King James Bible Exhibition (Day 5)

Day 5 of my Oxford study abroad: Tuesday June 28, 2011.
This post is out of chronological order because it's too amazing to post it later. I will post Day 3 and 4 after this one!

Warning: This LONG entry contains NO photos of any kind, only embedded links. Be sure to click on it!!

Today was a very very special day, where I will blog about it in two parts. First, I just want to say that my hope for this blog is to bring you all a daily account of all of my activities here in Oxford, and with my best attempts at writing and your best attempts at imagining, you could experience what I have experienced here. But sometimes, events that occurred are often beyond descriptions, narratives, or illustrations that it's hard to give an accurate account of what happened that day. And today was this kind of a day.

In order to tell you all about the Exhibition, I need to first tell you my basic understanding of the Bodleian Library. The Bodleian Library is the main research library of the University of Oxford. It houses more than 11 million books that it acquired since 13th or 14th century. All of the books published in the United Kingdom must submit one copy to the Bodleian Library, it's kind of like the Library of Congress in the US. A fact about the library is that it's not a lending library meaning that you can NOT borrow books, it's a library of reference. If you need a book, you need to physically show up at the library and read it inside the library. You can never check out a book, no matter who you are (a King of England, whose name I forgot, asked for a book to be sent to him but was rejected by the librarian, who was NOT beheaded. The King had to show up at the library). For Harry Potter fans, you might be thrilled to know that the Divinity School was shot as the Hogwarts Infirmary and the Duke Humfrey's Library was the Hogwarts' Library. (So, Hogwarts' Library does exist in real life!). And this is NOT a public library either, only members are allowed to use it. I am fortunate enough to be in this study abroad program and to obtain a temporary library card that would allow me excess to some of the books and amazing, Hogwarts-like (only description) reading rooms.

What's the whole point about the back story on the Bodleian? Well, not only is it one of the most historically rich, resourceful, old and incredible library in structures. It also houses the most amazing collections of books you could ever imagine. Ever since it was built and even before it was built, the library has had a copy of all books published in the UK and on top of it private donations from the wealthy (who wished to leave a 'legacy') and from scholars. And this is where our King James Bible Exhibition begins....

This is a free admission exhibition. As you can imagine, some of the most prized and famous collection of books can't be shown to the public, so the library has exhibitions where they let the public view some of the collection. And this is how I was able to look at this amazing collection of priceless books.

The exhibition is formally known as Manifold Greatness: Oxford and the Making of the King James Bible. (Please check out the website!!!) It is not a huge exhibition. But there were 11 glass displays of priceless books. The website will give you a better understanding of the history of the making of the King James Bible. I will give you some basic explanation of the works I saw and a bit of background with each display:

1st display: Before the King James Bible (KJB): the Earliest translation of the Bible into English was around 9th century. Most Bible (Old and New Testaments) were known to Anglo-Saxon as poetic adaptions. I saw: Old English religious poems c.1000 that had a color illustration of Adam and Eve with God.
There is a display of "MacRegol" or "Rushworth" Gospels c. 800 in Latin by Irish half-uncial MacRegol


2nd display: First complete translation of Bible in English was produced by Oxford Theologian John Wycliff (c. 1324-1384), but the translator was unknown. The Wycliffite Bible had 2 versions: Old and New. The Old version is a direct word-to-word translation, but the New was more idiomatic, which was prohibited. I saw a 15th century Gospel Readings from Wycliffite Bible.
Wycliffite Bible (c. 1380-1390 written) itself that had the Old Testament in the Old version, flipped to Book of Deuteronomy!
Nicolas Love's Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ c. 1415-1430.
Old English translation of Old Testament (Genesis to Judges) from 11th century translated from Latin, also called "Heptateuch"


3rd display (no background, sorry): Ann Boleyn's (Queen to Henry VIII) Tyndale New Testament. Tyndale New Testament was first printed in Germany (1525-6) then in English after the Wycliffite Bible.
Geneva Bible 1606 flipped to Genesis Chapter 3 with a map of Eden, it's also called the "Breeches Bible" (from Genesis 3:7). It was Elizabethans' favorite bible for private reading.
Vulgate Bible, Lyon 1511. It is in Latin. This bible has chapters numbered but not the verse. And in the page it is flipped to, the word 'papa' (pope) was twice erased (I saw that) by its Tudor owner, who followed King Henry VIII. At the margin, there is Archbishop Thomas Cranmer's writings.


4th display: Douai-Rheims New Testaments (1582-1609), some verses of this bible were later in-cooperated in the the KJB. It is flipped to the cover and it reads, "The New Testament of Jesus Christ, translated faithfully into English out of authentication Latin...."
'The Great Bible" 1539 which depicted Henry VIII as greater than God in the cover. This Bible remained in church 9and was used) until 1611. It became the foundation of King James Bible (but the KJB was also influenced by Vulgate Bible). For those looking at the photo in Wikipedia, I saw the copy in person and it was magnificent, beyond words. The drawings and such.

5th display: "The Holy Bible" 1611 (or King James Bible) I won't tell the history, but if interested should look it up. The Bible included calendar, almanacs, "Genealogies of Holy scriptures" and so on. It was printed by the King's printer, Robert Barker.
The Bible was huge and amazing! I got chilled down my spines when I saw it. It was THE King James Bible. THE ORIGINAL! THE BIBLE! It was thick, huge and magnificent. It was really beyond words, such important piece of history just inches away from me and it BELONGS to the Bodleian Library. How incredible is that!? I was not expecting to see the KJB to be there but, there He lies....AMEN!

6th display: Bishop's Bible of 1568, which was used by Elizabethan bishops and became the textual model of the KJB 1611.

7th display: Annotated Bishop's Bible 1602. There were 40 copies distributed around Europe to be translated in to English. This is the sole surviving one (and it's in Bodleian!?). Like it says, the Bible has annotation at the margins. Incredible!!

8th display: Handel's manuscript of Messiah (c. 1741-42). The original manuscript! One side has a huge X where Handel crossed out a page of the music. Speechless!

9th display: The Holy Bible 1769, which is the first revised KJB by Benjamin Blayney of Hertford College, Oxford. And it became the "Oxford Standard"

10th display: Literary effects of KJB
Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe 1719, the original copy.
John Milton, Paradise Lost 1668, greatest Bible based poem in English. The first edition was what I saw!
Samuel Richardson, Clarrisa 1748

11th display: other Bible translators and their other works.

I guess what I am trying to say in this entry is that it is incredible, fortunate, moving, and scary. I am amaze at the quality these books are in. I could read the texts (not that I understand), I could see the illustration as if it drawn yesterday and I could try to relate how much work it went to but nothing really prepares you too see history in front of your eyes. It is a very weird feeling how close they are to you. I would think that these should be locked away in some highest of high security vault miles underground, but there they are, so welcoming, warm, and innocent. I almost felt so guilty standing so close! The chill I had when I saw KJB, it's a feeling I would never forget!

A place like Oxford could be so deceiving, you see the shops, cafes and markets all around you, so you feel like you are just in another college/tourist towns. You know the buildings are old but they don't really feel that way. You know history is all around you, but it's only with quiet and serene moments like these that you really experience that eerie-ness and magic of history and the journey men have made together. It's really is beyond us.

Until next time
Truly truly bless and with love, AMEN!