ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Area Jewish leaders who protested February's opening of the Holy Land Experience theme park are now upset that it plans to lure tourists through a display of biblical manuscripts.
Next summer, Holy Land will open a $9.5 million, 17,000-square-foot museum featuring such items as a fourth century Bible from Egypt, an original 1611 King James Bible and numerous illuminated manuscripts.
The collection was owned by the late Protestant businessman Robert D. Van Kampen, who in 1994 built an underground "Scriptorium" for it near the family compound in Grand Haven, Mich.
A Van Kampen Foundation spokesman said after Van Kampen died the family decided his collection should have "greater exposure."
Holy Land President Marvin Rosenthal, a convert from Judaism to Christianity, said "any city in America would want to have this collection."
But Rabbi Daniel Wolpe, president of the Greater Orlando Board of Rabbis, protested that "a Torah should not be a display item." Jewish leaders have also opposed the park itself, saying profits might be funneled to its parent organization, a mission to convert Jews.