(upbeat music)

- Last month it was my privilege

to visit a magnificentsite in Washington D.C.

It's called the Museum of the Bible.

Just blocks away from the U.S. Capitol,

this amazing museum isdedicated to encouraging people

to engage with the scriptures.

It features everythingfrom ancient artifacts

to modern virtual reality

to highlight the history and impact

of the Word of God.

The man behind this magnificent effort

is the Founder and Chairman.

He's Steve Green.

And Steve is here with us.

Steve, I want to thank you again

for that glorious tour I had

and thank you for being hereto show it to our audience.

- It's my pleasure Pat andI appreciate you coming

to take a look at the museum.

We were honored to have you.

- Well you know, I was toldthat the most important thing

in the last couple thousand years

was the invention of printing

and the first printing was ofthe Gutenberg printing press

and they did the Bible,

was the first books every printed.

Can you show us thatpress and how it works?

- I can.

It was "Life" magazine that came out

with a publication in 2,000,

said the 100 most importantevents of the millennium,

and number one wasGutenberg prints the Bible.

And this is a replicaof the Gutenberg press.

- Hello my friends.

Today we'll be givingone short demonstration

on how to make a pressat the Gutenberg press.

So we take the ink and we roll it out

on the interchangeable and moveable type,

making sure all the letters are coated.

We take the paper that isheld inside of the frisket

and we put it down on top of the casket.

Then we bury it underneath theplaten, which will flatten,

and we turn the lever to make the press,

roll it back, roll back the casket,

lift up the frisket and our press is done.

- So, what's important to note is that

it wasn't the Gutenbergpress that made the list

of "Life" magazine's 100most important events,

it was that Gutenberg prints the Bible.

That was the number oneitem that they came out with

as the biggest impact for a millennium.

- Well Steve, there'ssomething that intrigued me,

you had a fragment that lookedlike it was a modern text,

a fairly modern, over topof an old Aramaic manuscript

and you had a light scanningprocess that you used

to separate that Aramaic New Testament

from a much later text.

Can you tell us about that?

- That is referred to as theCodex Climaci Rescriptus.

It's referred to as a Codexbecause it was in a book form.

Climaci is what the top writing was.

It was a writing that's referred to

as the ladder of divine ascent

that was written by a gentlemanby the name of Climaci

and it's referred to as a Rescriptus

because it was rewrittenon some older text

and it is that older textthat we were interested in

because it was scripture in Aramaic.

And with new scanning technology

called multi-spectral imaging

where you scan the documentunder different stops

on the light spectrum,

we can pull out the underlying text

so that we have a better ideaof what that original text was

that was written over.

In this particular document,

what we refer to as the CCR for short,

is understood to be the largest portion

of scripture in Aramaic,

which would be the closestlanguage to what Jesus spoke.

This would be about 400 yearsafter the life of Jesus.

So, it may be like theKing James Version is today

but this would be thelargest portion of scripture

that is known in an Aramaic language.

- Steve, how did you get that?

I mean, how do thesethings come into your hand?

- This was an interesting story.

It was actually being soldby a college at Cambridge.

It was during the year '08 and '09

when the economy was struggling

and their endowment was down

and they were needing some resources.

They had studied thedocument in the 40s I believe

and put it up for sale,put it up for auction

at Christie's or Sotheby's

and that's where wewere able to acquire it.

And with the new scanning technology

are able to do even further research

than what they had done in the 40s.

- What an incredible technological marvel.

I was just so impressed.

Well, I'll tell you something,

when I was going throughthat Museum of the Bible,

I was deeply moved in my spirit

by an original painting you have

that we've seen so many copiesof, of George Washington

who was leading a prayerat Valley Forge and that,

I just can't tell you how that touched me.

I had never seen the whole painting.

- We have that right around the corner

from where I'm standing.

The artist's son is in possession of it

and he has it on loan tous here at the museum.

It was one of the mostphotographed spots we have

in the museum becauseof the iconic picture

that it represents.

- There's something else thatI saw that was so impressive,

you actually have a representative

of the whole village ofNazareth where Jesus lived.

People could actuallyexperience that village

and realize when Jesus walked on earth,

this is what He's talking about.

So, can you tell us some of the features

that you put into that marvelous village

that represents where Jesus Himself lived?

- Yes, this is what we refer to

as the City of Nazareth hereat the Museum of the Bible

because what we're trying to do

is recreate what thetown would have been like

that Jesus Himself grew up into

because as you said, many of His teachings

were based on the culture that He lived in

and was surrounded with.

