New PBS series exposes Old Testament fairy tales

[DogPoundPup]

A visually stunning two-hour special edition of "Nova" examines decades of archaeological studies that contradict much of what is in the Bible. The entire Exodus story is debunked, as is the idea that the Israelites were monotheistic following the contract made between God and Abraham. It turns out idol worship was common through the reign of King David and right up to the Babylonian exile.

Is the Bible the word of God? Only if God dictated it to dozens, maybe hundreds, of different writers, each of whom wrote and modified stories using different patterns of language over a period of centuries.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081117/tv_nm/us_television_bible

this special is on PBS Tuesday Nov. 18
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/

[dkofos]

1. I will have to set the DVR for that.

[question everything]

2. Depends

Archaeological and other historical sources agree that stories starting with King David are true and be proven.


Thanks for the heads up, though.

[stopbush]

10. What are you talking about? "True?" "Proven?"

I think maybe you should make a point of watching this particular show.

[Javaman]

13. ...

questioneverything seems to actually believe everything from his or her's past posts.

[Shardik]

21. And that includes all of Flannery O'Connor's stories as well.

And Philip Jose Farmer's stories too since he lived after David which is really cool because I can't wait to wake up by the riverbank and meet up with Mark Twain!

[question everything]

23. You may want to read some

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Archaeology/jerdavid.html

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

25. Alright, I read your link.

Doesn't contain anything that really supports your argument.

[arKansasJHawk]

37. I'm not sure ...

This show will help. From what I've been able to glean, the Nova program is pretty much on board with the idea that the Bible post-David is a fairly accurate reflection of history. I'll be watching the show myself to find out, but I won't be expecting much.

[TexasObserver]

12. No, they don't. They don't even agree that David ever existed.

The Old Testament is largely stories a tribe called the Hebrew lifted from other, more dominant cultures, in the region. They were a tribe with very little impact on the region, which was consistently dominated by either Egypt or Mesopotamia. And when they weren't running the area, it might have been the Etruscans, from the Mediterranean.

They stole huge chunks, including the story of Noah, from Mesopotamia. The story of baby Moses being discovered in woven basket, discovered by the princess? Stolen.

[roguevalley]

36. a post shard was found with House of David written on it. I believe

that is the only physical evidence about him.

[nadinbrzezinski]

30. No they don't... but that is ok

we know that the stables of solomon were of much LATTER providence, and the variance is about 300 years, at least

[dmallind]

40. So wait a minute

Let's say that archaeology has proved, say, the building of the Temple, or a record of a king called Solomon.

Does that prove that a deity gave him wisdom?

There really was a King Macbeth - does that means Shakespeare's play is proven truth?

Maybe it's just me but even if every event of the Bible concerning humans were proved 100% true (which it's not - the Exodus is bogus for a start) that would not say word one about the truth of the divine parts. We know from far more recent history, recorded at a far more contemporaneous point in history, with far better documentation, that utterly false myths about people can be written down and disseminated until they are believed by millions - even without the added hurdle of supernatural activities. We see this in the legends about Paul Revere's ride or Washington and the cherry tree.

So the idea that any artifact can prove the truth of the Bible is flat out irrational. King's Cross station is definitively a real place, but there is no Hogwart's Express, and 3000 years later finding proof of the former will not to anyone sane demonstrate the truth of the latter.

[Veritas_et_Aequitas]

3. When's it on?

Looks interesting, particularly the part on Exodus.

[Individualist]

4. Tomorrow, 8 pm EST

[DogPoundPup]

5. Tuesday, November 18 at 8 pm (2 hours)

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/

[xchrom]

6. kick

[stopbush]

7. As usual, the truth will undoubtable prove more engaging, more interesting

and more valuable than the myths that the truth will debunk.

No one doubts the power of myth to inform the human condition, but treating myth as fact - as do religions - is a dead end that misses the point of the myth in the first place.

[madrchsod]

8. there`s nothing new in this press release that has`t been published or shown on tv

much to do about nothing...well it will get the fundies all upset.

[stopbush]

11. Why be dismissive? Most religious people believe the Bible is a historic

document, when it's more like a historic novel (sorta like Gone With the Wind).

