America Evangelises Moon: Museum of the Bible quietly replaces questioned artefact

That all-important documentation was found to be missing again in the Green mega-collection (mega-bucks, mega-big, mega-gullibility of the buyers) Ken Miller 'Museum of the Bible quietly replaces questioned artifact', Washington Post October 5 :

The Museum of the Bible in Washington quietly replaced an artifact purported to be one of a handful of miniature Bibles that a NASA astronaut carried to the moon in 1971 after an expert questioned its authenticity. [...] The purported “lunar” Bible is just the latest item purchased by the family to come under scrutiny.

The report reminds us that:

The move follows an announcement last year that at least five of 16 Dead Sea Scroll fragments that had been on display at the museum were found to be apparent fakes [...]. Steve Green, museum founder and president of Hobby Lobby, also purchased thousands of Iraqi archaeological artifacts for a reported $1.6 million, but was forced in 2018 to return them to the Iraqi government and Hobby Lobby paid a $3 million fine after authorities said they were stolen from the war-torn country and smuggled into the U.S. Museum officials have said none of those items were ever part of its collection. As for the Dead Sea Scrolls that were called into question, the 11 remaining fragments are being tested, with results expected by the end of the year, Cirmo said. Two of the fragments remain on display with signs noting that they are being tested. The museum did not announce that it was replacing the lunar Bible — a decision Cirmo defended. “It’s pretty ridiculous to think that any museum, that every time you switch something out you’re going to announce it on plaques,” Cirmo said. “Collectors make mistakes all the time. ... This is not something that is unique to Steve Green.”

But it does tend to happen to those that buy a lot of stuff quickly with too little attention paid to the documentation saying where it came from, where it had been and supporting the claims made about it.

In an interview with The Associated Press a month before the museum’s 2017 opening, Green acknowledged the museum had made some mistakes early on. “There’s a lot of complexities in areas that I’m still a novice at,” he said. “But we are engaging the best experts we can to advise and help us in that process.”

But it is a bit late now, the stains cannot be bleached out of tainted artefacts by merely saying 'stuff happens'.