John R Hellstern

Fulfilling My Vision John R Hellstern

The Dunham Bible Museum at Houston Baptist University is a place where you can encounter Bible history and actually see the volumes that the scribes and scholars labored for years to produce. You can view Hebrew scrolls, manuscript Bibles, hand copied and illuminated as testimonies to those who patiently and painstakingly scribed their treasured Scriptures for their time and so preserved them for times to come. You can view early printed Bibles in the first half of the fifteenth century that testify to the genius of Gutenberg and the art of mechanically reproducing script as well as Believers' determination to make the Bible available to all. First quite large and expensive and many with hand illumination like the hand-scribed manuscripts, you can also see "The Poor Man's Bible" of 1497 in a hand-held size with a wood-cut produced picture of Peter holding the "Keys of the Kingdom." You can even view Gutenberg himself dressed with his ink stained leather apron, print a Bible page on the giant Gutenberg Press. You can view the first editions of the New Testament in Greek of Erasmus from which began to flow the Bible into German, English, and languages of the 16th century. You can view and learn through media presentations how early editions came on down in 1611 to the beloved King James Version of 1611. You can view these Bibles as they developed phenomenally detailed Bible illustrations from hand-carved wood-cut blocks, to copper plates, then into intricate steel plate art that you almost want to reach-out and feel the texture of the robes they are wearing! Each year you can view the display of Bibles on a new theme exhibit that develops some new emphasis of the Bible, 2018 being "Women of the Bible." You can learn when special scholars share insights into each year's theme. Fulfilling My Vision is my story of Three Careers with the Lord and how I helped contribute volumes and vision to the Dunham Bible Museum at Houston Baptist University.