What does winnowing wheat mean anyway?

And so, this is a way of trying

to understand a littlebit more of the parables

and some of the teachingsthat Jesus taught

where in this city we have a typical home,

a carpenter shop, an olive press,

a wine press, what akitchen might look like.

We have a synagogue likewhat would have been built

in Nazareth where Jesus grew up.

So, the gentleman that was in charge

of building the museumhad built Nazareth Village

in Nazareth, Israel and haddone a lot of study and research

on what the city would have looked like.

And we tried to recreate that.

We had to squeeze it in a little bit,

make it a little bit smaller

than what they've got there in Nazareth,

but we wanted a person to feel like

that they were walking into Nazareth

and get a sense of what the town was like

that Jesus Himself grewup in and so it helps them

understand a little bit better the context

and the culture thatJesus is teaching from.

- Well, that was a magnificent effort.

You say the man who actuallybuilt the little town

in Nazareth was the one thatcame over and did this for you.

It's a remarkable reproduction.

- That's right.

So Cary Summers is who built the museum.

He had built the NazarethVillage in Nazareth, Israel

and was a great resource as not only here,

but for the whole museum.

- Well, when I walked into that place

and it was so delightful

and I was suddenly living in the Bible.

I mean, you've got the olive press

and you've got all of the things

and the fields that they had to sow.

And you've got the variouspeople doing what they did

in the New Testament.

It's remarkable.

Now there's something else Steve,

that I was so impressed with,

when Jesus was in Capernaum,

He stood up and began toteach in the synagogue

and you showed me areproduction of the synagogue.

And the thing that impressedme is how tiny it was.

Can you show us that?

- I can, that is righthere where we again,

had to shrink it down fromwhat it might have been like

but I suspect there wasdifferent synagogues

that had a variety ofdifferent sizes and shapes

but a lot of research was done

to try to determine whatdid a synagogue look like

and this is the best representation

that we could come up with

based on all the research and the study

of what it might have looked like.

And so in the city ofNazareth, you may recall,

that Jesus, when He wasstarting His ministry,

He came and He was teachingin a synagogue in Nazareth

where He reads from the scroll of Isaiah

and He tells the peopleof the city of Nazareth

that this was fulfilled in their hearing,

and they were trying to runHim out on the rail in essence.

But it was in a synagogue verysimilar to what this would be

that Jesus would have spoken

and was common for theJewish people in Israel.

- You know Steve, I'm used to churches

that are mega-churchesthat have 5,000, 10,000

and here is Jesus, the Son of God,

and He's in a tiny little place like this.

How many, that thing wouldn't seat

more than 10 people would it, 20 people?

- Yeah, if you sat onthe different ledges,

you might be able to sit 25, 30 people,

but it's a small facility.

- But that's what the Lord has shown.

And you know, there was something else

that you mentioned that I don't know

if we could even show pictures of it

but you have an Isaiah scroll

that you actually put together.

And you've got the entire book of Isaiah.

This I understand is thefirst manuscript in Hebrew

of the whole book ofIsaiah, is that right?

- Yes, when the Dead SeaScrolls were discovered,

the only one that was a complete scroll

was the Great Isaiah Scroll.

The original is housed in Israel.

If you go there today,

what you will see on display is a replica

at the Shrine of the Book in Israel.

We have a replica as wellthat is done on vellum,

it looks very much like the original

with he stitching andall the deterioration

being repeated on the artifact.

And it's an incredible artifact

simply because it pre-datesChrist by over a hundred years,

and it clearly, in Isaiah53 is pointing to Christ,

predicting His coming.

And there are five writersin the New Testament

that are saying Jesuswas fulfilling Isaiah 53.

One of those is Luke that is telling us

at the Last Supper Jesussays, "I must fulfill

"what was written about Me.

"He was numbered with the transgressors."

And He is quoting Isaiah 53.

So the Great Isaiah Scroll

is an incredible artifact

and it tells an incredible story

of the validity of thescripture that we love

and that we cherish andthat we're celebrating here

at Museum of the Bible.

- You actually raised awhole floor of a building.

You've got 430,000 square feet.

How did you accomplish that?

I mean, you were literallylifting a whole floor up

in the air and putsomething underneath it.

How did you do it?

- We engaged Clark Construction,

one of the largest in the country

and this was one of the morecomplicated projects they said

that they had ever worked on.

We had to take out everyother floor of this building.

We added two floors ontop of this building.

We took an expansion of the building.

We tore it all the way down

and we dug down andadded the basement floor

underneath the expansion thatwe took all the way down.

