Bible Exhibition to Open in Oklahoma City

Passages, a worldwide traveling exhibition on the Bible, makes its debut May 16 at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art. Running through Oct. 16, the interactive, multimedia exhibition will take visitors behind the scenes of the most-banned, most-debated, most-translated, best-selling book of all time.

Passages marks the debut of The Green Collection, one of the world’s newest and largest private collections of rare and biblical texts and artifacts. The collection is named for Oklahoma City’s Green family, founders  of Hobby Lobby, the world’s largest privately owned arts and crafts retailer. The collection was assembled at lightening speed beginning in November 2009, a result of the vision of the collection’s director, ancient/medieval manuscript specialist Dr. Scott Carroll, and the Green family’s resources and passion for the Bible’s impact on history, culture and individual lives.

Passages was announced to a gathering of business, government, academic and religious leaders at the Vatican Embassy (Apostolic Nunciature to the Holy See) in Washington on March 31. A portion of Passages will travel to St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City in October 2011. Plans are for the exhibition to travel to New York City for the Christmas season, with the full schedule to be announced at a later date. Some items are also presently on exhibition at museums and specialty libraries across Europe.

Visitors to Passages will interact with exciting Bible discoveries through multimedia and historical settings including an ancient synagogue and a modern excavation site. Items on display will include one of the earliest fragments of the book of Genesis as well as one of the world’s earliest-known, near-complete Bibles (Codex Climaci Rescriptus), which includes the only surviving New Testament text in Jesus’ household language of Palestinian Aramaic.

Other treasures include a Dead Sea Scroll text, ancient biblical papyri, beautifully illuminated manuscripts, and early printed materials, including a large portion of the Gutenberg Bible and multiple first editions of the English Bible through the King James Version.

(okcmoa.com, thepassages.org)