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1863-1887 the Review and Herald Days

Main Index ·  1888- 1898>>

While the Sabbath School lesson as a periodical began in 1888, the lessons themselves had their origin in the Review and Herald in 1863 as the need for an organised study became keenly felt by the church members as James White (editor) describes…

“Lessons for the use of Bible-Bible-Classes and Sabbath Schools is a want that has long been felt by churches which have seen fit to make use of these necessary and efficient means of religious instruction. To supply this want, so far as it concerns Bible-Classes, and the higher classes of Sabbath-Schools, it is proposed to give through the Review a series of questions on the different points of present truth, taking the standard publications of the Review Office, as text books, and furnishing enough for one lesson in each paper. It is expected that the Instructor will furnish lessons sufficient for each Sabbath, for the lower classes and thus the whole ground be covered. We commence in this number with the History of the Sabbath. This is a work which should have more attention than a mere random perusal. A careful study of it will thoroughly instruct any one on the important subject of the Sabbath, in all its branches. Answers to the following questions will be found in this work from pages 9 to 24. To prepare himself, for recitation, the student should so thoroughly study the matter embraced within the pages referred to, as to be able to promptly answer the questions proposed concerning the subjects there introduced.” (James White. Review & Herald Vol XXI. Feb 17, 1863. PDF )

The following list is an exhaustive listing of the dates, lesson subjects and download links for the 1863-1887 period of the Sabbath School lesson study work.

The links go to the full issues of the Review and Herald in PDF format and the lessons are entitled “Lessons for Bible Students”

Review & Herald . Vol XXI. 1863

(February 17 – May 26)

No.12 – History of the Sabbath pt.1 (Feb 17) No.14 – History of the Sabbath pt.2 (Mar 03) No.15 – History of the Sabbath pt.3 (Mar 10) No.16 – History of the Sabbath pt.4 (Mar 17) No.17 – History of the Sabbath pt.5 (Mar 24) No.18 – History of the Sabbath pt.6 (Mar 31) No.19 – History of the Sabbath pt.7 (Apr 07) No.20 – History of the Sabbath pt.8 (Apr 14) No.21 – History of the Sabbath pt.9 (Apr 21) No.22 – History of the Sabbath pt.10 (Apr 28) No.23 – History of the Sabbath pt.11 (May 05) No.24 – History of the Sabbath pt.12 (May 12) No.25 – History of the Sabbath pt.13 (May 19) No.26 – History of the Sabbath pt.14 (May 26)

[downloads are full R&H issues in PDF format- lessons are entitled “Lessons for Bible Students”]

Review & Herald . Vol XXII. 1863

(June 2 – November 24)

No.01 – the History of the Sabbath pt.15 (Jun 02) No.02 – the History of the Sabbath pt.16 (Jun 09) No.03 – the History of the Sabbath pt.17 (Jun 16) No.04 – the History of the Sabbath pt.18 (Jun 23) No.05 – the History of the Sabbath pt.19 (Jun 30) No.06 – the History of the Sabbath pt.20 (Jul 07) No.07 – the History of the Sabbath pt.21 (Jul 14) No.16 – Nebuchadnezzar’s Great Image – Dan 2 pt.1 (Sep 15) No.17 – Nebuchadnezzar’s Great Image – Dan 2 pt.2 (Sep22) No.18 – The Four Beasts of Daniel 7 (Sep 29) No.19 – The Vision of Daniel 8 (Oct 06) No.20 – the 70 Weeks & 2300 Days (Oct 13) No.21 – The Sanctuary pt.1 (Oct 20) No.22 – The Sanctuary pt.2 (Oct 27) No.23 – The Sanctuary pt.3 (Nov 03) No.24 – The Sanctuary pt.4 (Nov 10) No.25 – The Cleansing of the Sanctuary pt.1 (Nov 17) No.26 – The Cleansing of the Sanctuary pt.2 (Nov 24)

Volume 51 No.24 heralds a new era in the Sabbath School printed work with lesson material under the heading “Sabbath School Department”.

