Can you imagine hand-writing your own copy of the Bible?

Before the printing press was invented, every copy of the Bible was hand-written - copied lovingly by scribes and monks generation after generation. But since Gutenberg printed the first Bible, such manuscripts are few and far between. But apparently for some it is not quite a lost art.

Each page of the five-volume Bible is filled with Vernon Henson's careful script, written with fountain pen on lined notebook paper.
The volumes represent a 40-year labor of love for the 71-year-old Henson, who began the project when he was 18 years old...He started with the New Testament, beginning with the Gospel of Matthew, then Mark, then Luke. Then he came to the Gospel of John.

"I cried several times when I was copying it," he said, still choking up at the memory.

In 1964, 11 years after he started, he finished the entire New Testament, as well as Psalms and Proverbs from the Old Testament. He began to wonder what to do with the sheaves of paper when a friend suggested having it bound.

It cost him $4.50 to have the first black hardback book made.

There are many different ways to learn the Bible. Quizzing is just one, and sometimes copying is a way of putting the Bible into your body and mind that is far more effective than just reading it.