BIBLE NEWS: Biblical Art Museum Closing

The Bible has been inspiring artists of all kinds since the beginning of its history, and it continues to serve as a muse today.  But that doesn't mean that Biblical art can find donors to keep museums open.  The Museum of Biblical Art in Manhattan is closing due to lack of funds to support the necessary space to showcase masterpieces.

If you think religious imagery has no place in modern art, consider Barnett Newman’s paintings Adam and Eve. Newman translates the Bible’s first man and woman into red vertical columns in fields of purple-brown: the nude portrayals of these inhabitants of Eden by earlier artists such as Albrecht Dürer become lines of stark abstraction. This is not the only echo of Genesis in Newman’s art. His entire aesthetic of sublime power suggests God giving the 10 commandments to Moses or dividing the waters from the earth. Newman’s Broken Obelisk might be an image of the destruction of the temple or the fall of Babylon. In his cycle of shockingly austere paintings The Stations of the Cross, he turns to the New Testament story of the Passion.

BIBLE NEWS: Museum of the Bible

A new "Museum of the Bible" is being built in Washington, D.C. by the founder of Hobby Lobby.  It will feature exhibits on the impact and history of the Bible thru the centuries.

Unlike Answers in Genesis, the ministry that launched the Creation Museum in Kentucky and an Ark Encounter park under construction, employees need not pass a Christians-only litmus test. Green said believers, skeptics and the “intellectually curious” alike can visit and learn, just as they might at a science museum.
“The Bible can speak for itself, explain itself.”

MUSICAL INTERLUDE: Solid Ground

BIBLE NEWS: Bible Museum coming to Washington D.C.

The Bible is written by people who were eye-witnesses to the acts of God and His people. Clearly, there is value in seeing for yourself what God has done for you, over the course of history. In this spirit, a new group is looking to build a Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C., so that visitors can see Biblical-artifacts from over the years and see recreations of major events in Bible history.

Summers said the traveling exhibit recreates at 80 percent scale the chamber of London’s Westminster Abbey where the King James Version of the Bible was written. A full-scale recreation is planned for the museum. 

Steve Green, president of the Hobby Lobby arts and crafts chain and a Southern Baptist, said the museum will feature the history, contents and influence of the Bible but will leave it up to visitors to decide whether to believe the holy book. 

“When we present the evidence, I think it’s going to be compelling for somebody to say, ‘Wow, this is a compelling book. I might want to consider what it has to say,’” he said.

Bible collection to become Bible museum?

What do you do if you have one of the largest private collections of Bible artifacts in the world? If you're Steve Green, you take it on the road in preparation for a National Bible Museum.

The tour kicked off last week with a party at the Vatican embassy in Washington that highlighting samples from a 14,000 square foot traveling exhibition, which is called “Passages.” It’s a prelude to the high-tech Bible museum Green wants to open in the next five or so years.

“The Bible has had a huge impact on societies - politics, the arts, science, music, literature,” says Green, who is Christian. “The impact of the book is a story that we feel needs to be told and that is what we are interested in doing - and encouraging people to consider what it has to say.”

“We believe it is the most incredible book that’s ever been written,” he says. “It is a book that has been ridiculed and vilified and yet loved.”

Who knows? Maybe some day the Quiz Team will take a field trip to see the museum?

Florida Bible Museum

The Bible is so much a part of history that the various translations and editions that have been produced over the centuries are intertwined with the times and places where they were written. Every Bible is not only a historical record of the Word of God, but also a piece of history itself, so it should not be surprising to find Bible museums like the one in Tarpon Springs, Florida where a large collection of historical Bibles is preserved for all to see.

Leslie Hale is a preacher who settled here from Ireland. His bible collection spans several centuries. In six years, the museum at the church that has grown to almost 400 pieces of antiquity for all to see.

"I had a great burden to cause the people to have a new appreciation of God's word," Hale explained. "They said it was too holy to have human error."

Each piece has a story. Among the ancient scrolls and commentaries are 14 Geneva Bibles brought to America by the pilgrims. These books of worship were the cornerstone of life in the early English settlements.

"Most have never heard of it, and we have 14. This one here is dated 1589. Just think of that, and there's actually notes that are written inside this bible," Hale said.

Another priceless rare treasure is the Baskerville Bible from the 1700s, which is the blueprint for the modern King James version.

Gutenberg Bibles on Display

Morgan Gutenberg was the man who invented the printing press and ushered in the age of inexpensive publishing to the world. Do you now what was the first book he printed using his famous press? THE BIBLE! Now, three copies of Gutenberg Bibles are on display at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York City.

The Morgan's Gutenberg Bibles — two on paper and one on vellum — represent the largest number of copies in any single collection.

The museum says each Bible "has characteristics that set it apart from the others." But taken together, they "offer fascinating insights into Gutenberg's ambitious plans for this masterpiece of printing."

If you are interested, it may be worth a trip into NYC this summer.

Picturing the Bible: The Earliest Christian Art

It often seems like people consider the Bible these days to be something completely divorced from "life". We hear about the BIble vs Science. The Bible vs. History. The Bible vs. Art. But the fact of the matter is that the Bible has been central to the development of Western culture, and has been central to the development of historical study, the scientific method, and most of all the development of different art forms. Consider this article the next time someone speaks of the Bible as though it were separable from the other good things in our culture.

Commented Timothy Potts, director of the Kimbell Art Museum: “The origins of Christianity have been a very active area of research in recent years from a variety of perspectives—historical, theological, and artistic. But there has never been an exhibition that brings this new evidence together, allowing visitors to see in the works of art themselves how and why a distinctively Christian visual artistic culture emerged. In "Picturing the Bible" we see how the early Christians drew upon pagan and Old Testament motifs to express their new faith; we witness the interplay between the earliest artistic representations of biblical themes and the doctrinal debates among early Church Fathers over the correct interpretation of scripture; and in the process come face to face with many of the finest and most treasured images that have survived from the tumultuous centuries when Christianity emerged from persecution to become the state religion of the Roman Empire. Assembling so many of the most important masterpieces of early Christian art has been a major challenge—especially the fragile early Bibles, ivories, and gold glass—and presents a spectacle of early Christian life that is unlikely to be repeated in our lifetime.”