Jean Beaudrillard characterized September 11, 2001 with the terms “absolute event” and “symbolic reaction.” Clearly the hijackings and attacks of that morning have been read by many Americans as apocalyptic and laden with religious import and meaning. However diverse the readings of these signs, the interpretation of this “absolute event” in the language of “a message from God” has been a constant in American (particularly evangelical American) consciousness.
In Shanksville, Somerset County, Pennsylvania, the site of the United 93 crash, these interpretations have a particular urgency. There, on the morning of September 11th, amid the smoldering remains of the downed jet, first responders claim to have found an open, perfectly intact and only slightly scorched Bible.
Over the past decade the story of this Bible, and the details surrounding its discovery and how it came to be on the plane, have taken on the size and momentum of an urban legend. Starting with an article by Tom Lavis in the Johnstown Tribune-Democrat on the first anniversary of the crash, the story of the Bible has grown in complexity and contradictions. There are now multiple sets of stories about the Bible, each with distinct claims about the Bible’s size, color, condition, and ownership.
These stories have made their way into the background details of not only news accounts like Lavis’s, but also into the books published about the crash, documentaries, official accounts, and at least one major motion picture. A viewing of the film United 93: The Flight that Fought Back, for example, will show a gray-haired gentleman calmly reading Psalm 23 from his black leather Bible while the others decide to fight the hijackers. Alternately, a reading of Jere Longman’s Among the Heroes reveals a young Japanese man who has obtained the Bible, white leather this time, in secret and against the wishes of his family, so he can learn more about Christianity.
These accounts, and many others like them, indicate that this Bible — not only as an extant object, but even more so as an icon — feeds a hunger in some part of the American psyche. The desire that these stories about the Bible be true, and that they mean something about how God relates to both America and the “absolute event” of September 11th, is palpable, and still very present in the communities of Somerset County a decade after the tragedy.
For the past five years I have been researching the genealogy and mythology of this strange object that fell from the skies on that September morning. Through interviews, on-site visits, and examination of photographs and other evidence from the crash I have been able to document the many facets of this phenomenon. I have found the points where the accounts match the facts, and many of the places where they do not. This paper is a presentation of some of those preliminary findings, and an attempt to give the phenomenon itself the beginnings of a theoretical framework.
