Biblical Museum Münster

Bible Museum Münster (2020)

The Bible Museum of the Westphalian Wilhelms University in Münster is the most comprehensive museum on the history of the Bible in Germany. The exhibition contains manuscripts, prints and other originals, mainly on the history of the New Testament from its handwritten beginnings to the present day.

collection

The collection of the Bible Museum includes manuscripts, prints from the 16th century and other exhibits, especially from the Greek New Testament . Further topics are manuscripts and prints of the Latin Bible , the German Bible, in particular the translation by Martin Luther , as well as other modern Bible translations . The exhibition shows a total of 1,500 Bibles, manuscripts and fragments of scriptures, as well as Bible illustrations and a faithful replica of the Gutenberg press .

Interior view of the Münster Bible Museum

In addition to these exhibits from our own holdings, items on loan from the private Schøyen Collection in Oslo are also regularly exhibited to the public. In April 2010 the Bible Museum received Germany's largest private Bible collection from the collector Walter Remy . This ancient Bible collection includes 379 Latin, 200 Greek and 16 multilingual Bibles from the 16th to 18th centuries. 37 digital copies of printed Bibles in the collection are currently freely accessible. Furthermore, the museum's 22 Greek manuscripts have been digitized and are available in the “New Testament Virtual Manuscript Room (NTVMR)” of the Institute for New Testament Text Research .

history

The museum was founded by Kurt Aland as a division of the Institute for New Testament Text Research at the University . The opening ceremony took place on March 8, 1979 in the presence of the then Federal President Walter Scheel . The first location was Georgskommende 7. A private collection formed the basis of the exhibition, supplemented by the existing holdings of the institute. In the years that followed, the collection grew steadily, including significant exhibits.

In 1986 Barbara Aland took over the management of the museum. Three more rooms were added. A total of around 350 exhibits have been on permanent display since then, the rest partly through special exhibitions. In 2004 Holger Strutwolf took over the management of the museum, and Jan Graefe has been curator of the museum since 2017. Towards the end of 2006, the company moved to its current location on Pferdegasse opposite the LWL State Museum for Art and Cultural History . From 2014 to 2019 the museum was closed due to extensive renovation work and a redesign of the collection presentation, for which nine months were initially planned.

Videos

• TV report on the opening of the Bible Museum and the work of the INTF , 1979

Web links

• Website of the Bible Museum

Individual evidence

1. ^ Michael Bönte: Bible Museum creates new rooms for 1500 historical writings. In: Kirche + Leben , December 15, 2019, p. 13.
2. ↑ z. B. MS 2634/1 , et al. a.
3. ^ Walter Remy Collection
4. ^ Biblical Museum Collection - Introduction - Digital Collections. Accessed January 30, 2019 . 
5. ↑ digital collection NTVMR. Accessed January 30, 2019 . 
6. ↑ Karin Völker: The Bible Museum is being rebuilt. Exhibition closed for nine months , Westfälische Nachrichten, Münster edition, June 4, 2014, accessed on December 14, 2019.
7. ↑ Karin Völker: Science to Experience. Reopening of the Archeology and Bible Museum , Westfälische Nachrichten, Münster edition, December 13, 2019, accessed on December 14, 2019.

Coordinates: 51 ° 57 ′ 40.4 "  N , 7 ° 37 ′ 24.4"  E