Can Hobby Lobby Buy the Bible?

Yes, I read this as well. It touches on the much larger issue of the underground artifact trade. As most of us know this has exploded with the conflict in the Middle East, which brought in hundreds of thousands of young men and women with money to spend into local places where the economy and physical world were being turned upside down. Truth be told, whenever I have had the opportunity to talk to folks who were there, I often have taken the opportunity to ask about "souvenirs." I have often mourned the unrecorded removal of objects from their provenience, and the loss of knowledge that this brings. Trust me, I have. At the same time, there are balancing considerations. 1) Many things have been destroyed in this area, and many more are being destroyed by current movements. How many little carvings, authentic and replica, were actually saved from destruction by thoughtless/irresponsible acquisition and removal over the last ten years? 2) These are objects. Somebody must possess them. If not individuals, then who? "It belongs in a Museum!" shouts Indiana Jones. Well, in many cases, wealthy collectors are the source for museum pieces. And in many instances these collectors take pretty good care of the items even if they are in their own possession. 3) Not all purchasers have equal concern/knowledge of the artifacts that they acquire. In cases like this, no matter how icky some of the acquisition process makes me feel, and no matter how much I might question if I would/could do such a thing, I can nonetheless be thankful that this family seems to be getting a lot of stuff and they actually want to put it in a museum. But what about encouraging the trade? That is a real issue. The world is full of the trade of goods that only rise in price with greater demand. This causes ever increasing efforts at obtaining the goods, through all manner of means, many of them very bad. Ultimately, short of piling up tons of bibles and burning them like ivory, I don't know what we might be able to do. Even if we seek to restrain purchases like this in the US, they will happen elsewhere. The Chinese, Russian, Middle Eastern, and African ultra-rich certainly have their own groups who will find ways of getting their hands on manuscripts. Moreover, the very act of causing the trade to be illegal, or pursuing those involved, will serve nothing except push the trade, and the manuscripts, further underground. So, yes. Some of this makes me feel yucky. But, ultimately, as one who has had the opportunity to look at old manuscripts in museums, and one who has benefited from the scholarship of those who have gotten "hands on" time, I think the practice of this family is probably better than the alternatives.

Thank you for posting this important article on the Museum of the Bible from the Atlantic Magazine, which raises several very important issues. I have a great interest in the Museum of the Bible. Indeed we all should be interested, as there seems little doubt that it will become the biggest Bible Museum in the world and an important manuscript study facility. Our interest in Australia and therefore my personal interest derive from the fact that senior staff of Museum of the Bible have already visited us here. I had the privilege of meeting with Dr Allen Quine, Vice President for International Relations. (Dr David Trobisch, Director of Collections, had unexpected airline problems and sadly missed the meeting but we remain in touch by email etc). What we learned in no uncertain terms from Allen Quine is that they are very committed to their grand design of creating as comprehensive a collection as possible of Biblical materials, manuscripts, artefacts, books, etc, of making these available for viewing and study and of doing this, not only in Washington DC, but in time, everywhere in the world including here in Australia, independently or through strategic partnerships. The magazine article raised several concerns, among which was issue of illegal trade in ancient manuscripts and artefacts, especially since the political unrest and war in the middle east. I am in no way qualified to comment on this but I certainly gained the impression that the Museum of the Bible was determinedly a very ethical organisation. They are deservedly proud of the close working relationships they already have with prestigious organisations such as the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and the Vatican Library (which incidentally has loaned them priceless manuscripts never before seen outside the Vatican). I am absolutely certain that they would not want to prejudice these relationships by shoddy transactions with irresponsible dealers in antiquities. they want to become world class and world renowned. This is not to say that they could never inadvertently become part of an unethical or even illegal transaction, as the article was intimating. Many very ethical and responsible organisations have unknowingly done so. The National Art Gallery of Australia has just returned valuable purchased artefacts to India after the dealer was discredited. I have not the slightest doubt that the Museum of the Bible does its research as carefully as it can and that if a mistake was made, that they too would want to make it right as soon as possible. Their hard-won reputation would be at stake. The other issue raised by the magazine article was to do with denominational bias but the article's conclusions about that reflect the ignorance of the journalist about the history of the Bible. It was suggested in a mildly critical fashion that given the denominational background of the major players in the Museum that it would have a Protestant bias. Well of course it will, certainly for the last 700 years! The undeniable fact of the history of the Bible is that since the 1300s the translation of the Bible into the languages of the world has been driven by Protestantism and that translators died for it. The Catholic Church has changed in its attitude to Bible translation and Bible reading but that is relatively recently. We cannot play down the centuries of Protestant determination to provide the Bible in the languages of the people just for the sake of modern political correctness. I had my own question to ask. I came to the meeting a bit worried that, given the background of the Museum's backers, it might be an institution designed in part to promote the Christian Right, particularly its American political and social agenda. I took a deep breath and asked my question. I was assured that this was not so and nothing I have read or heard since suggests that it will ever be so. Again they value their relationship with great world institutions, Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox and Jewish, and I have very reason to believe they will go to great lengths to preserve that generous academic neutrality. You will not go to the Museum and find banners promoting anybody's social or political agendas. They intend to be the premier institution in the world for the study of the history of the Bible and they are well on the way to becoming just that.

