Nebraska Corona Bible

Rev. Thomas Dummermuth said that he was trying to figure out what to do when everyone was told to Stay Home, Stay Safe, and Stay Healthy in March 2020. That is when the COVID-19 pandemic begin. Trying to keep people connected was not easy. You can try calling people, but that is not the same as being connected face-to-face. Even the churches was having to figure out how do we "do church." Pastor's started embracing technology and learning what it could do to keep their congregations connected in some format. Tom said it seemed that something was still missing.

In April 2020 he looked at what people did years ago and he looked at the St. John's Bible which was the first completely handwritten and illuminated Bible commissioned by a Benedictine organization. There is one of these Bible's in Omaha, NE.

This Lincoln project has its roots in Dummermuth’s homeland of Switzerland. I’m still kind of in touch with the church world over there, said Dummermuth, who moved to Lincoln in 2013 with his wife, Jenn, a Schuyler native. I was writing my sermon 2½ weeks ago, and this news came into my inbox. I thought, this is very interesting. Maybe we could do something with it here. Rev. Dummermuth contacted Uwe Habenicht, who initiated the St. Gallen Coronabibel in northeast Switzerland and got the go-ahead to copy the project in Nebraska.

There is a handwritten Bible project that was done by Philip Patterson from Philmont, NY. This Bible was completed on May 11, 2013 and is the King James Version.

There were a few dozen Nebraskans busy copying chapters from the Bible, writing out the verses by hand on both sides of a white sheet of paper, creating pages to go into the Nebraska Corona Bible. This project, which aims to have Nebraskans copy all 1,189 Bible chapters to be assembled into a book.

Rev. Dummermuth said that at this time, faith is so important, but the traditional way of gathering wasn’t available in the same way. Even with opening up, the most vulnerable are the ones who would like to come but shouldn’t. It’s very important to have other means. For the Nebraska Corona Bible project, the means is turning to the ancient practice of copying Scripture, a spiritual practice for monks for centuries. Until the invention of the printing press in the 15th century, it was the way Bibles were created. It’s a spiritual discipline to copy Scripture. When you do that writing by hand, not typing on a computer, it’s a practice that transforms time and space. It touches you, changes you, and it’s very lovely. This gave people an opportunity to experience the discovery of the old, and handwriting. It help make a connection by participation in something larger than oneself, and it gave a spiritual lift. No, the Bible did not make COVID-19 go away, but it is library that opens up a wide room and gives a voice to human experiences. It built encouragement through the website, which gave instructions with very simple tools, and told people to watch their margins, to use personal commentary or even illustrations to their writings.

There were volunteers who came to the church to sort out all the letters from people of all ages (age 7 - 90). There were challenges, such as not following the instructions close enough, and how long should it take to write that one chapter you chose.

The Nebraska Corona Bible, however, won’t just be a copy of the original text in hundreds of different writing styles it is also in a few other languages. The copyists were invited to add small illustrations on the page or add some writing of their own. People were asked to copy the chapter and, if they would like, write a short commentary about what that text means to them today. It will be a time document of faith in Nebraska.

Then came a couple of weeks of working on a website, where people can sign up to copy a chapter. Importantly, given the non-digital nature of the project, a phone number is also available to call to get a chapter to copy.

I don’t know if this project is crazy; we’re talking about 1,200 chapters. They could sign up for a chapter in the New Testament or, if it is a group of people, a small book of the Old Testament. Rev, Dummermuth initially opened up the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and the Acts of the Apostles and, by midday of putting up the website he had 35 chapters out to be copied. The first chapter and last chapter of the gospels were already taken. They were gone the first day. They are the familiar stories, the Christmas story, the Easter story that we just went through. Then people were contacting them and asking, Is my favorite passage available?

The Book of Psalms was copied by students, organized by Adam White, a campus minister with the Lutheran Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. This way there will be a UNL psalter, Dummermuth said. There will be different beliefs and opinions, but copying in the Bible is something that unites us, overcomes denominational borders.

The deadline for the chapters to be copied is mid-June 2021. Rev. Dummermuth informed us that the last chapter came in this Monday, June 14, 2021. When it is finished, Dummermuth would like to have a few copies made and bound. He is thinking about maybe having a he wants people to see the Nebraska Corona Bible and read both the verses and the commentary. What I envision happening is, for a while, it will probably be a traveling exhibition, he said. “I see it going to faith communities throughout the state. In the end, it will be in a library or at a faith community where people can have access to it. It will be a very interesting document that should be preserved.