Exhibit of rare Bibles displayed at Baylor before heading to Vatican, permanent museum

In conjunction with a three-day international conference celebrating the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible hosted by Baylor’s Institute for Studies of Religion (ISR), the BU campus was also home last week to an exhibit of more than 100 items on loan from the Green Collection, one of the world’s largest private collections of rare biblical manuscripts and artists. (See photos of the exhibit here.)

After debuting at the Vatican Embassy in Washington, D.C., the exhibit was on display in Baylor’s Armstrong Browning Library for three days as a sort of preview before a full-blown traveling exhibit opens in Oklahoma City (home of Steve Green, the owner of the collection and founder president of Hobby Lobby) next month and then visits the Vatican and New York City later in the year. Among the 100 or so items (from the collection’s 60,000-item catalog) displayed at Baylor:

• a Dead Sea Scroll containing Genesis 31;
• a Torah taken from a Jewish community during the Spanish Inquisition;
• an illustrated Gutenberg Bible;
• a handwritten letter from Martin Luther;
• the so-called “Wicked Bible,” in which the printer made an error and left out the “not” in the commandment “Thou shalt not commit adultery.”

Steve Green began the collection less than a year and a half ago, but it is already considered one of the world’s largest private collection of biblical texts and artifacts. (See coverage from CNN and USA Today, for example.) Green hopes to open a Bible museum to permanently display the collection in the next few years, but the Baylor community was privileged to get this special sneak preview thanks in part to Dr. Scott Carroll, the Green Collection’s director and Research Professor of Manuscript Studies and the Biblical Tradition for Baylor’s ISR. What a treat for Baylor faculty and students alike!

Sic ’em, Green Collection!