Thoughts on my Library Exhibit Exploration

It might be too late to get credit for my visit to the Bible exhibit, but I did go earlier, I just forgot to post on it, until I reviewed the posts I have made and it wasn't in there.  I even tried to go to the print museum, but that failed when I arrived 1 hour after it closed.  Who closes at 2 p.m.? So then I visited the HBLL exhibit instead. 

Anyway....



I really enjoyed the Special Collections exhibit, especially the end display where it talked about the writers and musicians that have been influenced by the King James Bible.  I have read some of those works, and have not noticed the apparently obvious Biblical tendencies in them.  It makes me want to be more on the look out for similar things in other works, that I can be more aware and more analytical when I read literature about the authors' influences, literary, cultural or historical.  It also made me wonder if I had such a profound influence in my writing as well, whether I wrote like a teacher I had, or I structure my sentences a certain way because that is how my mom talks or something.  It makes sense to be that the KJV Bible would have a significant influence on the authors mentioned because it was the majority of what they read and studied.  But surely there were other books they read as well hat were different?  I read the Bible, but not as extensively as those writers did, and so I do not expect it to come up in my writing unless I consciously strive for it, and even then I would sound affected, like I was putting on airs.  And that is another curiosity: did they strive to sound like the Bible, or did it happen naturally and subconsciously because of there exposure to the work in a majority of there life?  This over-arching influence of the Bible is a very curious thing and provokes me to want to study it more and the resounding influence of he King James Version since its creation. 

The Church picture right inside the doors of the exhibit.

Something I found amusing in the exhibit was the tendency of, well scholars I think, or maybe it was the general public at the time of printing, to nickname the versions of the Bible that were printed.  For example, the "Breeches" Bible, because of the word choice in Genesis over "aprons" and calling the first printing of the King James Version the "He" Bible and the second printing the "She" Bible because of a typographical error in the first issue.  Someone else walking through the exhibit commented that he had heard of a "Sinner's" Bible, where the "not" had been left out of the commandment, "Thou shalt not commit adultery."  Of course, all of those we burned except for the ones saved and preserved by museums and libraries (like the one in our collections, supposedly).  Noticing the nicknames of the different versions, I wondered if there were nicknames for different versions of other books, like the different printings of Shakespeare's works, or for different editions of Milton, Dante, Newton, or Galileo.  Do they have to be works that a lot of scholars study to earn nicknames for their errors, or can it happen to any book that has multiply editions printed?  Nowadays, it is more common to just revamp the cover artwork than to go through the actual text and make any necessary corrections before printing a new edition.  I don't own any books that I have more than one copy or printing of, otherwise I might start this nicknaming practice in my own library.

Finally, the exhibit itself had a great feel.  They did an amazing job of creating the right mood with the music and the display cases, and I loved the picture of the church right when you are coming in.  It felt very... studious, but in a sacred way, which is what learning about the history of a sacred work should be like.  The browns made it feel homey and reminded of wooden churches and soft leather book coverings.  The "stained glass" reminded me of the appropriate time period and the artistry that was flowering then.  The whole exhibit was masterfully designed.  If you view the exhibit online, you miss some of this amazing-ness, but it is still really cool and informative.  I definitely recommend it.