The Saint John’s Bible brings the ancient art of handwritten and illuminated manuscripts into the 21st century, as both a religious text and work of art. See it at Saint John’s University in Minnesota, at an exhibit near you, or online.
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The Saint John’s Bible is a modern, English-language Christian Bible. The manuscript includes over 1000 pages written and illustrated by hand on vellum parchment. Its creation used techniques and materials that would have been familiar to medieval Benedictine monks in the days before the printing press combined with a bit of modern computer technology.
The result is both a religious book and a one-of-a-kind work of art designed to “illuminate the Word of God for a new millennium.”
Who thought the modern world needed a Medieval-style bible?
While the Saint John’s Bible was created for Saint John’s University and Abbey in Minnesota, the idea came from Welsh calligrapher Donald Jackson.
A trained artist, Jackson is one the Western world’s great modern calligraphers.
While calligraphy, the art of beautiful writing, may not seem like a viable career path these days, Jackson’s clients include the offices of the Queen of England, for whom he creates official documents.
Scribe to the Queen isn’t a career many young people dream of. But even as a teenager Jackson was in love with calligraphy. And he found inspiration in the medieval illuminated manuscripts displayed in museums. Many of these were bibles and, as Jackson copied their ancient pages to improve his skills, he began to dream of someday creating an illuminated bible himself.
That idea remained nothing but a dream for decades.
A Welsh calligrapher partners with Benedictine monks in Minnesota
By the 1980s computers were becoming more common. And, with them, came the ability to create and use an increasingly large number of decorative fonts. It appeared the need for scribes who could create beautiful handwritten scripts might be coming to an end.
Saint John’s University responded by bringing Donald Jackson in to lead a calligraphy workshop. While that class was wildly popular, it may have had the most impact on Jackson himself.
While on campus he came across the Abbey Church. Whether you see this church as a stunning example of traditional religious architecture reimagined for the 20th century (as most people seem to) or an ugly pile of concrete (I’m waiting for it grow on me), it apparently resonated with Jackson. He was struck by both the building and the fact that these monks in the middle of rural Minnesota not only made the intellectual leap from traditional forms of religious architecture to a fully modern one, but actually built one of the first truly modern Catholic churches anywhere. He sensed that these might be people who would understand his dream to create a modern bible based in ancient techniques.
Jackson never said anything about his dream of creating a handwritten and illuminated bible while visiting the university.
It wasn’t until more than a decade later, in 1995, that he raised the idea with the director of Saint John’s Hill Museum and Manuscript Library at a presentation in Chicago.
The idea was brought back to Saint John’s for consideration.
It had been 500 years since the last handwritten bible was commissioned.
In 1998, after three years of consultation with Saint John’s, Jackson received a commission to create a contemporary handwritten and illuminated Bible. Not a 12th century bible created in the 21st century, but a 21st century bible for the 21st century.
How was the Saint John’s Bible created?
Jackson inscribed the first words of the Saint John’s Bible on Ash Wednesday in March 2000.
Fittingly, he began with the opening lines from the Gospel of John: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, the Word was God. . . “
Before writing those words, Jackson spent two years planning the project.
Creating a bible seems simple. All you have to do is copy the words and add some drawing. Right?
So, the first issue becomes: Which translation to use.
While there are a variety of options for an English language bible, the team settled on the New Revised Standard Version. In part because it is authorized for use by most Christian churches, not just the Catholic Church.
Then there was the issue of what script to use. It needed to be easily read, but still have authority and beauty worthy of the document in which it would be used. Jackson solved this by creating his own script.
There were other questions. How would the divine be represented? (Through the use of gold leaf.) How would paragraphs be marked? (Alternating red and blue “kites” mark the beginning of each paragraph.) How would the capital letter that begins each chapter be decorated? What decorative illustrations would be included in the margins? Where would notations be placed? And more.
Jackson worked with a team of artists, medievalists, theologians, biblical scholars, and art historians at Saint John’s (the Committee on Illumination and Text) to answer these questions. That committee also determined which texts would be illuminated, how large each illumination would be, what ideas artwork needed to convey, and more
Jackson would also need help producing the bible, so he put together a team of artists, scribes, and others to work with him at his Scriptorium in Wales.
