The Religion News Service quotes Academic Dean Scott Thumma in a widely distributed article about looted or smuggled antiquities in museums around the world, and a specific case involving the not-yet-open Museum of the Bible.

Chain store Hobby Lobby has agreed to a $3 million settlement in connection with purchasing clay artifacts from Iraq, which several news outlets have reported as “casting a cloud” over the opening of the museum.

Dean Thumma is quoted as pointing out a double standard.

“Many of the collections of our great national museums and universities are full of the very objects that Hobby Lobby is being fined for smuggling and are seldom required to return or pay compensation,” he said.

The full article, Despite Smuggled Antiquities Purchase, Some Say Criticism of Bible Museum Is Unfair, can be found here.