Green Collection

Last updated
Green Collection
GenreBiblical manuscripts and related artifacts
Location(s) Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
InauguratedMarch 31, 2011
ActivityPassages exhibit
Patron(s)Steve Green, president of Hobby Lobby
Website GreenCollection.org

The Green Collection, later known as the Museum Collection, is one of the world's largest private collection of rare biblical texts and artifacts, [1] made up of more than 40,000 biblical antiquities [2] [3] assembled by the Green family, founders of the American retail chain Hobby Lobby.

Contents

The collection is displayed in the $400-million Museum of the Bible which opened in 2017 in Washington, DC. [4] [5] [6]

Background

The collection is named for the Green family, founders and leaders of Hobby Lobby, the world's largest privately owned arts and crafts retailer. The collection was assembled beginning in November 2009 by its original director, ancient/medieval manuscript specialist Scott Carroll, in cooperation with Steve Green, president of Hobby Lobby and the collection's benefactor. [7] [8] The Green Collection is legally owned by Hobby Lobby. [9]

After 2016, the Green Collection became known as the Museum Collection. [9] : 58 

Highlights

Codex Climaci Rescriptus Codex Climaci Rescriptus.jpg
Codex Climaci Rescriptus

The capstone of the Green Collection is the Codex Climaci Rescriptus, known as Uncial 0250 (in the Gregory-Åland numbering); which is a palimpsest whose underwriting includes pages from a Greek uncial manuscript of the New Testament, as well as pages from a Christian Palestinian Aramaic uncial manuscript of the Old and New Testament. Paleographically the Greek section has been assigned to the eighth century (or seventh century), and the Christian Palestinian Aramaic section to the sixth century.

A John Wycliffe Bible in the Green Collection Wycliffe Bible.jpg
A John Wycliffe Bible in the Green Collection

Other items in the Green Collection include: [10]

Provenance

In 2015 questions were raised about the provenance of some articles in the collection when The Daily Beast ran a story about two or three hundred cuneiform tablets purchased from an Israeli antiquities dealer and confiscated by US Customs when they were being shipped to the Green collection storage facility in Oklahoma City in 2011. As of 2015, the tablets remained impounded as a legal dispute regarding the possible illegal purchase of antiquities removed from a conflict zone (Mesopotamia) proceeds. [11]

The museum previously held 16 purported Dead Sea Scrolls, but in March 2020, all of the fragments were confirmed to be archaeological forgeries. [12]

Worldwide exhibitions

Book of Books

On October 23, 2013, a special exhibition drawn from the Green collection, Book of Books, opened at the Bible Lands Museum in Jerusalem, Israel. It will be in Jerusalem until May 24, 2014. It then will become part of the permanent exhibition in the new museum. [13]

Verbum Domini and Verbum Domini II exhibits

Select items from Passages, the Green Collection, and items on loan from other private collections around the world were displayed in St. Peter's Square, Vatican City, for Lent and Easter 2012, highlighting the Jewish and Christian contributions to the formation and preservation of the Bible. The exhibition was repeated in 2014. [9] : 140  American Bible Society and the Vatican Library supported this endeavor. [14] [15]

"Passages"

Passages, a traveling exhibition featuring select items from the Green Collection that tell the story of the English Bible, was announced to a gathering of business, government, academic and religious leaders at the Vatican Embassy in Washington, DC, on March 31, 2011. [16] Passages made its worldwide debut at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art in Oklahoma City—home to Hobby Lobby's headquarters—in May 2011. The exhibit was eventually seen by more than 63,000 people in Oklahoma's capital city. [17] [18]

Visitors to Passages interact with more than 400 rare biblical texts, artifacts and discoveries through multimedia and historical settings in an 30,000-square-foot (2,800 m2) exhibit designed to tell the story of how today's Bible came to be. [18] [19] [20]

Other exhibits

Portions of Passages and the Green Collection have also been on display on various college and university campuses throughout its worldwide tour, including Baylor University for its conference on "The King James Bible and the World It Made, 1611–2011" in April 2011, [21] [22] Liberty University in September 2011, [23] Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in February 2012, [24] and Indiana Wesleyan University in April 2013. [25] Items from the Green Collection appeared at a series of conferences in West Africa in September 2011, [26] and have also been displayed at the Ark Encounter and Creation Museum. [9] : 142 

