In-person demonstrations, Vatican reveals are key sights at DC’s Museum of the Bible

Rabbi Moshe Englander stared down at a bookmark the place he calligraphed a lady’s title in Hebrew as a half-dozen or so guests to the Museum of the Bible watched the lettering seem piecemeal on a show display screen.

It was the primary time the lady, who gave her title as Hannah, had ever seen her title written in Hebrew characters — a creative script that has been used for hundreds of years.

Rabbi Englander’s demonstration on the museum in Southwest Washington is much like what he does as a sofer — knowledgeable who transcribes the Sifrei Kodesh, or holy scrolls, that comprise the Torah, also called the Five Books of Moses. Those inscriptions take 18 months of devoted, every day effort, the rabbi mentioned.

The in-person demonstration of Hebrew lettering is certainly one of many parts on the museum that don’t all the time translate into on-line displays, mentioned Jeff Kloha, the museum’s chief curator.

The Museum of the Bible is “not like an art gallery where they have a beautiful painting and you can kind of see that online,” Mr. Kloha mentioned. “Here it’s very interactive, immersive, the sound, the touchscreens — everything requires a physical presence. So it is very much a hands-on experience, rather than an online virtual experience.”

With the easing of COVID-19 restrictions and fears, Mr. Kloha mentioned he expects the variety of annual guests to return to 450,000 a yr, up from a low of “about 180,000” on the pandemic’s peak. In 2022, he mentioned, attendance was “a bit over 300,000.”

“We’re just kind of riding the wave of D.C. tourism and trying to get people back into buildings,” he mentioned.

Opened in November 2017, the MOTB presents “many different forms of engagement,” Mr. Kloha mentioned. “If you want to do more kind of classic reading [of exhibit descriptions], you could do that, if you get a little more tired and you want to be a little more passive, you could do that. That’s quite intentional, to hit different age groups, different learning styles and present material in fresh ways.”

The curator mentioned having particular reveals from the Israeli Antiquities Authority and the Vatican Library add to the number of accessible supplies. The MOTB renewed its pact with the Vatican Library in January and is “finalzing” an analogous renewal with the Israeli group, he mentioned.

A “Scripture and Science” exhibit that opened in January has engaged guests and drawn raves, Mr. Kloha mentioned.

He mentioned the shows, which embody the Communion set astronaut Buzz Aldrin used on the moon in addition to ET’s communicator machine, are “helping people walk through these key questions that people have and how science and people of faith approach those questions. So the response has been very, very positive.”

Future reveals will spotlight the story of the Haigha Sophia in Istanbul, the onetime Christian church-turned-mosque that’s now a worldwide vacationer attraction; an exhibit on the historical past and restoration of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem; and a show of Nativity cribs from Malta, which is changing into an annual occasion, he mentioned.

The Museum of the Bible is situated at 400 Fourth St. SW and on-line at www.museumofthebible.org.