I've been absent from Wednesday Walks for a while. I have three or four walks to write up and post from my recent trip to Washington D.C. - this is the first.
My trip to Washington D.C. took place from August 9 - 11, 2022. It was BLAZING hot in D.C. on the 9th and 10th. This area had also been receiving a tremendous amount of rain - and we got significant storms on the evening of August 10th which kept me in my hotel room that evening instead of exploring a little bit more.
I arrived in D.C. around noon on the 9th and immediately dropped my bags at my hotel which was about 5 blocks from the mall. The Museum of the Bible was in the next block over. Since it was so incredibly hot and because of flight delays I had missed my ticket time I couldn't visit the National Museum of African American History and Culture I decided I'd give The Museum of the Bible a go.
One of the first things that struck me about this space was how much armed security there was at the Museum. The front exterior doors are massive and guarded by a security person outside as well as three more directly inside as I sent through the very fancy screening machine (that I wasn't allowed to take a picture of)
After purchasing my ticket for about $25, I headed up to the very top floor - deciding I'd work my way down from there.
The top floor is really dedicated to dining and entertainment. There is a restaurant on that floor that didn't choose to eat from. There are also concession carts on every floor as you browse through the library. In addition to the restaurant, the top floor houses some private dining/entertainment spaces that I imagine they rent for events. Additionally, there is an entrance to a theatre where they hold special shows and events. The "terrace" of this theatre is an enclosed glass area with a view of the Capitol
From here, I wandered down through the floors and started to go through the various exhibits. There were several short films made to tell a specific story of some aspect of the Bible.
For example, this Driving Through the Bible film was supposed to put into context a large number of the physical locations around the world that were instrumental in how the Bible grew.
The other major exhibit "experience" I took time for was the walk through Old Testament show.
This combined a lot of sensory experience (warm/cold spaces) as well as lights and unique visual presentations to walk you through the narrative of the Old Testament.
The main elements of the museum though are a massive collection of Bibles and "biblical artifacts" from around the world.
If you're at all familiar with the controversy surrounding this museum it is these "artifacts" that draw the most scrutiny and complaints. I'll offer these opinions to those complaints - as well as a few of my own concerns:
- I don't know what may have been stolen/sourced in an unethical manner from areas of the world such as Israel, Palestine, Iraq, Turkey, and more. That said, any of those items should be removed from this museum and their unethical sourcing admitted to.
- Exhibits showing how the Bible has been used to promote and protect systemic racism through such things as defending slavery in the U.S. are not well highlighted. I do have photos of a couple of those but they are not easy to find. The picture painted throughout the museum is one of the Bible being used by people in a positive manner to support Civil Rights but that is less than half the story from my perspective.
- Exhibits like the one discussing Thomas Jefferson (photo below) do not tell a complete story of the person and their viewpoints.
I recognize my personal complaints represent my very personal point of view that the Bible is a collection of books that contain many genres of literature written by human hands and inspired by God. My view is one that the Bible requires interpretation and we all must live out our own scripture (paraphrasing an idea from Frederick Buechner) by applying Biblical wisdom, truth, and cultural context to our own time and place.
Now, on with those photos
One of my biggest "complaints" about this museum was how poor the quality of the items identified as facsimiles seemed. While I understand they are facsimiles - and they were clearly identified - they looked very fake. It was so bad on this one that I could tell from a ways away that it was definitely not "real".
As you move between the floors of the museum there are a couple of beautiful stained glass displays - one depicting the Four Gospels and one depicting Jesus in Tiffany Glass.
There were two other major interactive style exhibits that I had the time to participate. One was about efforts to Translate the Bible around the world. They had a circular room that was used to visually display efforts to translate the Bible into languages all around the world.
The image below shows one small part of the image above - those translations that are in progress around the world.
The final interactive style exhibit was about the Bible in current day. There was a portion on art, fashion, and media. At the end of this exhibit there was also a discussion on time where you could make a little bookmark that shows your age relative to when they say Jesus was born (essentially 0 AD). It calculates off of a date I can't find any other reference to as the date of Jesus's birth/The year of the Lord - so that feels weird to me.
I did enjoy the discussion and depiction of calendars in the exhibit.
As you exited this exhibit there was a computer based survey you could complete on a touch screen. I was really unimpressed with the survey - particularly the bias inherent in the manner in which the questions were featured as well as the fact that the results were displayed immediately in front of where the survey was administered (see below) which could easily introduce bias into the experience.
If you have an interest in the Bible, I do think this is worth making one visit at some point in your life. It took me about three hours to make my way through the museum. I didn't take in any of the additional ticketed (i.e. additional cost) events and I don't know that I'd ever visit again but it was a good thing to go to once so I can at least speak on it with some personal knowledge.
All images in this post are my original images, taken with a Samsung Galaxy phone.