bible illustration

 

Survey form now available.  Let me know what you think about the database - and what you don't understand about it. (If you want me to respond, you must include your email address because the form itself is anonymous)  If you would like to share a comment about the database that I will add to this site, email me at dholwick@gmail.com

Welcome to the Kerux Sermon and Illustration Database, a collection of tens of thousands of sermons and sermon illustrations. bible illustration (Kerux) is Greek for Preacher and these files will be useful for those who preach the Word, though anyone can have them.  It is the same thing as the old Holwick Database - I am taking my name off to reflect the contributions so many others have made to this material.

The database contains literally tens of thousands of  full-text sermons and sermon illustrations with titles, Bible references and other searchable and sortable data.  Think of it as a huge card file that can be searched in seconds.  It is also useful for storing your own sermons and illustrations.  The database has been compiled by Rev. David Holwick with help from pastors and programmers all around the world.  It is offered free of charge and is intended to be used for the glory of God.  It may not be sold, and may not be re-packaged without consent. 

Getting started...

Databases are like huge index card files.  The sets and supplements below are the index cards, and either Microsoft Access or SID are the "engines" or "front-end" that help you sort them.  Either version uses the same data of illustrations and sermons and can search, print or copy to your word processor the data you want.  The sets and supplements by themselves are useless to you.  If you do not have Microsoft Access (usually packaged with the Microsoft Office-Pro software suite), then use the Sermon and Illustration Database [S.I.D.] that is available for free below.  For more information on SID, go here...

1. Download either the SID or Access installation files.  These files have the ".exe" extension and when you double-click on them they will set up a suggested directory on your hard-drive called bible illustration

.  Both setup files will also offer to put an icon on your desktop.  They include no records yet (or only a few).

2. Download some illustration or sermon sets and save them to your computer.  Unzip them with a program like WinZip (I include a link below) and put them in a harddrive directory you can remember.

3. Open your front-end (SID or Access).  With SID you click the "Import" button and browse to find and select your data set; it will be added to the database.  Repeat as necessary for each set.  With Access, click the "Update the Database" button on the Intro page and find and select your data set, and repeat as necessary.  To find out how many illustrations and sermons you have in your database, with Access you go to the illustration or sermon form and look at the number in the lower left corner.  For SID, just do a blank search on the opening page (don't enter any search words, just click the "Run Search" button) and you'll be told how many records it found; repeat for both sermons and illustrations.

4. After you have added all the sets, download and unzip the supplements.  These are newer illustrations or have updated data.  Be careful not to update your existing records with an older supplement, or you will go backwards!  The date of each set/supplement is included on this page.

5. Add your own illustrations and sermons, or modify ones in the database.  Be sure and use the proper Bible abbreviations so they will show up in searches.  It is no exaggeration to say there is a wealth of material here.

History of new material and special messages:

Oct 8, 2006.  Major upgrade for SID.  You can now export collections of illustrations/sermons that can be imported by others.  Make your own supplements! But be sure and read this warning as well.
Sept 30, 2006.  New illustration supplement added with 3,305 illustrations.
Jun 25, 2006.  New sermon supplement added with 1373 sermons.
Jun 24, 2006.  Glitch in Kerux-Access "print" feature is fixed with a special supplement file in the section 1b below.  Existing versions online are updated.
May 12, 2006.  Mother's Day supplement online.
Apr 18, 2006.  New illustration supplement online.
Mar 24, 2006.  Illustration sets are updated and consolidated.
Jan 27, 2006.  New illustration and sermon supplement is online, as well as 2004 and 2005 complete supplements of sermons and illustrations.
Oct 16, 2004.  I am revamping how supplements are done.  New records will be under "sets" and modified ones will be under "supplements."  Read descriptions carefully, and note that a supplement may be less recent than a regular set.  I keep some old supplements for the use of longtime users.
Oct 13, 2004.  SID front-end put online.  Holwick material renamed to Kerux.  Major update of most material.
Oct 13, 2004.  Access front-end is slightly modified - the Sermon List function adds Series, and a Ratings field is added.
Mar 29, 2004.  Update for sermon Typist field available in Sermon Supplements below.
Feb 17, 2004.  Minor fix in setup_Holwick_database_Jan2004.exe file - Accumulate and Clip buttons in 800x600 form are repaired.
                        If your version's Accumulate or Clip buttons don't work (800x600 illustration form) then download this fix.
                        Unzip it, then open your database and click the UPDATE button, browse to find this file, and it will automatically repair itself.
Jan 8, 2004.  Major upload of new and updated material to new webspace.
Oct 4, 2003.  Mini-database available in Access 2002 format.  Contains new beta-version of Comparison Form.
Sept 24, 2002. New "List Titles" feature for Access 97 database.
Feb 28, 2002. Old glitch fixed in 1024x768 sermon form - special characters now display correctly in mini- and blank-databases.
Nov 20, 2001. There is a glitch in version 5.0's sermon "accumulate" button. 5.1 fixes it, or you can fix it yourself.

 

 

The Artist:

Gustave Doré was an Alsacian artist who specialized in book illustrations.  Born in Strasbourg, France, on January 6, 1832, he began his artistic career in Paris when he was only 15 years old.  His drawings and illustrations were groundbreaking and very popular, although he never won the acclaim of the artistic elite in France.  In his later years, he spent much time in London, where he also opened a very popular gallery.  He died on January 23, 1883, at the age of 51.

