New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary held a 10th anniversary celebration for its Museum of the Bible and Archaeology on Tuesday, Dec. 3.
The celebration included presentations from a variety of speakers chronicling the history of the museum as well as the unveiling of new scrolls (named the Festival Scrolls) to be displayed in the museum.
The scrolls contain the books of Ruth, Songs of Songs, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes and Esther (known collectively as The Five Scrolls or the Megillot-Scrolls) written in Hebrew. They were composed in Poland around 1800 and survived the events of the Holocaust. They were taken to Israel by Jewish settlers after World War II and later acquired by NOBTS in 2022.
Jamie Dew, president of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and Leavell College, praised the work of the museum, which combines the work of the school’s archaeology institute and center for New Testament textual studies.
“To have a place like this with resources like this and faculty like this and to be able to do this work for that long is a significant thing in the Kingdom,” Dew said.
“These might not be the kinds of things that grab headlines in newspapers or be the most flashy things, but they are the kinds of things that strengthen the Christian witness in the world that we live in.”
Dew explained how the seminary’s work in archaeology and textual criticism have impacted other fields of theological education, such as his field of apologetics.
“I can remember 25 years ago, one of the most common critiques that skeptics, atheists and such would register against Christianity had to do with the Bible,” Dew said. “You would mention the walls of Jericho or an Old Testament king and they would raise objections like ‘well there’s no evidence that these things happened or these people existed.’
“Fast forward now 25 years, because of the work of many faithful people in these fields like our NOBTS folks, skeptics and atheists don’t make those types of accusations anymore. They just don’t. There might be some person here or there that may register it at certain points, but the sort of wholesale objections to the Bible that skeptics used to easily make against us, they really can’t make those accusations anymore simply because of the number of discoveries, data and extra-biblical support for the claims of the Bible.
“I just think about the work that our people at NOBTS have been doing for the last 10 years, and I praise God for it because it’s made a difference in the grand scheme of things.”
NOBTS is the only Southern Baptist seminary with an archaeology program.
Jim Parker, professor of biblical interpretation and McFarland Chair of Old Testament and Archaeology at NOBTS, rejoiced at the blessing that the Museum has been for the seminary.
“It’s almost unbelievable to most of us who’ve been involved with this that it’s been a decade since we’ve created and opened the museum,” Parker said. “What a great thing this has been for us.”
The museum in its current form came about as part of an effort to get NOBTS is position to be allowed to request permits and excavate on archaeological sites in Israel.
Around 2009, representatives from NOBTS, including Parker, approached the Israel Antiquities Authority about what would be required to be certified to excavate in Israel, and the museum came about as part of fulfilling those qualifications.
The funds needed to build out the museum were donated by a man named Robert Whitehead, a strong Christian and large donor to both Mississippi State and to NOBTS.
Whitehead passed away in 2022, but his widow, Mrs. Janet Whitehead, was an honored guest at Tuesday’s celebration. Whitehead originally made his donation in Janet’s name as a Christmas present for her.
Some of the features of the museum include a variety of archaeological artifacts from Israel, ancient Hebrew scrolls of the Old Testament, replicas and images of papyrus manuscripts of the New Testament, Latin manuscripts of the Bible and much more. Visitors can even engage a virtual tour exploring how the Bible was written down and preserved over time.
The museum represents the fulfillment of a long-held dream of NOBTS’s archaeology institute, and achieving this dream did not come without challenges.
Parker, who also serves as the executive director of the Michael and Sara Moskau Institute of Archaeology at NOBTS, chronicled the full history of how the museum came to be during his presentation.
Since the seminary’s founding in 1917, many faculty members and researchers have traveled around the world as a part of their archaeological studies.
Over the years, the seminary began to acquire various archaeological artifacts and store them in a variety of areas around the campus without a permanent space.
In 2005, NOBTS trustees approved the construction of a new campus library, which was to include two state-of-the-art spaces; one for the New Testament studies center and one for the archaeology institute. Ground was supposed to be broken in the fall.
Those plans were put on hold after Hurricane Katrina struck in August of 2005, and campus renovations efforts became the main priority. The seminary’s artifacts continued to be stored in various areas around the campus, but storage space was a constant issue.
Years later, Parker and Bill Warren, professor of New Testament and Greek and director of the H. Milton Haggard Center for New Testament Textual Studies, decided to merge these ideas and develop one permanent location at the seminary dedicated to archaeology and textual studies.
This goal was finally realized in 2014 thanks to the donation of Mr. Whitehead.
“NOBTS has always been known as a place of providence and prayer and Robert Whitehead was the hand of providence that answered our prayer,” Parker said. “We received the mercy of God to be able to do this.”
Before unveiling the new scrolls at the end of the celebration, Parker praised NOBTS for staying diligent in the field of archaeology during a time when much of higher education has not.
“New Orleans never gave up on it (the field of archaeology), and I thank God for that,” he said.
