"The Bible's Buried Secrets"

"Golden Globe nominated actor Leiv Schreiber narrates this feature-length documentary taking viewers on a remarkable scientific journey that began 3000 years ago, and presents findings that stand as the culmination of over 100 years of excavation and centuries of biblical scholarship. By delving deep into the origins of the Old Testament, archeologists attempt to find answers to such timeless questions as where the ancient Israelites came from, who wrote The Bible, and why the world that was once polytheistic began a gradual movement towards monotheism. As the biblical texts continue to resonate through history, The Bible's Buried Secrets takes viewers to the intersection of scholarship, science, and scripture in order to explore the questions that Christians and theologians have been asking for centuries."

Tonight on PBS 67.1 at 9:00 PM. I am outside of Wash., D.C., so if you depend on OTA TV this may not apply to everyone. Is PBS
carried on cable? Would be interesting if any light could be shed on the truthfulness Mormonism.

A great many of those questions have already been answered.
For example, the "ancient Israelites" came from among the Canaanites in the region, slightly changing the gods worshiped and traditions. Archeologists note that "ancient Israelites" are just like ancient Canaanites, with one difference: at a point starting about 800-900 BCE, "Israelite" settlements start to no longer have pig bones.

There is no "truthfulness" in Mormonism to have light shed on it. It's made-up nonsense. This show won't have anything to do with that.

Yes.... thank you. You saved me from saying the same thing.

ificouldhietokolob Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> A great many of those questions have already been
> answered.
> For example, the "ancient Israelites" came from
> among the Canaanites in the region, slightly
> changing the gods worshiped and traditions.
> Archeologists note that "ancient Israelites" are
> just like ancient Canaanites, with one difference:
> at a point starting about 800-900 BCE,
> "Israelite" settlements start to no longer have
> pig bones.

I have written about this before, and I think it's time to repeat...

When I was going through the conversion to Judaism program at the University of Judaism (now: American Jewish University), one night the rabbi who was teaching our Jewish history class began that night's class by asking us a question:

"What happened to the Canaanites?"

And we had no idea. We started looking around at each other for some kind of clue...and we were all equally clueless.

When there was no answer forthcoming from any of us he said, (sweeping his arms at their broadest arc to encompass the entire university campus):

"Look around! They're HERE!! The Canaanites are H-E-R-E!!!"

"WE are the Canaanites!!!"

And then he said that the early Jews (who were a culturally and biologically amalgamated "people" from the beginning), simply incorporated large numbers of Canaanites from tribes and bands wherever the then-fledgling Jewish people were or went...and in a number of generations, MOST of the Canaanites had "disappeared." The ones who didn't "disappear" [i.e., they didn't join the Jewish tribe]...the ones who kept their separate identity...are very probably, and among other things, what are now known as the Palestinians. (Lots of historically complex things going on here, like at least most of them becoming Muslims at some point in the many-centuries-forward future, but this is the capsule version of that very complex history.)

So the original "Jewish people," and the Canaanites/Palestinians, etc., are LITERALLY biological cousins with (again: this is the very high simplified version) a huge amount of common biological and cultural ancestry in their pasts.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/26/2015 03:16PM by tevai.

Basically true, tevai, for the Sephardim. But the Ashkenazim have been shown to be primarily of Khazar origination.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/26/2015 08:54PM by hello.

hello Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Basically true, tevai, for the Sephardim. But the
> Ashkenazim have been shown to be primarily of
> Khazar origination.

I agree with this.

I was thinking "Israel"/"Midddle East"...not Eurasia!! (Which is my bad...Eurasia COUNTS!) (*)

Thanks, hello!!!

(*) But through different historical eras there have been lots of Sephardim in the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal), some in southern France, and some in Italy and Greece. I am instinctively "Sephardi-centric," so I tend to "forget" that ha-Ashkenazim are "there." :D

The Khazars are historically very important. The Khazar people, natives of central Asia, converted to Judaism en masse, because the Khazar ruler did. They clearly illustrate that the Jewish people as a whole are not so much biologically-bound as they are a tribe which, in this particular sense, does not depend on inherited ethnicity as a qualification for inclusion.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/27/2015 08:57AM by tevai.

