A tranquil corner of rural Britain is the busy production centre to create a book that promises to be one of the most impressive the world has ever seen. Calligrapher Donald Jackson (pictured)
works on the ambitious five-year effort to create the first handwritten and illuminated Bible to appear since the advent of the printing press.
Jackson, scribe to the Crown Office of the House of Lords in London, has been commissioned to produce the new Saint John's Bible. This is a project costing 1.8 million pounds sterling. A
multinational, multicultural team of scribes and illustrators from around the world will combine latest computerised techniques with age-old artistry and skills to produce a book of 1150 vellum pages
in seven volumes, to be completed in 2004. Jackson will interpret the Bible from a contemporary perspective to reflect a multicultural world and humanity's dynamic strides in science, technology and
space travel. The work will also ring with symbolic elements from cultures and faiths worldwide, entwining Eastern and Western religious traditions. And it will document the flora and fauna of
Minnesota in the United States, where the commissioners, Saint John's Abbey and Saint John's University are established. "We hope to touch people of all cultures and creeds with the spirit and beauty
of this book'', explains Brother Dietrich Reinhart, President of Saint John's University.
The Bible will transfer art from the past into the future, exploiting the use of hand-cut quills of goose, turkey and swan, fish glue, sugar, plaster, egg yolks and materials such as 24-carat gold
leaf, silver, copper, platinum, and specially selected vellum from Israel, Canada, France and Ireland. When the task is complete, the Bible will tour museums and libraries globally, and Saint Johns's
plans to publish mass-produced copies as well as a computer CD.
The Scriptorium, The Hendre, Monmouth, United Kingdom NP5 4HQ. Phone/Fax: 441600716161.
Freitag, 17. Dezember 1999