In rural Ohio, a wax museum dedicated to all things Bible

By Dennis Lennox, CP Contributor Sunday, March 31, 2019

An exhibit depicting Jesus Christ and the Last Supper at the Biblewalk Museum in Mansfield, Ohio. | Photo: Dennis Lennox

You could call it the biblical version of Madame Tussauds, the famous museum known for its wax figures of celebrities and other famous personalities.

Part museum and part ministry, the BibleWalk Museum in rural Ohio is located halfway between Columbus and Cleveland in Mansfield (population 47,281). Typical of many towns in the Rust Belt, Mansfield’s best claim to fame is “The Shawshank Redemption,” the 1994 movie starring Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman that was filmed locally.

I will admit that before visiting I thought BibleWalk looked and sounded hokey, especially since it has gotten some publicity for repurposing wax figures of celebrities and famous personalities into biblical characters without changing the faces.

Yet, I was pleasantly surprised when I visited the museum, which sits on the campus of the nondenominational Diamond Hill Cathedral. Sure, it was a little weird seeing an angelic Prince Philip, but I suspect only pop culture aficionados really notice the faces.

Visitors of different Christian denominations and traditions will find BibleWalk useful in improving their biblical literacy, notwithstanding its affiliation with the neighboring church. Everything — there are more than 300 figures depicting something like 78 scenes from both the Old and New Testaments — is straight out of the Bible.

If you go

The BibleWalk Museum is open year-round Monday to Saturday with limited visiting hours on Sunday in the months between April and October. Admission is, however, somewhat expensive with an adult ticket costing as much as $26.75.

Spires and Crosses, a travel column exclusive to The Christian Post, is published every week. Follow @dennislennox on Twitter and Instagram.

Dennis Lennox writes about travel, politics and religious affairs. He has been published in the Financial Times, Independent, The Detroit News, Toronto Sun and other publications. Follow @dennislennox on Twitter.