THE BIBLE OF 9/11

Last Sunday was the 15th anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center towers and Pentagon. While many stories of courage and grace have been shared about those events, a new story has emerged that most people probably haven’t heard before – and it involves the Bible. Photographer Joel Meyerowitz was taking pictures of the wreckage in New York City when a fireman came running to him with an incredible find: a page from the Bible melted into a piece of heart-shaped steel. It wasn’t just any page of the Bible, it part of the Sermon on the Mount. And while most of the page was marred, right in the middle one of the only parts still clearly readable was Christ’s radical teaching on retaliation. “Ye have heard that it hath been said,” the page said, “An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.” This really touched Meyerowitz. “Of all the pages of the Bible it would be open to,” he said, “that was remarkable.” In 2010, Meyerowitz donated the incredible artifact to the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in New York City.