A book that sat for a few centuries in a coffin and at least that long in a church will soon be on display at the British Library.
The St. Cuthbert’s Gospel is a leather-bound copy of the biblical book of John that likely is more than 1,300 years old.
John Stonestreet and G. Shane Morris, in a BreakPoint column, noted it is thought to be Europe’s oldest surviving book, having been copied in the late seventh century.
“This beautifully-preserved segment of God’s word was slipped into the coffin of a man regarded as a saint, perhaps by a friend thinking of Jesus’ words recorded in John 11:25: ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live,'” the commentary explained....