But that created more issues. For a team to work simultaneously and still produce a consistent manuscript, the placement of every piece of artwork and every line on every page needed to be mapped out in advance.
This is where modern computer technology came into play.
A complete miniature mock-up of all seven volumes was produced to show exactly where every word, every line, and every bit of art would go. This allowed scribes and artists to simultaneously work on different pages knowing their work would fit together seamlessly when it was complete.
Illuminating the word of God
While the location, size, and general theme of each illumination was determined well in advance, each of the 160 illuminations in the bible were the result of months of discussion between the artists in Wales and the committee at Saint John’s. The final artwork was produced only when both sides agreed that it was both theologically and artistically sound.
Besides providing a peek into the development of each, these notes offer fascinating insight into specific Biblical passages, theology, artistic technique, and art history.
A slow and deliberate process
The Saint John’s Bible was produced using traditional materials like calfskin vellum for the pages; hand-cut feather quills for text; 19th century Chinese ink; powdered vermilion, lapis, malachite and other pigments mixed with egg and water for artwork and embellishments; and gold leaf.
Everything was done by hand. Not just the writing and artwork, but even producing the materials that would be used. Before text could be written or artwork added, vellum pages needed to be scraped and burnished, quill pens fine-tuned or new ones created, ink mixed, and more.
It was a meticulous process, and a slow one.
Each page of text took 7-13 hours to write.
On May 9, 2011, eleven years after writing “In the beginning was the Word,“ Jackson inscribed the final “Amen” in the Book of Revelation.
But that wasn’t quite the end.
Final work on the illuminations wasn’t finished until 2013.
Only then was the Saint John’s Bible, the first handwritten bible produced in 500 years, complete.
A bible that includes all 73 Old and New Testament books recognized by the Roman Catholic Church arranged into seven volumes: Gospels and Acts, Pentateuch (the first five books of the Old Testament), Psalms, Prophets, Wisdom Books, Historical Books (Joshua, Judges, etc.), and Letters and Revelation. (Each volume varies in size and has distinct design features.)
It took 23 artists, 15 years, and $4 million dollars to complete over 1,100 manuscript pages, with more than 160 illuminations.
See the Saint John’s Bible
Saint John’s University offers several options for “seeing” this spectacular bible:
See original manuscript pages at the Saint John’s Bible Gallery in central Minnesota.
See either original manuscript pages or high-quality prints at museums, schools, churches, and medical facilities around the country.
View the complete Bible or selected images online.
Explore the Saint John’s Bible Gallery
To best safeguard the original manuscript while making it available to the public, the University created a state-of-the-art gallery.
At any given time, the Saint John’s Bible Gallery displays 28 original folios (two facing pages), a selection of medieval manuscripts from the university’s collection, and exhibits on creating the bible.
Because the manuscript pages are changed at least once a year, the pages described here will probably not be on view when you visit. But I guarantee that the pages you see will be just as beautiful and as intellectually and spiritually compelling as those highlighted here.
Art and ideas on exhibit
Visiting the Saint John’s Bible Gallery is a bit like stepping into a jewelry box. Moving through the darkened space, the illuminated pages of the Bible glow like precious gems from within their well-lit cases.
The largest section of the gallery is devoted to a selection of original manuscript pages from all seven volumes. It is an exhibition of the manuscript’s artistry and the complex ideas – both ancient and modern – woven into it.
Each set of pages is displayed with a placard below that identifies the artwork, the artist, the year it was produced, the translation used, the scribe who created the text, the materials used, and a brief description of image and ideas incorporated into it.
The card beneath explains that it is the Psalms Book V Frontispiece created by Donald Jackson in 2004 using the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible. It identifies the scribes who transcribed these pages as Sally Mae Joseph and Brian Simpson. It also identifies the materials used: vellum (a calf skin parchment), soot-based black ink, gouache (an opaque watercolor paint) and casein (a milk-based paint), and gold leaf.
