The Eric Metaxas Show - #17 - Dr. Carlos Campo

Episode Date: November 29, 2025

I recently spoke with Dr. Carlos Campo CEO and President of Museum of the Bible on the new extraordinary Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit now on display in partnership with the Israel Antiquities Authority and Running Subway. The exhibition features biblical texts and scrolls from the community at Qumran, as well as hundreds of artifacts. The scrolls provide unique insights into the formation of the texts that make up our Bibles today.

Have you visited the Museum of the Bible? I have been there. I don't know how many times. Every time you go there, there's something new. They have a very big deal right now. The Dead Sea Scrolls. If you don't know about that, we'll be talking about that in a moment. But they've got a special exhibit of the actual Dead Sea Scrolls.

This is crazy. They were found in a jar, in a cave in 1947. I write about it. My book, Is Atheism Dead? It's a big deal. If you have my book as Atheism Dead, you can read about it right now. But I'm speaking to Carlos Campo, who's with the Museum of the Bible, to get the details. It's just amazing to have this.

Hey there, folks. As promised, I have as my guest right now, Carlos Campo. He's the president of the Museum of the Bible. Carlos, thanks for coming on. Thanks, Eric. And thanks for the way you support the Museum of the Bible. We're so grateful of the many visits you've made here. I don't want people to know about the millions that I have given.

That's anonymous. I want to be very clear. That's anonymous. Yeah. No, seriously, I almost can't believe the Museum of the Bible exists. It's what a crazy thing. You sort of think like, oh, all the great stuff has already happened. It's like, no, there are people doing things like saying, hey, let's create a Museum of the Bible on the Mall in Washington, D.C.

It's amazing. It's just almost impossible to believe. Is this real? Is this real? Yes, it is? I was talking to Carrie Summers recently, who was instrumental in creating the whole museum, friends with the Greens. So I'm a big booster of the Museum of the Bible and thrilled that I get to do that.

You know, nobody's paying me to do that. It's just a joy to know that it exists. And I want to get the word out to people. If you're going to Washington, D.C., oh, my goodness, spent a couple of days there. So the latest thing, of course, and this is a big deal. I wrote about this in my book is atheism dead. The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the significance of the Dead Sea Scrolls,

really mind-blowing. But most people have never seen the Dead Sea Scrolls. We have to take people's word for it. That's fine. But the idea that the Museum of the Bible is hosting an exhibit right now where people can actually lay their eyes on some of the actual Dead Sea Scrolls,

It's hard to believe folks, but it's true. So Carlos, it's why I wanted to bring you on to tell us about that. Well, it really is extraordinary. Eric, the reality is no Dead Sea Scroll has been in Washington, D.C. since 1993. And that was a single scroll at the Library of Congress. But people will see when they come are eight scrolls. And not just that, we have what's called the Genesis Scroll. So I haven't gotten 100% confirmation, but we think it's the only one that has literally all of Genesis 1-1 intact. And as you may know, these scrolls can only be in light for three months at a time. And then they must be in darkness for five years. So when you think of how precious they are, it's really extraordinary. You know, the great Isaiah scroll is the only book that was intact found back in 1947. That one, which is on display

at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem when you go there and I think you've been there and you see that it's amazing and then I found out last week, guess what? That's not the original. That's a facsimile. These are so precious. They don't even in Jerusalem, they don't leave it out.

We need to break this down for people because I'm sure there are tons of people listening right now watching. They don't know what we're talking about. And so if you have a copy of my book is atheism dead you can read about it, but most people don't. And I want to explain this so people understand what we're talking about because when you get it. So, ladies and gentlemen, in 1947, a shepherd boy wondering all these bad kids, these rotten

kids, I think he was 12 years old, I don't know, these rotten kids wandering, he wanders, he's chasing a goat. He doesn't know he's trying to follow his goat and he stumbles upon a cave. Sounds like a fairy tale. Yes. And it's as amazing as a fairy tale. So this is 1947. Carlos you can tell the rest of the story. This is a true story. Well, it really is striking because instead of going into the cave, he's a teenager and he's nervous about going into a cave. So he says, to find if my goat is in the cave, I'll throw a stone and see if it responds.

