Bible exhibit opens in Vatican

(Vatican Radio) A new exhibition featuring Biblical texts and rare manuscripts is underway in the Braccio di Carlo Magno museum in the Vatican. Entitled “Verbum Domini II” God’s Word Goes Out to the Nations: the exhibit brings together over 200 artifacts to tell the history of the Bible across the globe.

Highlights include three fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and a double page from the Codex Vaticanus, the oldest surviving manuscript of the complete Christian Bible, which is on loan from the Vatican Library.

“What has inspired this exhibition is Pope Benedict XVI with his Apostolic Exhortation “Verbum Domini…”, says Mario Paredes, Presidential Liaison for Catholic Ministries at the American Bible Society.

Also featured is The Lunar Bible, one of 100 Bibles on microfilm that were flown to the moon’s surface with astronaut Edgar Mitchell on Apollo 14.

Stressing the important role of technology in this exhibition, Mr Parades says, “technology today is extremely important especially for our younger generation,” adding that new media is playing its part in spreading the World of God.

The items on display come from the Vatican Museums, the Green collection, which is one of the world’s largest private collections of rare biblical texts and other institutional and private collections in the U.S. and Europe.

The exhibition is free and runs to the 22 June in the Braccio di Carlo Magno museum in the Vatican. Listen to Lydia O’Kane’s interview with Mario Paredes