Bible Before the Year 1000 Exhibit at Sackler

Most of us take the form of the book for granted: A collection of sheets with writing on both sides bound along one side.

The story of how that form -- the codex -- became synonymous with the idea of a book is one of the threads that runs through one of the most unusual exhibitions coming to Washington this fall.

The show, which opens in October at the Smithsonian's Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, brings together scrolls, scraps of papyrus, bits of parchment and other curiosities, including a copy of the Gospels written in silver ink on purple parchment.

The various manuscripts -- including some of the rarest in the world -- are being displayed in an effort to trace the evolution of the Bible from a loose collection of texts into a codified volume.

"In the Beginning: Bibles Before the Year 1000" argues that when early Christian communities adopted the papyrus codex as the form of their Scriptures, it was"the most dramatic development in the history of the book."

The exhibit will also show how the various writings circulating in the first thousand years of the Christian era became encased in the form we know today as the Bible.