And when he throws the stone in, he hears something break. And it's a clay jar. And it contains what we now know is probably the greatest biblical, archaeological find in history. maybe the greatest archaeological find in history, and that's 1947. And what is studying to me, Eric, is how quickly that boy gets this transferred to an antiquities dealer in Israel. I mean, it's just, you think of a Bedouin of sorts in Qumran. I mean, this is 25 miles from Jerusalem by foot and not an easy walk. And within months, they're in the hands of an antiquities dealer.

And then it's not long after that. There's literally an ad in the Wall Street Journal in 1947 or 48 that they are for sale. For sale? Well, okay, so we got to break this down. Ladies and gentlemen, understand this. In a cave. And again, I go into the details in my book is atheism dead because some of this stuff sounds made up.

It's so amazing. The cave had, think of this, for 2,000 years. For 2,000 years, these jars had been in the cave, unbothered for 2,000 years. What is in the jars? Scrolls. What are the scrolls? This is scrolls of all kinds of stuff, including the handwritten scroll of the book of Isaiah. Yes.

The handwritten scroll, almost every single book. Everyone, everyone except for Esther, yes. From the Old Testament. Everyone but the book of Esther, handwritten on scrolls preserved for 2,000 years untouched in a cave that a shepherd boy stumbles upon because of his goat, the goat clearly led by the Holy Spirit. And suddenly, we now know that the Bible was not messed with

in those 2,000 years because we can go back and read the documents that we discovered in this cave, untouched for 2,000 years. What does that say? And that was one of the ways that, you know, modern Bible scholars could say, we know that what we have in our Bible, you know, in the Gideon's Bible, in your hotel room and the Bible that has not been changed because we can compare it. We didn't, we weren't able to do this before. But because of this discovery, we can actually read their version of the Bible from

2,000 years ago. We can see to anybody mess with it? Oh, no, they didn't. It really doesn't get bigger than this. And this is Carlos, where I see this is God's hand to prove to us in these last days that his word is unchanged. And the fact that folks, you can lay your eyes on some of these actual scrolls that were hidden in the cave for 2,000 years perfectly preserved. Why were they perfectly preserved because it just so happens that that area, it's so dry and the air is so still, any other place they would have rotted, they would have something else would have happened. It's just, I mean, again, it's almost unbelievable, but God allows it. And the museum of the Bible, I mean, for them to be able to have this, you said, for three months.

So the clock is already ticking because I know this already has started. This exhibit started a little while ago. Yes. Well, the great news is that while the scrolls can only be out for three months, The agreement that we have allows us to get a new tranche every three months for nine months. So you literally can see three tranches of eight scrolls and get to see all 24. So we hope that folks will come out and see them all. And as you said, Eric, the most typical argument that you would hear, if I walked out into the streets of Washington, D.C. and said, tell me why you fail to believe that the Bible is reliable. The number one response in America today is, you know what, it's been changed so much over the years, all these translations.

It's this telephone game, right? You've heard it a million times. That's why I can't rely on the Bible. It's been changed and changed and changed and we'll never know what the original text was about. Well, this literally all but silences that criticism. And so that's what we think is so special about this exhibit, to come and see for yourself these scrolls. And it's the 75th anniversary, but that's like saying yesterday in terms of archaeology. And what we go on to show at this exhibit, Eric, is that it's not just that discovery, but what we have found through modern technology is we can read more of the scrolls today than we ever could before. Because, yes, they did survive all these years in these clay jars, but many of them did have some stains on them that now, through spectrography and other incredible technological advances,

advances, we can read them in a way that we couldn't even 10 years ago. So the scrolls continue to speak into our current time, and they're incredibly relevant. Well, again, I just, this is a very big deal that the Museum of the Bible would be able to display this so that Americans can zip down to Washington, D.C. and bring their kids and say, I saw the actual scroll with my own eyes that is 2,000 years old folks. Can you imagine that you're looking at something that somebody wrote 2000? Some of them are older. It could be

2300 years old, 2200 years old. I mean, some of this stuff, it's just astonishing that it exists. It's astonishing that we found it and that scholars have been pouring P-O-R-I-N-G,

pouring over them and studying them And one of the things that I find interesting, I guess, is that when we think about the discovery of these scrolls, you realize that when you find something that's this valuable, it is always the tendency of academics, the scholars to, I never know what the term is, to Bogart the Joint, to, say, you know what, we're the experts. We're going to, we're going to look at this, but we're not going to let you look at it. And we're going to, they kind of, the experts kind of sat on these scrolls for like 50 years, folks.

