Different sections are devoted to different elements of the Bible. One floor, for example, explores the history and culture of the various eras in which various books of the Bible were written. Another is devoted to the Bible’s transmission as a book. A third is devoted to its impact: the different ways it’s been interpreted through time. [...]
Earlier this summer, that recklessness caught up with the Greens. In July, Hobby Lobby admitted to having illegally imported ancient Near Eastern cuneiform tablets — labeled, somewhat unconvincingly, as “spare tiles” — to Hobby Lobby stores in 2010 and 2011 and agreed to pay a $3 million fine and forfeit the antiquities in question. The antiquities were almost certainly intended for the Green collection and, ultimately, for the museum. At the time, they characterized it as part of the museum’s growing pains: “The Company was new to the world of acquiring these items, and did not fully appreciate the complexities of the acquisitions process. This resulted in some regrettable mistakes.” Meanwhile, questions abound about other Dead Sea Scrolls in the collection, some of which may very well be forgeries. [...]
But elsewhere, on floors devoted to the history of the Ancient Near East, scholarship seems to come second to ideology. In a room dedicated to the Exodus narrative (in which Moses led the Jews out of exile in Egypt), there is absolutely no mention of the fact that almost no reputable scholar believes such an exile, or exodus, ever occurred, even as other plaques with (authentic) historical information about Ancient Egypt serve to imply that the exhibit is therefore historical in nature. A casual viewer could easily come away with the impression that the Egyptian exile and exodus were, in fact, historical events.
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