The leitmotif of the Bible
- across Europe

Idea:
"The leitmotif of the Bible - across Europe" is a project aimed at making pupils all across Europe together reproduce the broad outlines of the Bible in English. Supported by a number of modern chalk paintings from the church of the City of youth in Denmark, the collaborating classes make a broad selection of biblical stories, and then delve deeply into the work.
Once the pupils have gained confidence with the content of the texts, the texts are converted into the pupils' own reproductions and chained together to one story. If the collaborating classes make their reproduction in joint effort, the single reproductions are to be exchanged between the classes before the compilation takes place.
As a conclusion, the pupils illustrate their own reproductions.
Illustrations as well as texts can be send to The School Service of the Danish National Evangelical Lutheran Church in Copenhagen via e-mail: fskf@folkekirken.dk

Project Coordinator:
Mrs. Karen Karmark, phone: + 45 33 12 78 35 or e-mail: karen@bibelselskabet.dk

Background:
Every fourth year, booksellers and librarians in Denmark arrange a festival of stories. In 2002 the theme of the festival was: The good story - crosswise!
The School Services of the Danish National Evangelical Lutheran Church of Denmark participated the festival with their project "The leitmotif of the Bible - across the country". 29 school classes from across the country were part of the project and were each responsibly for one story. On that basis they reproduced with words and pictures the story of the Bible from one end to the other. Each class made a tapestry to illustrate their story. Their pictures were sown together to a 21 meter long tapestry, that were exhibited in the Queens royal reception rooms at the castle of Christiansborg in Copenhagen in spring 2002. Subsequently, the tapestry will be exhibited around Denmark in the various classes until summer 2004.
For more information about the Danish project - including pictures of the classes involved, tapestries and Queen Margrethe 2, see the website www.skolekirke.dk

The European Project:
The European version of the project is available in two variants:

First model:
The project is performed within the period of August 2003 to June 2004 as a European variant of the Danish project.
Classes from 6th to 9th grade (12 - 16 year) that wishes to participate in the project can sign up by e-mail to the project coordinator on this homepage (click on the button "Notification" in the menu line). After that we will register you on the map under the button "Participants" and you will hear from John Rydahl.

In continuation of the project, the class' reproduction of the biblical story together with a photography of their illustration is forwarded via e-mail, and then made into a coherent illustrated story on the homepage.

Second model:
The project will be a Commenius project, in which classes from schools in minimum three different countries work together to reproduce the broad outline of the Bible, following the same pattern as in the first model.
In a Commenius project, the classes can choose to make their own reproduction of the Bible, so that every pupil works with his or her story and reproduce and illustrate it. When all the individual reproductions are gathered to a cohesive whole, they are exchanged via e-mail, so that the classes can sound the depths of the various narrative traditions, and possible varying views on the central points in Christianity that the different countries might have. Such a concentration might lead to a correspondence between the pupils, concerning the content of the stories.
Another possible variant of the Commenius project is that the participating classes together make a reproduction of the broad outline of the Bible. This calls for a higher level of coordination concerning the content of the stories during the writing process, so that the end result will be cohesive.

In both cases, inspiration for the work is gathered from the picture files, where both chalk paintings and bible texts can be found.