Rick Steves, a noted (watch for him on PBS) travel author, has recently written a travel guide to London. Excerpted below is a sef-guided tour of the British Library. I include it here because of the content of his tour and its pertinence to our course as well as his wonderful, inviting prose style.

Personally, I've used his books in Switzerland, France, Germany, Austria, Italy, England, Amsterdam, Brussles, Denmark and, of course, Ireland. I have often found myself chuckling in front of a world famous masterpiece, luxurating in one of the out-of-the -way restaurants and soaking up sites other tourists often miss.

Mostly, however, it's his style and understanding of history that makes him so interesting.

The British Empire built its greatest monuments out of paper. It's in literature that England has made her lasting contribution to history and the arts. Opened in 1998 in a fine new building, the British Library has more than 12 million books, 180 miles of shelving, and the deepest basement in London. Its stars include the Magna Carta, Leonardo, Shakespeare, Kipling, Dickens, Carroll, and the Beatles -- all appearing in the same knock-your-socks-off room. While many rush to Ringo, don't miss the British Library's stack of historic Bibles. This self-guided tour will lead you through the collection.

My favorite excuse for not learning a foreign language is: "If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it's good enough for me!" I don't know what that has to do with anything, but obviously Jesus didn't speak English -- nor did Moses or Isaiah or Paul or any other Bible authors or characters. As a result, our present-day English Bible is not directly from the mouth or pen of these religious figures. It's the fitful product of centuries of evolution and translation.

The Bible is not a single book; it's an anthology of books by many authors from different historical periods writing in different languages (usually Hebrew or Greek). So there are three things editors must consider in compiling the most accurate Bible: 1) deciding which books actually belong; 2) finding the oldest and most accurate version of each book; and 3) translating it accurately.

Codex Sinaiticus (ca. 350 AD)

The oldest complete "Bible" in existence (along with one in the Vatican), this is one of the first attempts to collect various books together into one authoritative anthology. It's in Greek, the language in which most of the NewTestament was written. The Old Testament portions are Greek translations from the original Hebrew. This particular Bible, and the nearby Codex Alexandrus (425 AD), contain some books not included in most modern EnglishBibles. (Even today Catholic Bibles contain books not found in Protestant Bibles.)

Fragment of an Unknown Gospel and The Gospel of Thomas

Here are pieces -- scraps of papyrus -- of two such books that didn't make it into our modern Bible. The "unknown" Gospel (an account of the life of Jesus of Nazareth from 100 to 150 AD) is as old a Christian manuscript as any in existence. Remember, the Gospels weren't written down for a full generation after Jesus died, and the oldest surviving manuscripts are from later than that. So why isn't this early version of Jesus' life part of our Bible right up there with Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John? Possibly because some early Bible editors didn't like the story it told about Jesus, which is not found in the four accepted Gospels.

The "Gospel of Thomas" gives an even more radical picture of Jesus. This Jesus preaches enlightenment by mystical knowledge. He seems to be warning people against looking to gurus for the answers, a Christian version of "If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him." This fragment dates from 150 AD, more than a century after Jesus' death, but that's probably not the only reason it's not in our Bible (after all, the Gospel of John is generally dated at 100 AD). Rather, the message, which threatened established church leaders, may have been too scary to include in the Bible -- whether Jesus said it or not.

The Authorized Version, or King James Bible (1611)

Jesus spoke Aramaic, a form of Hebrew. His words were written down in Greek. Greek manuscripts were translated into Latin, the language of medieval monks and scholars. By 1400 there was still no English version of the Bible, though only a small percentage of the population understood Latin. A few brave reformers risked death to make translations into English and print them with Gütenberg's new invention. Within two centuries English translations were both legal and popular.

The King James version (done during his reign) has been the most popular English translation. Fifty scholars worked for four years, borrowing heavily from previous translations, to produce the work. Its impact on the English language was enormous, making Elizabethan English something of the standard, even after all those thees and thous fell out
of fashion in everyday speech.

In our century, many new translations are both more accurate (based on better scholarship and original manuscripts) and more readable, using modern speech patterns.

Lindisfarne Gospels (698 AD) and Illuminated Manuscripts

Throughout the Middle Ages, Bibles had to be reproduced by hand. This was a painstaking process usually done by monks for a rich patron. This beautifully illustrated ("illuminated") collection of the four Gospels is the most magnificent of medieval British monk-u-scripts. The text is in Latin, the language of scholars ever since the Roman empire, but the elaborate decoration mixes Irish, classical, and even Byzantine forms.

These Gospels are a reminder that Christianity almost didn't make it in Europe. After the Fall of Rome (which had established Christianity as the official religion), much of Europe reverted to its pagan ways. This was the time of Beowulf, when people worshiped woodland spirits, smurfs, and terrible Teutonic gods. It took dedicated Irish missionaries 500 years to reestablish the faith on the Continent. Lindisfarne, an obscure monastery of Irish monks on an island off the east coast of England, was one of the few beacons of light after the Fall of Rome, tending the embers of civilization through the long night of the Dark Ages. (You can virtually flip through the Lindisfarne Gospels in the adjacent "Turning the Pages" computer room.)

Browse through more illuminated manuscripts (in the cases behind the Lindisfarne Gospels). This is some of the finest art from what we call the "Dark Ages." The little details offer a rare and fascinating peek into medieval life.

The Gütenberg Bible (ca. 1455)

It looks like just another monk-made Latin manuscript, but it's the first book printed in Europe. Printing is one of the most revolutionary inventions in history. Johann Gütenberg (ca. 1397-1468), a German goldsmith, devised a convenient way to reproduce written materials quickly, neatly and cheaply -- by printing with movable type. You scratch each letter onto a separate metal block, then arrange them into words, ink them up and press them onto paper. When one job was done you could reuse the same letters for a new one.

This simple idea had immediate and revolutionary consequences. Knowledge became cheap and accessible to a wide audience, not just the rich. Books became the "mass media" of Europe, linking people by a common set of ideas. And, like a drug, this increased knowledge created demand for still more.

Suddenly the Bible was available for anyone. Church authorities, more interested in "protecting" than spreading the word of God, passed laws prohibiting the printing of Bibles. As the Church feared, when people read the Bible, they formed their own opinions of God's message, which was often different from the version spoon-fed to them by priests. In the resulting Reformation, Protestants broke away from the Catholic Church, confident they could read without a priest's help.

(Excerpted from Rick Steves' London, which not only covers the best sleeps and eats, but comes with similarly thorough coverage of London's essential sights. For details on this book and how to order a copy, please see the Guidebook Library.

Website for the British Library