My Trip to Texas - Ancient Treasures Museum

During my recent trip to Texas I had the wonderful pleasure of "stumbling" upon a great exhibit at a local mall (Willow Bend) less than one mile from my hotel in Plano. I truly believe it blessed the Lord to lead me by the store front where I walked in and spoke to Cary Summers, the museum's curator. It was a pleasure talking with him. At first I thought it was a store selling huge bronze statues of people. After talking with him shortly, he mentioned that the statues were actually Russian Israeli artist. I then could see a few of the museum's artifacts from where I was standing. He started to mention Israels history and a little of what the museum was all about. I began to get excited when he spoke of the land and people who God esteemed so much. I then said to him "It's one of the biggest misconceptions today, that people have this idea that the bible is just a bunch of stories rather than seeing what it really is which is literal condensed history, and that no archaeological find has ever disproved scripture, in fact it has heavily validated and continues to confirm scripture" His face lit up as he said "that's exactly what this exhibit is all about" and as he continued to share about the museum, I could hardly wait to buy a ticket and check it out. The very next day after work I bought my discounted ticket and headed on in. It was one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. It's a 9,000 square foot layout (in the mall) of rare antiques and theme sets from scripture throughout the entire exhibit. The exhibit features artifacts from the Hebrew University School of Archaeology of Jerusalem. Highlights listed on the brochure include:

• The inscription stone from "UR", the city of Abraham
• The Egyptian collection dating to 3,250 BC
• Weapons from the time of Joshua
• Ivory from Queen Jezebel's palace
• Artifacts from the City of David
• The inscription brick of Nebuchadnezzar
• The coin collection from the Hasmonean period
• The 10th Roman Legion brick
• Ossuaries of the first century
• The Masada excavation collection

The tour is a self guided tour and thank goodness, because I took a lot of pictures (See below) In addition as you are taking the tour I received a pamphlet with numbered paragraphs in it. Each number preceding the paragraph coincided with a number at various exhibits. So where there was a number on a scene say of Moses crossing the parted Red Sea, one only had to look up the number in the pamphlet and it gave a detailed description of the scene along with the chapter and verse of where it is in the bible. It explained various artifacts and people in scripture as well, such as Flavius Josephus, who we know was a 1st-century Jewish historian who corroborated many things in the bible (Picture below sitting at a table writing with hand on head) I found the pamphlet very useful as I came across some artifacts that I knew nothing about. One such artifact would have been a sword used in Joshua's day (see picture below) along with an axe. If you looked up #16 you could read:

16 - From Joshua 11:12 - "Joshua took all these royal cities and their kings and put them to the sword. He totally destroyed them, as Moses the servant of the Lord had commanded." Similar to the local pottery, the weapons used at this time basically did not change much over many years either - until the discovery of gunpowder. They included superior bronze weapons, such as curved swords and ceremonial axe-heads - like this one in the shape of an open hand with outstretched fingers.

And after the tour was over I got to sit and watch a seven minute 3-dimensional film shot from Israel. It was incredible. I loved every minute of it.

But that's not all! The best part was after exiting the museum I was able to go across the hall to the Ancient Treasures gift shop where I got a whopping 40% off everything! There were all kinds of books, videos and hand made items imported from Israel. I wound up buying a new bible for my collection. I purchased the Archaeological Study Bible - so far this bible has been a real blessing to me. I'm getting a literal "Illustrated walk through biblical history and culture" as the bible cover so accurately states. This thing is huge and full of beautiful colored photographs of various things such as lands, homes, artifacts from biblical times, clothing and great iconic structures of that time such as Alexandria and Athens. This bible will definitely prove to be a useful study tool to me. It also comes with a software CD containing NIV text and all photographs, maps, and charts included in the Bible. I first heard of it when my brother in law purchased it. Ever since then I have been interested in getting my hands it. It was as though the father said "son, I have a gift for you" Thank you Father. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in it.

I also wanted to take the time to thank Alicia who headed up the Ancient Treasures gift shop. From the moment I started talking to her our conversation was blessed by the Lord. She truly refreshed my spirit that day. She was a wonderful spiritual mother in the faith to me and I felt as though I knew her for years. She truly had a passion for the Lord and the spirit of God was clearly guiding her words of faith and instruction as she spoke and shared much with me. Had we have had another five minutes I'm positive she would have prophesied over me right there in the store :) Thank you Alicia for the wonderful conversation, the refreshing of my spirit, and the 40% off! I pray that God would bless both Cary and Alicia as they continue to follow His will. Thank you guys for a great time while I was in Plano. I learned a great deal and hope one day you come close enough to us in PA so my family & friends can attend and be blessed by the museum as well.

Joe

Pictures from The Ancient Treasures Museum - Click To Enlarge