>> Amusingly, some really Bible-believing folks will not swear, on a Bible or on anything else, due to Matthew 5:34-37. This intellectual consistency is lost of course when we reduce swearing on the Bible to either convention or magic. > The Bible is infamous for being logically inconsistent. It contradicts itself at every turn.

If Jesus says 'do not swear an oath at all' (Matthew 5:34), and some president or official has been swearing on the Bible since 1789 – as in the case of The United States – what does that have to do with Jesus being inconsistent? The contradictions come when people read His word and decide not to follow it! (And I have done this many times myself in many other ways, sadly, and therefore grateful to Jesus for saving 'a wretch like me').