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[sil.]
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Yellow Moon Post Productions Ltd.
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The Beauty of Books
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Programme 1 WW
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'Ancient Bibles'
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Prog No. FKIK971E/01
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Dur – 29'01"
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Tern Television
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Tel. +44-2890-421826
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www.yellowmoon.net
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[music]
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RICHARD DORMER The British Library in London is home to 14 million books, on shelves
that stretch over 600 kilometers. Each year, 300,000 new volumes arrive, filling this treasure-
house of reading with everything from modern paperbacks to old, illuminated manuscripts.
Extraordinary vessels of ideas and knowledge, they testify to the enduring love affair we
have with books.
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Stephen Bayley
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Author & Design Critic
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STEPHEN BAYLEY To me, the book is still the most intelligent and interactive data retrieval
system which has been devised. I mean, and you can take it into the bath.
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Christopher de Hamel
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Corpus Christi College, Cambridge
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CHRISTOPHER DE HAMEL Turning the pages of a famous manuscript is rather like
meeting a very famous person. We all pretend it's nothing, but there is a slight thrill about it.
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RICHARD DORMER Over the centuries, books have allowed new ideas to reach new
audiences. More than words, they influence how we see ourselves. And sometimes, books
have altered the course of history. Among the most highly prized treasures at the British
Library, is the largest book to survive from antiquity. The magnificent Codex Sinaiticus,
contains the oldest complete New Testament in the world. Produced in the fourth century, as
the Roman Empire began to adopt Christianity, it symbolizes a new era of tolerance in
Roman politics. The poetry and beauty of religious books have often captured the
imagination, not only of the faithful, but of people with wealth and power. And in the
cathedral at Winchester, there is a Bible rich in gold and lapis lazuli, which recalls a time in
the 12th century when Bibles were at the center of the Church's struggle with the state for
ultimate authority. These Bibles emerged from the turmoil of persecution and war. They are
masterpieces of the craft of book making. But in the detail of their exquisite manuscripts,
there lies a deeper insight into a people, their religion and their politics.
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[music]
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Ancient Bibles: The Beauty of Books
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[music]
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RICHARD DORMER The story of the book begins with Bibles. The book technology that
early Christians popularized met a spiritual need and changed history. The collection at the
British Library includes one of the world's greatest books. As a work of art, as an
achievement in book craftsmanship and as a sacred text, the Codex Sinaiticus has no
comparators. Within it lie surprising challenges to Christian orthodoxy. And a unique insight
into the religion's early history.
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[music]
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RICHARD DORMER Thought to have been made around 350 AD in Palestine or Egypt, it's
the world's oldest surviving bible.
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Dr Scot McKendrick
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British Library
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SCOT MCKENDRICK It's always an amazing moment to open this manuscript and to look at
the work of scribes that were working so long ago. You can never fail to be really quite
humbled by that moment.
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RICHARD DORMER The Latin word "codex" refers to a block of wood used for writing. But it
came to mean book when large parchment volumes were developed in the fourth century.
The Codex has over 800 pages of parchment, made from 365 sheep or calfskins. They're
perfectly crafted, usually with four equal columns of 48 lines. And a script in Greek,
beautifully written on the finest vellum.
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SCOT MCKENDRICK You can see the hair follicle marks very clearly. A whole array of them
there. And there's a flaw, quite a small flaw in the vellum. And the scribe has very carefully
written around it. This volume is the oldest surviving copy of the New Testament, complete.
This is the ancestor of all the bibles that everybody else has in the world.
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Dr David Parker
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University of Birmingham
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DAVID PARKER There's the famous story, when it first came to London, that when people
went to see it in the British Museum, they took their hats off when they came up to it. It had
such an effect of awe upon them. So having something from the age of Constantine is
absolutely extraordinary. It's the Hadrian's Wall or the Coliseum of manuscripts.
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[music]
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RICHARD DORMER The Codex Sinaiticus acquired its name because it was kept for nearly
1,000 years in the remote monastery of St. Catherine's on Mount Sinai.
