The "Slave Bible" is Not What You Think

We need to have a hard conversation. The “Slave Bible” is not a Bible—even if the Museum of the Bible tells me so.

In the first couple years of its tenure near the national mall, the privately-funded Museum of the Bible (MOTB) has worked its public relations team in overdrive, navigating between setback and scandal, satisfying some but not all of its critics. But on one issue the museum has successfully courted laudatory media coverage: its outreach to African Americans. “We need to include more people of color,” then-curator Seth Pollinger commented to BuzzFeed News in late 2018. In an attempt to garner broad appeal and enhance its brand, the museum has expanded beyond the evangelical Christianity of its white donors, the Oklahoma-based Greens of Hobby Lobby fame, now self-fashioned as the MOTB’s “founding family.” Performances by gospel choirs and lectures by black pastors and academics soon graced the museum stage.