All that’s really missing is the ominous music and an albino monk.Įmmanuel Zervides is the charismatic, learned showman at the centre of the tours. The tourists I meet take pains to stress that their faith is not in stones but in Scripture, a sentiment seemingly at odds with the tours’ purpose: who needs physical proof for a fundamental belief? Nor do any of them see the tours as a Da Vinci Code backlash – although the setting and the methods summon up the comparison. If the Bible’s prophecies are right – and they are, she says – “The good times are here!” Never before has Armageddon sounded so cheery.

One such woman, from Zimbabwe, segues smoothly and without irony from talking about Harare’s terrible problems to cheerfully predicting the end of the world. Many of them come from abroad, some especially to go on the tours.

With a variety of routes and subjects, hundreds of people – not exclusively Witnesses – turn up each week. They are turns round the Classical world with an Apocalyptic twist. These Witnesses are going on Bible tours, where they are taken around the museum to see objects relating to history and prophecies as given in Scripture. Even if I’m a bit deaf to it, they’re not – and they’re using the Museum to prove it. At least, that’s what the Jehovah’s Witnesses who gather there every Saturday tell me. Writer Josh Spero seems very well primed - a change from the usual cliches about smart dress and 'all our beliefs are Bible-based' soundbites.Īmong the Greek goddesses and Assyrian altars of the British Museum can be heard the growing rumble of the imminent Apocalypse.

Meander bible tours