Doré is probably most famous for his depictions of numerous scenes from the Bible, but he also produced illustrations for many other books, including Milton, Dante, La Fontaine, Don Quixote, Baron Munchhausen, etc.  [See below for links to websites with a more detailed biography and some reproductions of his non-biblical illustrations and paintings.]
 

The Bible Illustrations:

Doré and the artisans in his studios produced hundreds of different woodcuts illustrating scenes from a wide variety of biblical stories from both the Old Testament (including the Apocrypha) and the New Testament.

His biblical illustrations were first published in 1865 in France and reprinted in the late 1860's in various German, English, and other editions. These large-folio multi-volume Bibles (with about 240 illustrations each) were very heavy and expensive, but smaller editions were soon also published. Most of the illustrations are identical in the various editions, but some illustrations are not found in certain language editions, and in other cases as slightly different illustration is found for the same biblical passage.

Doré's illustrations were extremely popular in both Europe and America in the last decades of the nineteenth century. For example, over 1.5 million people visited the Doré Exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1896.  Several publishers also printed smaller collections of his biblical illustrations without the complete text of the Bible in so-called "Doré Bible Gallery" editions.

His artistic style greatly influenced some of the early biblical films, especially those of D. W. Griffith and Cecil B. DeMille. In fact, some of the scenes from DeMille's The Ten Commandments (1923 & 1956) look remarkably similar to the corresponding biblical illustration by Doré.

This website contains illustrations related both to the Old Testament (esp. the prophetic books) and to the New Testament (esp. the Gospels). Click on the following links for the desired category:

 

A Select Bibliography:

Doré's biblical illustrations have been printed and reprinted in many different editions by various publishers over the past 140 years:

Complete Bibles:

• Le Sainte Bible: Traduction nouvelle selon la Vulgate par Mm. J.-J. Bourasse et P. Janvier. Tours: Alfred Mame et Fils, 1866. -  two large folio volumes (43 cm.), 909+948 pages, with 228 full-page plates by Doré; the biblical text is printed in two columns separated by decorations by H. Giacomelli.
   
• The Holy Bible, with Illustrations by Gustave Doré. London & New York: Cassell, Petter and Galpin, 1866-70. - a large folio edition (38 cm.) with a total of 238 illustrations; published in London in sixty-four parts (four schillings each), and in New York in thirty parts (two dollars each, with about 8 plates and about 70 pages of biblical text in each part).
   
• Die Heilige Schrift: Alten und Neuen Testaments, verdeutscht von D. Martin Luther: mit zweihundert und dreissig Bildern von Gustav Doré. 2 vols. Stuttgart: Eduard Hallberger (later Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt), [1876-1877]. - large folio (44 cm.) with 230 illustrations; most plates are identical to those in the Cassell edition, but some show slight variations in design, 11 plates from Cassell were omitted, and 3 plates were newly added.
   
• Die Heilige Schrift des Israeliten, in deutscher Uebertragung von Ludwig Philippson; mit einhundert vier und fünfzig Bildern von Gustave Doré. 2 vols. Stuttgart: Eduard Hallberger, [ca. 1874]. - large folio (42 cm.) with 154 plates; Hebrew Bible only.

Bible Galleries:

• The Bible Gallery, illustrated by Gustave Doré, with descriptions by Talbot Chambers . London & New York: Cassell, Petter and Galpin, 1880. - one large volume (35 cm.), unpaged, with 100 plates (56 OT, 44 NT).
   
• The Doré Bible Gallery, containing one hundred superb illustrations and a page of explanatory letter-press facing each. Philadelphia: Henry Altemus, n.d. [ca. 1883]. -  contains almost all the same selections as the above Cassell edition; similar editions were also published by other companies ca. 1890, including Belford, Clarke & Co. (New York), John W. Lovell Co. (New York), The National Publishing Co. (Philadelphia), etc.
   
• The Bible in Pictures. New York: William H. Wise, 1934 and 1939. - large hardcover edition (8"x11") with 140 selected illustrations.
   
• The Bible Illustrated. New York: Pilsbury Publishers, 1951. - large paperback (9"x12") with 104 full-page illustrations.
   
• The Doré Bible Illustrations. New York: Dover Publications, 1974. - a collection of 241 plates; the largest inexpensive edition still available new and used in most bookstores; consider purchasing a copy for yourself!
   
• Pictures of the Bible. 2 vols. Cambridge, MA: Harbour Press, 1988. - vol. 1: The Old Testament and the Books of Maccabees;  vol. 2: The New Testament and the Apocrypha (with 102 illustrations).
   
• Doré Bible Gallery: Nineteenth Century Biblical Engravings in Postcards. New York: Robern Publishing, [n.d.]. - 30 postcard reproductions from the Old and New Testaments.

Doré Galleries, with both biblical and non-biblical illustrations:

• The Doré Gallery: Containing two hundred and fifty beautiful engravings selected from the Doré Bible, Milton, and Dantes Inferno [and others]; with a memoir of Doré, critical essay, and descriptive letterpress by Edmund Ollier.  London, New York: Cassell, Petter and Galpin, [1870]. - 180 plates, 39 cm.
   
• A Doré Gallery. London: Spring Books; New York: Arco, 1974. - adapted from the 2-volume edition of 1870, reprints the text by E. Ollier (1827-1886).