Massive 'Museum of the Bible'—The Size of Seven Football Fields with 40,000 Ancient Biblical Texts and Artifacts to Open in Washington DC, 2017— Hobby Lobby's Steve Green is Chairman

DeMoss Staff : Mar 14, 2014
DeMoss Group

The future yet-to-be-named museum will be located in a reconstructed 400,000+-square-foot space that once was the Washington Design Center. It will include one of the world's largest private collections of Dead Sea Scrolls…

(Washington, DC)—The Museum of the Bible, a nonprofit organization that will oversee a yet-to-be-named museum focusing on the story, history and impact of the Bible, has announced the hiring of two top-level management executives. The new museum will be located in the nation's capital and is projected to open in 2017.

Dr. David J. Trobisch, an independent Biblical scholar who consults with the American and German Bible Societies and has dual citizenship in the United States and Germany, will serve as director of the museum's collections, advising on new acquisitions, identifying the story line for the various exhibits and supervising a team of some 30 scholars and curators.

Trobisch's scholarly work concentrates on the Letters of Paul, the formation of the Christian Bible, texts in antiquity, and New Testament manuscripts. He taught New Testament at the Universities of Heidelberg, Yale Divinity School, and Bangor Theological Seminary, where he ended his teaching career at the rank of full professor holding a named chair.

"Trobisch's knowledge and expertise in Biblical texts will be a great asset to Museum of the Bible as we continue to grow our collection," said Steve Green, board chairman of the Museum of the Bible organization and president of the family-owned Hobby Lobby arts and crafts retail chain.

"In expanding our collection and building an international museum dedicated to a scholarly approach to the Bible, we want to engage with scholars who bring their skills and expertise to enhance the museum's collection," said Green. "When we looked in the academic community for such a scholar to lead our acquisition and research efforts, David Trobisch was mentioned time and again as someone who is a very skilled, distinguished scholar."

Steve Bickley joins the Museum of the Bible as vice president of marketing, finance and administration bringing broad finance, marketing and strategy expertise to the management of the Museum of the Bible's brands. A University of Kansas graduate, Bickley most recently served as executive vice president of marketing and business development for Bell Media, Canada's largest media company. Before joining Bell Canada to run its home phone, Internet and broadcast marketing, Bickley held various management roles at AT&T and US West. Bickley began his career at Ernst & Young.

Bickley also serves on the board of Wycliffe College at the University of Toronto and holds several leadership positions in the Anglican Diocese of Toronto and in his local parish. He and his family will be relocating to Oklahoma City, where the management offices of the Museum of the Bible are located. (Photo: Wycliffe Bible/Steve Green Collection/via Wikipedia)

The future yet-to-be-named museum will be located in a reconstructed 400,000+-square-foot space that once was the Washington Design Center. It will house a collection of some 40,000 ancient Biblical texts and artifacts—including one of the world's largest private collections of Dead Sea Scrolls, the earliest-surviving New Testament texts in Jesus' household language, other antiquities dating from the first century BCE and Torah scrolls that survived the Holocaust. The museum also plans to display items borrowed from other prominent collections from around the world.

The nonprofit organization sponsors traveling exhibitions around the world including Passages, in Springfield, MO, beginning in April; Verbum Domini, which will be on display in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican during Lent and Easter 2014; and smaller exhibits at colleges, universities and other venues across the globe.