An unexpected surprise..

On Saturday as it’s the bank holiday weekend, we went for a drive into Worcestershire and for a walk in Kyre Park which adjoins the Kyre Estate and has an ancient church St Mary’s adjacent to the main house.

It is a Norman church and parts of the church date back to the 12th Century.

The surprise though was that inside the church in a very plain wooden display case was this edition of the Geneva bible (first published in 1560) which was printed in 1583!!

Scholars say that the Geneva Bible is one of the most historically significant translations of the Bible into English as it was the first to add verse numbering to the chapters and was also annotated with notes in the margin. It was published 51 years prior to the the King James Version which we are more familiar with today.

I don’t know how many original Geneva Bibles still survive. I know that I couldn’t believe my eyes, here was a bible over 400 years old that had been preserved in this small country church in the middle of the English countryside.

It was displayed in such an understated way.. nothing fancy or ostentatious. Simplicity itself.

It really spoke to my heart…I take it for granted that I can access and read so easily so many different translations of the bible in hard copies (I have quite a few) or on my I Pad or I Phone but hundreds of years ago, these scholars studied and painstakingly translated the Hebrew and Greek manuscripts into English so that they could be printed, read and studied and understood. The life transforming, powerful Word of God.

It’s humbling to think about the incredible and pioneering efforts undertaken by previous generations to ensure that we have access to the Bible. I wonder if the publisher of that bible which is in St Mary’s church would have believed that it would still be preserved for us to read over 400 years later. What a legacy.