This card also explains an unusual technique used throughout the book of Psalms:
Superimposed on this image are digital voice prints (electronic images of sound) of sung chants, hinting at the way we might “see” psalms if they are sung or read poetically. The voice prints come from recordings of the monks at Saint John’s Abbey singing Gregorian chant; a Native American sacred song; a Jewish men’s chorus singing psalms; Buddhist tantric harmonics; an Islamic call to prayer (adhan); Taoist temple music; Hindu bhajan [a devotional song]; and an Indian Sufi chant. The voice prints of the Saint John’s monks appear on every page, moving horizontally throughout the Psalms in gold. The voice prints of other traditions run vertically throughout the pages with the scroll designs.”
Art and words speak to our world today
The illuminations are more than beautiful illustrations of ancient text. They are not simple illustrations of the text. Instead they are intended to lead to insight, to bring the meaning of the word of God to light – to enlighten us through the word of God. In a sense, they are a visual form of mediation that leads the viewer to look more deeply into the text’s meaning. The beautiful, glowing artwork encourages us to consider issues we all, Christians and non-believers alike, still struggle with today.
An example comes from the Book of Amos. It’s titled the Demands of Social Justice and was created by Suzanne Moore in 2005, Poetry Scribe Brian Simpson, and Prose Scribe Sue Hufton, with Hebrew Script by Izzy Pludwinski.
The information provided with the card explains “Social justice is a main theme in Amos, and the fractured words also refer to the ways injustice and inequality fracture society. God is a God of compassion; people have a choice, and yet they turn from God and do not put in place a society that welcomes.”
Amos’ prophecy urges his people to repent of their sins of social injustice caring for the poor and the downtrodden. Their failure to do so, according to Amos, will be their own undoing, which comes to pass with the Assyrian invasion of the Northern Kingdom in 722 BCE. The admonition, “Yet you did not return to me,” here highlighted in a special treatment, is repeated often in the text as God warns of the consequences of their choices, disobedience and corruption. Through Amos, God promises swift justice for the unrighteous, as well as redemption for the poor and oppressed. The illumination is fractured into seven unruly pieces punctuated by the repeated text. The green, blue, and black panels, representing sky, sea and earth, are chaotic and not fruitful. The depiction ends with an abstract locust in the right margin, the curse of farmers from antiquity to the present.
Mistakes become works of art
Bright, clean lighting in the display cases and large size of each page (each two-page spread is about two-feet by three-feet in size) make it easy to see the details incorporated into each illustration.
And there are a lot of details!
In creating a manuscript intended to be seen as much as read, no detail is too small to beautifully illustrate. That was as true in the Middle Ages as today.
Thus, following ancient traditions, the scribes writing the Saint John’s Bible even embellished corrections inserted into the text.
While the choice of embellishment may vary from those used by Monks in Medieval Europe (I doubt most were familiar with lemurs), the idea is the same.
And that’s true of everything about the Saint John’s Bible. It’s a thoroughly modern creation; but both its form and content would be instantly recognizable to the Medieval monks of days long gone. Indeed, I think they would be pleased to see this tradition so brilliantly brought to life once again.
See how the manuscript was created
Along with the bible itself, the Saint John’s Bible Gallery also has exhibits on how the bible was created.
While some pages on exhibit, like that with the lemur or those from Psalms, address techniques used to create the manuscript, exhibits specifically related to the bible’s creation include more detail. Photos, videos, and objects on display explain each step taken to plan for and create the manuscript. It also introduces visitors to the team who worked with Jackson in Wales to make this a reality.
For example, a display in the exhibit includes one of the computer-generated mock-ups used to determine the exact layout of piece of artwork and word of text. It also includes a photo of the team at the Scriptorium in Wales holding sections of another of these miniature planning documents.
Stencils, like the one shown here, were used to provide consistent designs that could be repeated across multiple pages.
See rare documents from the University’s collection
The Bible Gallery also includes exhibits on the history of religious texts. This includes information on the materials used and the production of manuscripts and other documents. There is also a selection of texts on display from various time periods.
Although this part of the exhibit is small (and a little dark), it’s informative and includes a few very interesting pieces. It also provides a good sense of the tradition the Saint John’s Bible grew out of.
