The Illuminated Gospel of St John
cambridge.org
cambridge.org
I'd love a set of annotations of the inspirations for each illumination. Medieval illuminations are heavily coded and full of allusions that would go over my head.
Even today, KJV is the "voice of God". When you want to write a divine voice, you mimic KJV. "Thou shalt not..." just sounds more authoritative than "Don't", even though they mean the same thing. (I'd argue that "don't" better preserves the meaning, which was not meant to sound archaic. "Thou" sounded informal in the 17th century, but that's not how it sounds now.)
The flaws in KJV run deep; it's a very opinionated translation. Which is fine; every translation is opinionated. But there's a risk that people assume it's definitive because it's so powerful. There are some who literally claim that it is truly definitive -- even more so than the Hebrew and Greek originals. (This is of course insane, and that's the fault of horrific theology rather than the translation.)
At this "Treasures" mini-museum you will find a small cuneiform tablet with math exercises that's at least 100 years older than the Rhind mathematical papyrus.
There is a Gutenberg bible there. I would say there are at least 10 items more impressive than the Gutenberg bible; I count this tablet as one of those.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhind_Mathematical_Papyrus
Its a beautiful and modern interpretation of how an illuminated work would be done today. Even has Jesus wearing jeans.
Each bible is commissioned and done by hand, so a bit more than a $35 book the link is referring to.
But it's important to remember that practically all Jewish scholarship as we know it came into being as an explicit refutation of Christianity, and was a fairly radical shift compared to what records we have prior to that. Regardless, "sin" is a major theme of the book no matter how you look at it.
I like to think that I put a lot of ~~craftmanship~~ into my code, but the effort put into every single letter of a roughly fifteen-thousand-word book (to say nothing of the letter at the beginning of the chapters or the illustrations) is on another level.
I was in LA and wanted to visit the Getty to just see the building, when we found out that there was an exhibit on illuminated manuscripts. I spent an hour looking at the archicture and the rest of the time looking at the entire exhibit, until the staff insisted that we must leave. Sorry. I absolutely lost all track of time.
She also did an illuminated psalter in French, that one is available by special order only it seems: https://www.calligrafee.com/en/illuminated-psalter/
How elaborate or precious can it be, if this costs about the same as a typical mass-produced Bible?
EDIT: That's not meant to be dismissive of it. It looks like a very beautifut book, and I'll probably buy one.
A Gospel of John alone is unsuitable for any liturgical use. Most illuminated books were pretty much understood to be placed in sacred liturgical settings, and therefore it made sense to go to that expense; they would not be shoved in a monk's drawer or a young girl's dowry chest, all things being equal.
Therefore, the illumination process would produce a complete Lectionary, a Psalter, or a Missal; speaking as a liturgical Roman Catholic, the Holy Bible is not a book we use directly for public liturgy, like at all. Bibles are for personal devotion and study. A Book of Gospels is a specialized Lectionary, and I do not know its particular structure, but it would need to include all four, for sure!
If they intend to produce all four Gospels this way, or the entire NT, that's great; I'm sure a collector would avidly follow their publication and snap them all up in short order. But for ordinary consumers, the sheer utility of an illuminated Bible is questionable at best. It's the sort of thing you'll place on a coffee table as a conversation piece, or prominently on a shelf, just to exhibit your wealth and good taste.
Religious scriptures for sale feels really weird on HN either way.