Today is not a simple time for the Christianity, so one cannot underestimate the Holy Bible influence. The New Photo Illustrated Bible presented to you should attract an attention of the young generation in the first place, for the “fairy tale” outlook of the biblical events will become a reality for them when they look at the images of the places where biblical events took place.
Printed copy of the New Illustrated Bible of Jerusalem has been manufactured in Jerusalem as a very limited edition of 1,000 copies. You can purchase it at Amazon or eBay web-site. To purchase/order the New Illustrated Bible of Jerusalem, please email us at: bookstore@sacralion.us
THE HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE PROJECT
Part I. Printed versions of the Holy Bible
As of the present moment, SACRALION Publishing House has reviewed about 1 million old photographic pictures of the Holy Land (mid. of the XIX-th - early XX-th centuries), and acquired or received as a gift from various foundations, archives and publishers several tens of thousands of such pictures. Sacralion has sorted and classified these photographs, and restored and digitalized about 9,000 of them. 3,520 photos were selected for illustrating biblical verses, and ca. 1,000 of such pictures were used for the second edition of the New Illustrated Bible of Jerusalem.
In accordance with the recommendations of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, SACRALION Publishing House printed the sample copies of the Catholic version of the New Illustrated Bible of Jerusalem (hereinafter NIBJ) in English and Spanish that were presented to the public in Lisbon, Portugal on May 13-15, 2008. It was the first time when the Holy Bible was illustrated with the photographic pictures of the Holy Land taken in the second half XIX-th – early XX-th centuries. These publications were the culmination of the first step of Sacralion work and they have proven the possibility of photo-illustrating any version of the Holy Bible used by various Christian groups in compliance with their religious rules and canons.
Upon approval its project History Alive by the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem (Appendix Item1), Patriarch of Kiev and All Russia – Ukraine, Ukrainian Orthodox Church in 2007 (Appendix Item 2), Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem in 2008 as well as other representatives of Christian groups and congregations in the Middle East, SACRALION Publishing House increased number of the photographic illustrations in the Holy Bible/NIBJ. After thorough studying the biblical texts and papers in Middle East history, archeology, geography and photographic art, SACRALION Publishing House selected several hundred old photographs that could be used for amending the set of illustration materials of NIBJ-2008.
SACRALION Publishing House still continues search, study and acquiring of the old photographs as one of its main business venues, for increase in the number of photographic illustrations in the biblical texts allows their readers to immerse themselves deeper in the events described in the Holy Bible.
In 2010, SACRALION Publishing House prepared and printed for the first time 1,000 copies of the complete Protestant version of the Holy Bible (New American Standard Bible, or NASB) (Appendix Item 3) illustrated by 436 photographs placed among the Old and New Testament verses (Please see Item 8 Snyder's Soapbox - Book and Bible Reviews). This edition was presented to the public in Jerusalem at the Feast of Tabernacles on September 23-29, 2010 and was accompanied with very active interest of the participants.
Using support of Russian Spiritual Mission in Jerusalem of the Moscow Patriarchate, SACRALION Publishing House also published a pilot version of the New Testament illustrated with 222 unique photographic pictures. This book was blessed by His Holiness Moscow Patriarch of All Russia Cyril (Appendix Item 4). It was presented to the public in Moscow on December 21, 2011, and this presentation caused a great interest among readers.
SACRALION Publishing House pays special attention to preparation of diverse versions of the Holy Bible in order to avoid specific association of the company with any specific Christian group or congregation, for the latter affiliation may negatively affect our ability to spread to God’s Word around the world and accommodate each and any local religious congregations and/or communities. We consider such goal as a priority over mass printing of already existing versions of NIBJ.
All printed copies of NIBJ (except Protestant versions) will be accompanied with the Certificates of Presentation of these books in the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, for the Holy Bible does not need an additional blessing, but being presented in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre it acquires an additional holiness of its illustrations and, therefore, its effect on the readers. These Certificates (Appendix Item 5) will be identical to the ones used for 2008 NIBJ and 2011 New Testament (Russian Orthodox version).
SACRALION Publishing House considers spreading the God’s Word in other languages (Polish, Arabic, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, etc.), too, but taking into account conditions of distributing the Holy Bibles in these markets, such NIBJ versions will be prepared in accordance with the corresponding orders placed by potential partners.
SACRALION Publishing House plans the further improvement of already existing versions of NIBJ by adding extended captions to them as well as providing comments to the photographic illustrations that will contain information about depicted objects or reflected events and, thus, would enhance readers’ interest. Such amendments will be thoroughly aligned with canons for the appropriate audiences, religious communities and congregations.
Part II. Electronic versions of the Holy Bible
The first edition of the electronic version of the New Photo-Illustrated Bible was presented in its test version at www.sacralion.org web site (previous edition) in 2009. Despite the fact that this public version included only the Gospel according to Matthew, it reached the first position among 20 top electronic Bibles. After this, SACRALION Publishing House spent several years to format and process the biblical texts, so when they were placed at the web sites with thousands of photographic pictures their retrieval was not seriously impeded by the limited memory size, and the reading software (with its numerous supplementary functions) operated seamlessly.
In 2013, we have launched several new biblical sites:
www.fotobiblia.ru (For Slavic languages)
www.photobibles.com (For European, Asian and Middle Eastern Languages)
To read more about our electronic versions of the New Photo-Illustrated Bible, please click here