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[music]
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RICHARD DORMER It remained there until the German biblical scholar Constantin von
Tischendorf visited the monastery in the mid-1800s. When he was shown the Codex
Sinaiticus, Tischendorf recognised its enormous significance. Here was a manuscript that
offered unique insights into scripture, and which made scholars re-evaluate the bible that
Victorian Christians had relied on.
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Prof Janet Soskice
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University of Cambridge
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JANET SOSKICE The King James Bible, sturdy and black on the shelves, was thought to be
perfect, inerrant, by many people across the English-speaking world, which was mostly
Bible-believing Protestants. But the fact of the matter was that scholars had known that the
translations were all based on rather shaky evidence, shaky texts. So this is what drove von
Tischendorf to go and search across the ancient scriptoria, as they were called, of the East,
and to discover this spectacular bible. People at the time said, "If a new island had been
discovered, people could not have been more amazed."
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RICHARD DORMER The manuscript Tischendorf found was written at a time when
Christians were enjoying a new freedom after the Roman persecutions of the third century.
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[music]
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DAVID PARKER There was a policy particularly, in the Eastern Roman Empire, to destroy
holy books and to take away the church leadership, in the belief if you took away the books
and took away the leaders, the movement would perish. You then have a dramatic change in
the fourth century, in the period of the Emperor Constantine, who was very attracted to
Christianity.
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RICHARD DORMER Although the Codex Sinaiticus was produced in a period after
Constantine's death, it is clearly a proud symbol of the Emperor's new era of religious
tolerance.
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JANET SOSKICE And indeed Constantine, we think, converted to Christianity. There's…
there's some debate. Certainly he saw this famous cross in front of him at the Battle of the
Milvian Bridge and believed that he'd conquered, he'd won that battle somehow under the
power of the cross. We have this spectacular bible from the early-to-mid fourth century. It
was meant to stand in some regal church, perhaps, as a testimony to, testimony to the unity
and authority of the Christian Bible.
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RICHARD DORMER The new bible, if it was to symbolize the nascent religion of the Roman
Empire, had to be big and very beautifully written.
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[music]
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RICHARD DORMER That meant it had to be produced by a professional scriptorium, with
highly skilled scribes.
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SCOT MCKENDRICK We don't know the names of the scribes of the Codex. But we do
know some names of individuals who were renowned for their calligraphy. You have a large
number of women who are renowned scribes. And maybe all of the scribes of this book were
women.
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[music]
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Patricia Lovett
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Scribe & Illuminator
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PATRICIA LOVETT For the Codex Sinaiticus, they used a reed pen, which was very, very
similar to the quill pen that I'm using here. And for manuscripts, they found that the carbon-
based ink that was used in a lot of Egyptian manuscripts was too superficial. It stayed on the
surface too much. So when the pages were turned, it rubbed off too easily. So they
developed an ink from oak galls. And oak galls are the very hard nut-like secretions that are
made when an oak gall wasp lays its egg on the new parts of an oak tree. And what this did
was to leech out the tannic acid in oak galls and this was much more cutting, biting, into the
skin. And so resisted the movement, the sliding of the pages.
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RICHARD DORMER Before the Codex Sinaiticus, biblical stories circulated as individual
manuscripts. The challenge was to bind all 48 manuscripts of the Old Testament, 27 of the
New, into a single new book. To pull that off would mean a technological revolution in
binding and a new, thinner parchment.
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JANET SOSKICE Of course, it's not only the first bible, but it's really almost the first book.
The book as we know it develops in this period, and largely we believe under the stimulation
of Christianity.
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SCOT MCKENDRICK Just to bind this book up is a major achievement. In the history of
books, this is a great landmark. This is the point where, for the very first time in terms of
what has survived, that we have the large-scale book. And this wasn't just done for the sake
of it. But it was done so that within the two covers, you could have the entire canon of the
Christian scriptures.
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DAVID PARKER The parchment is so fine, and that's important because if they used thicker
parchment, the bulk of the book would have been so deep that it would have been an
absolute monster. The fineness is part of the key to making a one-volume bible. And that's
why we have a one-volume English bible today. So Codex Sinaiticus is the ancestor of all of
them.
