JB

Here's a mind-blowing Arcane Texas Fact of the Day: For many years, a shopworn old Bible was stored in a closet at the Boerne High School on Johns Road in Boerne, Texas. It remained there, decaying slowly as books do, until it was discovered by the school's librarian as she was cleaning and re-ordering the closet shelves. Nobody could remember who put it there or when. Anybody who knew about it thought it was "just another old Bible." Nobody --- NOBODY ---- understood what it actually was. In 1983 the Boerne High School librarian gave the bible to the Boerne Area Preservation Society, which accepted it and began displaying during the Christmas Season at the society's Kuhlmann-King Historical House. A few years later, a visitor recognized the language in the Bible as Platt Deutsch (Low German), which is rarely spoken today. This discovery sparked an investigation into the Bible's origin. It was learned that the Bible must have originated in either the 16th or 17th century. Dr. Kenneth Hovey of the University of Texas-San Antonio was brought in, and that's when it was discovered, through a series of clues that revealed that the Bible was printed in 1614. 1614! It is one of seven known copies in the entire world. The copies are on display in: the British Library, Royal Danish Library, Stuttgart Library, Lüneburg Archives, Newberry Library ---- and the Boerne Library. There are still some mysteries regarding this Bible. The most important of these is how it traveled from Europe to end up in a closet in Boerne High School. The Bible weighs 15 pounds, so the decision to carry it across the Atlantic would not have been made lightly. Have any of y'all seen the movie "The Red Violin?" It's about a red-colored violin that makes its way through three centuries over several owners and countries, eventually ending up at an auction where it may find a new owner. The movie shows what the violin meant to its various owners and how, exactly, it ends up in an auction. This Bible inspires the same sort of thoughts in me. It would be cool to write a screenplay that starts with the school librarian finding the Bible and then following it back to the time it was printed in 1614. I LOVE stories like this, of treasures sitting in plain sight! You can go to the Boerne library at 415 N. Main Street in Boerne to see it. Tell them Traces of Texas sent you and wait for them to say "who?" 😀