In the Spring of 2018, I was in Washington D.C. for a museums conference and heard a lot about the newly opened (November 2017) Museum of the Bible. The six-floor $400 million project was launched and largely funded by the Green family that owns Hobby Lobby.
Even before it opened, the museum was immersed in a smuggling scandal over thousands of looted Iraqi antiquities acquired by devious means for the museum. The Green family paid millions in fines and returned many of the artifacts. The story is here.
A second scandal surrounded Dead Sea Scrolls fragments donated to the museum by Hobby Lobby founder Steve Green. Shortly after the museum opened they were called out as possible forgeries. They remained on display until 2020 when they were finally removed after being definitely declared forgeries. Science writer Jennifer Ouellette reported on the forgeries.
I did not write about the visit at the time because I had such a bad experience. But while visiting several museums in Europe in the past two weeks, I remembered the Museum of the Bible. My overwhelming memory of the visit was of noise and flashing light. The section on Biblical archeology had highly produced videos in which a very handsome man sped around the desert in a very expensive Land Rover telling us the wonders he was digging up (with his manicured hands).
At the time, I knew Christian Nationalism was a threat to democracy, but not nearly the threat it is now. So one of the worst aspects of the museum did not hit me as hard then. There is a strong promotion of America being founded as a Christian nation with a mission for God. It looked crazy at the time. It is ominous now that Great Replacement Theory is the official position of the Republican Party.
Another scandal among people talking about the Museum of the Bible in 2018 was the opening Gala. It was held at the Trump Hotel in Washington. Many of the staff refused to attend.