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RICHARD DORMER But beyond its book-making craft and scribal elegance lies a
complicated story. On closer inspection, the text of the Codex Sinaiticus is littered with
revisions, which have intrigued scholars for centuries. It is history's most altered biblical
manuscript, and within those changes, lie its real theological secrets.
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SCOT MCKENDRICK It has approximately 23,000 corrections. In all that survives. Which is
an extraordinary rate of correction. It means that there are on average, there are about 30
corrections on each page. So you've got Dekey, which has been changed to Diki. Additions
there and there. And then obviously you've got a larger addition there. Zacharias, the son of
Barachios.
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RICHARD DORMER Given the quality of the calligraphy, scholars were surprised to find so
many changes. Many scribes wrote for money. They wrote quickly, which meant they
sometimes made errors. But 23,000 corrections can't be explained in this way. There have
to be theological reasons, too.
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SCOT MCKENDRICK You have people, individuals, agreeing, disagreeing, about what is
the biblical text. There are passages which were originally copied by the scribes. Then you
get a corrector comes along and he doesn't delete them. He puts little dots underneath the
letters that you don't think are part of the text. So you're effectively saying no, no to that part
of the text. You can sort of hear the voices from this ancient world.
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RICHARD DORMER A really remarkable change occurs at the beginning of Mark's Gospel.
Today's Mark starts with, "Jesus Christ, the Son of God." But the original Codex Sinaiticus
didn't have, "Son of God." Someone added it later.
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SCOT MCKENDRICK Just here, in Greek, you have, "The Son of God." Huio theou.
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RICHARD DORMER This is highly significant because, in the earlier version, Jesus became
divine only after his baptism, by John the Baptist. The edited insertion makes Jesus divine at
birth. Some 19th-century readers would have been shocked by the idea that Mark did not
share that belief. If the biblical texts could vary, it couldn't be the immutable word of God.
What the Codex Sinaiticus was revealing was the instability of the story. And there was an
even more significant surprise to be found at the end of Mark's Gospel, which finishes at the
tomb where Jesus was buried. There are no resurrection appearances.
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DAVID PARKER If you read Matthew's gospel, Luke's gospel, John's gospel, in all of them,
you have the story of the tomb being empty, and then of encounters with the risen Jesus.
Now, the gospel of Mark, as it ends in Codex Sinaiticus, stops at the empty tomb in a really
dramatic way.
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SCOT MCKENDRICK Where the women come to the tomb, they encounter this young man,
he says you'll see him again at Galilee, and it says…
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[non-English narration]
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SCOT MCKENDRICK They were afraid. "For they were afraid." End.
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JANET SOSKICE That had been the case in other manuscripts but no-one was ever quite
sure whether it was simply because the end of Mark had been eaten away by rodents, or
fallen off, or whatever. There could be many reasons for… Over 1,000 years manuscripts
decay. But Codex Sinaiticus demonstrated that Mark must have ended there. That was one
big shock to people.
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DAVID PARKER It's a very clever literary device. If you think the last words are, "They said
nothing to anybody for they were afraid," your question as the reader is, "If they said nothing
to anybody, how do I know what happened?" So you're inside the story in a quite
unexpected way but also, as an early Christian reader, you discover that your situation of
belief is the same as that of those women at the tomb.
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RICHARD DORMER The biblical stories, especially about Jesus' life, were clearly still
debated. And in the pages of the Codex, we see evidence of early Christians working
towards a single version that everybody could accept. A bible fit for an empire.
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SCOT MCKENDRICK This, together with many early manuscripts, demonstrates that that
text, at that early stage, is being discussed and is evolving. Not as a whole, but in its details.
And I think it's a caution to people about how they interpret and how they use this text.
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RICHARD DORMER The Codex Sinaiticus was the perfect symbol of a religion becoming
the approved faith of the Roman Empire. Eight hundred years later, an English bible
produced in the early Middle Ages acquired the same status. When William the Conqueror
and the Normans arrived in England, they knocked down the old cathedrals and erected
massive edifices twice the size. And they created their own bibles, bigger than any other and
more beautifully decorated. Christian symbols of Norman power. In the Norman cathedral of
Winchester, there is a 12th century bible that outclasses every other. Such was the skill and
ambition of the bible made here, it now has to be kept in four volumes. This was a bible that
quickly became famous for its grandeur and the quality of its illuminations.
