Were medieval “pocket Bibles” really made from aborted animal tissue?

 

Ancient bibles were made from livestock  

This is the headline from scienceshot.  In a way, it sounds awful.  But it's better than what they used to say.  And better still than what some others say.

Why is it so hard to just tell the story without bias and lead with what gets pushed to the very end?

... suggesting that the thin vellum was a question of time-consuming craftsmanship ...

The final conclusion from the Daily Mail in the UK -

'The discoveries of this innovative research therefore enhance our understanding of how these Bibles were produced enormously, and by extension, illuminate our knowledge of one of the most significant text technologies in the histories of the Bible and of Western Christianity.'

And yet - one has to read a whole lot of other stuff in order to get to that conclusion.

First - what scientists used to think -

Extremely thin animal skin pages made the books possible, and manuscript experts have long debated how medieval craftsmen produced such thin sheets. One hint lay in contemporary references to abortivum, or “uterine vellum.” Perhaps, one hypothesis went, the thin parchment was made from the skin of stillborn calves, or from small animals like rabbits.

Just in case it isn't quite clear - here's the definition of abortivum -

abortīvum n ‎(genitive abortīvī); second declension
1.abortion, miscarriage
2.that which procures or induces an abortion

Wouldn't some people love to say that Bibles were made from tissue from any kind of aborted creature?

You might be wondering how they came up with this discovery - what high technology techniques were developed to complete this study -

Now, in a study published online today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, scientists have investigated the mystery using protein analysis. First they had to find a nondestructive way to gather samples from centuries-old manuscripts. Their solution: ordinary rectangular art erasers made from polyvinyl chloride, or PVC, a common conservation tool used to remove dirt from old books without damaging the pages. The same effect that attracts your hair to a balloon when you rub it on your head pulled enough collagen onto eraser “crumbs” to yield results in a mass spectrometer, a machine that determines the type of chemicals in a sample.

---

Another take on the discovery

Getting under the skin of medieval Bibles: Ultra-thin pages were made using a variety of hides and NOT just newborn animal skin

This headline was from the UK based Daily Mail.

But the mysterious material on which the tissue-thin pages of these pocket books were made from has baffled archaeologists for centuries - until now.

In spite of that headline - this quote comes from the middle of the article -

Using a simple eraser to reveal the parchment beneath, the experts have discovered they are not made from abortive or newborn animals as previously thought but were instead the result of a skilled production process.

And yet - the conclusion they reach includes this -

'Our results suggest that ultrafine vellum does not necessarily derive from the use of abortive or newborn animals with ultra-thin skin, but could equally reflect a production process that allowed the skins of maturing animals of several species to be rendered into vellum of equal quality and fineness.'

On the one hand, they say the Bibles were not made from abortive or newborn animal tissue - according to the research.
the experts have discovered they are not made from abortive or newborn animals
On the other hand, they say the Bibles could have been made from abortive or newborn animal tissue - in spite of the research.
results suggest that ultrafine vellum does not necessarily derive from the use of abortive or newborn animals

Huh?
The experts say it wasn't that way - but some cannot get beyond saying it anyway.

---

Finally - regarding the word uterine -

The parchment conservator involved in the study has put the findings to the test by recreating a parchment similar to 'uterine vellum' from old skins.
Jimí Vnouček said: 'It is more a question of using the right parchment making technology than using uterine skin.

And yet - the articles continue to call it uterine vellum, in spite of what the research claims to be fact -
- uterine tissue is not used
- abortive and newborn tissue is not used.

Conclusion

This all reminds me of what we read starting in Exodus 35, where the LORD gave the skills necessary to build The Tabernacle and everything that would be in it -