On Jan. 20, Joe Biden will take the presidential oath of office on the same Bible that he’s used for every one of his other inaugurations, a huge family Bible that has been in his family’s possession since 1893.
Biden has used it in all seven of his swearing-in ceremonies as a U.S. senator and twice for the oaths of office he took as President Barack Obama’s vice president. It was last used in 2013, when Biden took his second vice presidential oath of office from Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
In 2013, Obama’s inaugural committee said Biden’s family Bible is 5 inches thick and has a Celtic cross on its cover, according to USA Today.
Biden’s last swearing-in ceremony as a senator in 2009 had to be delayed when he couldn’t immediately find the Bible, according to the Chicago Tribune.
Biden told Ancestry.com in 2016 that his last name comes from an English line in his family. Biden said the Bible comes from his father’s side of the family.
The Bible was also used by Biden’s late son, Beau, when he was sworn in as attorney general of Delaware.
Biden will become the nation’s second Catholic president, after President John F. Kennedy.
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