In honor of the Pope's September 2015 visit to Philadelphia, the Museum of the Bible sponsored a special exhibition of Verbum Domini II at the Philadelphia Convention Center adjacent to the World Meeting. [27]

Green Scholars Initiative

Formed in the summer of 2010, the Green Scholars Initiative, later known as the Scholars Initiative, [9] : 97  provides university mentors and student scholars at participating institutions with research opportunities on items from the Green Collection. [28] [29] Participants in the Scholars Initiative must sign non-disclosure agreements, an unusual requirement for humanities scholarship. [9] : 73  The scholarly analyses by the Scholars Initiative participants help the Green Collection identify and value its items. [9] : 95–96 

Academics and textual experts participating in the Scholars Initiative have included: [30]

Museum of the Bible

The Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C., photographed in 2024 Museum of the Bible (53839146587).jpg
The Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C., photographed in 2024

In 2012, Steve Green announced his family's intention to open a permanent institution, which he claimed would be a scholarly museum, not an evangelistic outreach ministry, within the next four years to house the Green Collection. The mission statement of the museum, however, as found in its 501(c)3 tax filings for 2011, the most recent year available, is "To bring to life the living Word of God, to tell its compelling story of preservation, and to inspire confidence in the absolute authority and reliability of the Bible." [31] More recently, Green told a press conference that the Museum will focus on the Bible's impact, history and narrative, explaining that while he might hope that the museum would bring people to Christianity, the museum is not created as a tool of evangelizing, “We’re not discussing a lot of particulars of the book. It’s more of a high-level discussion of here’s this book, what is its history and impact and what is its story." [5]

The Greens identified Washington, DC, Dallas, and New York City as finalists for the museum's location. [32]

In July 2012, the Green Collection announced the purchase of the building housing the Washington Design Center in DC, for a reported $50 million, to house the as-yet-unnamed national Bible museum. [33] [34] [35] [36] The building is located two blocks from the National Mall at 300 D. Street SW, near the Federal Center SW Metro station. The museum will reportedly charge admission, as do other private museums in Washington, such as the National Building Museum, the International Spy Museum, and the Newseum. [37] The museum was constructed in the former Design Center, an historically protected Renaissance Revival building close to the National Mall and the United States Capitol. [4] [5] [38] [39]

Donations from the Green Collection are made to the Museum of the Bible, providing a tax write-off to Hobby Lobby. [9]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bible</span> Collection of religious texts

The Bible is a collection of religious texts or scriptures which to a certain degree are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, Islam, the Baháʼí Faith, and other Abrahamic religions. The Bible is an anthology originally written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Koine Greek. The texts include instructions, stories, poetry, prophecies, and other genres. The collection of materials that are accepted as part of the Bible by a particular religious tradition or community is called a biblical canon. Believers in the Bible generally consider it to be a product of divine inspiration, but the way they understand what that means and interpret the text varies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gospel of Luke</span> Book of the New Testament

The Gospel of Luke is the third of the New Testament's four canonical Gospels. It tells of the origins, birth, ministry, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus. Together with the Acts of the Apostles, it makes up a two-volume work which scholars call Luke–Acts, accounting for 27.5% of the New Testament. The combined work divides the history of first-century Christianity into three stages, with the gospel making up the first two of these – the life of Jesus the messiah (Christ) from his birth to the beginning of his mission in the meeting with John the Baptist, followed by his ministry with events such as the Sermon on the Plain and its Beatitudes, and his Passion, death, and resurrection.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dead Sea Scrolls</span> Ancient Jewish manuscripts

The Dead Sea Scrolls, also called the Qumran Caves Scrolls, are a set of ancient Jewish manuscripts from the Second Temple period. They were discovered over a period of 10 years, between 1946 and 1956, at the Qumran Caves near Ein Feshkha in the West Bank, on the northern shore of the Dead Sea. Dating from the 3rd century BCE to the 1st century CE, the Dead Sea Scrolls include the oldest surviving manuscripts of entire books later included in the biblical canons, including deuterocanonical manuscripts from late Second Temple Judaism and extrabiblical books. At the same time, they cast new light on the emergence of Christianity and of Rabbinic Judaism. Almost all of the 15,000 scrolls and scroll fragments are held in the Shrine of the Book at the Israel Museum located in Jerusalem. The Israeli government's custody of the Dead Sea Scrolls is disputed by Jordan and the Palestinian Authority on territorial, legal, and humanitarian grounds—they were mostly discovered following the Jordanian annexation of the West Bank and were acquired by Israel after Jordan lost the 1967 Arab–Israeli War—whilst Israel's claims are primarily based on historical and religious grounds, given their significance in Jewish history and in the heritage of Judaism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Egypt Exploration Society</span> British non-profit archeological organization