How do you know there's nothing to see here if your haven't yet seen the program?

[Bluenorthwest]

19. The dismissive folkken

are just wishing to express that they know this stuff already. They don't comprehend the point of a well constructed communication of ideas to those who are not familiar with those ideas. They figure if they know it, that's enough. They also know that this film will make money, and while they knew all this stuff for decades, by gosh they were not able to make hay out of it like the man who made the film.


And of course you can tell they are faithy by the humble way they carry themselves, as always.

[elshiva]

33. "it's more like a historic novel (sorta like Gone With the Wind)."

Yes, that is a good way of putting it. It's fiction, but it has some historical events.

Gone With the Wind/Civil War // Bible/Babylonian Exile

[Moody]

9. thanks for the heads up.

[Bake]

14. "Inspiration" does not = "dictation."

In terms of the Bible as the word of God, "dictation" is only one of several approaches or schools of thought about it. This is nothing new; when I was in the Seminary 30 years ago this was basic stuff. Only the fundies believe in a manual dictation theory of inspiration.

Bake

[gratuitous]

15. Shouting down a very long, very empty tube

But thanks for the post anyway.

[On the Road]

16. Well, If That's Their Approach,

then it won't as interesting as it could.

Most of what they're saying is at least 30 years old, if not decades older. The Scandinavian approach, for example, adopts the attitude that nothing recorded in the Bible happened unless they have proof of it.

It is better, and very different, to take an agnostic approach and look what is most historically likely, or if there are variations of the Biblical accounts that could have been true.

For example, they deny that 600,000 wandered in the desert for forty years. That may be so. But it may be that a tenth of that number did for a different period of time.

Archaeologists have been looking for evidence of Joshua's invasion of Palestine for at least a century, and finding very little. But it may be because they have been looking in the wrong century. When you take an agnostic approach, you become open both to confirming and dismissive evidence.

[Javaman]

17. When you think about it...

given the fact that most of the "educated" during those times were the only ones that had the ability to read and write and most everything else was passed around via the spoken word, the bible then is nothing more than a grand game of telephone.

those in power wrote the "books of the bible" 3 centuries after the fact. All stories of the bible have been heavily edited. Not all books of the bible were included in what is called the Bible today. Several revisions of the bible took place over the last 2 millennia and as recently as the 16th century. The king james version is the latest and greatest but prior to that, there were several different bibles in circulation. It was the ruling powers that agreed on the current version and I bet you 200 years from now another version will be agreed upon as the "original".

The bible that works is the one that fits the times.

[quispismanna]

18. Curious: let's say you are right

Let's say we can trace all organized religions to one story, one source. Does that negate God altogether or just the various versions of the same story?

[TheDoorbellRang]

24. Your premise is impossible from the get-go

All organized religions do not come from one source. Christianity, Judaism, and Islam have some commonalities, but Buddhism, Hindu, Shinto, etc., etc., have completely different sources.

I do find it amusing that fundies believe the Bible is the literal Word of God. Do the Jews believe that their Book is literal? I know the Catholic Church doesn't teach that the Old Testament is the literal Word of God, and yet somehow the fundies who sprang from Catholicism a few hundred years ago presume to know more about the provenance of the Bible than the Jews whose book it is or the Catholics who adopted it some 2000 years ago.

You don't have to believe in Adam and Eve as historical figures to believe in a God.

Welcome to DU, BTW.

[cyborg_jim]

34. It doesn't exactly help the case does it?

At the very least you've got to wonder if you're really believing in all this god stuff because it's true.

[xiamiam]

20. hope they debunk the story about lots daughters plying him with alcohol to re seed the earth...

i cringe every time someone says.."the bible says"..as if the mortal who wrote it and those who interpret have some special connection...as if the writers ARE the Divine...granted, a spark of the Divine, but no more than the light within each of us...

[laconicsax]

32. Genesis 19:30-38 is one of the great 'family values' moments.

That and Genesis 20:12 where Abraham admits that Sarah is actually his half-sister.

