A clay tablet dating back to 2300 B.C. written in cuneiform. A fire-damaged page from a 1611 King James Bible. A 300-year-old Hebrew Torah fragment. A leaf from a 1529 Martin Luther translation of the New Testament. A leaf from the Guttenberg Bible.

Rare versions and pages from Bibles dating back hundreds of years were the passion of Craig Lampe when he started The Bible Museum in Goodyear, AZ. Today, his son Joel Lampe carries on the dream as the international director and senior curator of the museum, following a personal faith journey that led him far away from Christianity and back again.

Joel also created a documentary on the Dead Sea Scrolls, most of which were found in minute scraps that had to be reassembled. His vivid description of the process:

“On your way home today, stop by a little quick mart. Go inside and pick up three bags of potato chips. Get a bag of Ruffles, get a bag of Lays, get a tube of Pringles. Now when you get back to your kitchens, scrunch all those potato chips up, then mix them all together in a bowl. Shake the bowl up, throw the bowl up in the air then let the chips fall where they may. Now sweep up all the chips, put them back on your kitchen table, and spend the rest of the day reassembling each and every one of those potato chips back to its proper form, then make sure each potato chip is put back into its right brand bag. Multiply that problem by close to 200 times. Now you know exactly what scholarship has been faced with.”

Joel’s dedication to preserving and sharing the history of the Bible will fascinate you.

Click here to learn more about The Bible Museum: https://thebiblemuseum.com/

Original air date: March 20, 2025.

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