Portions of the Saint John’s Bible may be on display near you
The mission of The Saint John’s Bible is to ignite the spiritual imagination of people from all faith journeys with a work of historical and artistic importance.
To fulfill this mission, Saint John’s University offers a variety of opportunities for communities beyond the university to experience the bible. This includes programming focused on art and history, as well as worship and spiritual practice.
Whether you simply want to see more images from the Saint John’s Bible, learn more about its creation, or dive into the history of illuminated manuscripts, there are lots of online resources.
Like many other manuscripts in the University’s collection the Saint John’s Bible can be viewed online.
The complete Saint John’s Bible is online and each page can be viewed. However, I couldn’t expand the pages to get them large enough to read or really view them in detail. (You click on the side of each page to turn to the next.
The Library of Congress has an online exhibition on the Saint John’s Bible. The images don’t open very large, but there is information on some artwork that I haven’t seen elsewhere.
Learn more about the bible’s creation
The Library of Congress has video of an absolutely wonderful lecture on the Saint John’s Bible that covers how the project originated, how the bible was created, and even delves into the meaning embedded in a few of its illuminations.
If this video were well produced, it would be the only reference I would recommend. Alas, no one bothered to spend a half-hour to insert the original video used in the lecture or images of artwork discussed during it into the video so you can see them.
So, while I recommend watching this, you need to pull up a few other items to make sense of it.
When the lecture switches to a video about Donald Jackson, hit pause and watch the original of that video on Vimeo. In the video Jackson talks about his work while demonstrating (without talking about it) the processes used to create the manuscript, including preparing the vellum, creating the quill pens and ink, drawing, and setting gold leaf.
Then go back to the lecture and skip past the video you just watched and continue watching the lecture.
Besides the video included in the Library of Congress lecture, a variety of other videos provide insight into the bible’s creation and Donald Jackson:
Learn more about the history of manuscripts and books
If you are interested in the history of the written world, there are two videos called the Story of Writing from the 1980s that feature mini lectures by Donald Jackson. The image quality is terrible, but the sound is good and the content is interesting.
Saint John’s University combines a Roman Catholic university, a grade 6-12 college preparatory school, and a Benedictine monastery. But this busy campus also serves visitors of any (or no) religious background.
The Hill Museum and Manuscript Library collections
Although a modern creation, the Saint John’s Bible is part of the University’s rare book and manuscript collection. A collection includes over 10,000 manuscripts and printed books that date back as far as the 15th century.
Those rare books and manuscripts are just part of the Hill Museum and Manuscript Library’s collection. Besides manuscripts and books, the collection includes contemplative artwork from the Middle Ages through today and a very large collection of microfilmed and digitized manuscripts and books from around the world.
The collection of microfilm and archival images includes material from Western Europe and Malta, as well as Eastern Christian and Islamic manuscripts. It is a growing collection through ongoing partnerships around the world. For example, in Egypt, the university is working with the Monastery of Saint Macarius at Wadi al-Natrun to digitize their collection of Coptic manuscripts.
While only a small portion of the collection is on exhibit, it is available for research, classes, and exhibits.
However, many digitized works of art, manuscripts, and rare books can be viewed by anyone online through the VHMML (the Virtual Hill Museum and Manuscript Library) Reading Room and Museum. (Sign-in may be required to view images, although I was able to view some materials without creating an account.)
The Abbey and University Church
The Abbey and University Church welcomes both spiritual visitors and architecture buffs. The mid-century church is an architecturally-significant building designed by Marcel Breuer. It is the most dynamic of a suite of buildings designed by Breuer for the campus during the 1950s.
Those wishing to participate in daily prayers or worship should check the online schedule.
All visitors should be respectful whenever they visit, as this is a sacred space and an active place of prayer and worship.
Saint John’s Pottery includes studio space for renown potter and Artist-in-Residence Richard Bresnahan, students, and visiting artists. Visitors are welcome to visit the gallery and tour the studios in the afternoon. In addition, tea is served around a traditional Japanese irori table at 3 p.m.