There are 2 sections in each R&H issue and thus 2 titles in each lesson listed below – Bible Lessons for Youth – Lessons for Bible Classes

Review & Herald . Vol 51. 1878

No. 24 #01 Creation & the Sabbath           #01 Nebuchadnessar’s Dream (Jun 13) No. 25 #02 the Garden of Eden           #02 Daniel’s First Vision (Jun 20)

Review & Herald . Vol 52. 1878

No. 01 #03 Cain & Abel           #03 Daniel’s First Vision (Jun 27) No. 02 #04 the Antediluvian Patriarchs           #04 the Fourth Kingdom (Jul 04) No. 03 #05 Enoch           #05 the Division of the Fourth Kingdom (Jul 11) No. 04 #06 the Spirit of God           #06 the Little Horn of Daniel 7 (Jul 18) No. 05 #07 the Flood           #07 the Papal Persecution (Jul 25) No. 06 #08 the Test of Obedience           #08 Recapitulation (Aug 01) No. 07 #09 Abraham Called           #09 the Little Horn of Daniel 8 (Aug 08) No. 08 #10 Abraham in Canaan           #10 Characteristics & Symbols (Aug 15) No. 09 #11 the Promises           #11 Additional Dates & Facts (Aug 22) No. 10 #12 the Faith of Abraham           #12 Pagan & Papal Dominion (Aug 29) No. 11 #13 the Seed of Abraham           #13 the Sanctuary (Sep 05) No. 12 #14 the Fulfillment of the Promises           #14 the Worldly Sanctuary (Sep 12) No. 13 #15 Circumcision           #15 the History of the Worldly Sanctuary (Sep 19) No. 14 #16 the Destruction of Sodom           #16 the 2300 Days (Sep 26) No. 15 #17 Isaac & Rebekah           #17 the 70 Weeks (Oct 03) No. 16 #18 the Birthright           #18 the Date of the 70 Weeks & the 2300 Days (Oct 17) No. 17 #19 Jacob’s Deception           #19 the Termination of the 2300 Days (Oct 24) No. 18 #20 Jacob in Padam-Aram           #20 the Services of the Worldly Sanctuary (Oct 31)

No. 20 #21 Jacob’s Return           #21 the Services on the Day of Atonement (Nov 14) No. 21 #22 the Sons of Jacob           #22 Apartments of the Heavenly Sanctuary (Nov 21) No. 22 #23 Pharoah’s Dream           #23 Ministration in the First Apartment of the Heavenly Sanctuary (Nov 28) No. 23 #24 the Promise           #24 the Cleansing of the Heavenly Sanctuary (Dec 05) No. 24 #25 Joseph Makes Himself Known           #25 the Cleansing of the Heavenly Sanctuary, continued (Dec 12) No. 25 #00 no youth lesson           #26 the Second Advent of Christ (Dec 19) No. 26 #26 Recapitulation           #27 Christ Executes Judgment (Jan 02)

New formatting commences here with a story review and reference to the related Youth Instructor issue

Review & Herald . Vol 61. 1884

No. 3 – Acts Review (Jan 15 – see Instructor of Jan 16 1884) No. 4 – Acts Review (Jan 22 – see Instructor of Jan 24 1884) No. 5 – Acts 6-8 (Jan 29 – see Instructor of Jan 31 1884) No. 6 – Acts 8:25-10: Feb 5 (Feb 5 – see Instructor of Feb 6 1884) No. 7 – A cts 10-11 (Feb 12 – see I nstructor of Feb 12 1884)

This page was created by the late Robby Noordzy

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Ironically, Renegade Nell would benefit from some rules

The Disney Plus series is fun but confounding

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Renegade Nell is a puzzle. Boasting the creative pedigree of screenwriter Sally Wainwright ( Gentleman Jack ) and the talents of a cast of British TV stalwarts, the story of a flame-haired, 18th-century English highwaywoman with the powers of a 20th-century superhero would seem to be a shoo-in for the renfaire bitches (it’s me, I’m renfaire bitches).

But — like holding up a noble’s carriage and finding a third of his luggage conspicuously empty — Renegade Nell contains a lot and not enough at the same time. And the feeling of a gap between two fun things where something fun should have been is consistent through the season’s eight episodes.

