The Owners of Hobby Lobby Are Returning Biblical Antiquities That Were Allegedly Stolen by an Oxford Professor

The Museum of the Bible in Washington, DC, is on the hot seat
once again for acquiring illicit antiquities that must now be
returned.

The latest scandal involves at least 13 biblical fragments
that Oxford papyrologist Dirk Obbink is accused of stealing
and improperly selling to the museum’s owners, David Green and his
family, who also own the chain store Hobby Lobby, according to the Daily
Beast.

The Egypt Exploration Society, a London-based nonprofit, posted
a statement on its
website yesterday saying that photographs provided by the
museum led the society to identify 13 texts on papyrus or parchment
from its collection that “were taken without authorization.” It
added that “in most of the 13 cases the catalogue card and
photograph are also missing.”

Obbink did not immediately respond to a request for
comment. He is still listed as a professor on Oxford University’s
website.

The museum’s board has accepted the Egypt Exploration Society’s
claim to ownership and is arranging to return the 13 pieces. The
Museum of the Bible helped the society “recover antiquities that
had been sold illegally during the years 2010-2013,” it said in a
statement. “The items referenced were acquired by Hobby Lobby
stores in good faith between 2010 and 2013, but sold by a known
expert from Oxford University.”

In June, the Daily Beast reported that Obbink may
have also sold an ancient fragment relating to the Gospel of Mark
that did not belong to him.

David Green, an evangelical Christian, and his family founded
Hobby Lobby in 1972. The nationwide chain operates some 800 stores
and is valued at $4.6 billion, according to Forbes. Hobby
Lobby rose to notoriety in 2014 when it won a Supreme Court lawsuit
allowing the company to deny its employees health insurance
coverage for contraceptives on religious grounds.

Hobby Lobby professes a mission of “honoring the Lord in all we
do by operating the company in a manner consistent with Biblical
principles.” In 2010, the company spent $1.6 million to buy
thousands of ancient artifacts in an effort to amass a trove of
Biblical antiquities and, seven years later, opened the Museum
of the Bible.

That year, the US Department of Justice filed a civic action
claiming that the family had participated in a years-long, willful
pattern of smuggling Iraqi artifacts into the US despite numerous
warnings, interceptions, and large-scale purchases that were
“fraught with red flags.”

As part of the related settlement, Hobby Lobby was forced to
surrender thousands of artifacts and pay a $3 million fine.

The Egypt Exploration Society did not re-appoint Obbink as an
editor of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri, “primarily because of
unsatisfactory discharge of his editorial duties, but also because
of concerns, which he did not allay, about his alleged involvement
in the marketing of ancient texts.” In June, the society banned him
from its collection. It says it is now investigating with Oxford
University the removal of the texts from the university’s
premises.

The post The Owners of Hobby Lobby Are Returning Biblical
Antiquities That Were Allegedly Stolen by an Oxford Professor
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