With its Christian roots, Norwegians have translated the Bible into the languages of the Indigenous Sami people in the far north of the Nordic region. Tranby notes the first Sami Bibles are “super, super rare,” with only eight or so copies remaining of 100 printed editions. This museum has two of the eight remaining copies. “There has to be more,” he said.

Why so few of those copies remain? 

The Sami “lived in tents,” he said. “It was wet.” 

“They needed the hiker’s Bible,” my wife quipped, referring to the earlier modern Bible we saw.

We start seeing some more interesting and odd editions of the Bible. One Danish couple named Anna Sophie and Paul Sidelin made a translation in 1974 focused on making the language “sound beautiful.” 

A Greenland edition of the Bible used super long words and had to adapt some wording for local culture. For example, people in Greenland didn’t grow grain or eat bread. So the passage, “Give us our daily bread” in the Lord’s prayer didn’t make sense to them. So the translators wrote “Give us our daily seals.” 

Tiny Bibles fit for Barbie

One of the showstopper displays at the museum features a set of super tiny Bibles as small as matchboxes that printers used to “show off that you can print that small” in the 1800s.

“It looks like it’s for my Barbies!” my daughter says. 

Tranby notes that those Bibles might come with lenses to read the words. 

After that levity, we hit a somber note as we learn about Bibles in continental Europe that earned death for reformers like William Tyndale. “Being a Bible translator was one of the most dangerous jobs in Europe because of the risk of being burned as a heretic,” Tranby said. 

The museum is not the most interactive for kids, although they have one display where kids or adults can don a cloak and use feather ink pens to see how a translator might have written on early forms of paper. And visitors can see and touch a few artifacts with help from a guide. 

Before the tour is over, we see an original page from a Gutenberg Bible from the 1400s, the only one on display in Norway. We see Bibles illustrated by Rembrandt, Gustave Dore and Salvadore Dali. As we wrap up the tour, my wife asks Tranby and another guide what they think about printed books versus digital books. 

“I see no problem in having printed books if you can afford them,” he says. “It gives you an opportunity to mark a book in ways you can’t with online books.” But then, in careful Norwegian fashion, he demurs so as not to offend anyone who might object. “There is no shame in using an electronic book. It’s good to read many kinds of books.”

The entire space is neat, clean with orderly display cases, well-designed placards and polished concrete floors. The gift shop sells beautiful replicas of a 1769 Swedish family Bible for 1,396 Norwegian crowns, a Geneva Bible replica from 1560 for 1,180 crowns and a 1611 King James Version of the Bible for 1,180 crowns. Plus it sells quills, ink vats and plenty of modern copies of the Bible in Nordic languages. 

Forging ahead

Tranby notes the museum has a collection of 4,000 Bibles and decided to open this museum in 2018, which wasn’t the easiest date to launch.

“It’s a little bit rocky,” he says, noting that the pandemic years in 2020-2022 “were difficult.” 

Does this museum have any connection to that big Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C., that was started by the billionaire Green family that owns the Hobby Lobby franchise in America? 

“We have a cordial relationship to the museum in D.C. but no official affiliation. This is his personal collection.” Tranby notes the Nordic museum receives no government subsidies and is run by volunteers like Tranby, who works at the museum 2-3 days per week. 

“Why do you volunteer?” I ask. 

“Well, because I am a historian and I like the Bible,” Tranby says. “It’s a fascinating history.” 

He says it’s a fun place to work but you “need to have employment on the side” to be able to pay rent and live in Oslo. 

“So what do you do on the side?”

“I’m a bartender!”

We laugh and my family prepares to leave, as we’ve already stayed past closing time. My wife asks if we can give a tip to Tranby and the volunteers in thanks for their excellent tour and their excellent museum. He declines, saying they don’t accept tips.

At a bar, yes. At the Nordic Bible Museum, no.