I watched the show. NOVA did their typically good job with the subject.
They went just the tiniest bit overboard in a few places to try and placate the believers, but overall it was very well done, and essentially showed how the mass of archeological, textual, and even bible analysis evidence showed the vast majority of the Old Testament to be fictional.

One of the places they went a bit overboard concerned the Tel Dan Stele, which mentions "House of David." One of the commentators essentially said it was firm evidence that "David" actually existed. Well, not really. The stele dates to about 160-200 years after "David" would have been around, and is a quote from a foreign ruler who says he killed the king of the "house of David." What that can firmly establish is that by the date of the stele, the *story* about a "house of David" existed. It can't confirm that "David" did. It's just as possible that a king in Israel of that era claimed lineage from a legendary "house of David" to give himself more legitimacy, without there ever actually having been an actual "David." Egyptian kings did this, claiming actual lineage from Osiris, for example. Roman emperors also sometimes claimed lineage from Romulus, and nobody thinks Romulus actually existed. So while the stele is suggestive, it's not firm or conclusive.

There was enough in the show to make hardcore bible believers angry, and hardcore complete bible mythicists angry -- which probably indicates it was just about right, a good summary of the evidence. It was worth watching.

I agree. I thought it was well done.

Even if David and Solomon were real kings, I thought the program made it clear that their greatness was exaggerated. Even if they ruled from Jerusalem over a large kingdom from north to south, oversaw great building projects, etc... this was still a relatively small group of people. The palace and temple couldn't have been as grand as the bible claims, Solomon couldn't have had 1000 wives and concubines, etc...

If that wasn't clear, it was clear that the Israelites were, without a doubt, NOT monotheists, the chosen people of YHWH, conquerors, etc... Whether the first historical bits start with David or later, it's clear that most of the OT is just unifying myths, later laws, etc... There was no Moses, no Abraham, etc... Seems to destroy the claims of Mormonism and Christianity in general.

I checked out Wikipedia for articles on the so-called "Beit Dawid" stele, and I was underwhelmed by the evidence of it's reality.

For one thing, this stele was severely damaged by Bedouins who found it, in an effort to make more fragments and increase their sales income from the bits. They burned it in a fire pit, and fractured it up. The bits were seriously damaged. Efforts were made to use paper mache to grab the text off the bits, but the results were less than perfect.

There were other issues concerning context, but as it has been months since I read the pages, my memory is poor. Suffice to say, I found the evidence too poor to support the automatic claims of the "Beit Dawid" stele as a proof of David's existence. I invite any interested to check out relevant Wiki pages with an unbiased reading.

The same can be said of claims that some stelae prove the existence of the Northern Kingdom of Israel. The texts actually refer to the kingdoms of other kings who inhabited the regions claimed for the kingdom of Israel, and Biblicists conflate them with Israel, without real support.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/26/2015 11:09PM by hello.

I too enjoyed the presentation which came across to me as pretty objective.

Seeing footage of Israel and Egypt always takes me back to my youthful pilgrimage there.

I had never fully grapsed the impact that the Bablylonian captivity had on the codification of the modern Judiasm that we know today.

I personally find the *actual* history of the Jews and the region to be far more interesting than the concocted one in the bible. The real history is one of cultural struggle, search for identity, conflict, and more. It's fascinating.

One thing to note is how wide the acceptance is among the Jewish and Christian groups of what facts are starting to show -- other than among the hardest-core bible literalists (and Muslims), there's pretty wide acceptance of what was outlined in the show. When the archeology contradicted the bible myths, the myths were accepted as myths in large part.

Compare that to mormons, who are still trying to claim horses are tapirs, and still trying to fit their mythical Nephite and Lamanite cities into a geography and into cultures where they clearly never existed...:)

Oh, I missed this last night.

Will have to check for reruns in my area.

You can watch this on PBS.ORG. This is actually a rerun. The show was originally produced in 2008.

