Religion

SEATTLE — These days, when Bible verses can be pulled up instantly online and printed Bibles are readily available, an international team of monks, calligraphers and artists is creating a Bible the old-fashioned way.

Team members are making their own goose-feather quills, using hand-ground paints, and writing and drawing on pages of treated calfskin.

They're eight years into the creation of The Saint John's Bible, billed as the first commissioned handwritten Bible since the invention of the printing press some 500 years ago.

"At an age when virtually everything we touch is made by machine, there's something wonderful about making a book by hand," said the Rev. Eric Hollas, a monk in the Roman Catholic Benedictine order at Saint John's Abbey in Minnesota.

It's a Bible that blends the ancient and modern, both in technique and content.

Medieval materials are being used in a nod to tradition and because they've been proven to last.

But the script is new, created by Donald Jackson, of Wales, a former scribe to Queen Elizabeth II who is the project's artistic director. And Jackson's team uses modern means to communicate with each other: e-mail, phone and FedEx.

The project also uses a modern English translation of the Bible — the New Revised Standard Version. And its illuminations — illustrations that feature gold leaf and other precious metals — include references to the Twin Towers, NASA images and other faiths.

It was important to the monks for the project to speak to the faithful now, and also to become a record for the future of how people today interpreted and perceived Scripture.

"We're making a book that's intended to last 2,000 to 3,000 years," Hollas said.

For the monks at Saint John's Abbey and Saint John's University, which jointly commissioned the $3.5 million project, there were plenty of reasons not to start the project. There was the cost and amount of work involved — not to mention a long list of competing priorities, among which "making a Bible was not high," Hollas said.

Still, the proposal captured their imagination.

They saw it as a work of art in the long tradition of religious art in the West.

They thought about how people were still amazed by medieval biblical manuscripts, such as the Book of Kells, kept at Trinity College in Dublin. For the Benedictine monks to help create something that could inspire people thousands of years from now — "that's worth the challenge," Hollas said.

They thought about how such a Bible might incorporate modern themes in its illustrations. One illumination features DNA strands, a reference to evolution.

Another depicts Earth, based on an image from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope.

Every Bible that's ever been made has tried to reflect its time, Hollas said.

Not doing so "would be like someone getting up in the pulpit and giving a sermon on some issue that was important 800 years ago but not now. You want a Bible that speaks to people today."

Some of those decisions have provoked controversy.

One religious-book distributor refused to carry copies of portions of The Saint John's Bible in his store, objecting to the references to evolution, said the Rev. Michael Patella, a monk at Saint John's Abbey who heads a committee providing theological guidance to the calligraphers and artists.

For the monks, it was important to show that "faith and reason go hand in hand," he said. "Science tells us how we got to where we are. The Bible tells us why we got to where we are."