Design
Good Book, Weird Museum
D.C.’s new Museum of the Bible blends history and insight with spectacle.
From the glowing orb in the King James gallery on the fourth floor of the Museum of the Bible, at least four different voices can be heard speaking. One of them, naturally, is Morgan Freeman.
Freeman reads from scripture. Verses materialize on the floor in light and then evanesce. Vaguely Middle Eastern-sounding flutes quaver, here and everywhere else. Sultry voices add ancient languages to the chorus. Even the sonorous host of The Story of God struggles to be heard over the din. Images swirl on the orb, a sphere-shaped projector that reveals a changing globe. The map tracks the Bible as it conquers the land—or something?