"Bible Museum, Admitting Mistakes, Tries to Convert Its Critics"
NY Times weighs in on the latest Museum of the Bible forgery and repatriation announcements, but I feel like I've seen this framing before . . .
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/05/arts/bible-museum-artifacts.html
h/t @rogueclassicist

Some weird stuff in this article, for instance referring to a scholarly editio princeps of 13 supposed Dead Sea Scroll fragments as a "scholarly ebook".
(Yes the link takes you to Brill's Dead Sea Scrolls Fragments in the Museum Collection)

But the weirdest part may be the reference to "a dozen interviews" with "some of the institution's toughest critics"

I follow several of MOTB's toughest critics and none of them is quoted in the article.

Immediately after the reference to these critics, we get a quote from Christopher Rollston.
First, the article says only that Rollston "reviewed the finds about the scrolls". They should have mentioned instead that he was an invited participant to the museum's symposium on them.

Now, I greatly respect Rollston, and he has made some critical comments, but he's hardly one of their toughest critics.
But don't take it from me, judge for yourself what he said when the museum opened in 2017:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/religion/museum-bible-gears-opening-washington-amid-propriety-questions-n821336
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/museum-bible-faces-revelations-controversy-opens/story?id=51194500

We also get quotes from Collette Loll, whom MOTB commissioned to investigate the scroll fragments -- the study that was the basis for the museum's official announcement that they're all fake.

To be clear, these are relevant people to interview! They are closely connected to the story and have things to say.
But where are these toughest critics?

If any of my followers who have criticized the museum at length were interviewed, I'd love to know

But returning to these excerpts of interviews with Rollston, we note something else:
The idea that the museum has responded to scholarly criticism & has made it clear that they're changing has been there since November 2017 when the museum first opened!

Now, I do think the museum has gradually improved on some provenance issues since 2017 or 2018.

But really news outlets can't just rehash the same tired narrative for 2 1/2 years without comment.
Clearly something was wrong with the earlier responses to critics!

This is especially the case when you consider the number of the museum's scandals and problematic purchases over this time, many not even mentioned in the article:

the tax kickback allegations
the ms stolen from the University of Athens
the supposed world's oldest siddur

Plus the way that the museum has tried to spin many of these scandals as reflecting well on the museum(!)

And, finally, the article doesn't mention the fact that the Greens would have profited heavily off of donating fake Dead Sea Scrolls to their own museum.

For more on what a major issue those donations are -- or should be, if outlets like the NY Times covered them! -- see here: https://twitter.com/MichaelDPress/status/1243193178456547328

Wow, 6 days after the NYT's
"Bible Museum, Admitting Mistakes, Tries to Convert Its Critics"
the Telegraph gives us
"Museum of the Bible attempts to convert critics after forgeries blunder"

They're really working that narrative hard.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/04/11/museum-bible-attempts-convert-critics-forgeries-blunder/
h/t @JoelBaden

And once again, Museum of the Bible tries to turn what should be an embarrassment into a PR win.

If MOTB wants to put together an exhibit on how these fragments were found to be forgeries, they just need to show an empty case labeled "provenance documents" & "our due diligence"