Man Creates Handwritten New Testament in 210 Hours
"The world is so fast-paced now, maybe it appeals to the idea of slowing down.”
Don’t tell Don Ashley that handwriting is a dying skill. He recently spent 210 hours over eight months to make a handwritten copy of the entire New Testament.
Ashley, a former university administrator, started the project in early January after he retired and moved from Alaska to a farm in Arkansas. “In all these life transitions, this really served as an anchor for my soul,” he told CBN News.
Ashley was inspired by a business trip to the Society of Biblical Literature, a 146-year-old learning society dedicated to the academic study of the Bible and other ancient writings.
When he was at the meeting in San Diego, he saw a display of the Dead Sea Scrolls. “I was so impressed by the artistry required … that I wanted to experience something about what the ancient scribes experienced,” he said.
Ancient biblical practice
Ashley’s project also echoes an ancient biblical practice. Deuteronomy 17:18 instructed Israel’s future kings to write their own copy of the law so they would read it throughout their lives and learn to follow God’s commands.
The average American spends about two-and-a-half hours a day on social media, and for teenagers, that number is nearly doubled, spending roughly five hours every day on social media apps. Aslhey believed handwriting the Bible was a better, more profitable use of his time.
The world is so fast-paced now, maybe it appeals to the idea of slowing down.
“I think the idea that, instead of doomscrolling, maybe you could do something more useful with your time,” he said. “The world is so fast-paced now, maybe it appeals to the idea of slowing down.”
The process was deeply cathartic for Ashley, who is currently recovering from a significant back surgery. He likened the project, in a spiritual sense, to “a starving man being invited into a banquet.”
Although he didn’t walk away with any new theological revelations, it was spiritually encouraging to physically experience Scripture in a new way.
“I’ve experienced the Bible with my mind for my whole career and since my initial conversion experience in 1985, but I wanted to experience it with my fingers,” Ashley said. “Putting a pen to paper is a different experience than reading it.”
Research suggests that the physical act of writing may help explain why Ashley found the experience so meaningful. A 2024 study involving 36 university students found that writing by hand produced more elaborate patterns of brain connectivity than typing. Researchers said those patterns involve areas important to memory formation and processing new information.
Ashley’s 210 hours spread across eight months and 15 days works out to an average of about 49 minutes a day. That made the project less of a daily marathon and more like a steady discipline, he said.
–Lee Hartman
