According to a well-traveled story, all Amish quilts include at least one intentional mistake to guard against the sin of pride. Although this is almost certainly a rural version of an urban legend, it captures a deep paradox experienced in many Anabaptist communities. 

Perfectionism is deeply rooted in a religious tradition focused on the teachings and example of Jesus: “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” ­(Matthew 5:48, KJV). 

But the quest for perfection also includes a commitment to humility. So the quilter is left with a quandary.

The reality is that no one who has pieced or stitched a quilt intentionally makes mistakes as a hedge against pride. Anyone who looks closely — at our quilts, our families or our churches — will quickly discover an abundance of genuine imperfections that required no conscious effort. Reasons for humility in Anabaptist communities do not need to be manufactured. 

My mind has been drawn to Amish quilters in recent weeks as reviews of the Anabaptist Community Bible have begun to appear. Like most quilts, that project was truly a communal effort, the result of many hands contributing thousands of “stitches.” And, like quilts hung in public display, many people have lauded the resulting tapestry of the Anabaptist Community Bible as a thing of beauty. As someone who helped to midwife that project, those words of praise are music to my ears.  

But I have also become painfully aware of mistakes in the Anabaptist Community Bible that have served as a check against the sin of pride. 

Some are typographical errors — a missing capital “U,” for example, at the beginning of a marginal note in Job 32:6. 

Some crept in as a result of the complex layout process. I don’t know how the note for Daniel 7:25 somehow got divided across two pages. 

At least one mistake was the result of an editorial effort to shorten a lengthy commentary, so that the scholar who wrote the Biblical Context notes for Job observed that we inadvertently substituted “Job” for “Eliphaz” in a note on Job 22:2-4, thereby changing the meaning.  

A slightly humorous mistake in a Community Reflection note identifies the woman in John 8:3-11 as being caught in “idolatry” rather than “adultery.” 

Thus far, the list of errata is not unusually long for a project of this complexity. But of all the mistakes identified thus far, the one that pains me the most has to do with the Acknowledgments. In the preface we attempted to list all the individuals and groups who had a hand in creating the Anabaptist Community Bible. That list included not only editors, designers, artists, historians and biblical scholars but also the hundreds of Bible study groups who provided the commentary for the Community Reflection notes. 

It was the contribution of these groups — ordinary lay people who gathered in homes, Sunday school classes and church basements to discuss the texts together — that made the Anabaptist Community Bible truly unique among the many study Bibles already on the market. 

It was important to us to list the specific names of these groups, and we even had a process to confirm exactly how the groups wished their names to appear. But somehow the names of several groups did not appear in the list of contributors, an especially painful error since this was a project celebrating community. 

So far we’ve noted five groups missing from the Acknowledgments: Lititz Church of the Brethren in Pennsylvania; Rochester Mennonite Church in Minnesota; Aberdeen Mennonite Church, Winnipeg, Man.; Sunny­side Mennonite Church, Lancaster, Pa.; and Salem Mennonite Church, Freeman, S.D. 

The second printing will correct these and all the other mistakes we’ve noted. But the sting of exclusion remains.

All those who contributed to the project have good reason to be proud of the Anabaptist Community Bible. But the quest for community is somehow always in tension with the reality of imperfection — our sins of commission and omission. Unlike Amish quilters, we don’t need to manufacture mistakes to preserve our humility. They are inherent in our humanity.  

So we take our victory lap with a limp, hoping the second printing will rectify the errors but knowing that we have not “already been perfected, but [we] pursue it, so that we may grab hold of it because Christ grabbed hold of us for just this purpose” (Philippians 3:12, CEB).