Over the past few weeks, we’ve explored three of Crossway’s guiding principles:
These concepts are drawn from an address given by Crossway President Lane Dennis, “Into All Technologies, Into All the World,” the full text of which we have made available online.
One hundred twenty nine million, eight hundred sixty four thousand, eight hundred and eighty. That’s the number of books that have been published worldwide to date, more or less, according to Google software engineer Leonid Taycher.
One thousand five hundred. That’s the number of books that have been published by Crossway since 1979.
I can’t wrap my mind around more than about 100 million things, so let’s discuss the second, more manageable collection of books instead.
We’d love to hear which of these 1,500 books you’ve liked best. Which have affected you most deeply? Do you prefer non-fiction or fiction, paper or digital, scholarly or popular? And what topics do you think are insufficiently addressed within Christendom?
The Four Holy Gospels incorporates five large-scale paintings, including the frontispiece, “Charis-Kairos (The Tears of Christ)” and four opening plates (one for each of the Gospels); plus eighty-nine initial letters (each painted, and many adorned with gold flecks and foil) specifically created for each chapter opening; as well as more than seventy individually-painted reflections and embellishments complementing the Gospels.
Fujimura was introduced by Lane Dennis (President of Crossway) and Joel Sheesley (Professor of Painting, Drawing, and Print Making at Wheaton College), with closing remarks from John Walford (Professor of Art History at Wheaton College) and Lane Dennis.
“The purpose in creating the Four Holy Gospels is first and foremost to give praise and glory to the triune God—Father, Son and Holy Spirit—who is the sole source of creativity, both of the four gospels and of all the eternal world transforming gospel itself,” explains Lane Dennis. “Thus it is fitting to create the highest level of art to adorn, compliment, and illuminate the text of the four gospels as an act of awe, reverence, and worship. And so we offer this up to the Lord with that understanding.”
The exhibit featured at Crossway is largely unprecedented and is deeply rooted in the legacy of ancient art in the Western world as well as eastern artistic aesthetics. The art of illuminated gospels dates back 1500 years to the Canterbury Gospels of 597 A.D. The last time a single artist illuminated all four gospels was nearly 500 years ago by a Ukranian scribe.
The release of The Four Holy Gospels marks the 400th anniversary of the publication of the King James Version Bible. “It is this timeless legacy that is at the heart of the English speaking church and at the heart of the English speaking culture,” explains Lane Dennis. “And this is the legacy we seek to carry forward in the ESV Bible. The Four Holy Gospels also seeks to honor that legacy.”
Fujimura explained the significance of his project and the art:
“This experience has been absolutely healing for me, to see these works here and to have journeyed on this real pilgrimage this past year and a half, and to see it come to fruition on the pages of the Bible . . . I still can’t believe we are doing this. Not only this crazy idea of a contemporary artist illuminating an ancient text, but one that is multicultural, using Japanese methods. There is no precedent for this in recent times. As my pastor Tim Keller said, ‘It’s not the artist illuminating the text, it’s the text illuminating the artist.’ Which is a beautiful paradigm for me because that’s exactly what happened to me as I was working on these pages. It was literally a pilgrimage. I hope these illuminations will help you to re-examine, to experience these texts, the word of God in a new way.”
“I am deeply indebted to Mako for his work and the partnership together,” Dennis said in closing.
The Four Holy Gospels is available in both a leather-bound and a cloth-bound edition, each adorned with dramatic red and gold foil flourishes representing the blood of Christ poured out on the cross (red) and the glory of God revealed in the four Gospels (gold).
Crossway Bibles get reviewed on a regular basis, but I’m not sure one has ever been reviewed by an (almost) 8 year old. Sara Wilson, daughter of blogger Greg Wilson, wrote a review of the Seek and Find Bible with the help of her Dad. Here’s a brief excerpt:
“I (Sara) am almost 8 years old. The Seek and Find Bible helps me understand what I am reading with beautiful paintings that help me picture what is happening. I also like the mini Bible stories. They help me understand more about the stories. I also like the ‘seek and find’ at the end of the mini Bible stories because they help you find the bigger Bible story and give you questions to think about the story. For example, ‘How does God feel about sin?’”
You can read the whole thing here.
Greg works with young adults and students at TheHopeLine. He blogs at thirstyones.com.
Have you ever wanted to flip through a Crossway book, but didn’t have time to drive to the nearest bookstore? You may already know that we provide sample chapters of most of our titles, in Flash and Acrobat PDF formats. Here are a few examples:
What you might not know is that we’ve made the full text of hundreds of our books available for immediate perusal through Google Books. You’re welcome to begin browsing our available titles, or use the convenient search form below. Please note that all fields in the form are optional.
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