The Egypt Exploration Society (EES) is a British non-profit organization. The society was founded in 1882 by Amelia Edwards and Reginald Stuart Poole in order to examine and excavate in the areas of Egypt and Sudan. The intent was to study and analyze the results of the excavations and publish the information for the scholarly world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Museum of American History</span> Museum in Washington, D.C.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hobby Lobby</span> American arts-and-crafts store chain based in Oklahoma

Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., formerly Hobby Lobby Creative Centers, is an American retail company. It owns a chain of arts and crafts stores with a volume of over $5 billion in 2018. The chain has 1,001 stores in 48 U.S. states. The Green family founded Hobby Lobby to express their evangelical Protestant beliefs and the chain incorporates American conservative values and Christian media.

Modern pseudepigrapha, or modern apocrypha, refer to pseudepigrapha of recent origin – any book written in the style of the books of the Bible or other religious scriptures, and claiming to be of similar age, but written in a much later (modern) period. They differ from apocrypha, which are books from or shortly after the scriptural period but not accepted into the religion's canon. Exposing modern pseudepigrapha is part of the fields of palaeography and papyrology, amongst others.

David Green is an American businessman and the founder of Hobby Lobby, a chain of arts and crafts stores. He is a major financial supporter of Evangelical organizations in the United States and funded the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C.

The Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts (CSNTM) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization whose mission is to digitally preserve Greek New Testament manuscripts. Toward that end, CSNTM takes digital photographs of manuscripts at institutions, libraries, museums, monasteries, universities, and archives around the world. The images produced are freely accessible on the Center's website—a searchable library of Greek New Testament manuscripts. With more than 50,000 users examining manuscripts in their digital library each year, the Center's digitization work facilitates a partnership between manuscript owners, archivists, and researchers around the world.

The Yeshiva University Center for Israel Studies reflects the longstanding relationship between Yeshiva University and Israel. It supports research, conferences, publications, museum exhibitions, public programs and educational opportunities that enhance awareness and study of Israel in all of its complexities. The center is led by Director Steven Fine, Professor of Jewish History at Yeshiva University, and Associate Director Joshua Karlip, Professor of Jewish History at Yeshiva University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Papyrus 39</span> New Testament manuscript

Papyrus 39, signed by 𝔓39, is an early copy of the New Testament in Greek. It is a papyrus manuscript of the Gospel of John, it contains only John 8:14-22. The manuscript paleographically had been assigned to the 3rd century. Written by professional scribe, in 25 lines per page, in large, beautiful letters. It has numbered pages.

Jerry A. Pattengale is a faculty member and administrator at Indiana Wesleyan University. He coined and founded the approach of “purpose-guided education” in 1997 while leading the implementation of student success programs at Indiana Wesleyan University. His approach includes calling for a humanities approach to student success, and the need for faculty involvement in the development of strategies.

Larry Weir Hurtado, was an American New Testament scholar, historian of early Christianity, and Emeritus Professor of New Testament Language, Literature, and Theology at the University of Edinburgh (1996–2011). He was the head of the School of Divinity from 2007 to 2010, and was until August 2011 Director of the Centre for the Study of Christian Origins at the University of Edinburgh.

Dirk D. Obbink is an American papyrologist and classicist. He was Lecturer in Papyrology and Greek Literature in the Faculty of Classics at Oxford University until 6 February 2021, and was the head of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri Project until August 2016. Obbink was also a fellow and tutor in Greek at Christ Church Oxford, from which role he was suspended in October 2019, as a result of allegations that he had stolen some of the Oxyrhynchus papyri and sold them to the Museum of the Bible.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Museum of the Bible</span> History museum in Washington DC, United States

The Museum of the Bible is a museum in Washington, D.C., United States, owned by Museum of the Bible, Inc., a non-profit organization established in 2010 by the Green family. The museum documents the narrative, history, and impact of the Bible. It opened on November 17, 2017, and has 1,150 items in its permanent collection and 2,000 items on loan from other institutions and collections.

