Bible Seminar

Last week instead of having our Honors New Testament class with Dr. Holzapfel we went to a Bible seminar in the bottom of the Herald B. Lee Library. The speaker at the seminar worked in the special collections section of the library and specialized in ancient writings. I have never taken into deep consideration all that has happened to get the Bible to this generation. The speaker talked the many different writing materials such as clay tablets, bronze plates, and papyri that have been used throughout the different time periods. I was fascinated with the clay tablets, the sample was so much smaller than I would have expected and it amazed me that something like that, which would surely break if it was dropped had lasted that long. The brass plates also interested me, I examined the characters on it and the way that they were written made it obvious that it was no small task to write on these plates. Papyri, the seemingly earliest forms of paper, was just reeds matted together in two different directions. The fragility of them surprised me. Knowing that some of these papyri, which predated Christ, have been found intact in the latter-days amazed me.

The speaker then began to talk about the monks copying down the Bible first on to books with pages made with the hide of calfs. This then evolved into paper. The flawlessness of these books amazed me. We learned that erasing was done using a knife, and for larger sections a piece of pumice. The process that the monks and nuns went through to duplicate these books amazed me. When making copies of the Bible, each monk would take a different section and copy it. They would unify their handwriting to make sure that the entire book looked like it had been written by the same person. The books that we were shown were beautiful. The pages had elaborate art work with paint and gold leafing. However, the parchment was the most expensive part of the book, even more expensive than gold leafing and colorful writing. The Papyrus was so precious, that even when it was damaged they used it, sometimes writing around holes.

The people who owned books had to be wealthy, and even if they were wealthy they could only afford a few books. Cairo had papyrus before Europe, but Spain was the first place that had paper within Europe. Gutenburg, a goldsmith in Germany 1440 created a printing press. Gutenburg was not trying to change the appearance of books, he was merely trying to make it faster, easier and more reliable. Sadly, he eventually became bankrupt. Learning about the history of the Bible and books in general gave me a greater appreciation for the many wonderful books that are so easily accessible for me.