Earlier this year, Tennessee legislators approved a list of 10 official state books. Among them is something called the Aitken Bible.
The move came in part after lobbying by Stephen Skelton of the Aitken Bible Historical Foundation and the First American Bible Project. Although Skelton says in public that his goal is merely to educate people about the Bible, he has a history of attacking separation of church and state and hanging out with pseudo-historian David Barton.
In a video posted on the group’s social media sites, Skelton asks, “How could our founding fathers have believed in a separation of church and state if I have a Bible approved by Congress?”
The answer to that is simple: The Aitken Bible was never approved by Congress.
A look at the history of this particular volume quickly debunks Christian Nationalist claims. In 1781, six years before the U.S. Constitution was drafted, a man named Robert Aitken decided to produce the first Bible printed in America. Aitken had put a lot of his own money into the project and was eager to recoup it. He immediately began bombarding Congress with letters asking that he be named the nation’s official printer of Bibles.
But there was no such position in America. Aitken seemed to think there would be, but it’s not something the founders ever entertained. Congress turned down Aitken’s request for a job but did pass a symbolic resolution lauding his Bible as “an instance of the progress of arts in this country.”
That language is important. Congress applauded Aitken’s Bible not for its devotional qualities but because it was proof that the United States could run its own industries and didn’t need to rely on European powers.
After the Revolution, a friend of Aitken’s wrote to George Washington with a proposal that the government buy a bunch of the Bibles and give them to ex-soldiers. Washington responded with a polite note saying it was too late for anything like that, since most of the army had been discharged. (In fact, what many of the soldiers really wanted was back pay they were owed.)
Aitken had printed 10,000 copies of his Bible, but sales were poor, and he lost money on the deal. The tome fell into obscurity, and for a long time, most Americans had never heard of it.
In recent years, Christian Nationalists have adopted the Aitken Bible and crafted a fake history for it. According to their account, Congress named the Aitken Bible the Bible of the Revolution, and it was carried by troops when they battled the British.
None of this was true – the war was winding down when the Bible was printed – but it was a good story with romantic appeal. Aitken’s Bible was also reprinted over the years, and later editions often recycled false claims about it having some sort of official government approval.
To be clear, the Aitken Bible has genuine historical significance. It was an early book printed in America, and original copies are rare. Antiquarian book dealers likely salivate when they see one. But it was never accorded any official status as America’s Bible.
Such a thing cannot exist in a country where we separate church and state.
Editor’s Note: Portions of the blog post were published previously. Thanks to Chris Rodda, author of Liars for Jesus, for her research in this area.