Sorry it wasn't clear. I realize that these laws are on the books. And that is part of my point. Lots of trade is illegal, but it happens. The fact is that this kind of thing is pretty hard to actually enforce. Folks can try. Hey, governments and individuals have been trying for years with ivory, Rhino horn, shark fins, lumber, and so on. And there are a lot more people concerned about animals than about historical artifacts. The problem is even with huge amounts of money pumped into developing world economies with the goal of stopping illicit trade, success is hardly absolute. Meanwhile, the demand remains, causing prices too rise. And more trade happens. Even efforts to stop human trafficking seems to be a horrific game of whack the mole. Demand is there, so the "goods" keep moving. Now, applying that to this particular commodity, the problem is that people will want the goods for different purposes. Some want to preserve and share. Some want to hoard. And some want to destroy. This makes this kind of case unique. I think over time artifacts will return to the nations of their original provenience, should the Lord tarry and these areas grow more able to protect them. But at this point, I think a lot of us half-wish several areas in ISIS controlled areas would have been looted a hundred years ago by the British (!). The irony here is that this is not a new story. Any study into the acquisition of famous manuscripts that have fed into the world of text criticism quickly produces several Indiana Jones like jaunts that move documents from one more-original location where they might have been allocated for kindling out into the international sphere and into a museum. I guess, in the end, I feel that the discussion of the article is pretty balanced, leaving us with the pertinent ethical issues undecided. However, I think the title is misleading. The question is really, "Should Americans seek out and purchase historical manuscripts flooding the market, given that they are almost surely increasing demand and thus opening up the risk of further illegal acquisition and trade?" That is less catchy, but more accurate. You might as well ask, "Can/should Joe Smith, discovering a young Indonesian girl enslaved in Thailand, purchase her freedom?" You want scandal? Let's start that conversation. The world is messed up, seriously messed up. Illegal trade networks are part of that. Destruction of priceless artifacts is part of that. Destruction of communities and families is part of that. ---- Side note, this is kind of similar to a debate that is opening up regarding whether humanitarians specializing on "non-aligned" emergency aid relieve should work more in partnership with developmental aid organizations. Sounds good on the surface, but it might shut doors or increase risk for humanitarians and those who might receive aid in areas of conflict. The family at the focus of this article seems to be deciding that preservation (and perhaps interpretation of the facts along certain lines) is key. What would we say if they put the money fully into trying to cut down on the illegal trade of artifacts? Or even worse, what if they tried to do both, saving manuscripts by purchase while also combatting the trade at the same time. As long as good things and people are put in danger of enslavement, misuse, and destruction, we will continue to have this discussion. I think that is because we all want both/and. That is our real goal.

Thank you for saying that. I have no vested interest in the Museum of the Bible but I too am suspicious of those pseudo-intellectual articles like the one in The Atlantic Magazine which deal trivially or even sensationally with complex intellectual and ethical issues, using what are in effect throw away lines which indicate a shallow understanding of the topic. They claiming to inform but in practice are really dumbing down the deep issues and, in cases like this, using another quite possibly innocent person or organisation as a fall guy. I still say thanks to Bob B for posting it. The issues are extremely important. We need to discuss the ethics of the trade in ancient manuscripts. But we do not need in this forum to discuss an individual organisation unless we have far more knowledge than we do and far more than the writers of the Atlantic Magazine article. There are two kinds of ethic intersecting here, the ethic of reaching an informed position on trade in ancient manuscripts, and the ethic of refraining from finger pointing on the basis of very limited knowledge.

Thanks, Stephen. Helpful information that fleshes out nicely what Bob was saying. Rather than trying to figure out how to fund a specific project, though, I'm trying to get at something more systemic. My first question is: How does this relate to donors? If we use the metaphor from my post below, would TSC be the "apostle," and the major donor would be "laying its money at your feet?" Or are you positioning more as a conduit to connect the major donor with projects that they would be particularly interested in? Depending on the donor of course, you might be in a better position to determine strategic impact, but in our U.S. thinking (maybe not the Bible's?), it's the donor's money, so the donor should decide where they want it to go. So at the end of the day, if you are going to the donor and saying "Here are the projects we have that need support. What interests you?", then indeed, Hobby Lobby could, theoretically, "buy the Bible" in a whole different sense than the article was talking about. (Extreme example inspired by a lame article: if they only support projects that use the Received Text, a local project might well decide "better to have that than to have nothing.") Again, just to clarify, this has nothing really to do with Hobby Lobby except that they were in the title of the article that got me wondering. And they do support translation, I think, just not likely in such domineering ways as I described. To take it a little deeper: The high-level strategic guidelines you outlined above seem to me strong and fair, designed to strengthen local projects by encouraging high standards. Of course they look good to me. I am a westerner, and rich. But those guidelines do something else. They shape the project "in our image." The hidden assumption is, we know best what a strong project will look like, even in your country. So our partners end up being limited by our low tolerance for ambiguity and our low level of trust in personal systems. And frankly, if TSC didn't do this, they wouldn't get funded. This is not about TSC, or my organization, or anyone's organization. It's about how to get rich people, who hold rich people's assumptions at the table with and/or led by poor people such that the strengths of both can be engaged. It is that much harder in the U.S. where our assumptions are strengthened by the fact that 1) our way of thinking is "successful" (generates more money/size), so it must be right and 2) poor people are suspect to start with. There is a way. Has anyone seen this done?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/08/10/hobby-lobbys-owner-returned-17000-ancient-artifacts-iraq-how-did-he-get-them-first-place/