From 1928-1930 Louis Waynai of Los Angeles, California, crafted a thousand-pound Bible one letter at a time on a hand-made printing apparatus.\u00a0 \u00a0The Bible was purchased in 1947 by Rosen Heights Church of Christ in Ft. Worth, Texas. In 1956, the congregation donated it to Abilene Christian College, where it has since been on exhibit in the school’s\u00a0 Library.<\/p>\n
That 1956 donation remains the “largest” donation in this library’s history.\u00a0 Louis Waynai\u00a0devoted more than 8,700 hours replicating the King James Version on a massive scale.\u00a0 When laid open, the Waynai Bible measures 43.5 inches tall and 98 inches wide.\u00a0 Closed, the spine is 34 inches thick.\u00a0 The book has 8,048 pages and weighs in at 1,094 pounds.\u00a0 The book was constructed so that it can be disassembled into 31 sections for moving purposes.\u00a0 Since its arrival at ACU in 1956, it has moved several times — always with great difficulty.<\/p>\n
Many hail the 1800 Macklin Bible as the largest English Bible in the world.\u00a0 It was printed in seven volumes each almost two feet tall and weighing a total of 130 pounds.\u00a0 The Macklin is probably the largest Bible mass produced on a printing press, but in sheer size it does not come close to the Waynai.\u00a0 Although this massive Bible is too fragile for reading use, it is a moving focal point of Brown Library’s Bible collection.<\/p>\n
In April of 2013, the Library agreed to loan the Bible to the Green Collection of Oklahoma City to be displayed as part of its touring exhibit of rare Biblical texts called “Passages<\/a>,” currently showing in Colorado Springs, Colorado. As part of the loan agreement, the Waynai Bible will also be exhibited at the Museum of the Bible, to be opened by the Green Collection<\/a> in Washington, DC, in 2017. The Library is grateful to the Green Collection for providing much-needed expert repair and conservation for the Bible.\u00a0 In December\u00a02018 the Waynai\u00a0Bible returned to ACU.\u00a0 Visitors may see it on display on the lower level of Brown LIbrary inside Special Collections and Archives\u00a0Exhibit\u00a0Room.\u00a0 A fuller online exhibit is forthcoming.<\/p>\n