Bible Kidnapping
I had just finished ringing the bell when a young man walked into church. He looked - how shall I say? - not like the kind of person who might be intending to join me for Morning Prayer.
- Can I help you? I asked him.
He told me some kind of a story. He was staying with a friend who lived just behind the church, and he hadn't a Bible with him. He wanted to borrow one to read. And by the way, his friend was called Stewart, and was interested in seeing if his name appeared in the Bible as he wanted to find a biblical basis for his name. I could only think of Shebna, the steward in Isaiah 22, who was misusing his position to enrich himself, and the Lord threatened to cast him out of his office. So I lent him a copy of the NEB which is surplus to requirements, and off he went.
That was when I noticed that our big lectern copy of the NRSV wasn't in its usual place, but had somehow gone missing. I took the video from the CCTV system home and settled down for the long and tedious process of looking through the recording for evidence. There are a strange number of visitors to the church during the course of a day! It wasn't till 4.43 p.m. on the previous day, that a strange visitor turns up, enters the church and leaves two minutes later carrying our lectern Bible under one arm. It's about six inches thick and weighs a ton. And the strange visitor looks uncannily like my own morning visitor to church; but the picture quality isn't very good, and I don't know if it would stand up in court, and in any case, what are the police going to do about a Bible theft from a church, when there are exciting helicopter surveillances and drug busts to be involved in instead?
While thinking about what to do, I set off to church for another Evening Prayer, and there is my stranger cycling past. He wishes me a friendly good evening.
- Just a minute, I say. Was it you I spoke to yesterday? Do you know anything about a big Bible that went missing? Because our CCTV film seems to show you carrying it out of church.
- Oh, he says. I know a guy who looks a lot like me, but goes to another church. He does crazy things like that, taking things from churches.
So I say I'd really appreciate it if he would ask this friend if he 'borrowed' our Bible, and if so would he please return it and no questions would be asked. He assures me he will do so and cycles away.
So what happens now, I wonder? Sometimes life in the parish is just too totally weird to understand it. I say the rot set in when they took the chains off the Bibles.
- Can I help you? I asked him.
He told me some kind of a story. He was staying with a friend who lived just behind the church, and he hadn't a Bible with him. He wanted to borrow one to read. And by the way, his friend was called Stewart, and was interested in seeing if his name appeared in the Bible as he wanted to find a biblical basis for his name. I could only think of Shebna, the steward in Isaiah 22, who was misusing his position to enrich himself, and the Lord threatened to cast him out of his office. So I lent him a copy of the NEB which is surplus to requirements, and off he went.
That was when I noticed that our big lectern copy of the NRSV wasn't in its usual place, but had somehow gone missing. I took the video from the CCTV system home and settled down for the long and tedious process of looking through the recording for evidence. There are a strange number of visitors to the church during the course of a day! It wasn't till 4.43 p.m. on the previous day, that a strange visitor turns up, enters the church and leaves two minutes later carrying our lectern Bible under one arm. It's about six inches thick and weighs a ton. And the strange visitor looks uncannily like my own morning visitor to church; but the picture quality isn't very good, and I don't know if it would stand up in court, and in any case, what are the police going to do about a Bible theft from a church, when there are exciting helicopter surveillances and drug busts to be involved in instead?
While thinking about what to do, I set off to church for another Evening Prayer, and there is my stranger cycling past. He wishes me a friendly good evening.
- Just a minute, I say. Was it you I spoke to yesterday? Do you know anything about a big Bible that went missing? Because our CCTV film seems to show you carrying it out of church.
- Oh, he says. I know a guy who looks a lot like me, but goes to another church. He does crazy things like that, taking things from churches.
So I say I'd really appreciate it if he would ask this friend if he 'borrowed' our Bible, and if so would he please return it and no questions would be asked. He assures me he will do so and cycles away.
So what happens now, I wonder? Sometimes life in the parish is just too totally weird to understand it. I say the rot set in when they took the chains off the Bibles.
posted by Tony at 11/12/2004 11:43:00 pm
2 Comments:
I've been trying to get an estimate. Typically, I've only just had a clear-out and thrown away the Cambridge University Press Bible catalogue, which was a few years old anyway. But their lectern edition of the AV is £300, so I guess NRSV is in a similar range. OUP don't even have it on their website, which must mean it's a limited market. (Surprise!)
It's $500 USD. I found a copy for $872 USD. Wow!
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