Gustav Jeeninga Museum of Biblical and Near Eastern Studies

In 1963, three years into his twenty-nine-year tenure as a professor at Anderson College, Dr. Gustav Jeeninga founded the Museum of Bible and Near Eastern Studies. The first object in the collection was a replica of a statue of a Sumerian priest. Initially, the museum focused on obtaining original artifacts from the ancient Near East, but Dr. Jeeninga later expanded its collection to replicas for educational purposes.

When Dr. Jeeninga retired in 1989, Dr. David Neidert took over as the museum’s director. By then, the museum had grown enough to warrant its own space in the School of Theology, and the collection contained around 1,000 artifacts.

Today, the Gustav Jeeninga Museum of Bible and Near Easter Studies is located on the ground floor of York Performance Hall. It is under the direction of the Anderson University Department of History and Political Science.