Saint John’s Abbey Arboretum is a natural arboretum with mix of prairie, oak savanna, forest, lakes and wetlands.
There are walking trails throughout the property and the public is generally welcome, but respect for both the monastic community that owns and operates the property and the game refuge they have nurtured is paramount. This is a place for contemplation, not loud or rigorous activity or even a walk with your dog. (Pets are prohibited.)
A few years ago the arboretum hosted a stickwork structure by environmental artist Patrick Dougherty.
While this exhibit was very popular, events and exhibits of this type seem to be rare.
Because it is both a monastic community and a center of learning, Saint John’s University is generally open to the public throughout the year. However, most buildings, including the Bible Gallery, do close for breaks during the academic year (but not for the summer).
Saint John’s has a brief online video tour of the Bible Gallery and other campus features. It’s a good introduction to a campus visit.
Saint John’s University is located west of Saint Cloud in the rural farm country of central Minnesota. It’s usually a 1 ½ to 2-hour drive from the Minneapolis-Saint Paul metro area. (Traffic on this stretch of I-94 between Minneapolis and Saint Cloud can be extremely heavy during the morning and afternoon commute. That’s particularly true in the afternoon, when traffic backs up in both directions.)
The University itself is just off I-94. Detailed driving directions are available on the Saint Benedict/Saint John’s website, but it’s pretty easy to find from the highway.
Limited bus service between the University and Minneapolis is available through Jefferson Lines. However, this service seems largely focused on student, rather than visitor, needs. (Service suspended through 2021-22 school year.)
The Saint John’s Bible Gallery is located in the lower level of the Alcuin Library. (It’s right across the plaza from the church.) Parking is usually available in the Mary Hall and Flagpole lots or near the church. Consult the campus map (JPG) online for detailed information.
Generally, the gallery is open Monday through Friday. During the summer and fall, the gallery is also usually open on Saturday afternoons. Check the website for specific days and hours.
There is no charge to visit. Nor are reservations needed for self-guided tours. Guided tours are available, but only for groups.
Note that the specific pages on display change at least once a year, generally during the summer. However, a page may be removed and replaced with another at any time for any number of reasons. Nor is there a schedule for when particular pages will be displayed, but you’ll see some wonderful works of art whenever you visit. And, if you wait at least a year between visits, you should see a different set of pages on each visit.
Prints, books, and other merchandise related to the Saint John’s Bible is available at the University Bookstore or online.
The Saint Cloud area has three colleges: Saint John’s University and its sister institution, the College of Saint Benedict, as well as Saint Cloud State University. Together the three schools draw a large population of young people to the region. That also means there are plenty of concerts, sporting events, festivals, and outdoor activities available.
Lake Wobegon was the fictional Minnesota town that became a regular feature of the Prairie Home Companion radio show. Thus, it’s fitting that the 65-miles multi-purpose Lake Wobegon Trail winds through the small towns and scenic farm country of central Minnesota.
The paved trail is 10-feet wide and open to foot traffic, bicycles, and rollerblades. Snowmobiles may use it during the winter.
It runs near Saint John’s University (a 2.5-mile side-trip), connecting the towns of Saint Joseph, Collegeville, Avon, Albany, Holdingford, Bowlus, Freeport, Melrose, Sauk Centre, West Union, and Osakis.
Munsinger Gardens is located in a wooded area along the Mississippi River. The garden dates back to the 1930s and includes landscaped lawns and paths with a mix of natural and formal plantings.
Clemens Gardens is located just up the hill from Munsinger Gardens. It includes a variety of gorgeous formal gardens, including a large rose garden, perennial garden, and several fountains.
Twice the beauty at Munsinger Clemens Gardens in Minnesota
Play at the Quarry
Saint Cloud is known as “Granite City” because of the many granite quarries that operated (and still operate) in the area. A bit of that history is now Quarry Park and Nature Preserve – a unique place to hike, swim, and connect with area history.
Lodging
There aren’t a lot of lodging options in the small towns nearest Saint John’s University. There is at least one B&B and a motel in Saint Joseph, but nearby Waite Park and Saint Cloud have a lot more options.
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