[nichomachus]

22. Actually, there's no archaeological evidence

of any major population centers in what is modern day Israel before about 200 BCE -- most of the OT was either borrowed or simply made up to legitimize the regime of the second century BCE. Prior to that, Israel was just a collection of villages.

The whole Exodus thing is simply silly, because at the time it supposedly took place, what is now Israel was a colony of Egypt. So, going there wouldn't have made any sense.

David was most likely a hillside chieftain with a handful of men -- not some guy with thousands of wives and concubines and elaborate palaces.

[starroute]

26. A lot of new stuff has come out just lately

As dating gets more accurate, they're realizing there really isn't much at all in the way of archaeological evidence from the supposed time of David and Solomon around 1000 BC -- let alone any proof of a glorious empire -- and that the Bible itself isn't particularly reliable prior to 650 BC.

This may be in part because once the Jews became monotheists, they had to edit out all the bits that were now politically incorrect, leaving the earlier periods kind of fuzzy. But even taking that sort of redacting into account, the historicity of the Bible before the 8th century BC is pretty close to nil.

There are a bunch of competing theories about where the David and Solomon stories actually came from, of which the one I lean towards at the moment is that they're a recollection of the Hyksos, who really did rule over everything from Egypt to Mesopotamia around 1600 BC. According to this theory, the Hyksos kings would have been mythologized in the centuries after their empire fell and then, much later, were re-historicized and kind of glued onto the early history of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah to give them more legitimacy.

This would be the same way that King Arthur, the earliest myths about whom apparently go back to the Bronze Age (based on their themes and cosmology), got recast as a 5th century British ruler and precursor of the historical British monarchy. It makes for pretty story-telling, but it shouldn't be mistaken for actual history.

[Igel]

27. I find it humorous that anybody could assume the Israelites were monotheists.

At least, if they had actually read the OT.

The number of prophets, judges, and rulers that called for disposing of idols, the number of rulers called out for being idolaters ... simply amazing. It's not a minor motif, it's a dominant one. You'd have to really work to miss it.

That said, even if 50% of the population were monotheistic, they'd have left few traces, if worship was centralized and local shrines/houses of worship not built or, if built, not easily identifiable, while the archeological record would show what the other 50% left.

Linguistic variation is expected under the traditional view. It's less expected if you think there was a standardization committee or one person assembled the Bible. After all, he'd have to transcribe things, cutting and pasting parchment wasn't much of an option.

Debunkers and believers have gone at it since the mid 1800s. The war continues.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

31. This is nothing new

I learned a lot of this stuff in a course for lay people sponsored by the Episcopal Church.

As for David not being a king with a huge palace, yeah, no problem.

If you read medieval Japanese literature, such as the Tale of Genji, you read all about "the emperor" and "the palace," but in fact, the "emperor" didn't even rule all of Japan, and "the palace" was made of wood, with a footprint about the size of the average department store, and was less comfortable to live in than the average summer camp bunkhouse.

[Le Taz Hot]

28. Can't wait!

'Course, they'll be preaching to the choir as the "faithful" will label it blasphemy and ordered by their GAAWWWDD (church) not to watch it. Ignorance is key with the faithful.

But I and my family will be tuning in.

[Name removed]

29. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[thraxis]

35. The Bible itself confirms that the Hebrews were not totally monotheistic

following the contract made between God and Abraham and it also comfirms idol worship was common through the reign of King David and right up to the Babylonian exile. As for the Exodus, we know that there was some sort of mass Exodus. It has yet to be determined how big it was, exactly who it was, and whether or not it was a single event. My guess it was probably all the atheists who refused to believe that pharoh was divine and he booted them out.(sarcasm)

[edhopper]

38. Could you

site a source. I had read that the Egyptian Exodus was more a retelling of the Babylonian Exodus. (Since Moses is a co-opted Babylonian legend)
I'm not disputing you since your not saying that the Exodus in the OT is true. I just wondering where you've seen info on a mass Egyptian Exodus of some sort.

[muriel_volestrangler]

39. Don't hold your breath - that member is departed

(though I don't think 'dearly' is the right word in this case :evilgrin: )