REVELATIONS OF THE BIBLE

I remember the first time I visited the Huntington Library near Pasadena, California. The library itself is just one building out of many on the grounds of the winter estate of the 19th century railroad baron, Henry Huntington. You enter the library and immediately find yourself in a large two-story open space that is now used for revolving exhibits. A narrow mezzanine around the room is lined with bookcases and is replete with old, leather covered books. The aroma of book oil used to protect the leather book covers drifts down. To a bibliophile like me, it was love at first sight! The library's immense collection of fragile ancient works is archived in the basement, available only to qualified scholars. It is a treasure trove of literature, including the only complete copy of the Dead Sea Scrolls (in photographic form) outside of Israel.

I entered the building and before my eyes had even adjusted to the dimness of the interior, I found, right in front of me, one of the original Gutenberg Bibles, the first book ever printed on a printing press, opened to a page. I stopped and stood there in stunned awe. Never did I expect to see a work of art that had such an effect on me.

The pages were exquisite; it was printed in German in Blackletter type, a form of Gothic type, written in two columns of 42 lines each on hand-made paper. The decorative borders around the type were all hand-painted as were the illuminations of the initial letters of paragraphs. This was a very large book. You would never carry it to church services. With 1,282 pages of very thick paper, it would be easier to carry an unabridged dictionary.

If you ever get to San Marino, California, stop in and see it, or, if you are in Washington D.C., check out our country's own copy at the Library of Congress. There are only 47 copies left in the entire world. I predict that after you read I Didn’t Know That! you will experience much the same feelings of awe when you see that Gutenberg Bible that I felt, and you will have a whole new appreciation for your own Bible.

That experience started me on the quest that ended with this book. I practiced architecture for many years and then began practicing law which has been my occupation for the last 35 years. You might be asking: what is an architect/lawyer doing writing a book on the Bible? Well, both disciplines require a lot of research and writing, and I enjoy both. Also, I have always been intrigued by history. I enjoy the history of countries and civilizations, but I also enjoy the history of such subjects as architecture, art, music, the etymology of words, and almost every other subject. I discovered that the most compelling subject of all was the history of the Bible. I got hooked and spent the better part of 25 years devouring everything I could read on the subject.

A few years ago a friend, on his way to a Bible study class, dropped me home from work. I asked him what they studied about the Bible. He said that they usually read small portions of the Bible and then discussed what it meant to each of them and to their lives. “But what do you learn about the Bible, you know, who wrote it, when was it written, etc.?” I asked. He looked at me like I was a few camels short of a caravan and said that they never talked about that. This was the response I got from everyone. People just do not study about the Bible. It is no wonder that recent studies have shown that Americans are the most religious people in the west but are also the most ignorant about their religion. So I decided to write this book about the Bible’s own persona and history.