Saint John’s Bible

Saint John’s Bible, illuminated English-language Bible (2011). It was notable for its incorporation of contemporary themes in its illustrations and for its use of both traditional and computer-based production techniques.

Illuminated bibles, so called because of their lavish illustrations that incorporated gold or silver leaf, were specially commissioned during the European Middle Ages but were superseded in the 15th century by easily and widely disseminated printed Bibles. In the last decade of the 20th century, Saint John’s Abbey and University in Collegeville, Minnesota, U.S., commissioned the British calligrapher Donald Jackson, the senior scribe to Queen Elizabeth II, to participate in the production of an illuminated Bible to celebrate the advent of the new millennium. A team of theologians, biblical scholars, and artists worked from the U.S.; Jackson oversaw the illumination and calligraphy from the U.K. The layout of the Saint John’s Bible was designed on a computer and then transferred to vellum. Both the lettering and the artwork were made by hand.

The Saint John’s Bible comprises seven volumes. References to contemporary events appear in illustrations of scenes from biblical stories (e.g., the Holocaust is referred to in the artwork for a passage of The Book of Ezekiel). In keeping with its designers’ appeal to ecumenism, the Saint John’s Bible uses as its text the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), which in the late 20th and early 21st centuries was accepted by manyChristian churches.