THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Some read the Bible, some study it; others find joy in memorising lengthy Biblical passages. And then there is Immanuel Henry - he discovers God in ‘writing’ the Scriptures.At his Jawahar Nagar home, the retired BSNL engineer reverentially places on the teapoy a black leather pouch cradling a Tamil Bible. Only a close scrutiny will reveal that the thick volume is entirely handwritten - all 1,462 pages of it.Express had reported when Immanuel finished a handwritten New Testament in September 2009. And holding true to a promise made then, he has now completed copying the Old Testament."Everything is identical to the original; every line, every word and punctuation,’’ a bespectacled Immanuel explains in Tamil-laced Malayalam. Go through the original, a Tamil version published by the Bible Society of India (BSI), and you will be astonished to find he is right. His painstakingly hand-written copy is ditto the original, except for the fact that it is, well, handwritten.Statistics are astounding; writing the New Testament took three years and the Old, two. Each page is 18 cm long and 11.5 cm broad. Each of the 1,462 pages contain 110 lines, each line contains 20 letters or elements. That makes 1,59,500 lines and 31,90,000 letters. Place each line in tandem and you have a Bible that is 31.9 km long!Immanuel Henry, who was born and brought up in Nagercoil, embarked upon this seemingly anachronistic pursuit in 2006 after encountering a news item in Express. It said that a handwritten Bible was consecrated in Madurai, and Immanuel thought, why not? But Immanuel, who belongs to the CSI denomination, had one more reason."I used to attend prayer meetings and they would ask people who have read the Holy Book from cover to cover at least once to raise their hands. That prompted me to read it.’’ He then read it ten times more.He started off copying the Old Testament, but confidence fizzled out after 300 pages. So he began anew on the New Testament. He also discovered an amusing thing, that Cello Gripper was the best pen for his odd endeavour! "In fact, I have used up countless Cellos before finishing the book.’’He also found that his handwriting was improving as the Bible neared completion.In the early days, Immanuel could be found up and writing at odd hours. Then he decided against it and set a routine; be in bed by 10 pm and rise and shine by 4 am, and sit down to write. Towards the end, he spent 10-12 hours writing. The successful completion of the project coincides with a number of important anniversaries. BSI celebrates its 200th year in 2011, which is also the 400th and 300th years of the King James Version English Bible and the first Tamil translation from the Ziegenbalg New Testament respectively.His handwritten copy will be consecrated at the Jerusalem Mar Thoma Church, Kottayam, on Sunday. And next?"A handwritten Malayalam Bible,’’ Immanuel says.
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