Saint John’s Abbey and University in Collegeville, Minn., have announced the completion of The Saint John’s Bible, a fifteen-year collaboration of scripture scholars and theologians at the abbey and university, along with artists and calligraphers at the scriptorium in Wales, under the direction of Donald Jackson, senior scribe to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth’s Crown Office at the House of Lords. The Saint John’s Bible is the first handwritten and illuminated Bible commissioned by a Benedictine Monastery since the advent of the printing press more than 500 years ago. It was written and drawn using quills and paints hand-ground from precious minerals and stones such as lapis lazuli, malachite, silver, and 24-karat gold. The seventh and final volume, Letters and Revelation, was completed earlier this year and is on public view for the first time in the exhibition The Saint John’s Bible: Amen! at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts from September 16-November 13, 2011. An exhibition of 44 original pages from The Saint John’s Bible Wisdom Books and Prophets also is on view at the New Mexico History Museum from October 21, 2011 to April 7, 2012. For more information, go to www.saintjohnsbible.org.
Thomas Nelson’s The Expanded Bible, releasing in November, contains in-text notes and alternative translations of key terms and passages. The scholars who developed the text are Tremper Longman III, biblical studies professor at Westmont College; Mark L. Strauss, professor of New Testament at Bethel Seminary; and Daniel Taylor, author of 10 books. Also from Thomas Nelson, the indefatigable Jesus Calling by Sarah Young, a 2 million-selling devotional that has become a franchise, adds the Jesus Calling Devotional Bible: Enjoying Peace in His Presence (Sept.) Young, a writer and missionary, adds her 260 prayers and devotions to the New King James Bible translation.
HarperOne’s N.T. Wright, prolific Bible scholar and Anglican bishop, adds another entry to his lengthy bibliography with The Kingdom New Testament (Oct.). The influential biblical interpreter offers his own translation, and the legions of readers who follow his work are already interested, if Amazon rankings provide any meaningful indication. Also new from HarperOne: The Daily Contemplative Bible (Sept.), which divides the NRSV translation into 365 readings with accompanying prayers and meditations.
Tuttle’s The Original I Ching: An Authentic Translation of the Book of Changes (Sept.) is a new translation by Skidmore College scholar Margaret J. Pearson based on new archaeological and textual evidence from the original Zhou text. Pearson’s work helps identify the role of women in early Chinese history.
Monkfish released in September a new translation and commentary of Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way: Nagarjuna’s Mulamadhyamakakarika, translated by GudoWafu Nishijima with commentary by Nishijima and iconoclastic Zen Buddhist monk Brad Warner (Sit Down and Shut Up). Nishijima, Warner’s Japanese teacher, contends that the 2nd-century C.E. text is one of the most important pieces of Buddhist literature.
