On a Stack of Bibles

I've just returned from my Linguistics class field trip, and I am nothing short of flabbergasted. You who sit in front of your computer screens reading this post are probably wondering a) what was so exciting about linguistics or b) why a college class was going on a field trip.

Allow me to elaborate. My professor, who is an august and amazing man, takes our class for little excursions around Saint Ben's and Saint John's to show off what an amazing school we go to and introduce us to cool and nifty people around our campuses. Our field trip today was to the Hill Museum and Manuscript library, which I've talked about before on this blog ("Paperback Swap Status, September 10th")

Specfically, we were going to the HMML to hear a presentation about the Saint John's Bible Project, the nearly 13 year project to script, illustrate, and illuminate a bible, in English, using midieval techniques. I'm telling you people, it is a thing awesome to behold. The books (there are going to be seven volumes to this behemoth when it's completed) are going to be about 14 inches wide by two and a half feet tall, a size appropriate to our Abbey Church, which is huge inside --

That honeycomb you see behind what we call the Banner -- that's also the largest stained glass window in Minnesota, possibly the world, I don't remember. The structure is also entirely poured concrete, which is just amazing when you think about how big it is. You can't see this by looking at the picture, but the Abbey church is right on the top of a hill, and it's one of the first things you see when you get off the highway and start approaching Saint John's. It's really cool -- and the guy who designed the church, Marcel Bruer, he's world famous.

But back to the Bible and the HMML. Donald Jackson (who is apparently a BIG DEAL in the world of calligraphy) expressed an interest in writing a 20th century bible and asked the monks of Saint John's if they would like to be associated with the project. They said yes, and the Saint John's Bible was born.

If you are ever in Collegeville, Minnesota, or if you hear that it will be touring near you, go see it. It's beautiful. In fact, it's so amazing the Pope has a copy. That's right. The Pope. Brother Dietrich, the President of Saint John's, traveled to Rome in April of this year and presented it to him. This book is so important the Vatican Library gets a copy. I think that's all seven kinds of awesome, right there.

But I also learned something else today. I learned that the HMML, which resides right underneath the library where I do my homework on Tuesday afternoons, across the lawn from that Abbey Church, is one of the largest collections of medieval manuscripts from across the world, some THREE MILLION pages on microfilm, comprising about one-hundred thousand volumes, most of them from the Middle East.

Are you all jealous yet? Because you should be.

I go to school at two colleges comprised of some four thousand students, in the middle of nowhere in Minnesota, and we have a collection of old books that is so unique scholars from all over the world come to study them. I wrote about one of them in that previous blog post I mentioned earlier.

I think that's something to be proud of. My school is famous the world over for preserving books, books that now, in addition to microfilm, can also be accessed online through the Vivarium, here. For the one hundred and fifty years that Saint John's Abbey and the Monastery of Saint Benedict have been in Minnesota, we've been focused on teaching, learning, and preserving heritage, things that are all still alive in our traditions today.

And I am. I am very, very proud of that.