The case is even more compelling now IMO than it was in 2008.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ancient/bibles-buried-secrets.html

rodolfo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> You can watch this on PBS.ORG. This is actually a
> rerun. The show was originally produced in 2008.
>
>
> The case is even more compelling now IMO than it
> was in 2008.
>
> http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ancient/bibles-buried
> -secrets.html

______________________

Thanks. I was able to catch the last half of it tonight. Will try to followup by looking for it on PBS website tomorrow - to watch the first half! (Thanks bona dea unregistered for that tip!)

PBS usually broadcasts its website starting the following day.

What a great shame that the Bible and other dishonest religious texts have obscured and distorted the real history of the region for several millennia.

Did you even watch the program because that was not the point? In fact,without the Bible with all its flaws,we would know a lot less about the history of the time.

bona dea unregistered Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Did you even watch the program because that was
> not the point? In fact,without the Bible with all
> its flaws,we would know a lot less about the
> history of the time.

Actually, that pretty much *was* the point -- that the vast majority of the bible is NOT "historical."
And it's what we've learned outside the bible that has given us a factual picture of the history of the region, and shown that the bible isn't history.

Did YOU even watch the program?

And a lot is historical although sometimes exaggerated

bona dea unregisteted Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> And a lot is historical although sometimes
> exaggerated

No, "a lot" isn't historical.
Care to give some examples of parts that ARE historical, instead of just making vague unsupported claims?

David,Solomon,Josiah and the Babylonian Captivity for starts are at least partly historical. The Exodus may have a grain of truth in it. Did you watch it?

bona dea unregistered Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> David,Solomon,Josiah and the Babylonian Captivity
> for starts are at least partly historical. The
> Exodus may have a grain of truth in it. Did you
> watch it?

Several times (recorded it).
"David" has not been established as "historical," and neither has Solomon. Josiah is questionable.
The "Babylonian Captivity" has, but every bit of story in the bible about that (much of which *isn't* historical) makes up about 1% of the bible.

So, is 1% "a lot?"

1%? Where did you get that?

bona dea unregistered Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> 1%? Where did you get that?

The captivity lasted about 60 years. Of the supposed 4,000 year "timeline" of the bible, that's 1.5%.

The captivity is discussed in Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and Ezra (though the subject doesn't make up ALL of those books by any means). That's part 5 books out of 66, or about 7% IF all of those books were entirely about it, and they're not.
Word-wise and time-wise, it makes up about 1-2% of the bible.

The "grain of truth" discussed is rather insignificant...and it contributes strong evidence to the idea that most of the Bible stories before David are simply unifying myths. A small group of travelers from the south might have picked up the idea of the god YHWH from YHW and joined up with displaced Caananites in the hills. This would have been hundreds of years after the time of the Moses story, and the program made it very clear that the religion of one true God didn't take hold until many centuries later. It also made a strong case that the stories of the patriarchs were unifying myths created much later.

1% is pretty low IMO. It would be difficult to figure a percentage anyway. My point was that there is some history in the OT, particularly the later books and the video showed this. It is also our only written source for the history of the area with the exception of some inscriptions.

I agree, considering names and places in the later OT books. I was referring specifically to the exodus story. The program pointed out that the story of a massive group escaping bondage, wandering, etc... is not supported by any evidence. A much smaller group likely joined up with the displaced Caananites, bringing with them ideas on god that they had picked up along the way. There were no Israelites at the time of the Moses story, there was no conception of YHWH, etc... 1% might be a fair assumption if referring specifically to the details of the exodus story as written in the bible...the only historical detail being that a group of people traveled from the south.

Afree about Exodus, but it is ansmall, part of the OT

"What a great shame that the Bible and other dishonest religious texts have obscured and distorted the real history of the region for several millennia."

What a strange and anachronistic statement - is it also a "great shame" that the "dishonest" Iliad has "distorted" the real history of the Aegean region for millennia?

Good point. It is also a shame that Shakespeare obscured history.Richard III comes to mind.

I'll have to check out the URL and see if I can find the rebroadcast.

Seems to be some "straining at gnats" and "camel swallowing" in this thread.

Jus' sayin'. Don't shoot the messenger!