And we added one floor

on top of the adjacent office building

while it was beingoperated, or being occupied.

So, this was an extremely complex project.

The construction firm,Clark, did a phenomenal job.

It was done in time

and we owe them a great debt of gratitude

because of the exceptionalwork that they did.

And it turned out phenomenal.

We're very pleased withthe job that they did.

- Well, how big is theMuseum of the Bible?

It is an enormous property.

Can you tell us about the scope of it?

- The Museum of the Bibleis 430,000 square feet,

which includes a restaurantand a banquet hall

and we have space for theIsrael Antiquity Authority

and The Vatican has space in here.

We look at the Bible in three ways,

it's history, it's impact,and it's narrative.

But as I have said time and time again,

there is no building that cancontain this Book's story.

This is literally scratching the surface.

One example that I use is

that we have a New Testament theater

where we tell the New Testament,

and we have 11 minutes

to tell the whole New Testament story.

Everybody likes me letting theirpastor know it can be done,

but we have 11 minutes.

So, literally, not onlythere but in all areas

of this museum, we arescratching the surface

because this Book issuch an incredible Book

that has such an incredible story

that we are literally

just scratching the surface of its story.

- Well, I've got to say

that I was just completely overwhelmed

with what you did.

It's so amazing as you go through it.

And ladies and gentlemen, Ican't tell you as we just hear,

words fail me to describe the magnificence

of this Museum of the Bible.

Steve, is there one favorite exhibit

that you like to go backto over and over again

and just see it?

- One of the favorites I would have

is basically a Disney-esque ride.

On our impact floor we will take a person

and we will fly themthrough Washington D.C.,

showing them where scripture is engraved

on the monuments throughout the city.

There's about 13 spots.

We don't have time to go to all of them

because you people wouldget sick on the ride.

But where you get the sensationof flying through D.C.

and we show you how thatscripture is all over this city.

This Book has had an impact on our world,

it's had an impact on our nation,

and it shows up righthere in Washington D.C.

So that in itself is fun,

it's an enjoyable ride

but it also is telling a powerful story

of how this Book has had an impact

even here in Washington D.C.

- Steve, there's onething I would point out

that struck me and I knowit's just a little thing,

but you had a group of rocks.

When David came up against Goliath

and he said he ran forward

and he picked up some smooth stones

and stuck them in his little pouch

and then he took it and slunghis sling and hit the thing.

And I thought it was a flat stone

until you showed methe kind of projectile.

It was like a big hand grenade (laughing).

And this is what hit Goliath in the head.

I understand you aren'table to show those things

on television but I was so impressed with,

it wasn't a flat stone it was a big rock

when he hit Goliath with it.

Is that correct?

- Yeah, when you seethese rocks, these stones,

you see some size, betweenthe size of a golf ball

and a baseball, it's a good size stone,

and that is in the space

where the Israel Antiquity Authority

has their own space here.

They have artifacts thathave an incredible story.

The first time that Iunderstand that Israel

has had an exhibit, a permanentexhibit outside Israel,

and a part of thatexhibit are these stones

that give you a better sense of the damage

that could be done if you'reskillful at a slingshot,

and obviously David was.

- I just, as I say, words fail me

to describe my sense of wonder

at what you and yourfamily have put together.

You're the Chairman of Hobby Lobby

and you've got an enormous a lot on you

but this is a magnificent accomplishment

and we want to tell our audience

how they can get in touch with you

and how they can, is themuseum open to the public

during the week?

And if so, can you tellme just real quickly,

what time it's available?

- Museum is open every day

from 10 o'clock until 5 o'clock.

If they are members, they can get in at 9.

And we're open year-round.

We invite people to come.

They can get more information

on our website, museumofthebible.org

and order tickets online.

We invite people to comeand enjoy their experience.

One of the common comments I get is

it exceeded our expectations.

And we would hope thatas people come and visit

that they will see

that they're expectationsare exceeded as well.

- Well, I'll tell you,

I consider myself a student of the Bible.

I teach it and I readit and I pray about it

and I'm writing books about it

but at the same time Ijust was so impressed

with what you have done

and I commend you for that

and I thank you for this quick tour.

I wish we had hours to show

but people can come andit's right in the heart

of Washington D.C., not toofar from the nation's capitol,

not too far from the train station.

The Museum of the Bible,whatever you can do folks,

find time to see it.

And Steve, thank you my brother.

You're a wonderful host.

God bless you and Iappreciate this so much.

- Thank you Pat.

I'm honored to be hereand thank you for coming

and seeing the museum.