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Producing Bible by hand is labor of love, faith for Dallas man
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A UMNS photo by Steve Smith
James Pepper shows one of the highly decorative, illuminated pages from the "Pepper Bible."
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| James
Pepper, a member of Highland Park United Methodist Church in Dallas,
shows one of the highly decorative, illuminated pages from the "Pepper
Bible," his 550-page handmade reproduction of the Gospels, in which 304
of the pages are illustrated like the creations of the Bible scribes
centuries ago. Pepper has spent 18 years creating the handwritten copies
of the New Testament and Gospels. A UMNS photo by Steve Smith. Photo
#06113. Accompanies UMNS story #070. 02/07/06 |
Feb. 7, 2006
By Steve Smith
DALLAS (UMNS) — 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, Pepper, an investment manager, has painstakingly copied
portions of the Bible word for word, and he’s 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.
After spending as many as 16 hours on some days sweating over
handwriting the entire New Testament, a task he completed in 1995,
Pepper 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.
Like the ancient scribes who placed items in their Bibles from their
world, Pepper has added multicolored 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,” Pepper writes on
his Web site, www.hometown.aol.com/biblescribe1/biblescribe1/index.htm.
“You have to rely on your faith and the inspiration of God to make the
pages turn out as beautiful as possible.
“It is this spontaneous interaction with the Holy Spirit that makes
handwritten Bibles so amazing. You cannot plan this on a computer; you
have to do it yourself.”
An illuminated manuscript is a handmade and handwritten book decorated
in colorful letters and drawings without using printers and computers.
Illuminated Bibles were common during the Middle Ages, but printing
technology eventually made them obsolete.
Benedictine monks at St. John’s University on Collegeville, Minn.,
recently created 1,150 pages of illuminated pages for their own Bible,
which they value at more than $3 million. But they used computers to
design the pages, although much of the writing is done by hand. They are
working with Donald Jackson, scribe to the queen of England and one of
the world’s leading calligraphers.
Seeking a publisher
Pepper is looking for a company to publish and print his Bible as a
“high-end edition” much like the Pennyroyal Caxton Bible, a King James
version designed illustrated by Barry Moser, and use the proceeds from
sales to help rebuild churches destroyed by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
Pepper says he doesn’t know how much his Bible will cost, but he would
like to recover his investment, adding that he couldn’t begin to peg the
amount of money he has poured into the project.
Despite not using a computer, he is considering whether to put his final creation on DVD so anyone can view his Bible.
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A UMNS photo by Steve Smith
Every page of the "Pepper Bible" is made by hand. James Pepper shuns the computer and other high-tech tools.
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| Every
page of the "Pepper Bible" is made by hand. James Pepper, a United
Methodist and Dallas resident, has avoided using computers and other
high-tech tools in his 550-page handmade reproduction of the Gospels.
Pepper has spent 18 years creating the handwritten copies of the New
Testament and Gospels. A UMNS photo by Steve Smith. Photo #06115.
Accompanies UMNS story #070. 02/07/06 |
Pepper has received tons of publicity in the local press, and his works
have been displayed at the Biblical Arts Center, a nondenominational
museum in Dallas.
Scott Peck, director of the Biblical Arts Center, told the Dallas
Morning News in 2005 that Pepper’s work was a rarity. “I freed up the
gallery just for this,” he said of the exhibit, featured last March and
April. “No one else is doing this type of work. The only other project
that I know of is the St. John’s Bible in Minnesota.”
Church leaders from throughout the world also have praised his work.
“It is given to very few to undertake, or even contemplate, a labor of
such Herculean proportions,” wrote the Anglican archbishop of York in a
2001 letter to Pepper. “What you have done represents an achievement
which, so far as His Grace is aware, is quite without parallel in modern
times. It is a powerful witness to the living God.”
And from Roman Catholic leaders at the Vatican came this in 2002: “His
Holiness prays that your work will help you to discover each day in the
inspired writings of the Old and New Testaments a support for faith,
food for the soul and a pure and lasting fount of spiritual life.”
Pepper told United Methodist News Service that he may begin a similar
project on the Book of Revelation, complete with illuminated images of
dragons and other monsters depicted in the New Testament’s last book.
He views his work with reverence, choosing carefully the words to describe the pages spread out on a table.
“It’s a calling, it’s not a hobby,” he says. “It’s the religious aspect
of it that leads me to say this is a calling. It reflects who I am. You
can always change hobbies, but I would rather be doing this the rest of
my life.
“It’s just something I have to do.”
Lifelong interest
The “calling” came as early as age 5, when his father, who worked as a
book publisher, would take him to the museums of New York City, where
the child would look in awe at the ancient Bibles on display.
“Every time I saw them, I knew I could do it, that this is something I was supposed to do,” Pepper says.
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A UMNS photo by Steve Smith
A page from the "Pepper Bible" shows James Pepper's illustrative style.
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| A
page from the "Pepper Bible" shows James Pepper's illustrative style.
The Bible is a 550-page handmade reproduction of the Gospels, in which
304 of the pages are illuminated like the creations of the Bible scribes
centuries ago. The pages are handmade and decorated, just as Bible
scribes did centuries ago before the invention of printing. Pepper, a
member of Highland Park United Methodist Church in Dallas, has spent 18
years creating the handwritten copies of the New Testament and Gospels. A
UMNS photo by Steve Smith. Photo #06114. Accompanies UMNS story #070.
02/07/06 |
He started on his New Testament project when his grandmother suffered a
stroke. After his grandmother’s death nine years later, Pepper 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.
Pepper had completed a few books of the Old Testament when the Sept. 11
attacks occurred, killing four of his friends. To commemorate the
tragedy and honor his friends, Pepper created a Gospel book similar to
the Book of Kells, the ancient illuminated Gospel of Dublin, Ireland,
and then he started on his Gospels project.
Another Pepper creation is an Interlinear Polyglot in Greek, English and
Latin, which he conceived by translating the Compultensian Polyglot of
Accala, Spain, from the early 1500s. “Polyglot” means the translations
are done in multiple languages, and interlinear indicates that each line
of text is lined up with its translated counterparts.
“You have to let go and allow yourself to be guided by the Holy Spirit
as you write the page,” Pepper writes on his Web site. “This is
something that cannot be planned. You have to go with the flow of the
Scripture, your inspiration and the work of the Lord. The result is a
tangible expression of one man’s faith.”
Pepper 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 haven’t been in a house of worship in years.
“It’s good to know that this is inspiring people who have fallen away
from the church to go back, because they see something that they think
is impossible and they think, ‘Well, this guy has enough faith to do
this,’ so all I have to do is walk in the door,” Pepper says.
One of his “great moments,” he says, occurred at the Biblical Arts
Center, when his work was being displayed. Busloads of schoolchildren
spent a morning drawing Bible pages on the floor of the gallery. As they
worked away, they reminded Pepper of a major reason why he takes on
such an arduous, tedious task.
“They were busy writing away, and some were doing their own thing,
writing a Bible verse and going with it,” he says. “That’s what this is
all about: to encourage people to break out and express their passion of
God in ways they might not have thought of before.
“I encourage everyone to take up the pen and write a passage and decorate it and just go for it.”
*Smith is a freelance writer based in Dallas.
News media contact: Tim Tanton, Nashville, Tenn., (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org.
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