Which is to say, there’s a lot of fun stuff in Renegade Nell . Louisa Harland is especially enjoyable to watch as the titular Nell Jackson, delivering lines with a charismatic insouciance. We find Nell traveling home from the War of the Spanish Succession after the death of the dashing captain she ran away from home for in order to reunite with her estranged family, including sisters Roxy (Bo Bragason) and George (Florence Keen).

Alas, their village is currently plagued by the local magistrate’s wastrel of a son (Jake Dunn), and matters escalate quickly. Nell is framed for the magistrate’s murder, and she and her sisters go on the run, holding up coaches to get by and finding an ally in Rasselas (Enyi Okoronkwo), a young man whom the magistrate enslaved as a boy.

Oh, and the way Nell survives all this is by the power of a pixie-winged man of changeable size, Billy Blind (Nick Mohammed), who confers the strength of 10 men upon her whenever her life is threatened.

Renegade Nell ’s numerous fight scenes are brisk, fun, creatively staged, and winningly acted. The show also shows a real relish in its costuming, from primped-up nobles to disguised peasants. Thankfully for a story about literal highway robbery, the exteriors are refreshingly exterior — no empty Volume horizons here — and directors Ben Taylor, Amanda Brotchie, and MJ Delaney have great fun with it.

But almost every one of the show’s characters feels incomplete, as if an episode that established this emotional change, or followed up on that surprising revelation, was simply missing from the list. Character arcs that leap to their conclusions rather than walking are a common quality of the eight-episode television season, and Renegade Nell may be no different. And shortcuts like familiar character archetypes and classic story forms can be a strength in the kind of genre fiction where half the appeal is knowing that you’ve seen this hero’s journey before, and being excited to follow it again in a new set of clothes.

But Renegade Nell is curiously disinterested in its fantasy elements, a lack of exploration put in stark relief by the specificity of its historical grounding in the first decade of 1700, when Jacobite forces conspired — or at least attempted to conspire — to put Queen Anne’s Catholic half-brother James Francis Edward Stuart on the throne instead.

Now, criticizing a fantasy show for not explaining how the magic works has a tendency to make you sound like the most boring person alive , but I’m going to take that risk. Listen: Trailers for Renegade Nell made sure to include Nell’s supernatural abilities. There’s a little man with fairy wings who turns into a glowing ball and flies down her throat, conferring superhuman strength, agility, and the ability to turn bullets aside with her bare hands. “Why are you here?” she demands of the diminutive gentleman. “I can only assume that your life is very important,” he replies. It’s a tease — what is he? Who sent him? Are there, or have there been, others like him and Nell? How mysterious and intriguing.

It’s a light spoiler, but perhaps you could consider it a helpful adjustment of expectation: Renegade Nell does not answer these questions. Nell just has a magic guy who showed up one day to give her superpowers.

Heroes with unexplained supernatural powers can make for great fun, and one should strive to appreciate a television show for what it is, not what you expected it to be. But Renegade Nell aspires to genuine depth. Wainwright’s script is a story of class conflict, of little people standing up to stick it to the toffs — a story of the ways in which society will cut the legs out from under powerful women by any means necessary — and a story about grievous misuses of both magical and mundane power. In this thematic context, questions about the apparently unique origin and nature of the magic that gives a heroine her class-upending power are directly relevant.

Metaphorically speaking, Renegade Nell is still an appealing carriage full of spoils — fun costumes, silly situations, a few standout performances. It’s a pity that it’s missing a wheel.

All episodes of Renegade Nell are now streaming on Disney Plus.

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Author Interviews

'women behind the wheel' explains how cars became a gendered technology.

Terry Gross

Peggy Sauer was one of the "Damsels in Design" at GM hired to work on car interiors. She's shown here with her design for the backseat of a 1958 Oldsmobile. GM Heritage Center/Pegasus Books hide caption

Believe it or not, there was once a prototype of a minivan that included a small washer and dryer — that way, moms could do the laundry while the kids were at soccer. That vehicle, explains journalist Nancy Nichols, was never produced, but it's an eye-opening window into the long relationship between car manufacturers and their female consumers.

