BIBLE NEWS: Biblical Art Museum Closing

The Bible has been inspiring artists of all kinds since the beginning of its history, and it continues to serve as a muse today.  But that doesn't mean that Biblical art can find donors to keep museums open.  The Museum of Biblical Art in Manhattan is closing due to lack of funds to support the necessary space to showcase masterpieces.

If you think religious imagery has no place in modern art, consider Barnett Newman’s paintings Adam and Eve. Newman translates the Bible’s first man and woman into red vertical columns in fields of purple-brown: the nude portrayals of these inhabitants of Eden by earlier artists such as Albrecht Dürer become lines of stark abstraction. This is not the only echo of Genesis in Newman’s art. His entire aesthetic of sublime power suggests God giving the 10 commandments to Moses or dividing the waters from the earth. Newman’s Broken Obelisk might be an image of the destruction of the temple or the fall of Babylon. In his cycle of shockingly austere paintings The Stations of the Cross, he turns to the New Testament story of the Passion.

BIBLE NEWS: School System Backs Down on Bible Ban

You may have heard last week that a school district in Broward County, FL had forbidden a student from reading his Bible during a free reading time.  Well, after much back and forth, the school district has backed down and reaffirmed a policy that students may read their Bible during reading times.

...on Tuesday, Liberty Institute received a letter from the School Board saying, in part, that the state does not ban the Bible in public schools and that teachers and staff across Broward would be notified of this.

BIBLE NEWS: The Bible in the Opo language

Jesus said to take the gospel to all nations, and one way that this is being done is by translating the Bible into every language in the world.  Recently, the Anglican church passed a milestone by translating the gospel of Mark into "Opo", a people group from Gambella in South Sudan

The Opo desperately want the Bible in their own language. There is a team of three working on this project: the Rev. David Onuk is the only priest of the Opo, and recently attended a one month course on Bible translation in Addis Ababa. Rev. Isaac Pur Wal is a Nuer priest who helped with understanding the base text as they were translating from Nuer and inputting the translation into the computer. James Bol is an Opo who works for the Gambella government doing translation of documents into Opo.

BIBLE NEWS: Bible Museum coming to Washington D.C.

The Bible is written by people who were eye-witnesses to the acts of God and His people. Clearly, there is value in seeing for yourself what God has done for you, over the course of history. In this spirit, a new group is looking to build a Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C., so that visitors can see Biblical-artifacts from over the years and see recreations of major events in Bible history.

Summers said the traveling exhibit recreates at 80 percent scale the chamber of London’s Westminster Abbey where the King James Version of the Bible was written. A full-scale recreation is planned for the museum. 

Steve Green, president of the Hobby Lobby arts and crafts chain and a Southern Baptist, said the museum will feature the history, contents and influence of the Bible but will leave it up to visitors to decide whether to believe the holy book. 

“When we present the evidence, I think it’s going to be compelling for somebody to say, ‘Wow, this is a compelling book. I might want to consider what it has to say,’” he said.

BIBLE NEWS: A Bible-Based Tablet?

It comes as no surprise to anyone who knows me, but I am an avid user of the Apple iPad. It is not only used for surfing the web and checking e-mail, but also for studying the Bible, taking notes during sermons, and reading Biblical references. So, I viewed with interest the news that a new group is looking to bring about a "Biblical tablet computer" filled with books about the Bible, Christian radio stations, and a "safe" web browser.

The Edifi tablet is a full-colour touchscreen, much like Apple's iPad - but it's pre-loaded with Bible passages, Christian radio stations and free religious e-Books.

The seven-inch Android tablet is $149, and will launch soon in America - and even non-believers might be tempted by its low price.