What began as an idea while visiting the Episcopal Parish Network Conference in 2023 turned into a parish-wide Year of the Bible supported by The Saint John’s Bible‘s beautiful illuminations and history. St. John’s is so grateful for the opportunity to house the Gospels and Acts Volume this past year. We will now send it on its way back to Saint John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota. Whether on the road or at home on our church campus, The Saint John’s Bible brought beauty and inspiration to our community since September 2023.
Our dedicated docents took The Saint John’s Bible to schools, churches, community groups, book clubs, the State Capitol, and parishioner homes. Not to mention using it to read the Gospel nearly every Sunday this year. Thank you to all our docents, vergers, acolytes, church staff, and leadership for their hard work ensuring that our brothers and sisters in Christ heard about the Bible’s history and saw the beautiful illuminations up close.
Along the way, we collected several of our favorite facts about The Saint John’s Bible. Did you know…
- The SJB is the first handwritten illuminated Bible of its scale in over 500 years.
- The translation of this Bible is the Catholic Edition of New Revised Standard Version (NRSV).
- The NRSV was chosen because of its wide use among Christian denominations.
- Each full page of calligraphy took approximately 8 to 12 hours
- A Jewish scribe drew the Hebrew script.
- Six artists created over 160 major illuminations.
- Six calligraphers hand wrote all 1,150 pages on approximately 300 sheets of calfskin vellum.
- While God is never depicted in the Bible, gold leaf is used to represent him in the illuminations. Since humans were made in the image of God, the gold leaf’s reflective properties add a meaningful weight to the artwork.
- In order to share The Saint John’s Bible with the world, Saint John’s asked Donald Jackson to direct the creation of the Heritage Edition.
- The Heritage Edition is the only full-scale, illuminated, fine art edition of the Bible.
- Limited to only 299 seven-volume sets, Mr. Jackson’s goal was to make the Heritage Edition “true to the artistic intent of the original.”
- No two Heritage Editions are identical because many illuminations required hand treatments by the Scriptorium’s studio manager, Sarah Harris.
