Just a couple of blocks from Capitol Hill the brand new $500 million Museum of the Bible has had its grand opening. The opening gala was held at the Trump International Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue. The cheapest ticket was $2,500.
The museum possesses eight floors and 430,000 square feet. It has the Milk and Honey café plus a restaurant called Manna.
Visitors can see the Burning Bush (or at least the replica)
At the gift shop, you can buy a $1,250 leather foot stool shaped like a rhinoceros (because rhinos were on Noah’s Ark, of course) or a $125,000 bejeweled pomegranate made of Jerusalem stone (the Song of Solomon: “I would give you spiced wine to drink from the juice of my pomegranates”) as well as key chains, caps and T-shirts, frankincense and myrrh body wash.
The museum possesses eight floors and 430,000 square feet. It has the Milk and Honey café plus a restaurant called Manna.
Visitors can see the Burning Bush (or at least the replica)
At the gift shop, you can buy a $1,250 leather foot stool shaped like a rhinoceros (because rhinos were on Noah’s Ark, of course) or a $125,000 bejeweled pomegranate made of Jerusalem stone (the Song of Solomon: “I would give you spiced wine to drink from the juice of my pomegranates”) as well as key chains, caps and T-shirts, frankincense and myrrh body wash.
Its corporate backer is Hobby Lobby — the very rich, closely held craft store chain controlled by the Christian conservative Green family — and another principal backer the National Christian Foundation, a donor-advised fund “that supports key soldiers in the national battle for conservative Christian values.” The foundation, self-mandated to “advance God’s kingdom,” has given millions to churches and others, counting among its grantees opponents of abortion and same-sex marriage. As for the billionaire Green family, their craft-store empire gained notoriety when it won a Supreme Court ruling allowing it to deny on religious grounds Obamacare coverage of contraception for its employees. They were recently fined $3 million in fines and forced to turn over thousands of antiquities smuggled out of Iraq.
Hobby Lobby CEO David Green backed Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential candidacy but endorsed Trump in the general election, and his son, museum chair and Hobby Lobby president Steve Green, recently told the Christian Broadcasting Network, “We are seeing that the current administration with President Trump is a friend of religious freedom and has taken steps to strengthen and confirm that we are a nation that values the freedoms our founders gave us.”
"Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful."
- Seneca
- Seneca
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