Candida R. Moss is an English public intellectual, journalist, New Testament scholar and historian of Christianity, and as of 2017, the Edward Cadbury Professor of Theology in the Department of Theology and Religion at the University of Birmingham. A graduate of Oxford and Yale universities, Moss specialises in the study of the New Testament, with a focus on the subject of martyrdom in early Christianity, as well as other topics from the New Testament and early Church History. She is the winner of a number of awards for her research and writing and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Trobisch</span> German scholar (born 1958)

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Uncial 0220</span> New Testament manuscript

Uncial 0220, also known as the Wyman fragment, is a leaf of a third-century Greek codex containing the Epistle to the Romans.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hobby Lobby smuggling scandal</span> 2009 controversy

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Papyrus 137</span> New Testament manuscript

Papyrus 137 is a late 2nd or earlie 3rd century fragment of the first chapter of the Gospel of Mark The fragment is from a codex and has been published in the Oxyrhynchus papyrus series as P.Oxy. LXXXIII 5345.

References

  1. ↑ LaMonica, Gabe (April 5, 2011). "Eyeing a national museum, a collector's Bibles hits the road". CNN. Archived from the original on 22 March 2023. Retrieved 8 April 2011.
  2. ↑ Grossman, Cathy Lynn (April 4, 2011). "High-tech museum to take scholarly view of Bible". USA Today. Retrieved 8 April 2011.
  3. ↑ Niemi, Carol (December 6, 2011). "'Passages' features rarest Bible artifacts in six-month run here". USA Today. Retrieved 19 December 2011.
  4. 1 2 Sheir, Rebecca. "D.C. Bible Museum Will Be Immersive Experience, Organizers Say". NPR. Retrieved 25 February 2015.
  5. 1 2 3 O'Connell, Jonathan (12 February 2015). "Even non-believers may want to visit the $400 million Museum of the Bible". The Washington Post. Retrieved 3 March 2015.
  6. ↑ Parker, Loanne (28 March 2014). "Which Museums Show Real Promise?". The Washington Post. Retrieved 8 April 2015.
  7. ↑ Fabrikant, Geraldine (June 11, 2010). "Craft Shop Family Buys Up Ancient Bibles for Museum". The New York Times. Retrieved 8 April 2011.
  8. ↑ "Bible Collection Goes on Tour". Fox News. August 19, 2011. Retrieved 19 December 2011.
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Moss, Candida R.; Baden, Joel S. (2017). Bible nation: the United States of Hobby Lobby. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. p. 25. ISBN   978-0-691-17735-9. OCLC   974676035.
  10. ↑ "Green Collection boasts rare Bibles and more". USA Today. April 4, 2011. Retrieved 8 April 2011.
  11. ↑ Vikan, Gary (30 October 2015). "Probe of Steve Green's antiquities may be inevitable; his response is not". Religion News Service . Retrieved 9 November 2015.
  12. ↑ Ouellette, Jennifer (2020-03-23). "All 16 Dead Sea Scroll fragments in the Museum of the Bible are fakes". Ars Technica. Retrieved 2020-03-25.
  13. ↑ "‘Book of Books’ traces history of the Bible; An exhibit about Judaism and Christianity’s connection premieres at the Bible Lands Museum," Benji Rosen, Jerusalem Post, Archived 2013-10-29 at the Wayback Machine
  14. ↑ Belz, Emily (April 1, 2011). "Love of the book". World Magazine. Retrieved 8 April 2011.
  15. ↑ Hinton, Carla (April 3, 2011). "OKC family's exhibit's collaboration with Vatican adds worldwide appeal". The Oklahoman. Retrieved 8 April 2011.
  16. ↑ "Large Bible collection is premiered". Christian Retailing. March 31, 2011. Retrieved 8 April 2011.
  17. ↑ Lackmeyer, Steve (April 3, 2011). "Passages exhibit expected to bring thousands downtown". The Oklahoman. Retrieved 8 April 2011.
