Museum of the Bible - Part IV - The History of the Bible

The History of the Bible is one of the largest exhibit areas inside Museum of the Bible.  "The Bible's path spans thousands of years, crosses distant lands, and passes through many hands on a journey from the ancient Near East to the ends of the earth."

As you explore this area you'll learn more about the Bible during different periods of history.  The exhibits also talk about several different Bibles--both different translations and the different canons that have been adopted by different groups.

While much of the history was something I'd heard before, there was still plenty to learn and I especially enjoyed the environment that skillfully mixed artifacts, signs, and technology in a way that never ceased informing you, always provided something new to see, and kept the visitor fully engaged.  This area is located on the fourth floor of the museum as you can see in the Explore section of the Museum of the Bible website.

As you can see by this diagram the History of the Bible section is quite large, taking up most of the fourth floor of the Museum.

We started out by entering this room, which turned out to be backwards.  This is illumiNations: Global Bible, which according to the website celebrates "the ever-increasing accessibility of the Bible in this showcase of Bibles in over 1,000 languages developed alongside Every Tribe, Every Nation."  All of the different sections of the shelves are color coded to show which languages have Bibles and which still need them.

As you can see there are still quite a few orange and yellow sections where substantial translation is still needed.

Videos were constantly playing of people around the world reading portions of scripture in their own language.

After seeing this room and just a bit more at the end we headed back to the start of the experience and went through it in chronological order.

 This exhibit features wide paths and many different artifacts, some of which are copies, and some original.

 Egypt figures quite prominently in much of Old Testament history.

 This part looked the most like traditional museum exhibits that I'm familiar with, but later on you'll see touches that take the experience above that of most other museums.

 This is a replica of the Merneptah stele, which contains one of the oldest extra-Biblical references to Israel.

This is a replica of the Mesha Stele.  The translation reads as follows:
"I am Mesha...king of Moab...I built this high place for Chemosh...because he made me more victorious than all the kings, and because he caused me to dominate all my enemies.  Omri was king of Israel, and for many days he subjugated Moab because Chemosh was angry with his land....  Omri had conquered all the land of Madaba... but Chemosh returned it in my day....  I took [the ves]sels of YHWH [the LORD] and I dragged them before Chemosh...."

 This is the Nebuchadnezzar cylinder.  It displays cuneiform text in Akkadian.  There are sixty lines "in which he boasts of building a wall around Babylon."

 "These small silver amulets bear Hebrews inscriptions worn for protection.  Each includes a blessing very similar to the "Priestly Blessing" in the book of Numbers.  They date to the early 6th century BC.  This makes them 350 years older than the first surviving biblical manuscripts!  These pieces show that this blessing was copied down even before the Babylonian exile.

 A selection of ancient artifacts.

 Right before the portion of the exhibit devoted to the Dead Sea Scrolls was this explanation of the portions of Hebrew scripture, the Torah, Nevi'im, and Ketuvim.

What are the Dead Sea Scrolls?  A treasure trove of ancient Jewish writings.  The Dead Sea Scrolls are a collection of ancient Jewish writings about 2,000 years old.  They were discovered in caves along the shore of the Dead Sea.  Most are written in Hebrew, but there are also many in Aramaic, and some in Greek.  The biblical scrolls include fragments from all the books of the Hebrew Bible except Esther and Nehemiah.  Others contain religious commentary, apocalyptic writings, and much more.  Some scrolls present teachings specific to the Essenes, the Jewish religious group that collected this ancient library.
~from exhibit signage

 Some of the fragments on display weren't illuminated unless you triggered a light while looking at them.

 This map shows the network of roads throughout the Roman province of Palestine about 70 AD.

 Here you can see the start of the transformation of Jewish culture from being centered around one temple to being focused on a local synagogue.

 This was one of the first videos we encountered in the exhibit that were produced in association with Drive Thru History.  Dave Stotts and Museum of the Bible cooperated to produce a series of videos covering biblical history that were presented throughout the exhibit area.

