"We don't know nothin' about the Bible."

Those words have been ringing in Don Bassett's ears since the day he spoke to a class of seventh-grade students near Memphis. Showing slides and explaining the customs of Near Eastern countries, Bassett mentioned important Bible sites and great Bible characters, assuming he was on common ground with his young audience. "Here is the valley where David fought Goliath" or "This is the Land of Goshen where Joseph's father and brothers came to live," he would say. Soon Bassett found himself looking over a sea of puzzled faces. Not one child in the public school class understood his references.

That incident confirmed to Bassett, chairman and CEO of the Biblical Resource Center and Museum (BRC&M) in Collierville, Tennessee, that the work he is doing is more vital today than ever before. "A whole generation of young Americans is growing up ignorant of the Bible, the world's greatest book—God's book," says Bassett. "Our children are not reading the Bible nor having it read to them. The atmosphere in our public schools is hostile toward it. Public communications media scoff at its morality and ridicule its miracles. Its very Ten Commandments are no longer welcome in the halls of our public institutions."

But how do you introduce people, young and old, to the Bible when many of them would not set foot into a church? One solution is to open a public museum in which visitors can learn the history of the Bible, see and touch actual relics from biblical times, and observe archaeological evidence that what the Bible claims is true. What sounds like a pipe dream became a reality a decade ago through the efforts of Don Bassett and many others.

An Inspired Vision
The idea for BRC&M was conceived in the early 1970s while Bassett was serving as minister at a Church of Christ in Shelby County, Tennessee. B'Lou Carter, a gifted Bible class teacher, approached Bassett at that time to discuss her concept of a museum where children could learn about the origins of the Bible and experience hands-on activities that would bring it to life. With no funding available, however, they laid their plans to rest.

In 1995, Carter again approached Bassett—this time with financial backing. Bassett slowly began accumulating materials, replicas, and artifacts for the museum through visits to the Holy Lands, the British Museum in London, and the Louvre in Paris. In 1997, BRC&M opened as a small museum in a row of office buildings and offered tours and specialized programs to the public.

Soon church and homeschool groups began flocking to the museum where children delighted in holding 2,000-year-old oil lamps from Bethlehem, assembled their own "How We Got the Bible" books to take home, and used a magnetic board to race each other in putting the books of the Bible in order.

Then disaster struck.

Fire and Faith
On August 12, 2001, the day before BRC&M's third annual teen archaeology camp, fire broke out in the museum. No one was injured, but the fire and smoke damaged many of the artifacts.

"Though the museum's pieces were badly sooted and smudged, they were not destroyed. We feel it was providential that they were spared," says Bassett.

The archaeology camp went on as scheduled. However, the fire rendered the museum building unusable. "We had hoped to move to a more spacious and strategically located venue. We did not want a fire to help us do the moving," Bassett says with a smile, "but the Lord works in mysterious ways. We went into storage while that building was being refurbished."

In the meantime, a building with over twice the floor space of the original museum became available. Located on the historical Collierville town square, the site seemed ideal for increased exposure to the public. Whether the public would accept a biblical archaeological museum was another matter.

"It's almost inevitable these days that when you go into a community and begin an organization that's labeled 'biblical,' people do not know what you're up to. They do not know whether there is a hidden evangelistic agenda and are naturally skeptical," says Bassett.

Though some Christians might balk at the idea of creating a Bible museum that is not evangelistic, Bassett sees the matter from a different perspective. "We have people out there trying to understand our history, our literary heritage, the political philosophy that was the aegis for the beginning of this republic without any knowledge of the Bible, and it cannot be done. We feel that bringing the Bible to the public square in a nondenominational context, from a largely educational rather than evangelistic perspective, is rendering a public service of immense value. Once people saw our intentions, the community became very supportive."

Funding proved to be the next hurdle to overcome. Community leaders united to raise money for construction, and funds often came from the least expected sources. Still, there were many times the project did not look workable.

At the height of BRC&M's financial struggles, when everyone else was ready to give up, Chick-Fil-A franchise owner Scott Clark asked, "Is this a business project or a faith project?" The consensus was that the museum was a "faith project." Soon after, $100,000 arrived from a donor in California.

The Best Evidence
It took over two years and a quarter of a million dollars to gut and renovate the building. The new museum opened its doors on November 7, 2003, and soon became a popular attraction, drawing up to 20,000 visitors a year.

Artifacts, such as a 4,000-year-old bowl from Hebron in use during the time when Abraham settled there and a Bethlehem cooking pot from the days of Jesus' birth, provide a glimpse of everyday life depicted in the Bible. The museum's replicas, however, present visitors with the strongest confirmation of the Bible's authenticity.

Time and again, archaeology has proven the Bible correct by uncovering ancient writings that corroborate Scripture. BRC&M owns copies of many of these ancient inscriptions. Originals of the tablets, which include the Sennacherib Prism, Cyrus Cylinder, and Moabite Stone, are priceless and require a trip to Europe to observe. Visitors to BRC&M can not only see exact replicas but can touch them as well.

"We want to be fair and not decide issues ahead of time, not run ahead of the evidence," Bassett explains. "At our museum, visitors can see the results of the best evidence—evidence strong enough to speak for itself."

One of the museum's replicas, the Pilate Stone, has garnered widespread attention. Many biblical critics assert that Pilate and Tiberius Caesar did not live at the same time. These claims undermine many of the facts surrounding Jesus' crucifixion. Bassett determined to obtain a copy of the Pilate Stone, which mentions both names in the same inscription and verifies the New Testament's historical context. However, securing an exact copy from the Israel museum proved impossible.

B'Lou Carter, a skilled artist, stepped forward once again and began a two-year project to duplicate the artifact. Carter's reproduction is superior to the replica displayed at Caesarea Maritima in Israel, and other museums have already requested copies of BRC&M's Pilate Stone.

A Greater Hope
The museum itself is also drawing widespread attention. Visitors from Arizona, Pennsylvania, Texas, New Jersey, and even Canada come—not to tour the museum but to study how to get the Bible into the public forum. With most existing Bible museums in this country located at churches or on religious college campuses and limited to scholarly pursuits, requests to clone BRC&M arrive with increasing frequency.

Keeping the museum running, with all its many programs, is a constant challenge requiring approximately $250,000 per year. "Funding is still our biggest issue," says Bassett's wife Nancy.

Though the BRC&M could not operate without large donations, sometimes the smallest gifts mean the most. Nancy's eyes filled with tears at the memory of one such gift the museum received in early September of 2005. The check for $20 was drawn on the Hibernia National Bank in New Orleans, Louisiana, shortly after Hurricane Katrina devastated the city. The couple who wrote it said they wished it could be for more, but they were not yet sure whether they still had a home or jobs to which they could return.

Says Bassett, "That tells me there are people out there at the end of their rope who are grateful for a museum that assures them the promises of God are firm and true, even when everything they own lies beneath a flood of noxious sludge. The victims of Katrina and other disasters need more than just food and raiment. They need assurance that there is a living hope for them that floods, fires, and looters can never take away."

And this hope is what the museum is all about.

Tracy Crump is a freelance writer from Nesbit, Mississippi. For more information about the Biblical Resource Center & Museum go to www.biblical-museum.org.

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