Flash, Flourish and Faith
ORLANDO (Orlando Sentinel) -- Ladies and gentlemen, from the theme park capital of the world, behold: the Scriptorium, Bible study like you've never seen it before. The $12 million, 18,000-square-foot tourist attraction that traces the holy writings of Judaism and Christianity opens to the public Monday at The Holy Land Experi-ence. A testament to high-tech wizardry, razzle-dazzle design and savvy marketing, the Scriptorium is also more fodder for the debate about how much religion can use popular culture without making fundamental compromises. Your host -- and the man behind Scriptorium's curtain -- is the Rev. Marvin Rosenthal. The Christian impresario is a ringmaster with a mission: to present the Bible to the masses in an entertaining way. With typical flash and flourish, Rosenthal, 66, bills today's unveiling of the Scriptorium at a news conference "a grand opening of biblical proportions." Modeled on a Byzantine basilica, the Scriptorium from the outside seems plucked from medieval Constantinople, which is no coincidence. The shimmering, two-story, copper-colored building was designed by Itek, a special-effects company that has done work for the larger Central Florida theme parks.
From start to finish, the Scriptorium experience will be familiar to anyone who has visited a Disney attraction, starting with guides, called "greeters" -- young men and women dressed in monks' robes. Inside the Scripto-rium, 13 "stations" trace the arduous evolution of sacred writings from divine inspiration to mass production. Artifacts run the gamut from Babylonian clay tablets called cuneiform, Egyptian papyrus leaves and ancient biblical scrolls, to fragments of Gutenberg's Bible and John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress, displayed in a re-creation of Bunyan's jail cell, with the original key nearby. All are from the collection of the late Robert Van Kampen, who made his fortune on Wall Street. A soundtrack plays everything from Gregorian chants to Ren-aissance choirs to simple hymns of the American prairie. All the documents, including a bloodstained1537 "Matthew's Bible," believed to have been owned by an English martyr, are displayed in cases controlled for temperature, light and humidity. An animatronic incarnation of the 14th-century British Bible translator John Wycliffe, built at a cost of $80,000-$100,000, scribbles away with a quill in his candlelit study. The climax of the Scriptorium's 55-minute tour takes place inside the building's dome, 60 feet high and 32 feet in diameter. As thunder booms and lightning flashes, the fiery finger of God -- with a helping hand from fiber optics -- etches the Ten Commandments in Hebrew on the craggy face of Mount Sinai. The doors swing open and the guests exit -- as decreed long ago by the secular theme park gods -- into the Scriptorium's gift shop. Visitors to Holy Land will be paying an increasingly steep price as well. In the best theme park tradition, with the new attraction will come a bump in the Holy Land admission price, up $7 to $29.75 for adults and $19.75 for children.
ORLANDO (Orlando Sentinel) -- Ladies and gentlemen, from the theme park capital of the world, behold: the Scriptorium, Bible study like you've never seen it before. The $12 million, 18,000-square-foot tourist attraction that traces the holy writings of Judaism and Christianity opens to the public Monday at The Holy Land Experi-ence. A testament to high-tech wizardry, razzle-dazzle design and savvy marketing, the Scriptorium is also more fodder for the debate about how much religion can use popular culture without making fundamental compromises. Your host -- and the man behind Scriptorium's curtain -- is the Rev. Marvin Rosenthal. The Christian impresario is a ringmaster with a mission: to present the Bible to the masses in an entertaining way. With typical flash and flourish, Rosenthal, 66, bills today's unveiling of the Scriptorium at a news conference "a grand opening of biblical proportions." Modeled on a Byzantine basilica, the Scriptorium from the outside seems plucked from medieval Constantinople, which is no coincidence. The shimmering, two-story, copper-colored building was designed by Itek, a special-effects company that has done work for the larger Central Florida theme parks.
From start to finish, the Scriptorium experience will be familiar to anyone who has visited a Disney attraction, starting with guides, called "greeters" -- young men and women dressed in monks' robes. Inside the Scripto-rium, 13 "stations" trace the arduous evolution of sacred writings from divine inspiration to mass production. Artifacts run the gamut from Babylonian clay tablets called cuneiform, Egyptian papyrus leaves and ancient biblical scrolls, to fragments of Gutenberg's Bible and John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress, displayed in a re-creation of Bunyan's jail cell, with the original key nearby. All are from the collection of the late Robert Van Kampen, who made his fortune on Wall Street. A soundtrack plays everything from Gregorian chants to Ren-aissance choirs to simple hymns of the American prairie. All the documents, including a bloodstained1537 "Matthew's Bible," believed to have been owned by an English martyr, are displayed in cases controlled for temperature, light and humidity. An animatronic incarnation of the 14th-century British Bible translator John Wycliffe, built at a cost of $80,000-$100,000, scribbles away with a quill in his candlelit study. The climax of the Scriptorium's 55-minute tour takes place inside the building's dome, 60 feet high and 32 feet in diameter. As thunder booms and lightning flashes, the fiery finger of God -- with a helping hand from fiber optics -- etches the Ten Commandments in Hebrew on the craggy face of Mount Sinai. The doors swing open and the guests exit -- as decreed long ago by the secular theme park gods -- into the Scriptorium's gift shop. Visitors to Holy Land will be paying an increasingly steep price as well. In the best theme park tradition, with the new attraction will come a bump in the Holy Land admission price, up $7 to $29.75 for adults and $19.75 for children.
