# Bibles Before the Year 1000 -- DC Exhibit



## VirginiaHuguenot (Dec 6, 2006)

Bibles Before the Year 1000 -- Sackler Gallery, Washington, DC Exhibit (October 21, 2006 -- January 7, 2007)

Below are some of the highlights:

* The Israel Museum has restored the Isaiah 2 portion of Dead Sea Scrolls, found in a cave in 1947, especially for this exhibition. 
* The Chester Beatty Library in Dublin has sent several artifacts, including the oldest known manuscript of the Books of Numbers and Deuteronomy; it was written in Greek in about 150. Also, the earliest known copy, dating from about 200, of a portion of Romans. 
* Even six manuscripts purchased in 1906 by Charles Lang Freer and given to the Smithsonian Institution are usually kept in storage vaults because of their fragile state. Two have never been exhibited and two have not been shown since 1978. Freer's "Codex Washingtonensis" are Greek versions of portions of the Old Testament dating to the 4th or 5th centuries. Freer also gave the museum what is known as the Washington Manuscript of the Gospels, a 4th- or early 5th-century codex -- the third oldest parchment manuscripts of the Gospels -- which is enclosed in painted wooden covers made in the 7th century. All that will be on display. 
* Two pages of meticulous Greek script from the Codex Sinaiticus, discovered in 1859 at St. Catherine's Monastery in the Sinai Desert, said to contribute to the most authoritative modern versions of the Old Testament in the original Greek. 
* The Sackler's principal partner in arranging the exhibition is the Bodleian Library, the main research library at Oxford University. Included is part of commentary on Proverbs by the Venerable Bede, a British 7th-century monk 
* The British Library sent part of the Harley Gospels, one of the earliest known manuscripts of the Gospels written in Latin, believed to be from the late 6th century. Also, two leaves from the 7th- or 8th-century Ceolfrith Bible, believed to be the oldest complete Latin Bible in one volume. 
* In rich green, yellow and red tones, the 9th-century Macregol Gospel from Ireland used intricate calligraphy because many Christians viewed figurative drawings as idolatry. 
* The Stockholm Codex Aureus is purple-dyed parchment inscribed in silver and gold ink. 
* Leaves from the huge, lavishly illuminated Latin translation of both the Old and New Testaments commissioned by the Abbott Ceolfrith to be sent to the pope after he retired from the monastery of Wearmouth-Jarrow in northern England in 716.


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## nicnap (Dec 6, 2006)

Cool...would love to see it.


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## VirginiaHuguenot (Dec 7, 2006)

I'm hoping to check it out on my lunch break sometime soon, dv. I saw a great Reformation Bible exhibit at the Library of Congress a few years ago. The Gutenberg Bible is on permanent display there.


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