Seeking beauty: The Saint John's Bible

I had forgotten about the loveliness of this amazing project until the other day, when I received a gift of these note cards, which portray images from the Saint John's Bible. The image on the left is from John 1 and the one on the right is from the baptism of Jesus in Mark 1 (photo from the Saint John's Bible site).





You can scroll through every page of the Saint John's Bible here, using the links on the left (Pentateuch, etc.). It's an amazing project...a hand-written, hand-illuminated Bible commissioned by Saint John's Abbey and University in 1998. It is scheduled to be completed either this year or next.

When I visited the Science Museum of Minnesota to see the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit, it included a section on the Saint John's Bible, so I got to see several pages and learn more about the process, which is incredible.

One of my favorite aspects of the project is the way they incorporate modern imagery into the illumination. For example, Ezekiel's vision of the valley of dry bones (Ezekiel 37) is illuminated using haunting imagery reminiscent of World War II concentration camps, like piles of eyeglasses amidst the bones. Check it out here. It's a powerful way to open up scripture and emphasize that God's story is for all people in all times.