  18. 1 2 Ruggieri, Melissa (December 8, 2011). "'Passages' seeks to biblically enlighten". The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Archived from the original on July 22, 2012. Retrieved 19 December 2011.
  19. ↑ McDonnell, Brandy (April 3, 2011). ""Passages" designed to bring interactive, all-ages experience to OKC Museum of Art". The Oklahoman. Archived from the original on 10 July 2012. Retrieved 8 April 2011.
  20. ↑ Wilson, Karen (September 22, 2012). "Exhibit's rare artifacts help tell story of the Bible". Independent Tribune. Archived from the original on 26 January 2013. Retrieved 3 October 2012.
  21. ↑ LeBlanc, Matthew (April 6, 2011). "Rare, priceless Bibles on display at Baylor". KYTX-CBS19. Archived from the original on 14 March 2012. Retrieved 8 April 2011.
  22. ↑ Mardirosian, Jade (April 7, 2011). "Exhibit celebrates 400 years of famous Bible text". The Baylor Lariat. Archived from the original on 28 July 2011. Retrieved 8 April 2011.
  23. ↑ "Rare, ancient manuscripts on display in Art Gallery". September 29, 2011. Retrieved 3 October 2012.
  24. ↑ "Traveling Exhibit of Biblical Manuscripts Coming to Gordon-Conwell". December 14, 2011. Archived from the original on 5 March 2016. Retrieved 3 October 2012.
  25. ↑ "David Green to showcase antique pieces at IWU". Archived from the original on 2017-07-01. Retrieved 2016-03-02.
  26. ↑ Samba, Augustine (September 20, 2011). "In Sierra Leone, Christians to Showcase 2000 Years Artefacts". Awareness Times. Retrieved 19 December 2011.
  27. ↑ O'Reilly, David (12 August 2015). "Exhibit of historic bibles, artifacts to precede pope's visit". The Philadelphia Inquirer. Retrieved 13 August 2015.
  28. ↑ Tunney, Kelly (March 28, 2011). "Students to publish ancient text through Green Scholars Initiative". Kent Wired. Archived from the original on 9 July 2012. Retrieved 8 April 2011.
  29. ↑ Brinkman, Lillie-Beth (April 3, 2011). "New discoveries may await in study of Green Collection of ancient biblical texts". The Oklahoman. Archived from the original on 15 May 2012. Retrieved 8 April 2011.
  30. ↑ "Scholars & Staff". Green Scholars Initiative. Archived from the original on March 1, 2013. Retrieved 3 October 2012.
  31. ↑ Caplan-Bricker, Nora (March 25, 2014). "The Hobby Lobby President Is Also Building a Bible Museum for Over $70 Million". The New Republic. Retrieved 2 March 2015.
  32. ↑ Banks, Adelle M. (July 10, 2012). "Bible museum planned for Washington, D.C." The Washington Post. Retrieved 24 September 2012.
  33. ↑ Banks, Adelle M. (July 28, 2012). "Washington D.C.: Bible Museum Closes $50 Million Deal For Spot Near National Mall". Religion News Service. Retrieved 3 October 2012.
  34. ↑ Sernovitz, Daniel (July 20, 2012). "Museum makes a divine acquisition". Washington Business Journal. Retrieved 3 October 2012.
  35. ↑ Joynt, Carol Ross (July 31, 2012). "The Museum of the Bible to Replace the Washington Design Center". Washingtonian. Retrieved 24 September 2012.
  36. ↑ Beermann, Judith (July 30, 2012). "Divine Decor to Divine Inspiration: WDC Becomes Bible Museum". The Georgetown Dish. Retrieved 3 October 2012.
  37. ↑ McKay, Dominique (September 19, 2012). "D.C. Bible Museum Near National Mall Will Charge Admission". Roll Call. Retrieved 3 October 2012.
  38. ↑ DPA (13 February 2015). "Private Bible museum to be built in heart of Washington, D.C." Haaretz. Retrieved 25 February 2015.
  39. ↑ David Ferguson (July 17, 2014). "Hobby Lobby family: Our $800m D.C. Bible museum will save U.S. from 'very scary' future". RawStory.com. Archived from the original on 2014-07-20. Retrieved 2014-07-17.
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