How long time did it take for a medieval monk to copy a manuscript, e.g. the Old or New Testament?

Question

How long time did it take for a medieval monk to copy a manuscript, e.g. the Old or New Testament?

Answer 1

about 2 months. More if they were ornamented

Answer 2

Even working day and night, and "burning the midnight oil" (that's how the expression got started), it could take upwards of 20 years.  Copying the bible, was a lifetime commitment for monks of the old orders in Europe, most of which have disbanded.  The Bennedictine monks I know, copied and translated many of the texts, Hebrew included.

Aside from the fact that many of them pimped out their daughters to European monarchs and nobility, ashkenazi Jews were tolerated because for the Christians in Europe the Rabbis were a ready source for old testament manuscripts and sometimes, the only place the monks could get an "authentic old testament" was, well, from a Rabbi.  So for religious reasons, and the safety secured from their daughters being actively pimped out, Jews were tolerated.

Please do well to remember, the majority of midieval Europeans were ardent Christians, sometimes even fanatical Christians.  As with all Christian groups, the nicer ones see Jews as "oh my god!  the relatives of Jesus!" while the less nice ones see the Jews as "oh look!  Its those b******s who crucified him!"  Many European nobles and monarchs, in a supreme act of humility SOOO characteristic of European aristocracy, not content with divine right, also wanted a blood right.  That is, to cement the fact they were of "royal lineage" what better way than to marry Jesus' great, great grand niece?  Remember, Christians see Jesus as "God and Man" a concept taken far more seriously by the monarchy and nobility of midieval Europe than now.  Therefore to marry a Jewess, was to more or less cement a royal claim in that warped view of things.  "I respect god, but now that I'm marrying this Jewish woman, I'm gonna get to F*** his great grand niece....."

Consider the contradiction there, the hypocrisy, but more disturbing still the ever readyness of Jewish fathers to pimp out their own daughters and water down Hebrew with barbarian blood.

That aside; copying a manuscript involved a lot more than just simply reading, copying, and reading some more.  It also involved extensive editing which sometimes required an entire page to be recopied.  Truth be told, what the monks of Midieval Europe did, in terms of organizing the bible into books and chapters, in keeping it organized was nothing short of.... well, a miracle.

A single mistake, and an entire page would have to be recopied, by hand.  Because copy errors did occur, the copying, combined with how large a work the bible is with the combined volumes of the old and new testaments, copying or rather tanslating the whole bible could take upwards in the neighborhood of 20 years.  The sheer price tag of a bible, meant that only the Vatican, and Catholic churches across Europe, had copies, and only ordained priests could hold and read them.

During the reformation of Martin Luther, the printing press was invented by Guttenberg.  Despite the fact that the printing press now made it possible to make a brand spanking new bible in a whoppingly short 2 months, the Catholic church stubornly held on to that stupid rule that only ordained priests and aristocracy could own bibles when Luther argued that with that new invention, bibles should be available to everybody.  It was in fact Luther, who was the biggest influence regarding the translation of the bible into languages besides Latin, Greek (New Testament) and Hebrew (Old Testament).

The Vatican in Rome in fact, hard to believe as this is, has an extensive library that, while not as large as the library of congress, it is the true largest library in the world.  Reason being they have accumulated religious works for centuries.  The reason it is the Library of Congress that is considered "the world's largest library" is because strictly speaking a library has to cover all subjects, and the Vatican, well, its more a large vault of religious works.  Any theory regarding Jesus that you can dream up, odds are they have a book on it, and a priest expert in it ready and willing to shut it down.

The religious library of the Vatican is so massive, their collection of Torah scrolls is actually larger than that found in the combined Synagogue libraries of Jewish communities across the planet.  Some of the Torah scrolls the Vatican owns, are over 1,000 years old.  In the 500's A.D., when the Roman Catholic church was consolidating its power, countless Rabbis were deprived of their Torah scrolls.  The Catholic church literally stole the Torahs they own.  At least, some of them.

Why does this matter?  The communities of Jews living in Italy in the 500's probably had Torah scrolls that are, easily, the closest to the originals as any that could exist.  The Torah scrolls of Iraqi Jews, are a little different because their Torah ends, well, with Daniel.  It doesn't continue into the history of the Jews regarding the Greeks, the Maccabees and all that jazz.  In other words what I'm saying is that while authentic, and possibly the most ancient and authentic Judaism, the Torah of the Iraqi Jewish community is incomplete.

The Torahs stolen by the Vatican, on the other hand, are both authentic AND complete, and on top of that they are centuries old.  Why is this important, and why should it be important?  Because, those scrolls have the power to unify the Jewish religion, and with it, the Jewish people.

But the Vatican owns them, and they do not seem to be making any plans of just handing them over to a Rabbi that asks for them.  Israel does not seem interested, but even then I doubt even Mossad could get past that security, the Vatican I hear is tighter even than the CIA, after all, they have had centuries of practice as opposed to only a few decades, not to mention billions of dollars to spend on the latest, state of the art security equipment.

You need to understand, that the Catholic church was concerned with power, and because the legions of Rome had burned all the Torah scrolls in Israel, the Catholic church, to make their claim of "Rome as the new Jerusalem" "authentic," found a ready source of Torah scrolls namely the Jewish community of Italy.  The reason the Jews of Europe went to Iraq, was because only a small handful of Torah scrolls survived, so they were forced to go there to "fill in the blanks" as it were.

The Torah of various Jewish religious groups, all read differently, a little known fact regarding non Jews as most people simply are not interested.  Any University Library, has quite a collection of Torahs or "Hebrew Bibles."  I know for a fact that a Christian school I attended had quite a collection.  And even though they all told the same stories, they disagreed on certain things.

For example; in the western old testament, King David "had red hair, and a ruddy complexion."

In an original Hebrew/English Torah, on the other hand, it gives no physical description at all meaning, traditionalist religious Jews don't know what the h**l David looked like.  In fact, only Jewish folklore is concerned with physical appearance, strict religious works on the other hand, are "all business."

What I am trying to say is that the old testament you read in your church, and an orthodox Jewish Torah, in many places they are not the same.  The reason for that, are unintentional, more like deliberate, mistranslation by the Catholic Church.

I know it sounds far fetched, and I also know, it sounds messed up, but the truth is, the largest and oldest Torah collection in the world, is stored somewhere in the vast labyrinthine vaults of the Vatican.  The Vatican, we know, has a collection of original Hebrew Torah scrolls, like I said, probably larger than the combined amount of synagogues all over the world.  Likely also they are the most authoritative scrolls regarding Judaism.

Also, remember that whole dead sea scrolls hype?

Why was the pope so quick to revise the scrolls himself?  Why was the Vatican so interested I mean  you would think, greater priority would be given to Rabbis, but it wasn't.  Where are most of the scrolls kept now?

Why, thankfully I think, in a Museum in Israel.

After Vatican approval of course.  If it turns out they're in the Vatican though..... it only confirms what I've been saying.

ultimately though I overanswered because I was bored.

sorry.

peace out.

Answer 3

Oh, ages...obviously.

And with no electricity, geeeee.