The Washington Post acclaimed the completion of the Saint John’s Bible with Hallelujah! in a headline. Abbot John Klassen OSB and Father Bob Koopmann OSB happily announced the completion of The Saint John’s Bible at a press conference at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts (MIA) on Thursday, September 15. The Bible is a monumental work: seven volumes that contain all 73 books of the Old and New Testaments; 1,150 pages with 160 illuminations.
The project took fifteen years, required collaboration among theologians, art historians, scripture scholars, calligraphers, and artists, and cost over $8M. The Bible project was inspired by the biblical and liturgical spirituality of Benedictine monastic life. Pre-Gutenberg monks copied manuscripts in order to transmit texts to succeeding generations. The monks of Saint John’s Abbey commissioned a Bible for our time, the beginning of the 21st century and a new millennium. Never before had there been a handwritten, illuminated Bible with a view of the planet Earth from outer space, the inclusion of the image of the HIV virus, or the double helices of DNA. “The project was conceived and overseen by Donald Jackson, one of the world’s foremost calligraphers and Senior Scribe to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth’s Crown Office at the House of Lords” (MPR News).
[Original Post: St. Leo Abbey]
