This Museum of the Bible curator takes care of some of the oldest artifacts in the world
In the D.C. region, conversations often start with, “What do you do?” WTOP’s “Working Capital” series profiles the people whose jobs make the D.C. region run.
Bobby Duke thinks many of the world’s treasures belong in a museum for everyone to see. In that way, he is similar to some of the silver screen’s famed history lovers — but he’s no Indiana Jones.
“I don’t wear a fedora. I don’t have a whip, and I don’t have this John Williams theme music in the background,” Duke said.
Even with a name fit for a hero, Duke spends most of his adventures as chief curatorial officer of the Museum of the Bible studying and teaching about the priceless artifacts in its collection.
“It wasn’t like when I was in fourth grade, I said, ‘someday I want to be a chief curatorial officer!’” he joked with WTOP. “It’s not something you aspire to, but it’s something that you realize.”
“For me,” he said, “being at the Museum of the Bible, having a Ph.D. in Hebrew, having researched the Dead Sea Scrolls, it kind of all comes together.”
For nearly two decades, Duke worked at the School of Theology at Azusa Pacific University, where he served as dean.
Duke studied Near Eastern languages including Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac and Greek at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he received his Ph.D. He also studied the Hebrew Bible at Jerusalem University College and earned a theology degree from Multnomah University.
“I was a researcher, I was a professor, and all of those experiences have now been woven together to give me the job skills necessary for what I do here at Museum of the Bible,” Duke said.
He now oversees all exhibits, education and research across the museum’s collections.
Duke said he learned early on that he liked studying the documents in a lab rather than digging in the Israeli heat looking for new scrolls and artifacts.
“I became a tech scholar versus an archaeologist, because getting up at 4:30 every morning, digging in 100-degree temperature for weeks and weeks on end was something that I did not see in my future permanently,” Duke said, adding that he still visits dig sites every year.
The museum supports two digs in Israel: Tel Shimron and El-Araj, which is likely biblical Bethsaida, the hometown of apostle Peter on the Sea of Galilee.
“We have an annual lecture every year from both of those sites, just so we can take the discoveries in the field and bring it back here for our guests at Museum of the Bible,” Duke said.
When he is not at dig sites, Duke is simulating them for children’s programs at the museum. The “Dip Deep program” allows students to experiences of archaeology through hands-on exploration.
A recent exhibit at the museum was the return of the Dead Sea Scrolls, a particular focus of study for Duke, whose writing about the ancient texts is widely respected.
Duke also conducts research and explained that new technology has opened the door to many possibilities. The museum operates a digital imaging lab that allows researchers to reconstruct items, like ancient Torah scrolls.
“One of our items in our collection, we’ll actually be heading out in 2026 to Stanford (University) for some special multispectral imaging because it’s what we call a palimpsest. That means a text was written and then it was overwritten, and then it was overwritten again,” Duke explained.
Museum researchers hope digital imaging will reveal all of those layers.
“We’re in a season of scholarship around the world where it does take a team,” Duke said. “One of the things I’m excited about is that it really causes a sense of humility across scholars, because to really do the work we need to do, you need people that are chemists and biologists … to be able to get to the information that we need as text scholars.”
Duke said he is thrilled that D.C. was chosen as the location for the Museum of the Bible, which opened to the public in 2017.
“You cannot do a mediocre museum in Washington, D.C.,” he said. “You’re here right in the shadows of the Smithsonian. We have so many great museums, and it is a wonderful community.”