Washington’s New Bible Museum Is Long On Torahs — But Short On Jesus

Image by Museum of the Bible

By Ari Feldman October 17, 2017

The new Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C., is chock full of Torahs and cutting edge technology, but lacks the evangelical touch that many were expecting, the Washington Post reported.

The $500 million museum, which opens next month, is funded primarily by the Green family, which owns Hobby Lobby, a conservative Christian group that routinely advocates for conservative Christian causes.

The museum purportedly contains the world’s largest private collection of Torahs, but does not encourage visitors to take the bible literally — or take Jesus into their hearts. It is a far cry from the Green family’s stated goal when it began to lay the groundwork for the museum ten years ago: to “bring to life the living word of God . . . to inspire confidence in the absolute authority” of the bible.

“The museum has fence posts — limits. It doesn’t overtly say the Bible is good — that the Bible is true,” Steve Green, the Hobby Lobby chief executive and chair of the museum, told the Washington Post. “That’s not its role. Its role is to present facts and let people make their own decisions.”

The not-for-profit museum is 430,000 square feet of high-tech exhibits showing ancient Jerusalem and digital displays of biblical verses, with a research center that is expected to produce a bible education curriculum for schools.

Contact Ari Feldman at [email protected] or on Twitter @aefeldman.

Ari Feldman is a staff writer at the Forward. He covers Jewish religious organizations, synagogue life, anti-Semitism and the Orthodox world. If you have any tips, you can email him at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @aefeldman.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO