Posted on 07/21/2008 10:01:21 PM PDT by kellynla
Abraham didn't exist? The Exodus didn't happen?
The Bible's Buried Secrets, a new PBS documentary, is likely to cause a furor.
"It challenges the Bible's stories if you want to read them literally, and that will disturb many people," says archaeologist William Dever, who specializes in Israel's history. "But it explains how and why these stories ever came to be told in the first place, and how and why they were written down."
The Nova program will premiere Nov. 18. PBS presented a clip and a panel discussion at the summer tour of the Television Critics Association.
The program says the Bible was written in the sixth century BC and that hundreds of authors contributed.
"At least the first five books of the Bible come together during the Babylonian exile," says producer Gary Glassman.
The program challenges long-held beliefs. Abraham, Sarah and their offspring probably didn't exist, says Carol Meyers, a religion professor at Duke University.
"These stories are unlikely to represent real historical events, but rather there's some kernel of ancient experience in there which has survived and which helps give identity to the people at the time the Bible finally took shape centuries and centuries later," Meyers says.
There's no archaeological evidence of the Exodus, either, she says, but "it doesn't mean that there's no kernel of truth to it."
Nova series producer Paula Apsell says she found it "extremely shocking" to learn that monotheism was a process that took hundreds of years.
"I was always brought up to believe that the minute Abraham and the patriarchs came on the scene, the Israelites accepted one God and there was just always one God and that was it," Apsell says. "I think people are going to really be stunned by that."
(Excerpt) Read more at orlandosentinel.com ...
This is just more of the effort to destroy religion as we know it.
The left makes no pretense of what their goals are anymore.
The old Soviet Union wouldn’t allow organized religion. And now the left in the United States has decided that model suits their purposes also.
Can’t have organized religion calling abortion and homosexuality on it’s moral grounds. Can have a competing source of information and ultimate truth.
The leftist media is supposed to fill that bill.
Get with it Christians.
This person evidently never read the Exodus and the rest of the bible. It clearly describes the falling away of the people from monotheism.
I am kinda stunned, but rather by this person's complete ignorance of Old Testament history. Israel constantly turned aside to the idols of the nations around them. Starting with the creation of a golden calf at the foot of Sinai, and continuing throughout the period of the judges, and into the kingdom years, culminating in the judgment of the Babylonian captivity. In Elijah's day, he was able to say:
The Israelites have rejected your covenant, broken down your alters, and put Your prophets to death by the sword. I am the only one left ....
Doesn't sound like the actions of a nation that accepted the truth of the one God, Jehovah. A few years later, Amos was dispelling whatever notions that Judah has about its past:
Did you bring unto Me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel? Yea, ye have borne the tabernacle of your king and the shrine of your images, the star of your god, which ye made to yourselves.
I would find it unusual that someone who presents themselves as an expert on these matters can't grasp the basics; although in reality I'm not surprised at all.
Thank you for the link. Read part of it, save for later reading. Thanks again!
Still waiting for Ramadangdingdong to come around this year so that PBS can finally address the myth of Mohammed riding into heaven on the back of a horse.
We may finally see the end of taxpayer funded PBS at that point.
Since we cannot put a privately paid for monument to the 10 Commandments on public ground, it should also follow that we cannot use taxpayer money to put a cross in a jar of urine or air anti-theist diatribes on PBS/NPR.
Funny how that separation on the support AND denigration of religion claus works. Except that the Left calls it a “chill wind” to protest their religious (atheist) speech. The Communists were good at establishing Atheism as the official religion as well.
As a Christian, I view this as typical antichristian nonsense, which The Living God will judge.
But the premise means: Abraham, Hagar and Ishmael also did not exist, upon which the Koran and its claims rest. Then not only Judaism and Christianity but also Islam are all to be viewed as fakes. Islam has not recently shown a tolerance for such slanders, as it would imply that the Koran and its alleged prophet were also fakes
This makes cartoons of the prophet appear inoffensive. It also indicates the level of ignorance at PBS, which is total.
This sure makes me proud of how my tax dollars are so wisely used by the RATs who love this nation so much.
This isn't exactly new. I've been under the impression that scholars believed this for a long time.
Meaning the Jews are Palestinians? Hmmmmm ....
This is the stupidest thing I’ve read in hours!
That producer who thought one day Abraham created monotheism would be absolutely hilarious if it wasn’t so sad. A PBS producer about a show on biblical history doesn’t know that the Romans were polytheists who conquered the monotheistic Israelites some 600 years prior to the date they think the Israelites’ bible was written?
I guess its all just bogus man. King Herod was made up. Caesar didn’t exist and Caesarious isn’t a city it’s a procedure. The temple was really just a teepee and the incense they burned was the devils lettuce!
and no TEN COMANDMENTS.
Not hard to see what is going on here. No Comandments, no rules. Which would suit the liberals just fine.
This does not fit with the archaeological evidence, though, and denying Abraham would be denying the father of Ishmael as well as the father of Isaac. Wonder if that would upset the imams as much as a cartoon?
PBS if now changing God word. This won’t set well with God.
hundreds? They used to say 4 or 5?
well, with an unlimited number of variables you can explain anything.
Elijah thought that the worship of the true God in Israel had totally died out. In 1 Kings 19 God had to show the prophet that there was still 7,000 in Israel who had not bowed the knee to Baal. If a man like Elijah could not see monotheism in Israel, it’s not surprising that PBS cannot. The worldly never see evidence of the 7,000, because they don’t want to find them and have made up their mind beforehand that they will not.
Presume you mean "It was a constant struggle for the prophets to keep the Israelites from worshiping the Lord other gods."
Or alternatively
"It was a constant struggle for the prophets to keep the Israelites from worshiping only the Lord."
Same difference.
You are correct, the Israelites of the Old Testament were badly compromised when it came to taking after other gods. Some would say this arose partly from the split of the nation prior to entering Egypt. Others would say it arose from Joshua's failure to utterly destroy the inhabitants of the land during its conquest.
In fact, one may have led to another. The conquering Israelites, having been forged into a single religio-ethnic group by 400 years in Egypt and 40 more years in the Sinai, would have encountered the descendants of the Israelites who had remained behind in Canaan. However, the situation would have been complicated by generation upon generation of intermarriage between various tribes and peoples in the region. Sorting out who could be legitimately attacked and eliminated was very difficult if not impossible.
As for the program, I'll wait and see it before deciding whether or not it is anything more than just another left wing academic attempt to delegitimize Israel by attacking Judaism and Christianity.
Then why are there chariots at the bottom of the Gulf of Aqaba?
How can I render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar if he didn’t really exist? < /s >
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