BookJive

Time will come our Bible, Koran, or other religious texts will become worn or unusable. Do you know how to dispose them properly? The following info came from The Fayetteville Observer September 21, 2007 issue, pages 1E and 2E. Thanks for the info, Fayetteville people!

Jewish Tradition:

According to Rabbi Josef Lavanon of Fayetteville’s Beth Israel synagogue, all damaged or unreadable Jewish sacred texts, including any book that contains the name of God, should be buried, not burned. All materials containing God’s names, three or more words of a biblical verse, written with the intent to quote the verse; all holy objects including but not limited to Torah scrolls and book, their mantles and sashes and dust jackets, slip covers or other parts. The materials are collected then buried together.

Islamic tradition

According to Abdul Haneef, Imam of Fayetteville’s Masjid Omar Ibn Sayyid mosque, the sanctity of the holy book remains even if the book is damaged. Thus, burial, not burning, is the prescribed ceremony. Tradition calls that all unusable texts be wrapped in clean linen as its burial shroud. Another way is to wrap the book in cloth, attached it to a weight and respectfully place it in a body of moving water.

Christian tradition

There is no fixed way to dispose unusable Bibles. Some rebound the Bible and send them overseas to churches in Africa; some simply removed them and started over. However, “a Bible that cannot be used may be burned. Once the Bible is burned, the ashes are to be buried”, says Terry Jackson of Raleigh.

Lutheran tradition buries the Bible, allowing the nature to reclaim its pages while some Episcopal churches offer memorial services for unusable Bibles.