Nichols has written a new book on the history of women and car culture. In Women Behind the Wheel: An Unexpected and Personal History of the Car she explains how cars became a gendered technology.

Cars have always been major characters in Nichols' life. Her father — who lost his brother to an auto accident as a child — became a car salesman, mostly selling used cars. Her brother drove race cars on weekends. Decades later, Nichols' father was in a car crash that resulted in a traumatic brain injury that changed his life.

"The car, for men, has always been about adventure, about power, about strength, about a performance of their own masculinity. ..." Nichols says. "The car for women was about making sure that you could take care of your domestic duties — what you needed to get done for your job as a mother or your job as a housewife."

Interview highlights

On how the invention of the electric starter made cars accessible to women

A 1916 ad for the Baker Electric. The Collections of Henry Ford/Pegasus Books hide caption

A 1916 ad for the Baker Electric.

The early cars were hand-cranked, and that was part of why they were very difficult for women to drive. They were very hard to start. Also, they didn't have power steering. They didn't have power brakes. There were some models in which it was very difficult for women to even reach the pedals. ...

It wasn't until 1910 when a man named Charles Kettering developed an electric starter for the car, and this was a real game changer for women because it allowed women to start the car without a great deal of personal strength, and it greatly expanded their ability to use the car when there weren't men around.

In the first instance, the ladies car was an electric car. It was meant for women who were largely very wealthy. For example, Clara Ford drove a Detroit Electric. She did not drive a Ford. That's because in the early days, these combustion engines were thought too difficult for women to start and drive, and also too dangerous. There was also some concern that the combustion engine would create unwanted sexual excitement for women. They vibrated ... so they were not allowed to have them. Wealthy women, by and large, had the electric. They were kind of like golf carts today. They drove them around their estate. They drove them to their friends, for social engagements.

On car coats and automobile fashion in the 1910s

The car coat was designed to help women get in and out of the car. ... I went to the New York Public Library, and I found from Saks Fifth Avenue, a catalog, it was about 200 pages long, and it was all about helping women adapt to this new car culture, which was really very new. So early cars were open. They didn't have roofs. Women got dirty. They were cold. Women were sold ermine blankets. They wore goggles that evolved as the car became more enclosed.

And so women ... were advised by the Ladies Home Journal , for example, to wear gloves, to have a hat with a short veil, because the act of driving a car is performative, and it's always been expected that women dress a certain way and look a certain way. So, for example, Ford had coats that were made to match, used the same material in the interior of the car to create matching handbags, matching coats. So it was a very coordinated thing.

A post-World War II Ford ad shows all the ways the car helps a woman in her family duties — even as they extend beyond the home. The Collections of Henry Ford/Pegasus Books hide caption

On how car manufacturers coached salesmen on how to sell cars to women

For example, certain salesmen were told to go to the home, find out what the woman's favorite color was, then bring a car that was in that shade to the home — a very decked out car that she might feel attracted to. ...

The interior of the car was thought to be particularly a female space, a place for domestic arts. So this is a place where women were involved in picking the fabric of the seats or the floor mats, the interior colors. So the slogan or kind of the watchword from that time would have been, "He picks the engine. She picks the paint job."

On the minivan's reinvention — from hippie car to mom car

The hippies use the van as a kind of roving space for romance. So they would have on their vans, "if it's a rockin', don't come a knockin'." Because these were intimate spaces that were designed for intimacy. They had specific mood lighting. They had wine racks, they had shag rugs. ....

Fast forward a little bit to my generation, I'm a Boomer. I have always worked. I had a young son when I was working, so I use my minivan. I drove a Honda Odyssey, and I used it to meet my dual responsibilities as a mother and as a professional woman, and I'm about 65 years old. ... My generation was the biggest waves of women who are trying to meet these dual responsibilities. So we would have on our suit and our little high heels and our cute little bow ties, and we would also be in the grocery store, and we would be dragging kids through the grocery store in those outfits, and we would be taking them to soccer.

