Bible museum to display artifacts from Holy Land

The $400-million, eight-story Museum of the Bible is set to open near the National Mall in the heart of the US capital in 2017 The Museum of the Bible being built in Washington will feature ancient artifacts and treasures from the Holy Land under a new deal that ensures Israel's leading archaeological organization will have an outpost in the U.S. capital.

An agreement between the museum and the Israel Antiquities Authority announced on Aug. 18 will bring a selection of artifacts excavated in Israel for long-term display in a top-floor gallery at the new Bible museum. The $400-million, eight-story museum is set to open near the National Mall in the heart of the capital in 2017.

The specific artifacts to be displayed in Washington haven't been settled, officials said, though they will be related to the Bible. Plans call for both a permanent exhibition and rotating special exhibits. In 1993, the Israel Antiquities Authority exhibited the Dead Sea Scrolls at the Library of Congress in Washington.

Researchers and curators from the Israeli authority will write the exhibition text based on their research from numerous excavations in the field, and the museum will design the exhibit, said Jacob Fisch, the executive director of the New York-based Friends of the Israel Antiquities Authority.

"We share one mission, and that's telling the story that is based on the archaeological material," Fisch said of the museum partnership. "We're very scientifically based, research based."

While the Israeli group has a long-term loan arrangement with the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York to display about 30 objects, the Bible museum exhibit will include hundreds or even thousands of objects from Israel's 2 million...