Pres.-elect Barack Obama takes a group photo with Marines in Kailua, Hawaii, 22 Dec 2008

President-elect Barack Obama will be sworn-in to the executive office with the Bible that Abraham Lincoln used to take the oath of office more than a century ago.

The presidential inaugural committee says Mr. Obama will be the first president sworn-in with that Bible since President Lincoln used it in 1861.  Mr. Obama is to become the first African-American president of the United States.

The Bible, bound in burgundy velvet and with gilded edges, is housed with the U.S. Library of Congress.

The executive director of the inaugural committee says Mr. Obama is "deeply honored" that the Library of Congress has made the historic book available for the swearing-in.

Obama launched his bid for the presidency outside the Old State Capitol building in Springfield, Illinois, where Mr. Lincoln served as a state legislator before becoming one of the most important presidents in American history, seeing the country through civil war and the abolition of slavery.