Like they, it was just really, and you see this in history. I've written about this and other examples of scholars when I talk about the Iliad and the Odyssey and the discovery of, well, actually, linear B, Sir Arthur Evans in 1900, the palace at Nosos in Crete. He discovers all of these tablets that have this ancient writing on them, whatever. He sits on this for like 50 years until finally somebody is able to, Michael Ventris is able to get his hands on this and to try to decode some of it. So scholars do this a lot of times, and that's what happened with the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The scholars from 1947, they sat on this. And it's only in recent years that we have had the kind of unfettered access to these scrolls that we now have, which is a big deal. It is. And you're exactly right to tell that rest of the story. You know, 47, 48, they're in the Wall Street Journal. They're back in Israel, in Israel's possession within just a few years. But they did. They remained pretty much hidden until fairly recently. The reality is there are almost a thousand of them now.

About a thousand, almost all of them in Israel's hands, which is where they belong. But you probably know that just three years ago, someone reported that in Montana, tacked basically on a cork board in someone's kitchen, was a fragment from the Dead Sea Scrolls, which now has been verified. Can you imagine that? A woman called in, she said, you know what? It was passed down through the family, and I just had stuck up here pinned with a pushpin on a cork board, was a fragment from the Dead Sea Scrolls that she didn't know what exactly was.

The Anticinus Authority looked at it in 22, 23, and just last year verified that it was from the Dead Sea Scrolls. So pretty incredible. Now we have full access to over 900 scrolls. And I did want to mention that this exhibit not only includes the scrolls, it also includes the Magdalas Stone, which I think you've heard about, Eric. It is this incredible discovery that is very recent. So actually a Catholic center that is now fully fledged in Magdala right there on the Sea of Galilee, they're building a retreat center basically that's open to the public. And the claw from one of these excavators, they hear a clunk.

And what they find is a first century stone that would have been used to roll out the scroll. So literally roll out the Torah scroll. they find one perfectly intact and go on to believe, and this is what the preponderance of scholars, and you know it's hard to get 50% of scholars to agree on anything, they believe that this is actually the the stone from Mary Magdalene's home temple or synagogue. So when we know from the Gospels that Jesus visited her and spoke, of course, rolled out the scroll and spoke the words that he's come to set the captives free in Isaiah, that it's very likely, At least 50% of the scholars believe that it is likely that this actual stone that's in the museum of the Bible today is the stone that Jesus used to roll out the scroll and declare that he had come to set the captus free.

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Folks, I'm talking to Carlos Campo about the Museum of the Bible's exhibit and what you just said, Carlos, I had not heard that. That is a big deal. First of all, you know, people like me, I didn't even know there was such a thing as a scroll. You know, I've never,

I've only existed in the time of bound books So to think of the Bible in scrolls in the synagogue where you have to pull out the whole scroll and then you have to roll it out. And then the idea that there was a stone, that they would use a stone, I guess a long stone. I don't know. What's the shape of the stone? Yes, it is rectangular in nature. And that's precisely what it was used for.

It would have been a table of the day. But this one is extraordinarily decorated and includes, of all things, a menorah. They think it may be the very first menorah, so a reflection of the temple. And what is, excuse me, what is the roughly the size of the stone we're talking about? You know, I'm going to say that it's roughly as a rectangular shape, maybe two feet by four feet, maybe even a little bit longer than that. And when I talk about the decoration on it and to be able to see it, it truly is a work of art in and of itself. And while our curators were thrilled about the Dead Sea Scrolls coming, I tell you, Eric, they were

more thrilled about this stone coming. They just said, Carlos, we literally have chills about thinking that Jesus may have, and they think likely did interact with this actual stone that we have in the museum today. Remind me what year this was discovered, this magdala stone. I say, I want to say it's been within the last decade or something. So it's literally just, just been discovered. As a matter of fact, I spoke to the priest, Father Kelly, who's now responsible for that center.

