The Museum Center at Five Points will host its 10th Anniversary exhibit, Treasures of the Holy Land: Cleveland’s First Museum, starting Saturday.

The highly anticipated exhibit will be on display through Jan. 31, 2010, and examines the Bowen Biblical Museum, which was Cleveland’s first museum. Located on the campus of Bob Jones College in Cleveland from 1944 to 1947, the Bowen Biblical Museum housed thousands of objects collected by Frank and Barbara Bowen during their six trips to the Holy Land in the 1930s.

Museum Director Lisa Simpson Lutts said, “Without the assistance of so many people within our community at various colleges and schools, we would never have been able to pull this exhibit together.

“We are so grateful for everyone’s help in graciously sharing their knowledge on biblical archaeology and history with us. The staff of the Museum Center has enjoyed learning about these objects and now we are excited to share what we have learned with the people of Cleveland and Bradley County.”

After an initial research visit to the Bob Jones University Art Museum and Gallery, Lutts chose 55 objects that represented the artifacts that had been in the museum in Cleveland.

The objects include a 5th century B.C. Babylonian cuneiform cylinder, a 5th century A.D. Byzantine foot lamp, items used in daily life by the Bedouin in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and teaching dioramas created for the museum in the 1940s.

Since the staff at the Museum Center were unfamiliar with this time period in history, they needed to find scholars to help write the labels for the exhibit. Because this was the 10th anniversary exhibit, they also wanted this to be the largest and best exhibit they ever organized.

As guest curator, the Museum Center secured the volunteer services of Dr. Richard Jones, associate professor of anthropology at Lee University. His knowledge of the archaeology and anthropology of the Middle East made his curatorial services invaluable for the exhibit, according to Lutts.

Jones is a participating scholar in the Karak Resources Project in Jordon. He is also conducting ongoing research in Middle Eastern Christianity and kinship patterns in the Middle East. Earlier in his career, Jones received a Fulbright Scholarship and worked at Cairo University in Egypt.

“I am excited to be involved in a project connected to the history of Cleveland and one that is also connected to the history and culture of the Middle East,” said Jones.

“The Museum Center has put together an informative and educational exhibition that I believe will be extremely popular by virtue of its relevance to the history of our community.

“The Bowen Collection and the lives of Frank and Barbara Bowen reflect an approach to the illumination of biblical religious meaning that is unique to a time now past. This exhibit is a window into the Bowens’ lives and into the time that they lived.”

Also assisting with research was Frank and Barbara Bowen’s nephew, Robert B. Wright, Ph.D. Wright, a retired professor of Hebrew Bible at Temple University in Philadelphia, and a member of the Core Staff of the Harvard University/Hebrew Union College Archaeological Excavations at Tell Gezer, in Israel, was instrumental in providing material about the Bowens’ life and travels.

He scanned several travel journals of newspaper clippings and letters that were filled with invaluable research material. He also provided oral history about the Bowens with whom he spent summers while he was growing up. Wright spent his university years working at the Bowen Museum in Greenville, S.C.

“The Bowens were a remarkable couple,” Wright recalls. “The impetus behind all of the Bowens’ work, collecting, teaching, and, indeed, their lives, was the belief that the gulf between our modern culture and that of the Ancient Biblical text could be bridged by better understanding the life and ways of the indigenous Bedouin nomads.

“The Lord is my Shepherd” could be better understood if we knew more about the nomads who actually did the shepherding.”

Frank and Barbara Bowen left hundreds of photos of their trips to the Holy Land and the Museum Center staff wanted the exhibit to include both the Bowens’ photos and the Bowens’ words from their travel journals and letters home. The staff hired Patricia Vorndick, an exhibit designer from Nashville, to take these photos and quotes and incorporate them in blow-up wall panels.

The archival staff at the Dixon Pentecostal Center at Lee University scanned the photo albums for the blow-ups Vorndick designed. The archival staff’s work resulted in huge cost savings for the Museum. Dr. David Roebuck, the director of the Dixon Pentecostal Center, also provided much insight into the history of Bob Jones University.

The Museum Center is also planning numerous education programs for both adults and school children. The Museum Center called on the help of Rev. Edward Snodgrass of the McCallie School in Chattanooga.
Snodgrass teaches biblical archaeology at McCallie and used to oversee the small archaeology museum that the school once had. He provided many ideas for the Junior Archaeology lab that will be used for students in school tours when they visit Treasures of the Holy Land.

The Museum Center staff also exchanged ideas with the staff at the Lynn H. Wood Archaeology Museum on the campus of Southern Adventist College. Their staff will give a lecture about archaeology. The Museum Center also will sponsor a van trip to their museum.

Unlike other exhibits at the Museum Center, The Treasures of the Holy Land required the work of a professional exhibit designer and the transportation of the artifacts from Bob Jones University to Cleveland.
“This was our most costly exhibit to organize and we are so grateful to the organizations and individuals who helped bring this amazing exhibit to our community,” said Lutts.

The idea for the exhibit came about when local historians Bob George and Mitchell Kinder told the Museum Center’s Director, Lisa Simpson Lutts, that there was a museum in Cleveland on the campus of Bob Jones College in the 1940s. Intrigued, Lutts began researching the museum.

After learning that the Bowen Collection still exists as part of a much larger art museum on the Bob Jones University campus in Greenville, S.C., Lutts called the staff of the art museum to begin negotiations for an exhibit.

The exhibit will open to the public on Saturday. Museum hours are Tuesday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturday 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. The museum is closed Sundays, Mondays & holidays.

Admission is $5 for adults, $4 for seniors and students, and free for children under 5. Groups of 12 or more are $4 each. Members of the Museum Center receive free admission. The museum is free the first Saturday of each month.

Groups of 20 or more can schedule special tours of Treasures of the Holy Land on Sundays or Wednesday evenings with prior arrangement. For further information call 423-339-5745 or visit www.MuseumCenter.org