 This model of Jerusalem circa AD 70 shows several prominent features including, 1. The Temple Mount, 2. the Palace of Herod the Great, and more.

As we transitioned into the Roman period (especially after the Diaspora) bound books became more popular and formed a large part of what was on display.  Some terms were defined that are quite useful when considering biblical or literary history.

Scroll - A rolled document

Codex - A document on pages bound as a book

Manuscript - A document written by hand

Papyrus - "Paper" made from river reeds

Parchment - Writing material made from animal skins

Vellum - Fine parchment made from the skin of a calf

 This display consisted of a "book" of very durable pages showing which fragments of the Psalms had been found.  Different pages had different notes.  For example this page explains the point at which another scribe took over--known because the handwriting changed.

On these pages you can see parts of Psalms 97 through 100.

This book covers the main versions (not translations) of the Bible used by different groups around the world.

 The Hebrew bible is written from right to left.  Some are still printed in scroll form.

This map shows the distribution of Jewish congregations across the world.  Did you know that Jews from Central Europe are called Ashkenazi and those from the Mediterranean are called Sephardi?

The Samaritan Bible, used by only a few thousand people is the shortest version, consisting only of the books of the Torah.

The Catholic Bible contains a number of books not found in Protestant Bibles including the books of Maccabees.

The King James Bible is one of the most popular translations amongst Protestant groups.

Did you know that "[a]lthough more than 88% of the Greek people are Eastern Orthodox, it makes up only 4.8% of the world's Eastern Orthodox population." More than half of all Eastern Orthodox live in Russia.

The Oriental Orthodox churches include the Coptic and Ethiopic churches, the later of which has more books in its canon than in most other versions of the Bible.

The Assyrian Bible is written in Syriac.

In this 360 view the expanse of the exhibit is clearly visible.

 A number of illuminated manuscripts were on display.  A number of books besides just Bibles were bound together and could be illuminated.

• A Psalter is a bound version of the biblical Book of Psalms.
• The Gospels binds together the four books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
• A Lectionary is a book containing passages meant to be read aloud during worship services over a period of time.
• Missals and Breviaries contain passages and prayers to be read over the course of a year.
• A Book of Hours is meant for personal reading.  It contains prayers and biblical passages--especially Psalms--to read at certain times of day throughout the year.  First used by monks, they became popular among the wealthy in the Middle Ages.

 This illuminated Psalter comes from England circa AD 1450-1460.

This exhibit explains the process of using a printing press.

 Here you can see and touch a case of type (albeit with all pieces glued in place).

Here durable pages allow guests to view how type interacts with paper to impress letters upon a page.

A digital display allows people to pick out type to fill in certain Biblical phrases.

These images are of the Nestorian Stele erected in AD 781 in China.  "The inscription includes references to Genesis, the cross, and baptism, and is considered an early monument to Christianity in China."

At the end of the exhibit a display demonstrated the difficulties translators have when working with languages and people groups that do not have a relationship with the Middle East.

I found this amusing amongst all of the amazing technology.

All of the pictures that I took in this exhibit can be found in this album.

Here is a video that Museum of the Bible just posted about this floor.

After leaving this area nearby was a Drive Thru History of the Bible Theater.

 I'd never seen any of these videos before, but my wife and sister-in-law both recognized them.  It probably would make sense to watch the video in this theater first before exploring The History of the Bible as that area contained shorter videos that went into greater detail than what this video did.

 Apparently the jeep the host drives is a famous part of the series, so one was put on display right outside the theater.

The theater was nice, but unfortunately the staff didn't know how to turn the lights down, so the entire presentation appeared somewhat washed out.  As we were walking out I think I spied the correct control that would have turned the lights out.  I so wanted to hit the button to see if I was correct--but I restrained myself.

The next section of the museum that we visited was the Stories of the Bible area--to be covered tomorrow.

~Matt