You have to give the American automobile industry so much credit: They were on every single demographic trend. They fully understood what women wanted and needed, and they were out to make it work for women, in very capitalist ways. They weren't doing it out of generosity, but they did a great job. And the minivan was really created in order to help women make that transition from home to work to getting the kids to soccer. ...

I think when most of us were fantasizing about what it meant to be a woman, we weren't thinking, "Oh, we're going to be raising our child at 45 miles an hour." But we spent a lot of time in those minivans.

On how Subaru became seen as a car for lesbians

Planet Money

When subaru came out.

Around 1994, a set of executives at Subaru were having focus groups in western Massachusetts, and what they realized [was] ... the people who were buying their cars fell into two categories: One was what we would call kind of an essential worker now. They were nurses. They were EMTs. They had to get out in all weather. There was no chance that they could skip work if the weather was bad. And the other group tended to be lesbians. And they found this very interesting, and they pursued it. And what they realized is that lesbians were very fond of their car.

So they started speaking and trying to encourage more lesbians to buy their car, by a kind of coded set of advertisements. So in the advertisement, the license plate, for example, would say, "get out and stay out." Which was coded language. It could mean get out into nature and stay out in nature, but it could also mean, you know, come out of the closet and stay out of the closet. Or the license plate would say "P-Town" and Provincetown in Massachusetts has always been a very welcoming place for the gay community. So they started and became the first company to actually get out front and market to the gay community.

On "male" crash dummies as an industry standard

The first female crash test dummy has only now arrived

The original crash dummy was a six-foot man with a hat on. And came from dummies that were created to test for pilots to eject out of their planes. So those crash dummies were modified and began to be used in the manufacturing of automobiles. So there's two ways in which these dummies are used. And one is the federal government has their standards, their crash standards, and they have their dummies. And those dummies historically have been made for men, and they don't take into account smaller women.

To their great credit, automobile manufacturers now test their vehicles using many different kinds of dummies, but the actual ratings they get come from these dummies that are used by the federal government. And there has been a push by women legislators to try to get that changed. And there's been some movement, but it's still quite concerning. And as a result of that, women are more likely to be injured in a crash because their musculature is different.

On where women fit into the car technology of the future

We're at this really important point in the life of the automobile where we're going to have autonomous vehicles, we're having electric vehicles, we have women legislators who are arguing for better, more inclusive kinds of safety dummies. So I want women to be aware of all these aspects of the car. The car as a domestic space, the car is a place where you can really be injured. And I want them to just kind of take ownership of this. We are active consumers in the automobile world.

Lauren Krenzel and Susan Nyakundi produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Molly Seavy-Nesper and Beth Novey adapted it for the web.

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The Retired Justice Who Doesn’t Understand the Supreme Court

Stephen Breyer means well. Why is his new book, “Reading the Constitution,” so exasperating?

By Jennifer Szalai

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READING THE CONSTITUTION: Why I Chose Pragmatism, Not Textualism, by Stephen Breyer

Justice Stephen Breyer is worried about the Supreme Court — or at least I think he is, based on what I could glean from the faint notes of concern he tucks into his new book, “Reading the Constitution: Why I Chose Pragmatism, Not Textualism.”

Breyer, who retired from the court in 2022, is known as a moderate liberal and a stalwart institutionalist. In his previous book, “The Authority of the Court and the Peril of Politics” (2021) , he insisted that critics had failed to recognize the justices’ unflagging commitment to upholding apolitical ideals. Nine months after it was published, the Supreme Court’s conservative bloc, by a vote of 6-3 , upended longstanding precedent on abortion rights. The majority opinion declared Roe v. Wade “ overruled ”; Breyer signed on to the minority’s blistering dissent.

Given that Breyer is no longer a sitting judge, one might have thought that this new book would afford him the opportunity to let loose, and in interviews he has suggested he is sounding an alarm. But his voice in the book barely rises above a whisper. Written in Breyer’s careful, tentative style, “Reading the Constitution” is well meaning, tedious and exasperating; it is also rather telling, showing how a thoughtful, conscientious jurist can get so wedded to propriety and high-mindedness that he comes across as earnestly naïve.

