disposing of old Bibles
June 17th, 2008
How do we dispose of old deteriorated Bibles? I must admit I have thrown some down the HDB thrash bin although most of them I have given away or made available for others to take and use. How many Bibles have I owned and fawned and used and discarded like used tissues at a hawker center table? I dare not 
guess. How should we dispose of old used Bibles properly? I have thought of different things but the best idea I have come up with so far was to give it away for others to use. But what will the others do with it when they buy their own new Bibles? So my interest was piqued when Anthony Loke of Old Testament Passion blogged about this and linked to a rabbi Mark Gellman’s recommendation. I have extracted the rabbi’s idea about proper disposal of old used Bibles for your convenience. Tell me what you think.
Q: I have quite a few old Catholic prayer books handed down from my wife’s mother years ago. I would like to know how to dispose of them. — F., via e-mail
A: Catholic prayer books (missals) and old deteriorated Bibles still bear the word of God and the name of God in them. They are old and worn, but they are still vessels of the holy, and so they cannot be disposed of in the garbage with yesterday’s green bean casserole. This respect for worn-out sacred books is universally shared by Judaism, Christianity and Islam. In older and more traditional Catholic practice, I am told, the books would be covered and buried respectfully though not necessarily in a cemetery. They should be covered and then buried. “Dust to dust” refers to the disposal of all holy vessels.
Entry Filed under: Life
wow. buried them? hmmm. I’m not sure what to do with them too. I suppose either give them away or ’sell’ to those 2nd hand book shop in bras basah.
Or use them for object lessons/experiment. eg: cut out any verse that talks about the poor, needy, orphans, injustice etc. At the end of the year(if they finish reading), let’s see how much the bible talks about poverty and justice. According to http://www.povertyandjusticebible.org, their CEV bible contains over 2000 such verses.
I would like to do this experiment someday. One student did that and found the bible wouldn’t hold together(it was in tatters after cutting out the verses). this story was recounted by Tim Chester in his book - Good News to the Poor: sharing the gospel through social involvement.
besides that, well, u can try burying.
Burying them? Ashes to ashes, dust to dust?
Frankly, we revered God and His name in our spirit, soul and body, in everything that we do, word that we speak and thoughts in our mind – to worship God in Spirit and in Truth.
Many books can carry and name of our Lord, but I feel that does not make them ‘holy’. I mean, c’mon, there are plenty of secular books that has ‘Jesus’ printed in them, that doesn’t mean we are treat them as ‘vessels of the holy’…
Our Lord is HOLY, not the bible, and certainly not those ‘prayer books’. The words in the bible are inspired by the Holy Spirit, but that does not make the paper and ink holy and needs to be treated ‘respectfully’. There are some who actually set up altar at home and place their bible on it… The Words are to be read, understood, obeyed, and they are life and truth, and also the supernatural weapon we use to fight against the enemy, and not to put on altar and gather dust!
In short, this is just legalism and humanistic thinking…
1. Separate the bible into the individual books - bring them along as easy-carrying reading material, on the buses, trains etc.
2. Cut out verses and paste into cards and give them away. Then tell your friends that you are attaching words from a ‘book’ which means a lot to you, literally. Your friends mean enough to you for you to do that.
3. Burying or burning is of not much earthly use. Give them away.
Bury!! Never would have thought of that. Interesting…
I would give them away. What the other person does later with it, I don’t know and perhaps not really concerned about it.
In my church, every few months, we put up a table with stuff for people to take away, usually there will magazines, message cds, some books etc. Havn’t seen a bible but why not?
Don’t bury, give away…
LOL. Now we are debating whether to bury Bibles, or to Cremate them (thrown down the chute for burning).
Cremation? LOL
As I’m coming from the perspective that “Bible is not identical with God’s Word”, I don’t have problem with seeing Bibles with other decaying created materials in the trash bins, even if there are tetragammatons in it. That’s my opinion.
Blessings.
Hi Joshua and others,
The Muslims treat their Koran with care and reverence, and find that Christians do not treat their Holy Bible with the same respect. Would it be giving up too much of our “freedom” to likewise accord some care towards our handling of the Holy Bible?….so that our Muslim friends do not get turned off by our faith…..” to be all things to all men that some may be saved”?
On that, I am on your side, Blogpastor. If to treat the Bible in a certain way merely because we want to earn a hearing from Muslim is fine. But to deify the Bible is another thing altogether, don’t you think so? That means in a non-Muslim context, then it is alright to see the Bibles together with other decaying materials in the trash bins, is that what you are saying?
Hi Joshua, It took me some time to answer your question because to my mind yes the Bible is just a book with print on white paper, yet my heart struggles with even the thought of throwing it into the bin.