The Museum of the Bible.

 
The Museum of the Bible is an institution continuously plagued by scandals from purchasing looted artifacts to Dead Sea Scroll fragments that turn out to be frauds. For all its claims to being “non-sectarian” board members and directors must sign a pledge stating that the Bible is “true.” The major funder of the museum is Hobby Lobby that makes no secret of promoting a very literalist and politicized understanding of the Bible that serves a right wing political and cultural agenda.

I think the central problem of the museum that opens it up to so much fraud and scandal is an idea near and dear to the hearts of Christian fundamentalists, that the Bible as we have it now was passed down intact and unaltered through the ages from around the time of Christ. The problem with that idea is that it is demonstrably untrue. There was nothing like what we would recognize as the Christian Bible until about the 6th century. Even so, the Book of Revelations so central to American fundamentalist orthodoxy did not enter the Biblical canon until after it was officially closed at the end of the 7th century. The Eastern Orthodox Churches still refuse to recognize Revelations (or the Apocalypse) as canonical and do not include it in their Bible or liturgy. 

[Correction:  Eastern Orthodoxy does include Revelations in their Biblical canon, but not in their liturgy.]

 The Christian Bible in its present form came out of generations of argument and conflict, some of which remains unresolved. How many Gospels would be included? Which Gospels? In what order? What are the criteria by which decisions are made? Should the Jewish Scriptures be included? Which ones and in what order? Which Epistles would be included? Why? Who wrote them? All these questions were fought over for centuries before they were resolved, sometimes arbitrarily. Some books that were very popular and widely read among early Christians did not make it into the Biblical canon such as The Shepherd of Hermas and the Letters of Ignatius of Antioch. 

 The problem with the Museum of the Bible is that it searches for evidence to prove a pre-conceived idea instead of letting the evidence speak for itself.  This leaves them open to all kinds of fraud peddled by con-men who tell them what they want to hear.