Breyer explains that he wrote the book to counter the rise of “textualism,” a form of judicial interpretation that fixates on the text of the Constitution and often shades into “originalism” — which restricts interpretation even further to how the text would have been understood at the time it was originally written. Instead of textualism, he prefers a “traditionalist” or “pragmatic” approach that takes not just text but also “purpose” into account. He argues that judges who try to strip away any extra-textual considerations, like evolving values and legislative history, “diminish the effectiveness and vibrancy of their interpretive palette.”

Most of the book is given over to parsing cases in granular detail, explaining exactly how looking beyond the text has historically yielded opinions that are “sound” — a word he calls one of the best compliments that you can give a judge. He front loads his examples with those he describes as “intellectually difficult.” Only after wading through “highly technical” cases having to do with things like patent infringement and retirement plans for railroad workers will a reader be prepared, he says, to take on anything as “value-laden” as reproductive rights.

This may have seemed to Breyer like a sound structure for his book, but it turns out to be a rhetorical sinkhole. Subjecting your readers to a forced march through complex arcana, telling them the “repetition” is for their own good, is more likely to exhaust them than prepare them. Despite my (admittedly freakish) tolerance for exegesis, I felt so worn down by the bland recitation of case history that I found myself nearly sapped of the will to go on.

Of course, it is Breyer’s patience for sifting through the most finicky details that made him such a scrupulous jurist. He is dedicated, precise and deliberate. He shows just how far he is willing to drill down into every element of a case in order to arrive at a decision. Life, he points out, is too full of ambiguity and change for “static” readings of statutes to make any sense; a jurisprudence that takes heed of “the Constitution’s democratic, humane values” is “both normatively desirable and practically useful.”

But in a book intended not only for legal professionals, combing through case details will only tell you so much. Breyer says he dislikes textualism because it is too limiting and too rigid; originalism, he explains, “does not take into account the ways in which our values as a society evolve over time as we learn from the mistakes of our past.” He writes as if offering a blizzard of detail to that effect will eventually clinch his argument. It also allows him to pretend that the crucial difference between the justices’ judicial approaches is primarily technical, a matter of “interpretive tools.”

“To place determinative weight on the way in which 18th-century speakers used particular words,” Breyer says, “is regressive.” He’s right — and perhaps that’s why the conservative justices like originalism so much. For anyone who believes that progress has gotten out of hand, “regressive” is arguably a point in originalism’s favor. “My examples show why a judge should often emphasize purposes,” he writes, as if he’s identifying something that has been overlooked or rejected. Isn’t it possible that his conservative colleagues also emphasize purposes, albeit very different ones?

Originalists deny that purposes matter to them, since purpose, as the originalist justice Antonin Scalia once put it, fails to provide an “objective basis for judging”; they like to say that they’re simply sticking closely to the text, and Breyer is palpably eager to take their stated intentions at face value, even when textualism can also function quite nicely as ideological cover . He keeps repeating the argument that “purpose-related tools” can make “our democracy more workable .” The word “workable” is used so many times in the book that it becomes a poignant refrain — that of an optimistic, pragmatic liberal jurist who wants to believe that if only he is clear enough, he can get his fellow justices to recognize that they are ultimately committed to the same thing.

Does Breyer, who is so attuned to the irreducible complexity of the world outside the Supreme Court, truly believe that the world inside is so simple? Given his decades of experience, I find it hard to imagine he does — but then he still seems flummoxed by the Supreme Court’s right-wing turn. At his most baffled, he starts firing off strings of rhetorical questions, asking plaintively how anyone could ever want “a world in which no governmental effort is made to cure environmental, medical or safety-related ills?”

In an interview with Adam Liptak of The Times last week, a beseeching Breyer sounded similarly perplexed. After all, he said, the decision to override Roe was bound to have cruel consequences: “Are they really going to allow women to die on the table because they won’t allow an abortion which would save her life? I mean, really, no one would do that. And they wouldn’t do that.”

There is a profound and generous kindness embedded in his remarks, a determination to think the best of people, but his incredulity makes you wonder what alternate universe Breyer is living in. When it comes to denying a woman the right to a life-saving abortion, not only are there “really” some people who “would do that”; there are six people in black robes who effectively did .

