When calligrapher Donald Jackson put the final touches on The Saint John’s Bible in 2011, nobody doubted that this was a monument of creativity and art unparalleled in our age. In this lecture, Scripture scholar Jonathan Homrighausen shows how this project is also a nuanced take on Scripture and the call to social ethics for the twenty-first century. Using biblical scholarship, Church teachings, and interviews with the artists, he shows how this Bible intertwines beauty and justice to stimulate the ethical imagination of its beholders on matters of justice for women, care for creation, and dialogue between Jews and Christians.
JONATHAN HOMRIGHAUSEN (MA, Graduate Theological Union) is currently pursuing a PhD in Hebrew Bible/Old Testament at Duke University. He is an Episcopal writer and scholar on Scripture, art, and interreligious dialogue. He also works for Lucinda Mosher of Neighbor-Faith Consultancy, helping various clients walk deliberately into religious difference. He is the author of Illuminating Justice: The Ethical Imagination of The Saint John’s Bible (Liturgical Press, 2018). He spent two years with the Heritage Edition of The Saint John’s Bible while working in Archives & Special Collections at Santa Clara University.