Dallas man produces Bible by hand

STORY AND PICTURE: STEVE SMITH

DALLAS - The embodiment of James Pepper's life during the past 18 years is spread out over the floor and tables of his apartment and in a special room set aside for him at Highland Park United Methodist Church, where he attends and volunteers.

Since 1987, Mr Pepper, an investment manager, has painstakingly copied portions of the Bible word for word, and he is doing it the old-fashioned way, like scribes did centuries ago: with stylus pen and black ink on plain sheets of drawing paper, and with ancient styles of calligraphy. He shuns using a computer.

Mr Pepper showing one of the highly decorative,
illuminated pages from the "Pepper Bible".


After spending as many as 16 hours on some days sweating over handwriting the entire New Testament, a task he completed in 1995, he is days away from completing another phase: an illuminated manuscript of the Gospels - 304 entirely handmade, highly decorative pages in a 550-page, four-year project.


An illuminated manuscript is a handmade and handwritten book decorated in colourful letters and drawings without using printers and computers. Illuminated Bibles were common during the Middle Ages, but printing technology eventually made them obsolete.


Like the ancient scribes who placed items in their Bibles from their world, he has added multi-coloured drawings of the Space Shuttle, Skylab, Texas flora and fauna, the Titanic, and the World Trade Center towers, where three of his friends perished during the Sept 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.


He says the "Pepper Bible", as he calls it, is among only a small handful of handwritten, illustrated Bibles made in nearly 500 years.


"There is nothing like trusting in God that the page will turn out right, to be inspired at the moment the pen touches the page; only then will you know what to do when you write the Scripture," he writes on his website, www.hometown.aol.com/biblescribe1/biblescribe1/index.htm


He started on his New Testament project when his grandmother suffered a stroke. After his grandmother's death nine years later, he began caring for his mother, who had cancer. He completed his 677-page, 110-drawing New Testament in 1995, in time for her to see the project before she died.


He told United Methodist News Service that he hopes his creations will allow him to "bring people back to the church", especially considering the reverence that ancient Bibles have for many people, even if they have not been in a house of worship in years. - United Methodist News Service.

Steve Smith is a freelance writer based in Dallas.