Thursday, October 06, 2011

The cost of a Bible: From a farm, to a cow, to a gallon of milk.

We gave away C. P. Hallihan's The Authorized Version: A Wonderful and Unfinished History (TBS, 2010) as a free gift to attendees at this year's Keach Conference.

I love this anecdote from one of the endnotes in this booklet which describes how changes in technology led to cheaper and more universally available copies of Scripture:

"It has been estimated that an early handwritten Bible on vellum might have cost the price of a farm, a 16th century printed Bible the price of a cow, and the price of a modern printed Bible the cost of a gallon of milk” (p. 37, n. 5).
JTR

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