Round the Bible Reloaded

Around 1000 people accepted my challenge to read “Round the Bible in 40 days” cover-to-cover during Lent this year. We all travelled at different speeds and some are still en route, and we all got different things out of it. It was nearly always an encouragement, but the Old Testament often posed questions to us that we hadn’t wrestled with for a while.

Forty ministers, lay and ordained, wrote a daily reflection to go on the RTB40 blog. They were too good to lose, so I have now gathered up their fragments into a single booklet that you can download here (A4) and here (A5 booklet that works on some printers!).

I have also produced a version of the introductory booklet (with reading plan and general bible notes) that is not tied to Lent but can be used at any time. You can download that  here, so – if you haven’t already – why not take up the challenge too and Read Round the Bible in 40 Days.

Certificates on request for those who complete – or download your own here.

Filed under: Bible, Bible Study

Garima Gospels

You can read the Art Newspaper article about this fascinating manuscript that I blogged about recently on line now at http://ethiopianheritagefund.org/artsNewspaper.html.

Fellow medievalist Michelle Brown, until recently curator of illuminated manuscripts at the British Library and now a professor at London University, says that, “the Garima Gospels case vital light upon early Christian illuminated manuscript production and upon the role of sub-Saharan Africa…It is the sort of model the inspired such vibrant later Ethiopic art and is an important witness to the way in which the churches of the Christian Orient both absorbed the courtly Christian culture of Constantinople and developed their own voices and styles.”

Filed under: Bible, Christianity

The Bible in the Life of the Church

The Archbishop of Canterbury has announced the Bible in the Life of the Church project – a project which aims to discover how Anglicans worldwide read their Bible and provides tailored tools to help them do so in a deeper and more objective way. He says the project "will enable us – as is appropriate for something guided by the Holy Spirit — to listen to one another and speak to one another with greater love and greater intelligence and greater energy for mission".

Filed under: Bible

Garima Gospels

Did you know that there was such a thing as Extreme Bookbinding?

Lester Capon  writes here about a fascinating Preservation Project in Ethiopia.

It began with 8a telephone call one Thursday morning in May 2006 from James Brockman. The conversation went something like this :- J.B. – "Do you want to work in the Ethiopian mountains on a 6th. century manuscript?" L.C. – " Yes" When, some months later, I was being hoisted up a sheer rock face a stones throw from the Eritrean border, trusting my prolonged existence to an ancient leather strap and an even more ancient monk.

The library at Garima Monastery holds an ancient treasure, an illuminated copy of the Gospels that according to legend, Abbu Garima himself wrote and illuminated on 350 pages on thick goat’s vellum in the Ge’ez language. This tradition has been discounted, and the book taken to be tenth century, until recently.

But now they have been restored and redated to between 330 and 650 which means that they could be the earliest surviving illustrated Christian manuscripts. The current issue of The Art Newspaper (no. 214, June 2010, p.46) carries an article by Martin Bailey about them [not up on the online edition yet] and the Ethiopian Heritage Fund has a piece about them as well.

Picture to right: St Luke

^{Note: as we approach the 400th anniversary year of the Authorized Version in 2011 I expect to see much more material about the Bible in circulation and aim to share the best bits on this blog.}

Filed under: Bible, books

Biblefresh

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General Synod recently passed a motion that requests all ‘dioceses, deaneries and parishes undertake local initiatives to celebrate and teach the Bible both within the Church and throughout wider society’.

BIBLEFRESH is a response, a movement of Bible agencies, denominations, Bible colleges, festivals, publishers and local churches working together to help the church regain confidence and appetite for the Bible.  Timed to coincide with the 400th anniversary of the King James Version of the Bible, the movement provides churches with lots of practical ways to engage with the Bible.

The partnership includes many different agencies, large and small, including The Methodist Church, The Baptist Union, Bible Society, Scripture Union, and St John’s College, Nottingham.  Champions for the Biblefresh initiative include Dr Christina Baxter, Dr Elaine Storkey, Bishop Wallace Benn and Bishop Tom Wright.  The initiative comes with the full support of the Archbishops’ Council Mission and Public Affairs Council.

The Biblefresh book has just been launched at the Christian Resources Exhibition.  It is contains dozens of articles and ideas by authors such as Vaughan Roberts, Dr John Stott, and Amy Orr-Ewing.  It costs £5.00 and is available from www.Biblefresh.com.  Discounts are available for bulk purchases at £3.50 per copy for orders over 50 and £2.50 for orders over 100.  To order in bulk please email info@biblefresh.com or call 020 7207 2100.

You can also download an electronic copy of the church leaders guide which is packed full of practical ideas for churches at www.biblefresh.com. 

Filed under: Bible

Bible A-Glo-Glo

The media are full of reports of the world-wide launch of the digital Glo bible, which will retail in Britain for £59,99, amidst its developers’ claim that it will bring religion to a whole new generation of Christians.

The Glo bible, which will be launched worldwide on Friday, features more than 7500 encyclopaedia articles, 7, 700 pieces of artwork, 2,400 high-resolution photos, nearly 150 maps and 3.5 hours of video. “Instead of reading the bible, see it, feel it, you get it.”

it’s seriously cool, and I’m glad it’s out. But you also need a staggering 18GB free on your hard drive to install it, and it doesn’t run on Macs, so this is old-style new-style. An internet link is required to keep the product updated: why not have much more of the content on the internet, and copyright free to boot? Including the text of the NIV.

Filed under: Bible, Resources

Blogging the Bible

Over the summer I’ve quietly started up another blog, posting the daily New Testament reading from Common Worship Morning Prayer and adding a comment. I’ve chosen a format that makes it fairly easy for you to add comments too, with the hope that a community of readers and commentators might evolve. A lot of clergy and lay people as well, in the diocese of Ely and beyond, are after all reading the same Scripture day by day, and pondering it, but often not in a context where those ponderings can be shared. At the moment we’re working through Mark’s Gospel and are just reaching some really interesting bits in chapters 6-8 (I’ve just written the comments for the coming week!).

Now launching it quietly in the summer means I have had the time to do it, and I intend to carry on until we reach the end of Mark in October. But it also means that not too many people have caught up with the project, and if it is to continue it will probably be necessary as well as beneficial to share the blogging around a bit.

So for now, do drop across to The Bible Study Blog at http://thebiblestudyblog.wordpress.com/, have a read, add a comment!, and consider whether you fancy being part of its future.

Ta!

Image by Wonderlane via Flickr

Technorati Tags: Bible Study,Blogging,Church of England,Common Worship

Filed under: Bible, Bible Study, blogging, Church of England, Resources