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Prof Michelle Brown
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University of London
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MICHELLE BROWN It's big, it's bold, it's impressive, it's also stunningly, stunningly beautiful.
The degree of resources and good taste that's been poured into this book, and the sheer
attention to detail and the love of the artistry of both the scribes and the illuminators just
shines through. It contains the vulgar copy of the text, the vulgata, which is a translation from
the Greek of the Septuagint, of Codex Sinaiticus and other early volumes into the general
currency of the Roman Empire, which was Latin. And a great copy of this sort, something
that's to be seen by the bishop, by the whole brethren of the cathedral priory, but also any
distinguished visitors, including royalty.
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CHRISTOPHER DE HAMEL The Winchester Bible is a candidate for the greatest work of art
produced in England. It's absolutely stunning quality of illumination, page after page after
page. And it also has the added romance that it is still in the place where it was made, and to
have survived nearly 900 years without moving is breathtaking.
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RICHARD DORMER Each book of this bible begins with an illuminated or historiated letter.
They tell a story. They adorn the text and glow with real gold and blue lapis lazuli from
Afghanistan.
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MICHELLE BROWN Here at the beginning of the Second Book of Kings, we've got King
Isaiah sending his messengers to consult Beelzebub, and the great prophet Elijah
countering him and being taken up in his fiery chariot. And his mantle, literally slipping off
and about to fall down and over the head of Elijah, who's going to pick up the mantle, where
the saying comes from.
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CHRISTOPHER DE HAMEL The term illuminated, strictly speaking, means it's got gold or
silver and catches the light, it sparkles as you turn the pages. If it does not contain gold,
technically, it's not illuminated. However, the Winchester Bible is indeed an illuminated
manuscript, it really is.
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[music]
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RICHARD DORMER There is no definitive record of who commissioned the Winchester
Bible. But we do have some pretty strong clues.
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CHRISTOPHER DE HAMEL The cost of making it, the cost of materials, would have been
enormous. Somebody must have put up the money. And the likely candidate is Henry of
Blois, who was Bishop of Winchester and died in 1171. And he was the brother of King
Stephen, so he was a royal prince, grandson of William the Conqueror. It is likely that the
money came from him.
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RICHARD DORMER And the Bible itself presents another bit of evidence in one of its
illuminations.
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MICHELLE BROWN There's an initial at the very beginning of the book which shows
Jerome, who translated the Bible into Latin, actually presenting, if you like, a copy of it to the
Pope, Desiderius, who is shown not as a Pope but as a bishop in exactly the sort of
vestments that Henry of Blois would have worn and they are gorgeous. And it's full cope and
albs, it's the business. You know, the top grade liturgical wear. And, under his arm, he's
actually clasping a book in a sumptuous red leather cover.
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RICHARD DORMER This was bible-making on a scale to match a great cathedral. The
parchment was of a very high quality and the preparation was meticulous. You can still see
the scoring where the scribe has carefully set out the lines on which he will write. It appears
that there was only one scribe, a monk from the nearby cathedral priory. But the art was the
work of artists from across Europe.
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MICHELLE BROWN We've got six artists and the artists all have very, very distinctive styles
of their own. Two of them a little bit old fashioned, if you like, the Master of the Leaping
Figures, who goes for this wonderful sort of wet T-shirt style as if everybody's just stepped
out of the shower with their clinging drapery, and every bit of the contorted and elegant
anatomy of the overstated Romanesque of the Normans is there. And… and then you have
the Master of the Apocrypha Drawings, who does the more narrative scenes in strict register,
and they are very much grounded in that Romanesque style. And then you get four who are
a little different. You get the idea that these artists have traveled. You can imagine them
going around in the retinue of Henry of Blois and actually absorbing influences where they
went.