READING THE CONSTITUTION : Why I Chose Pragmatism, Not Textualism | By Stephen Breyer | Simon & Schuster | 335 pp. | $32

Jennifer Szalai is the nonfiction book critic for The Times. More about Jennifer Szalai

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Book of Donald: Trump hawks special ‘God Bless the USA’ Bibles for $60

Former president sells Trump-endorsed Bible in concert with Lee Greenwood, country singer whose music is played at his rallies

Patriotic, prayerful and rightwing Americans are being offered the chance to purchase – for a mere $59.99 – a Bible endorsed by Donald Trump , in the latest example of the former US president touting wares to the American public.

In a post to his Truth Social platform on Tuesday, the current presumptive Republican nominee and 88-times charged criminal defendant said : “Happy Holy Week! Let’s Make America Pray Again. As we lead into Good Friday and Easter, I encourage you to get a copy of the God Bless the USA Bible.”

In an accompanying video message, Trump said : “I’m proud to be partnering with my very good friend Lee Greenwood – who doesn’t love his song God Bless the USA? – in connection with promoting the God Bless the USA Bible.”

Greenwood, a country singer whose signature tune is played at Trump rallies, is offering the Bibles for sale through a website, GodBlessTheUSABible.com.

The site features a picture of Trump smiling broadly and holding a Bible in front of his red-and-white-striped club tie. The cover of the Bible is embossed with the words “Holy Bible” and “God Bless the USA” and a design based on the US flag.

Greenwood’s website says the Bible is the only one endorsed by Trump, counsels buyers on what to do if their Bible has “sticky pages”, and answers the important question on many peoples’ minds: “Is any of the money from this Bible going to the Donald J Trump campaign for president?”

“No,” the site says. “GodBlessTheUSABible.com is not political and has nothing to do with any political campaign. GodBlessTheUSABible.com is not owned, managed or controlled by Donald J Trump, the Trump Organization, CIC Ventures LLC or any of their respective principals or affiliates.

“GodBlessTheUSABible.com uses Donald J Trump’s name, likeness and image under paid license from CIC Ventures LLC, which license may be terminated or revoked according to its terms.”

CIC Ventures was established in 2021 by a former Trump aide and a Trump-linked lawyer in Palm Beach, Florida, where Trump has lived since leaving power. Its principal address is that of Trump International Golf Club. The company has also been involved in Trump-themed money making schemes including digital training cards and gold sneakers.

Given Trump’s status as a thrice-married legally adjudicated rapist and billionaire New York property magnate nonetheless dependent on evangelical Christian support , his true relationship with and knowledge of the Bible has long been a subject of speculation.

In June 2020, towards the end of his presidency, he memorably marched out of the White House, across a square violently cleared of protesters for racial justice, and posed outside the historic St John’s church while holding a Bible in the air.

A reporter asked: “Is that your Bible?”

Trump said: “It’s a Bible.”

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In his video on Tuesday, Trump said: “Religion and Christianity are the biggest things missing from this country and I truly believe that we need to bring them back and we have to bring them back fast. I think it’s one of the biggest problems we have. That’s why our country is going haywire. We’ve lost religion in our country. All Americans need a Bible in their home, and I have many.”

In response, Gregory Minchak, of the anti-Trump Lincoln Project, commented : “There’s not a cross nor a picture of Jesus on the page, but plenty of photos of Trump. Who do you think this $60 Bible is for? It sure isn’t for Jesus.”

Sarafina Chitika, a senior Biden campaign spokesperson, issued a stinging statement.

“The last time the American people saw Donald Trump hold up a Bible,” she said, “it was for a photo op after he teargassed American citizens demonstrating against white supremacy.

“He can’t be bothered to leave Mar-a-Lago to meet with actual voters, but found the time to hawk bootleg sneakers, sell cheap perfume and promote his ‘new’ product to line his own pockets.

“It’s classic Donald Trump – a fraud who has spent his life scamming people and his presidency screwing over the middle class and cutting taxes for his rich friends.”

• Donald Trump
• Republicans
• Politics books
• Christianity

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