This thing is stunning. It’s the same Bible Abraham Lincoln used in his first inauguration, and the symbolism couldn’t be sweeter. I can’t find a good photo online that isn’t in Flash and can be pasted here, but the best version I’ve seen is at the Wall Street Journal.
That photo is part of a 16-slide feature that shows inaugural Bibles through the ages. The photography is magnificent, but maybe the best thing about the feature is that it reprints the Bible passage that each president chose to lay his hand on while taking oath. My two favorite verses–those that I think cast the most profound and challenging visions for a nation–are Jimmy Carter’s:
He hath shewed thee, o man, what is good, and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God. (Micah 6:8)
…and Richard Nixon’s:
And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. (Isaiah 2:4)
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