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Getty Museum sued over ancient Bible pages

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The Getty Museum has been sued by an Armenian church in Southern California over pages from an ancient Bible that currently reside in the museum’s collection.

On Tuesday, the Western Prelacy of the Armenian Apostolic Church of America filed a $105-million civil lawsuit against the J. Paul Getty Museum, saying that the institution illegally bought the seven pages, which are known as the Canon Tables. The news was first reported in the Glendale News-Press.

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The church is demanding the return of the pages, saying that they were ripped from the Armenian Orthodox Church’s Zeyt’un Gospels during the early part of the 20th century.

The Getty maintains that it legally acquired the Canon Tables and that the lawsuit should be dismissed. A spokeswoman said the Getty acquired the pages in 1994 from a private U.S. collection and that the museum reviewed the origins of the pieces.

‘At no time in the 90 or so years that the Canon Tables have been in the United States has anyone questioned their ownership,’ the Getty spokeswoman said in a statement.

Read more about the story here.

-- David Ng

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