The government is expected to approve on Sunday morning the establishment of a Bible Museum in Jerusalem. This is a governmental initiative encouraged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and led by Justice Minister Yaakov Neeman, who regularly reads Bible passages during government meetings and is expected to guide the decisions. Five ministers have signed the initiative. The museum, which will be called "The Bible Center," is expected to be magnificent, concentrating all the works of art connected with the Bible into one place and including a library with 2,000 different translations of the Bible, including dialectic translations, as well as all the books of commentary on the Bible. In addition, there will be a garden of sculptures connected to Bible stories, a conference hall, an exhibition hall and experiential exhibits for school children and youth groups. The ministers spearheading the project will request that a special committee be formed to oversee the project, including setting the budget, allocating land, as well as overseeing its design and construction, funding and maintenance. The central plan is to establish a museum in Jerusalem next to the other museums already on the Ben-Gurion Government Complex in Givat Ram. Ministers had originally considered building the museum opposite the Old City walls in the Mishkenot She'ananim neighborhood, but those plans were later scrapped. An alternative option is to establish the museum in Neot Kedumim's Biblical Landscape Reserve, next to Modi'in, founded by Nogah Hareuveni in memory of his parents, the renowned Israeli educators and botanists Dr. Ephraim and Hannah Hareuveni. In their petition to establish the museum, the ministers wrote that the Bible is "the core source of the Jewish people in Israel and the Diaspora and it seems only fitting that the Bible museum, according to David Ben-Gurion's vision, would be established in Jerusalem, the eternal capital of the state of Israel." If the new center is approved on the boulevard of museums next to the government complex, it will join the Bible Lands Museum and the Shrine of the Book in the Israel Museum, which houses the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Get the Israel Hayom newsletter sent to your mailbox!
Like our newsletter? 'Like' our Facebook page!
