Bible Society Turns Gallery Into a Museum

After closing its gallery in October, the American Bible Society plans to reopen it in May as the nation's first scholarly museum dedicated to Biblical art and artifacts.

Along with a sleek, new interior, the Museum of Biblical Art will offer exhibitions, educational programs, and public programs exploring religious art.

"Typically, when scholars or historians view religious art they talk about color and composition," the new museum's director, Ena Heller, said. "But we often forget that these works weren't made for their aesthetic beauty. Rather, their significance is connected to a religious belief, and they told a story that connected to the text of the bible."

Located at Broadway and 61st Street, the museum will also house one of the world's most valuable Rare Scriptures collections, a 2,000-volume compilation of printed and manuscript materials, some dating back to the 13th century. It will include a Bible from Colonial Massachusetts that was translated into Algonquin. The collection is on long-term loan from the American Bible Society, which has committed $1.5 million a year to the museum over the next five years.

The $3 million renovation and expansion will be completed in two phases. The first, costing $1.5 million, adds 30% more exhibition and programming space as well as an education center.

Dr. Heller hopes to revamp the gallery's mission with the reopening, giving it a more modern edge.

"There is a tendency to say that art and religion have become divorced over the centuries," she said. "While that may be true in some respects, there is still a lot of art that mines the traditions of Judeo-Christian religion for inspiration and shows modern variations of very old themes"

The museum reopens May 12 with several exhibitions.

Architects Randall Goya and Sara Lopergolo of G & L Architecture of New York, who in 2001 designed New York's Neue Galerie, refurbished the gallery spaces, which include an expansion for the Rare Scriptures collection.

"The one thing we don't want is to appear as this stodgy old Biblical collection," Dr. Heller said. "We want the museum to say this is all still relevant, this is still what fits."