calligraphy date to 1077 and 1428 while the third was written by Ho Chi Minh "based on the American Declaration of Independence and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen to affirm the independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam from France."

Caligraphy & Recitation: Islamic Arts

The Indian Muslim profiles a professional calligrapher trying to preserve what he perceives as a dying art. He is quoted as equating calligraphy with recitation: "There are two major arts in Islam. Reciting the Quran well and writing the script of the Quran gracefully."

"Reciting well" would probably not describe a group of six men in Bahrain who are attempting to break the world speed record for reading the Qur'an aloud, which currently stands at "140 hours and two minutes."

Hand copying the Bible

Lest we think that the devotional practice of copying has no place in modern American Christianity, today brings a story about a Missouri man who spent forty years copying the King James Version by hand.

Leading Iraqi calligrapher killed

The chaos in Iraq is taking its toll on all aspects of Iraqi culture, including the art of classical Arabic calligraphy. The BBC reported that Khalil al-Zahawi was ambushed and killed on May 26th. For pictures of him at work and a few samples of his work, see Sad day for Arabic calligraphers.

Female Torah scribe

An American has become "the world's only known, traditionally trained female scribe," according to The Jewish Daily Forward (June, 2005). But the article also describes the continuing halakhic arguments over whether women should be permitted to copy Torah scrolls.

Copying Qur'an sparks arts development

The heavily financed effort to make a copy of the Qur'an using Malaysian motifs has sparked an Islamic arts revival, according to NSTOnline, which chronicles the large investments of money and effort involved in this undertaking.

The Saint John's Bible

In the words of Saint John's Abbey and University, the Saint John's Bible "illuminates the Word of God for a new millennium." This massive project combines a handwritten Bible with colorful art including traditional and modern elements in a conscious effort to revive the medieval manuscript tradition and make it appealing to people of the 21st century. The FAQ clarifies their mission and goals, and the iconic qualities are readily apparent in their image gallery.

There is also a traveling museum exhibit showing the Saint John's Bible and the work going into it; some portion of this exhibit will appear in connection with the San Diego Natural History Museum's Dead Sea Scrolls Exhibit, which quite conveniently takes place at the same time as the 2007 AAR/SBL Annual Meeting.

Copying Scriptures (2)

Members of a synagogue may participate in the completion of a new Torah scroll, most of which is hand-copied by a professional scribe. TwinCities.com reports on the feelings produced in a Minnesota congregation by this tradition. The Dallas Morning News describes how the congregation's participation helps underwrite the considerable expense of having a new scroll copied.

Copying scriptures

The hand copying of Buddhist sutras is an active religious practice for lay people in Japan today, according to the Japan Times.