A traveling museum exhibit, “Passages,” is bringing an interactive exhibit of the history of the Bible to Santa Clarita.

“Passages” is presented by the Museum of the Bible, a museum that is expected to be built in Washington, D.C. and will open in the fall of 2017. Many of the artifacts in the “Passages” exhibit will be featured in the museum.

“Passages” is expected to open to the public Friday, April 3 and features about 400 artifacts that tell different aspects of the story of the Bible including its transmission, translation, impact and controversies.

“The idea here is to provide an interactive exhibit,” said David Trobisch, the director of the Green Collection, which is one of the world’s largest private collections of rare biblical texts and artifacts. “It’s family-friendly and it’s not (just) for the faith community. It’s open for absolutely everyone, any faith, any interests that they have. There’s a strong education interest there, too.”

Sets and theaters have been built to display the various artifacts in the exhibit.  Some of the artifacts and exhibits include reproductions of the Dead Sea Scrolls and fragments of the originals; a demonstration of Gutenberg’s printing press; the Lunar Bible, which traveled to the surface of the moon on the Apollo 14 mission; and Torah scrolls that were desecrated during World War II.

“The content of the whole exhibit is to let the bible speak for itself,” Trobisch said. 

The “Passages” exhibit also features many activities for children and families, he said. Children can make their own block prints, dress up like animals on Noah’s ark and see and hear from William Tyndale, Martin Luther, Jerome and John Knox. 

The “Passages” exhibit will be open until Feb. 27, 2016, and is located at 26565 Bouquet Canyon Road, Santa Clarita, CA 91350.

“These items, they existed long before we were born and they will exist after no one remembers who we are,” Trobisch said. “So, the curator’s job during their lifetime is to not let the (artifacts) age as much as possible.”

For more information about the “Passages” exhibit including hours and ticket prices, visit the website.

About Passages:

Passages is a 30,000-square-foot, interactive, traveling exhibit chronicling the history of the Bible, from its transmission and translation to its impact and controversies. In Santa Clarita, California, from April 3, 2015, to Feb. 27, 2016, the family-friendly exhibit features some 400 items from one of the world’s largest private collections of rare biblical texts and artifacts. Since its debut in 2011, several hundred thousand people have experienced Passages in five other U.S. cities, where 90 percent of surveyed visitors have rated the exhibit five out of five stars. Many artifacts traveling with Passages will be featured in Museum of the Bible; a select few will also travel to Philadelphia in September for a special exhibit marking Pope Francis’ first visit to the U.S.

About Museum of the Bible:

Museum of the Bible invites all people to engage with the Bible through museum exhibits and scholarly pursuits, including artifact research, education initiatives and an international museum opening late 2017 in Washington, D.C. The 430,000-square-foot, $400 million Museum of the Bible, dedicated to the impact, history and narrative of the Bible, will be located two blocks from the National Mall. As of 2015, it has sponsored traveling exhibits in six U.S. cities and three other countries.