And he said, Carlos, you know the reality is that many developers would have hit upon something like that and dismissed it, gotten rid of it because it set their project back a number of years, as you would guess. I met Father Kelly when I was in Israel and I was in Copernium. I believe it was Father. I'm pretty sure it was Father. Kelly. And again, folks, this is all delightful and funny. Can you imagine that for 2,000 years or however long, something is hidden and then suddenly, Bing, we find it. We're like, hey, what's this? And you think, ah, probably Jesus touched this. Now, I think it's fair to say, there is nothing that we know of in the known universe that we could say Jesus touched this.

Right. In the last 10 years, we found something that Jesus with his hands probably touched. That's a big deal. And it kind of corroborates my general thesis, which I don't know if I mentioned it. My book is atheism dead, but it's been in my head for a while that it seems that, you know, as we approach the last days, God reveals himself more and more and more, that we discover things that have been hidden for a long time. and who knows what else we will discover. Who knows what else is hidden that will be found?

I mean, in 1947, we found the Dead Sea Scrolls, which is probably, as you said, Carlos, probably the greatest archaeological find in the history of the world, the Dead Sea Scrolls. You're like, oh, look what we found. Who knows what else is out there? The Magdalas Stone. Can we believe it?

That this is where Jesus would have rolled out the scroll from the temple on this. stone? Right. This is this is crazy stuff. And you're telling me that that is now at the Museum of the Bible. It's at the Museum of the Bible. It's that Emily Dickinson poem that talks about God revealing himself gradually, lest all men be blind. And so that's part of what we're seeing here. And I'll just share quickly one more anecdote with you, Eric, and that is, I was at the site. So once they clunks on this stone and see what they have there, they excavated the rest of it and thought. And we see the walls of the actual synagogue. So now,

when you go to the site, and I was there three or four months ago, I see this maglestone. You can walk right up to it? And I walk up to it. And I said, can I touch this? And they said, yes, it's fine because that's a replica. So I'm there at the Sea of Galilee. And I'm looking at a replica because the original is on its way to the Museum of the Bible. So if you're at Galilee today, you're looking at the replica sitting in that synagogue. And what I will say is that over the next 20 or 30 years, what you're going to find is that will be a heritage site. And we'll see pilgrims from all over the world coming to that site at Galilee, thinking Jesus was here. He visited the synagogue when he visited Mary Magdalene, and this is the stone that he used to roll out

the Isaiah scroll and declare what has been memorialized now in the Gospels forever. Ladies and gentlemen, are you listening? This is too much. Sometimes you just think, what a privilege. I get to be alive right now when we discover these things where God gives us more and more proof of himself. But people can see this now, you're saying, in the Museum of the Bible. That's correct. It's available here at the Museum of the Bible. You're going to see not only those eight scrolls from the Dead Sea Scrolls, you'll see the Magula Stone, and then you'll see the recreation of something you may have seen called the Jesus Boat. There was an actual first century boat that was found in the Sea of Galilee. That exists in a separate museum in Israel.

Well, we have a recreation of that with some fragments from that actual boat. Did Jesus ever sit in that boat? No, we can't say that. But we can say that this is a first century boat and probably very much like the kind of vote Jesus would have been in. Well, there's so many treasures at the Museum of the Bible. You've just mentioned a few. What is the pavement now that I'm thinking of? There's a pavement.

You're thinking of the Megito Mosaic, which is the mosaic floor of the oldest Christian church ever discovered that is also here at the museum at this time. And when was that church created? When was this floor created? Yeah, great question. It was created in 230 AD. So 2 30s, a few generations after you know, the Apostle John's death. So think about that. So it's created in 230, sat for 1800 years and then when a prison in Magido Israel exists today, I was at the site three or four months ago, it's being expanded. They had to call in the authorities that's required by law. Anytime you move dirt in Israel, the experts have to come in on the last day of the excavation, an actual prisoner who's helping to move the dirt says, I think I found something.

And what they have found is the earliest Christian church in history ever discovered. This is the mosaic floor that has three Greek inscriptions. in it, including one that declares Jesus as God. It's the earliest reference in that form to the deity of Christ to be found anywhere. So yes, it is truly an extraordinary experience to visit the museum, see that first church, and then see the earliest scriptures available to humankind. Not to mention, I know it sounds like a long commercial, but not to mention, we have the oldest copy of Jonah in history in our permanent collection. It's currently on display. such an early copy, the earliest copy of First Peter, it's so early, it's just called a letter of Peter.

