Hawking Bibles for Holy Week

Donald Trump borrows a move from a very old playbook

Books do many things. They can press flowers or swat flies. They can stabilize wobbly furniture or adorn a coffee table. They are weights, doorstops, booster seats, coasters, and, on a hot day, fans. They can be collected on shelves to signal one’s sophistication to visitors. And, if desired, they can even be read.

Which bring us to Donald Trump’s recent endorsement of the God Bless the USA Bible. In a video selling a volume that to the King James Version adds the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Pledge of Allegiance, and handwritten lyrics from Lee Greenwood’s hit song “God Bless the USA”—all for $59.99!—Trump informs us that “all Americans need a Bible in their home, and I have many. It’s my favorite book. It’s a lot of people’s favorite book.” 

He is, however, famously ignorant of its contents, lacking even the most basic knowledge. In a 2016 interview he, when asked for his favorite verse, struggled to produce a single phrase—“‘an eye for an eye,’ you can almost say that”—seemingly unaware that from the perspective of his Christian interviewer and audience  Jesus had explicitly rejected this principle of violent retaliation. Nevertheless, Trump remains attracted to the Bible for numerous reasons, perhaps in part because he desires the power it confers on those who wield it. This was especially well illustrated in 2020 when he posed for a photo shoot brandishing a Bible in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church in an apparent effort to reinstate public order by intimidating into submission the crowds protesting the racial violence of police.

While Trump’s peddling of overpriced and appended scriptures for Holy Week has drawn rebuke from a range of Christian leaders who see it as syncretism and even blasphemy, it is no mere gimmick or aberration. The appropriation of the Bible as a material object of power is consistent with practices and ideologies going back to its very origins. From its inception scripture has been viewed as a sacred icon to be venerated, in some instances with only the most limited connection to the words or ideas expressed within. As I have outlined elsewhere in greater detail, the power of this material sacrality has operated over humans (and other entities) with an ostensibly magical quality. 

According to the story of its original creation, the divine law was first delivered to Moses as “two tablets of the covenant, tablets of stone, written with the finger of God” (Exodus 31:18). These objects conferred political and religious authority on Moses over the people, and when he later shattered them in anger at their idolatry, Yahweh replaced them with new ones and instructed that they be installed in the ark of the covenant. Consequently, the ark possessed supernatural power: It was carried at the head of the procession that crumbled the walls of Jericho. It also brought plagues on the Philistines who captured it and death to Israelite priests who accidentally touched it. When Solomon’s temple was later dedicated, it was situated within the inner sanctuary; the narrative emphasizes that “there was nothing in the ark except the two tablets of stone that Moses had placed there at Horeb,” thus enacting their perpetual status of ritual veneration (1 Kings 8:9). A later legend reports that when the Temple Scroll was delivered to King Ptolemy in Alexandria for translation into Greek, the potentate prostrated himself before it (Letter of Aristeas 177). And in some ancient Jewish and Christian communities, parchments or amulets with excerpts of scripture were worn on the body to ward off evil.

In American Christianity, despite a Protestant aversion to ritualism the Bible has been deployed in various magical and divinatory rites, several of which are cataloged by Brian Malley in his study “The Bible in North American Folklore.” Bibles were placed within homes or carried on bodies as a means of physical and spiritual protection. Their presence with an infant, it was thought, could positively affect the course of their future. Cures from ailments were also sought; for instance, one could strike a wart with a Bible to cause its removal. In another case, during a witch trial near Burlington, New Jersey in 1730, after a chapter of the Pentateuch was read over the accused the defendant was placed on one side of a scale and the great Bible of the local judge on the other. Its status as an icon underlies the ongoing practice of swearing oaths with one’s hand upon it and also suggests why the public desecration of a sacred text is viewed by many as taboo and a grave offense against religion.

In short, as an iconic object, the Bible has the power to inspire hope and provoke fear. It can heal or destroy, bring death or life. All without even reading it. 

Such scriptural appropriations are especially well suited for a culture in which its reading and study have long waned, even as its iconic status persists. According to the General Social Survey, which tracks American religious attitudes over time, the proportion of respondents who regard the Bible as divine (either the “actual” or “inspired word of God”) has remained relatively constant over recent decades even in the absence of personal scripture reading. In 2012, for instance, among those who had never read the Bible outside of a worship service during the past year, roughly two-thirds nevertheless viewed it as the Word of God. This phenomenon was described in 1992 by literary critic Harold Bloom, who in American Religion diagnosed a culture that had abandoned actual reading of scripture: “What is left of the Bible is a physical object, limp and leather, a final icon or magical talisman.”

And so Trump wants a Bible in every home, and ideally this Bible, with “God Bless the USA” and the nation’s flag inscribed on its cover. While closed, it projects his “America First” ideology, a message legitimized and materially undergirded by sacred scripture’s divine authority over Trump’s loyal subjects. But who knows? Perhaps some of them will open it and discover therein a God who refuses to be a mere tribal deity—one who intends, rather, that his blessings be extended freely to all nations of the earth. 

In the meantime, is anyone interested in a pair of golden high-top sneakers? Only $399!

Courtney Friesen is Associate Professor of Religious Studies and Classics at the University of Arizona. His most recent book, Acting Gods, Playing Heroes,  was published with Routledge Press in 2024.

RECOMMENDED READING

LONG FORM: You’ve Written Two Long Books—So What? REVIEW: The Ballot and the Bible REVIEW: Homo Legens