After more than two years of direct planning, Abbot Timothy Kelly of Saint John’s Abbey and Brother Dietrich Reinhart, President of Saint John’s University, jointly announced a project that envisions a complete, multi-volume, illuminated and handwritten Bible to be finished by 2004. The first volume, The Gospels and Acts of the Apostles, is to be unveiled at Christmas 2000. Funding will come from private, outside sources.
Known as The Saint John’s Bible, this signal work will be the first complete, illuminated Bible of textural art since. the advent of the printing press in the mid-1400S. It will consist of 1,150 vellum pages, sized 15 3/4″ by 23 1/2″, when bound into seven volumes.
Along with the governing values of focusing worldwide attention on the Word of God at the millennium point Pope John Paul II has called the “Great Jubilee of our redemption,” involvement in Church liturgies and in ecumenical endeavors, Saint John’s Abbot Timothy emphasized that: “Through partnerships with museums, libraries and educational programs, we hope to touch people of all cultures and creeds with the spirit and beauty of this monumental Book.”
First Complete Handwritten, Benedictine Bible in 500 years
Abbey Quarterly
Spring, 1999
