For the first time, after who knows how many thousands of years, the sacred texts of the world’s three monastic faiths, Judiasm, Christianilty and Islam have been gathered together for an exhibition at the British Library.
The exhibit Sacred: Discover What We Share: The World’s Greatest Collection of Jewish, Christian and Muslim Holy Books brings together the rarest sacred texts in existence.
Highlights include:
A tattered copy of the Dead Sea Scrolls and
A”Qur’an commissioned for a 14th-century Mongol ruler of modern Iran who was born a shaman, baptised a Christian, and converted first to Buddhism, then Sunni and finally Shia Islam.”
There is a significant online component to the exhibit that features videos, podcasts and interactive maps. There are also 8 texts in the exhibit that are available to view using the newly released “Turning The Pages” technology
Graham Shaw, the lead curator, says of the exhibit “We were determined not to create faith zones, but to show these wonderful manuscripts side by side, and demonstrate how much we share”
Maybe one day we can all live that way.
Guardian article on the exhibit
Images:
Above: St.Matthew from the Lindisfarne Gospels
Below: Sultan Baybar’s Qur’an from the British Library