Leather sandal dating to Roman period"From Abraham to Jesus” describes itself as “a traveling museological experience across the United States”. It cost me $12.95 by paying advance, it would have been $3.00 more at the door. I saw the show in Columbus, Ohio. The show now will be moving on to Nashville, Tennessee beginning December 6th. The following is an excerpt from the show's website.
People who have never been to the Holy Land – and people who have – can now experience the next best thing through “From Abraham to Jesus”. This traveling exhibit features the largest collection of sacred texts and artifacts from the Holy Land – more than 340 -- ever to visit the United States. Precious artifacts making their inaugural visit to the U.S. include ancient weapons dating back to the Bronze Age, ivory fragments from the palace of King Ahab and Queen Jezebel, Greek coins from the age of Alexander the Great, Jewish coins from the time of the Maccabees, and the ossuary (bone box) archeologists believe held the remains of Simon the Cyrene, who carried the cross for Jesus.
"From Abraham to Jesus” is a nearly 40,000 square foot high-tech entertainment experience designed to help visitors see, hear and feel 2,500 years of Biblical history. . . It uses photomurals, thematic sets, digital surround sound, the first 3D video shot in Israel, state-of-the art lighting and narration, combined with a musical score produced by national recording artist Don Moen. . .
The exhibit opened Sept. 15 in Atlanta and is traveling to 27 other cities across the United States and Canada before closing at The Meadowlands in N.J., on Dec. 21, 2008.
Before I entered the Bazaar area, a large open area where various books, DVDs, art-work, etc. were displayed for sale, I saw a group of Amish, sitting on benches in front of the exhibition hall room where “From Abraham to Jesus” was being held. They obviously had been through the exhibition. This must be “G” rated if the Amish patronized it, I thought to myself.
I had purchased and printed off my ticket on my computer and printer at home. Wonder if the Amish folk did that too? Anyway, I got in line and was handed a set if headphones and what looked like a calculator/mini remote control device. I quickly found out that little device was to be my tour guide through a series of over 50 stops for the next two plus hours. I began working my way through an organized maze of displays. Interspersed between “tour stops” were large curtains depicting various scenes or characters of the Bible such as Abraham offering his son Isaac, and ending with the Annunciation of the birth of Jesus. In between there were realistic and life-sized sculptures of Roman soldiers, a donkey carrying grapes from the spies returning from scouting out the Promised Land, even a sculpture of two archeologists sifting through soil at an excavation site.
The exhibition took me through the various periods of history including the Bronze Age, the Roman Era, etc. and the various tour stops primarily artifacts shown in well lighted display cases. There were posted explanations at nearly every stop to explain more in-depth the narrative provided by the tour-guide-in-a-box, a retired archeologist and his grand-daughter who offered on going commentary and some small talk.
What impressed me most was seeing the various artifacts from different periods of Jewish Old Testament history. Though it was not a religious oriented display, but more historical and archeological, there definitely was a respect for, validation of and authentication throughout for the Judeo-Christian Bible and its accounts of recorded history. More and more archeological discoveries support the existence of the biblical accounts exactly as portrayed in the Book of Books for thousands of years.
The exhibition started with a video, which overviewed the exhibit and also ended with another video summarizing the Holy Land “journey”. In between, I listened and learned at each of the 50 or so stops. At some I was able to repeat the recorded tour guides narrative, just by punching in the number of the tour stop. This truly was a self and guided tour. It was worth the time, money and effort to exposure myself to this unique learning experience. In retrospect this was a well planned and well designed experienced for the true follower of Jesus or other seeker of truth and knowledge.
I got a little glimpse at what life in the Holy Land was like across a continuum of time, a period of thousands of years. Did the Amish enjoy this unique venue as much as I did?
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