Table of contents:
- What kind of place is it?
- Wax figures from various museums
- The Museum is very reluctant to comment on the origin of the figures
- How the museum was created
- The popularity of the museum today
Video: How discarded celebrity wax figures became exhibits at the Museum of the Bible
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
This world famous life-size wax museum features 100 biblical scenes and over 325 wax figures. Each scene is complemented by wall panels that are individual for each story. The heroes are dressed in authentic costumes. Also, atmospheric music sounds there, accompanied by original texts from the Bible. Everything looks more than perfect. Only if you take a closer look at the characters, you will notice that they are an exact copy of Hollywood stars. How did it happen and why?
What kind of place is it?
The BibleWalk Museum is the revived Word of God. It is Ohio's only life-size wax museum. It is located in the city of Mansfield.
The Christian Museum fully illustrates the most famous stories from the New and Old Testament Bibles. If you look closely at the characters in the biblical scenes, you will notice something extremely curious.
Wax figures from various museums
The fact is that all the characters are famous Hollywood actors and other famous personalities. King Solomon strikingly resembles John Travolta, and the lady standing next to him has the face of the brilliant Elizabeth Taylor. In the corner, the youthful Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, stands solemnly in a white dress. In another scene, the figure of Jesus Christ with flowing hair and a bushy beard is undoubtedly Tom Cruise.
This is not an odd coincidence. All of these figurines were actually created to represent Hollywood stars and other celebrities.
This was done to display them in wax museums like Madame Tussaud's. After they were used, the pieces were simply planned to be thrown away. BibleWalk purchased all of these figures for a fraction of the cost.
New costumes were sewn for the heroes. This was done by members of the non-denominational Cathedral of Diamond Hill. They also built this museum. A background and props were created for each biblical scene. In order to make the heroes original hairstyles, a good hairdresser was hired.
After that, the wax figures found a second life. They were placed in various biblical scenes. The creators of the museum hoped that with well-placed lighting, in the new surroundings, no one would notice anything strange. But they were wrong.
The Museum is very reluctant to comment on the origin of the figures
Visitors, of course, noticed this and the information was scattered. The museum is very reluctant to comment on the situation. BibleWalk Museum does not in any way aim to advertise famous personalities. Its purpose is completely different. The founders of the museum try to keep the origin of the wax figures a secret.
The director of the museum, Julia Mott-Hardin, who has been in this position since its inception, even refuses to provide excursions for those who want to see celebrities.
She said: “I get calls all the time from people who want to go on a tour. At the same time, they want me to accompany them and point out famous personalities. This is totally unacceptable! I always refuse such people. The museum is dedicated to the glorification of God and his Word. This is what we want to achieve. I just don't want to take away the glory of God. This is the most important aspect of walking the Word of God, God's glory."
How the museum was created
The idea to create such a museum came to the head of Pastor Richard Diamond and his wife Alvilda in the early 1970s. The spouses then visited the historical wax museum, where there were former presidents, military leaders and war heroes. The last scene in that museum, to the couple's surprise, was the Ascension of Jesus Christ. As they stood there as hypnotized, God moved the pastor's heart to build a museum that would glorify the great works of the Lord.
Ten years later, Pastor Richard Diamond began searching for figures for his museum. He soon realized, with regret, that new wax or fiberglass figurines were prohibitively expensive. So Diamond started looking for used ones. The first set of figures was actually donated to another closing Bible Walk Museum in Pennsylvania. With these figures, the pastor founded BibleWalk in 1983.
Additional figures were gradually acquired from various wax museums. They were added to the Bible Museum. These include, in addition to the already mentioned stars, the figures of Clark Gable, Steve McQueen, George Harrison of The Beatles, Marlon Brando and Bert Lancaster. These are just a few of them.
The popularity of the museum today
Today, the BibleWalk Museum is visited annually by 30,000 to 40,000 people from around the world. It is difficult to say how many of them come to get acquainted with the beautifully illustrated Word of God, and how many just for fun to gaze at the faces of celebrities in biblical scenes …
If you are interested in the topic, read our article: archaeologists have discovered the house where the childhood of Jesus Christ passed.
Recommended:
Paintings for the blind, stones with faces and other weirdest museum exhibits from around the world
When the coronavirus pandemic swept the world, museums, galleries and other cultural institutions closed their doors tightly to visitors. New life - new rules. Today's reality is the so-called social distancing. But don't worry. Some virus is not able to deprive humanity of culture. Many of these establishments have moved online. This selection contains a list of the most interesting museum exhibits so that you can join the achievements of world culture without waiting for the moment
What exhibits the "Bird Museum" keeps under the roof of an ancient temple: What jackdaws have been stealing from people for 100 years
The unique collection of old papers discovered by scientists in Zvenigorod amazes not only with its diversity and antiquity. The fact is that collectors for hundreds of years have been birds that steal material from people to insulate their nests. Thanks to the "feathered historians", scientists got their hands on a wide variety of exhibits - from food coupons of the 30s to scraps of documents from the 17th century
Shocking exhibits of the Barnum Museum: how the "grandfather" of modern show business entertained the audience in the 19th century
Phineas Taylor Barnum's name is well known in the world of show business. This American entrepreneur is considered to be the "grandfather" of the modern entertainment industry. Barnum went down in history thanks to the circus, where people with extraordinary abilities, freaks and outlandish animals from all over the world performed. However, Barnum had another brainchild - the American Museum, a grand exhibition center with shocking exhibits
The Japanese have collected in one museum 300 disgusting exhibits, from which goosebumps
There are many of the most unusual museums in the world. There is an underwater museum in Mexico, an exhibition of divorce-causing objects in Croatia, an art exhibition on toilet lids, or a weird collection of bad art. However, the Tokyo Museum of Parasitology can break every conceivable record in terms of the number of unpleasant impressions from viewing the most disgusting parasites that exist in wildlife in general and can be found in the human body in tea
Brazil's oldest museum burned down in Rio de Janeiro - 20 million exhibits and 200 years of knowledge lost
The National Museum of Brazil, which is located in the city of Rio de Janeiro, was severely damaged by fire. A huge collection of this museum was destroyed by fire, the building of which was previously the residence of two emperors and a king