The Museum of the Bible in Washington D.C.

2022-07-30 01:37:55 By : Mr. John Lee

A magazine on religious liberty and human rights

When the European invention of the printing press, based on the movable-types technique which was invented in 11th-century China, perfected and industrialized the process, the choice for the first ever printed book in 1454 (or 1455) fell on the Bible. Today the Bible is the most translated book in the world. There are versions of the complete Bible in 704 of the 7,106 languages estimated to be spoken in the world, translations of the New Testament in 1,551 languages, and translation of parts of the Bible into 1,160 additional languages. The Bible is also the most printed book in history, as well as the best and the longest seller. According to the Guinness World Records, as of 2021 it outnumbered any other publications with an estimated 5 to 7 billion copies sold and distributed (and no, the One Pieces Japanese manga series, ongoing from July 22, 1997, i.e., the best-selling manga in world history, has not outsold the Bible).

For millions of Jews and Christians, the Bible is a divinely inspired Holy Scripture. It remains central also for several new religions. Islam maintains that it contains the true revelation from God, even if distorted by human authors, and it is respected by many other creeds, spiritual movements, and moral schools. It is also highly respected as an immortal piece of world literature by several brands of secular thought. Most probably, the Bible is both the most read and the most quoted book in the world.

There are a few museums in the world dedicated to this this sacred book and its world records, but the largest is the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C.. It is located in the very heart of the city, not far from the National Mall and Congress.

It is a huge five-floor building, full of permanent and temporary exhibitions. Since it takes hours, maybe even a couple of days to fully grasp it, rest awaits the visitor, as at the end of every pilgrimage, on the sixth floor. From there, one can enjoy a scenic view of the city and a restaurant called (with some self-irony) Manna, where kosher food is served too.

The Museum was inaugurated in November 2017 with the blessing of Pope Francis and other Christian leaders. Guiding the visitor through its state-of-the-art technological displays and facilities, it exhibits, literally, thousands of items, documents, and artifacts. They range from the archaeology of ancient Israel to the ethnography of the Middle Eastern peoples, from philology to hermeneutics, from traductology to the political history of peoples, societies, and nations affected by the Bible.

The trip through the history of the Bible starts from the early redactions of the text in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Koine Greek (or the common form of the Greek language used during the Hellenistic period, the Roman Empire and the early Byzantine Empire). It naturally proceeds to the patristic interpretations, moving then to the Medieval and modern times. The key moment for the circulation of the text is focused on the room where the story of German inventor and goldsmith Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg (ca. 1400–1468) and the world impact of his publication of the first Bible is told.

The printing press invented by Gutenberg greatly benefited the Christian Reformation, the direct and personal reading of that holy text being among its most important tenets. But it also fulfilled the desires of Dutch Catholic humanist Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus, known as Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466–1536). He wished to see the Bible translated in all possible languages and printed as a ready-to-use personal tool, so that everyone could (and can) access it directly, even the peasants in the fields.

It is often repeated that Catholic Church held (or holds even today) the personal reading of the Bible in contempt. It didn’t, and certainly it doesn’t today: many examples from saints, religious orders and Popes contradict this false myth. In fact, the Church of Rome was never contrary to the personal reading of the Bible, which today is systematically recommended for personal meditation. However, it warned against subjective interpretations that it believed might have ended up distorting its message, and taught that the Bible should be interpreted according to the Catholic Church’s teachings. With great wisdom and intelligence, the Museum of the Bible in D.C. does not fall into the usual anti-Catholic traps. It respectfully tells a story that Jews and Christians of all persuasion can fully appreciate.

The Museum is not an ecumenical juxtaposition of contradictory approaches. If it were so, perhaps nobody would be offended but nobody would be truly happy either. Rather, the Museum tries to go to the fundamentals and let the Bible, and its history, speak for itself. Rather than the search for a futile mediation, the Museum proposes a look from above.

A few rooms of the Museum focus on the great impact that the Bible had and has in every field of human activity: art, music, work, even politics. A section stands out, and is dedicated to the influence of the Bible in the United States, a country in which religious liberty is proclaimed at the first political right. The American ethos is presented as based on the Bible and opposed to both anti-religious secularism and blind religious fideism. The influence of the Bible in America is also physically traced throughout the city of Washington, D.C. In fact, references to the Bible in places, buildings, and points of interest abound in the federal capital.

At the Museum, the visitor can also enter physically the world of the Bible, an essential aspect of which is of course Nazareth. On the third floor of the Museum, one can walk through a colossal diorama of that small village in Galilee where Jesus—a historical fact attested by independent sources—grew up and lived most of his earthly years. Its walls of “real fake stones” and the ever-present olive trees accompany the pilgrim for dozens of meters, among reconstructed houses, alleys, and the dust and trades of a village of 2,000 years ago. We enter the daily life of Jesus’ time, the everyday life that also Jesus lived with Mary and Joseph in a village that would be forgotten by all if it were not for him.

On the fifth floor, one cannot fail to be struck by an exhibition dedicated to the Shroud of Turin, where mystery and faith meet, and science passes the baton to the ineffable. The atmosphere of the room is peculiar, almost mystical. What does the Shroud have to do with a Museum of the Bible? The story told by that inexplicable linen (and no, carbon dating did not prove it a fake) is a lively photography of Christ’s Passion and Resurrection as narrated in the Gospel—that it, an essential part of the Bible in pictures.

Now, the Museum of the Bible has another secret to reveal. It is religious liberty at its top. In fact, all free human beings—of every religion or of no religion—can explore their relationship with religion and the Bible by simply paying a ticket at the entrance.

Tagged With: Christian Churches, Religious Liberty

Marco Respinti is the Editor-in-Chief of International Family News. He is an Italian professional journalist, member of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), essayist, translator, and lecturer. He has contributed and contributes to several journals and magazines both in print and online, both in Italy and abroad. Author of books, he has translated and/or edited works by, among others, Edmund Burke, Charles Dickens, T.S. Eliot, Russell Kirk, J.R.R. Tolkien, Régine Pernoud and Gustave Thibon. A Senior fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal, a non-partisan, non-profit U.S. educational organization based in Mecosta, Michigan, he is also a founding member as well as Board member of the Center for European Renewal, a non-profit, non-partisan pan-European educational organization based in The Hague, The Netherlands, and a member of the Advisory Council of the European Federation for Freedom of Belief. He serves as Director-in-Charge of the academic publication The Journal of CESNUR and Bitter Winter: A Magazine on Religious Liberty and Human Rights.

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