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[music]
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CHRISTOPHER DE HAMEL They've seen the mosaics in Sicily, they have seen the
frescoes in Cyprus, they may have been to Byzantium. The style of these great, staring eyes
and wonderful draperies, swirling figures. That's not the local Winchester style. That has
come from… that's come right across Europe.
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[music]
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CHRISTOPHER DE HAMEL You get these dancing figures like a silent ballet, forever in
motion and yet frozen. Brilliant colors, deep, deep blues, pure lapis, burnished gold,
hauntingly beautiful with that kind of soul of a Byzantine icon, transferred into Hampshire. I
mean, it's… it's fabulous.
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[music]
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RICHARD DORMER Winchester had been the old capital of England. And even after the
Norman invasion, when the capital gradually moved to London, it remained of huge
importance. And so, Bishop Henry and his new bible were inevitably caught up in the
country's politics.
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CHRISTOPHER DE HAMEL It belongs to its time, which is the period of the Norman
occupation of England. They have wiped out or eliminated the old English culture. England
has joined the Common Market. In 1066 we go European, and these giant bibles are a
European phenomenon. And they would have seen it as a symbol that England was part of
international Christendom.
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RICHARD DORMER But there is also a fascinating English subtext to the bible. And it has to
do with the violent struggles for power that were tearing England apart in the mid-12th
century. Outside the quiet of the scriptorium, the country was emerging from years of civil
war. Only to be plunged into a new conflict between the Church and the King.
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Dr Paul B. Sturtevant
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University of Leeds
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PAUL B. STURTEVANT For 19 years, there was a large-scale civil war that was going on
between King Stephen and Maude, who had a claim to the throne as well. And so, during
those 19 years, the broader secular authority had more or less collapsed. As a result of that,
the Church was one of the few stable elements in the country and, while that happened, a lot
of power that was usually reserved for the monarchy went to the Church. After that, the
struggle was very much about whether the Church was allowed to maintain that authority
that it had during the anarchy, or whether or not it was to be given back to the secular
authority.
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[music]
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RICHARD DORMER One of the illuminations in the Winchester Bible takes us further into
the politics of the time. It seems to reflect or anticipate the cataclysmic events in 1170, when
Archbishop Thomas Becket was murdered, seemingly on King Henry II's orders.
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MICHELLE BROWN There's an initial introducing Psalm 51, in which Saul, through his
servant, orders the beheading of the priests. Now, at a time when Henry II is beginning to
escalate his controversy with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket, which would in
fact culminate in the murder of the key high priest of the English people, all of this had a
tremendous resonance. It's almost as if Henry of Blois is predicting or scripting events.
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[music]
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CHRISTOPHER DE HAMEL People were absolutely awestruck by this event, that the
Archbishop of Canterbury could have been executed in his own cathedral, presumably,
apparently, at the command of the King. In a way, it probably strengthened the position of
the Church. It gave the Church its own martyr.
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[music]
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RICHARD DORMER In August 1171, only a few months after Beckett's murder, Henry II
visited Winchester to see Bishop Henry de Blois, who was dying. The King knew of the
famous Winchester Bible and he may have asked to see it. With its allegorical allusions to
the killing of priests, what impression would he have formed of the Bible's message and of
the bishop who commissioned it?
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MICHELLE BROWN It's supposed to unleash powerful forces in the world and to teach
people human folly through human history and the aspiration to strive for something
different. We'll never know the intricacies of Henry's brain, but this is as close, I think, as we
can get. And so there are ways in which some of these scenes can be seen, perhaps, as
echoes of things that Henry of Blois, in the very last stages of his life, are intimately involved
in. He's retired a little from the civil war phase of his life and the great power politics, he's
now a monk. But he's still pulling the strings through figures such as Becket, and I think we
have all of that displayed for us, if we choose to see it, on these pages.
00:28:50
RICHARD DORMER The Winchester Bible, like the Codex Sinaiticus before it, is an
incredibly important staging post in the development of the book. But, as well as being
technological advances, these bibles provide a real insight into the history of Christianity.
They symbolize the politicization of the Christian religion. They reflect the sectarian world
outside their pages. And remind us that the growth of this religion has always been intimately
associated with the political power of the day.
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[music]
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[credits]
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