Press Release

One of World’s Largest Private Collections Visits Argentina for the First Time
Forty-eight Items on Display at Society of Biblical Literature’s Annual International Meeting

Rare texts and manuscripts from one of the world’s largest private collections of biblical artifacts will be on display at the Pontificia Universidad Catolica Argentina July 16 – Aug. 1, their first time on public display in South America. Presented by Museum of the Bible, the exhibit is titled Destacados de la Green Collection (or “Highlights of the Green Collection”).
 

Guests to the free, public exhibit will experience specially curated selections from the Green Collection, an assemblage of more than 40,000 rare biblical antiquities. Among the items on display in Buenos Aires will be:

• Dead Sea Scroll fragments from the first century B.C.
• Ancient tablets dating to the time traditionally associated with Abraham
• An array of biblical texts on papyrus
• Torah scrolls from around the world, including those that survived the Spanish Inquisition and the Nazi Holocaust during World War II
• First editions of the King James Bible and other rare, printed Bibles

Many of the artifacts from Destacados de la Green Collection will be part of the 430,000-square-foot, $400 million Museum of the Bible that opens fall 2017 in Washington. Items from the Green Collection have also been on display via Museum of the Bible’s traveling exhibits at the Vatican, in Cuba and in six U.S. cities. A special exhibit is also planned for Philadelphia at the World Meeting of Families Congress, Sep. 22 – 25, in advance of the pope’s first U.S. visit.

Other artifacts from the Green Collection are currently undergoing advanced academic study at more than 60 universities and seminaries around the world through Museum of the Bible’s research arm, the Green Scholars Initiative. Many of the scholars participating in the initiative will also be in Buenos Aires, as the exhibit coincides with the international meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, an annual gathering of religion scholars from around the world. This is the first year the group will convene in a Latin American country.

“You’d have to travel the world many times over to catch just a glimpse of the remarkable biblical artifacts here in Buenos Aires,” said David Trobisch, collection director for Museum of the Bible. “We are thrilled to present this diverse collection of rare items to esteemed scholars and the Argentine public alike for the first time.”