Consisting of both the "Old" and "New" Testaments, the Christian Bible constitutes the central scriptural focus of the Christian faith. It, as a physical object, contains the recorded word of God, while simultaneously relating the life and miracles of Christ, the incarnate Word of God and second person of the Trinity. This places the Bible as an object in a complicated position. Before the use of paper, the text of the Bible, and those of all other books, was written on parchment: treated animal skin. Just as Christ was the Word Made Flesh, so too was the word of God written upon flesh. Ergo, the Bible could have potentially inhabited a position in the minds of some people as a proxy for Christ, or at least as a symbol for Christ’s own metaphysical presence in a physical space.
Branner, Robert. Manuscript Painting in Paris During the Reign of Saint Louis: A Study of Styles (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977)
Form and Function in the Late Medieval Bible, eds. Eyal Poleg and Laura Light (Boston: Brill, 2013)
Henderson, George. Studies in English Bible Illustration, Vols. 1-2 (London: Pindar Press, 1985)
-------From Durrow to Kells: The Insular Gospel-Books, 650-800 (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1987)
Kauffmann, C.M. Biblical Imagery in Medieval England, 700-1550 (London: Harvey Miller, 2003)
Jackson, Deirdre Elizabeth. Marvellous to Behold: Miracles in Medieval Manuscripts (London: British Library, 2007)
Lowden, John. “The Beginnings of Biblical Illustration,” Imagining the Early Medieval Bible. ed. John Williams (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999) pp. 9-59
McKendrick, Scot. In a Monastery Library: Preserving Codex Sinaiticus and the Greek Written Heritage (London: British Library, 2006)
-------The Art of the Bible: Illuminated Manuscripts from the Medieval World (New York: Thames & Hudson, 2016)
-------The Bible as Book: The Transmission of the Greek Text (London: British Library, 2003)
Poleg, Eyal. Approaching the Bible in Medieval England (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013)
Spier, Jeffrey. Picturing the Bible: the Earliest Christian Art (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007)
Williams, John. Imagining the Early Medieval Bible (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999)
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