For some time, I have been bothered by the sign outside the Hillcrest church with the rainbow-colored doors. Seeing as this is Christmas Day and Christian churches are supposed to celebrate Christ, I take this opportunity to correct the record.
“Love is love is all you need” is not true. Correction: it is a lie.
I recently realized something is missing from my Harper Study Bible, which is Revised Standard Version. Verses are omitted, which greatly surprises. My go-to Good Book is a compact New American Standard acquired during the mid-1980s. In that translation, verses that scholars suspect were later added to the original text are bracketed. They are omitted, often without explanation, in RSV, I discovered earlier this week. As one of many examples: Mark 15 skips verse 28.
The 1980-edition HSB is a used purchase, from Amazon in April 2017. The seller failed to indicate that a name is gold-embossed on the cover—and not even his own. But that gotcha aside, condition was quite good. But five years later, the leather shows significant wear, cracking and separating some places. As such, retirement was an eventual destination for the book.
On this Good Friday eve, when according to the Biblical account Jesus shared with his disciples the Last Supper, I follow up the personal story from Jan. 21, 2021—buying with, and for, my wife the Thomas Nelson-published, Leathersoft “classic verse-by-verse, center-column, reference Bible” (New King James Version). Five days later, when an online video referred to Matthew 18:1, Anne asked about the narrative text being in red and Christ’s words in black. I looked. That’s not right.
So I perused and found that on some pages Jesus’ quotes were the expected “red letter”, while on others text was swapped black with the rest. Mmmm, what to do? I considered calling the Christian bookstore from where we purchased the Bible. But given how negatively SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome Coronavirus 2)/COVID-19 lockdowns have affected small businesses and being a printing error, I contacted the publisher.
My wife has started reading the Bible, which helps her cope with these trying times that never seem to end—and they won’t as long as SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome Coronavirus 2)—better known as COVID-19—lockdowns destroy lives and livelihoods and deep cultural and political fissures foster an American Civil (Cold) War. Anne had been using my 1980-edition, leather-bound Harper Study Bible that I purchased used for $60 in April 2017. This morning, she decided to buy a Good Book for herself.
The question: From where? Before even I could answer, she stated: “Not from Amazon”. Okay. I knew that Rock Church has a Christian bookstore in Point Loma, Calif.; we could go there. “What about La Mesa?” she asked—having no idea if there might be a bookseller there. “Siri, Christian bookstores”, I queried. Sure enough, there turned out to be a shop at 4695 Date. Ave. To the car we walked, then drove East to a rewarding shopping expedition but disheartening look at too many shuttered small businesses.