My Version D'Ostervald

I don't even remember how it came into my hands, but I own an old French New Testament that I carry with me on retreats and other trips (it just went to Laguna Beach with me last weekend for a family wedding) because it is smaller than my other Bibles.

The blank flyleaf bears an ink inscription in the very ornate hand of a pastor to a little girl named Louise Gretin on the occasion of her confirmation on the 17th of March, 1872. By the lack of wear and tear on the gilded pages following that one, little Louise didn't read her Bible much.

My sister-in-law is French, and when she saw my "Nouveau Testament" she asked which version it was. Well, I hadn't bothered to notice that before, so I checked and it was a "Version D'Ostervald," published in Paris in 1859. This meant something to Aline, and she made a little fuss over it. (I have just now checked, and Jean-Frederic Ostervald was an influential Swiss pastor straddling the 17th and 18th centuries.) But she was distressed by the gray duct tape holding the binding together. (I am ashamed to say that the spine of the book was fine for a century and a half, till I broke it from repeated droppings, as I have done with my ESV, NIV, and NKJV. Moreover, the interior of the book was virginal until, only months ago, I underlined a few verses in 1 John.)

Aline told me there are people who do nothing but repair old books for a living, and that I could find myself one and have the precious possession restored. I found someone and have an appointment tomorrow.

But the reason I write this today is to share a more internal aspect of the story. Until it was pointed out to me that the book had a certain value as a book-as a physical artifact that one may consider for a range of attributes including age, imprint, condition, historical worth, and sentimentality-I had no thought for it except the joy of the Word contained therein. Afterward, I detected a slight corruption of spirit, as when Kino's initially happy discovery of a pearl in Steinbeck's The Pearl exerted a quiet and corrosive leavening on the whole community.

Apart from the fact that I am hard on books (and plates and vases) and should really repair this portable Bible, I am going back to a readjustment of values that remembers that all things-including D'Ostervalds-will pass away, but the Word of God will remain forever.