It's not called First Peter at all, so it's from the third century. So all of that currently on display at the museum. During the horrors of the Holocaust, Corey Ten Boom and her Dutch family, as told in her classic book, The Hiding Place, risked everything to shelter Jewish neighbors in their home. They were betrayed and sent to concentration camps, yet Corey survived and went on to preach forgiveness and hope around the world. That same redemptive spirit lives on in Ten Boom Coffee. Working with Agro Cafe and Israeli AgTech Company, Ten Boom Coffee helps farmers around the world increase their harvest by 60%, improving both the quality of their beans and the quality of their lives. So every cup you pour becomes part of a legacy, one that stands for courage, kindness, and redemption. Visit 10 Boomcoffee.com.

that's 10 boomcoffee.com, taste the goodness that changes lives, use the code Eric, and say 10%. 10 boom coffee.com, use the code, Eric. I mean, and you're telling me people, like the kind of people that are watching us right now or listening to us, can go to the museum and see this stuff. Actual people can see this. You can see. I'm just amazed, you know, that somebody, and again this is the Green family folks. They've just decided, hey, we should have a place

where we can display these treasures a couple of years ago didn't exist. Boom, now it exists. You can go there. This is exciting. This alone is exciting. So many exciting things happening. Revival, people coming to faith.

And I believe that the Museum of the Bible is part of that. There's something happening. The fact that there was no museum of the Bible, ever, and then suddenly there it is in Washington, D.C. and that people can go there. There's so much to see. We've just touched on a few things, but these are such amazing things. And Carlos, if people want to find you, how do they find you? Really easy to find me. Just Google Museum of the Bible, and I'll turn up on the leadership page.

Before we sign off, Eric, I want to remind your audience that on July 3rd, Eric Mataxis is going to launch what we believe will be the single greatest exposition of this fact, and that is the connection between the Bible and the founding of America. So America's 250th is going to turn this entire town, red, white, and blue. We will be the only museum in Washington telling this story that these truths are not self-evident. Why were they evident to those men? We believe it was evident to those men because of the Word of God. That's the story we're trying to tell, and you're going to launch that on July 3rd, six months. I actually forgot about that. No kidding. I forgot that I'm going to be at the museum. I mean, I'll probably be there before then, but I will be there on July 3rd, which is the day before the actual

supercentennial 250, folks. It's a big deal. And you know, I got to say this, Carlos. It was at the Museum of the Bible because I'm on the president's commission on religious liberty. I was there. This is about three months ago. And the president came and spoke and that's when it was at the museum of the Bible that backstage I spoke to him about that we should call the 250th the super centennial and then he goes out in the theater of the museum of the Bible gives his speech and Fox News carried it live and says oh and Eric here wants to call the 250 wants to call it the Supercentennial he announced it at the museum of the Bible um you know I'm not making this up folks that actually happened and so I think it's appropriate that I will be at the

Museum of the Bible on the eve of the actual date of the supercentennial 250 to talk about this. By then, my book on The Revolution will be out where I talk about all this kind of stuff. It's very exciting, but we have to look forward to, and we have to thank God for it, folks. This is no thanks to any of us. God's hand is on this country for his purposes in history around the world. It's not just for this country. In fact, it's not for this country. It's for everybody.

The president of the Museum of the Bible, Carlos Campo, really just amazing that we get to have this conversation. We're not making this up. We're not saying we hope or we think all of this stuff is true. It is there now at the Museum of the Bible. I look forward to seeing it with my own eyes. And Carlos, we're just so grateful for the work that you do at the Museum elsewhere. Thank you so much. Thanks, Eric.

My blessing. Thanks. See you soon. Bye-bye. This Christmas, as we celebrate the Supercentennial coming up, Super Centennial 250th, there's no way, better no way to support it than by supporting my friend, an American hero, Mike Lindell. He's one of the main sponsors on this program. He's the man behind Mike Pillow. He put his money where his mouth is. Some of you know this. If you've watched

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