Photo by NCinDC

Who’s more pious now, huh? OK, maybe not, but we did beat out Dallas and New York for an upcoming large-scale Bible Museum, reports the Post:

Cary Summers, chief operating officer of The Museum of the Bible, a nonprofit umbrella group for the collection of the billionaire Green family of Oklahoma, said they considered Washington, Dallas and New York but decided the nation’s capital was the best location. The final name of the museum and its exact location have not been disclosed but planners hope to confirm a location later this summer.

Research they commissioned found that the general population was more willing to travel to the nation’s capital for a Bible-focused museum than the other two cities, Summers said.

“In reality, the population base within that eight-to-10 hour drive of D.C. represents half the U.S. or two-thirds and there’s a lot of Christians in that group,” he said Tuesday.

The museum will charge admission and feature exhibits of over 40,000 artifacts, including a full-scale recreation of the room in London’s Westminster Abbey where the Bible’s King James version was written. According to a 2010 article in the New York Times, the family behind the Hobby Lobby chain of craft stores has already purchased “illuminated, or decorated, manuscripts, Torahs, papyri and other works worth $20 million to $40 million from auction houses, dealers, private collectors and institutions.”

Once a location is announced, the museum could open within four years.