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Merneptah Stele

This segment:

• notes that the beliefs of the ancient Israelites survived to become Judaism through the writing of the Hebrew Bible.
• states that Judaism was the first religion to practice monotheism.
• reports that the earliest known intersection between science and scripture occurred in 1208 B.C., when an Egyptian victory monument and the Bible both place the Israelites in Canaan.

running time 6:45

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Who Wrote the Bible?

This segment:

• relates how the Bible depicts the origins of Israel, including how God establishes a covenant with Abraham—Abraham and his descendants will be God's chosen people in exchange for their worshipping a single God.
• explains that at that time in history, the world was dominated by polytheism.
• reports how lack of archeological or historical evidence for the earliest Biblical stories (such as that of Abraham) led scholars to look at the messages behind the stories.
• reveals that, though it was long believed that Moses wrote the first five books, historians now think they were written over several hundred years by at least four different groups of scribes.

running time 6:52

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The Exodus

This segment:

• recounts one archeologist's discovery of an early form of the Hebrew alphabet carved in stone.
• shows how scholars examine the Bible for the most archaic, and therefore the oldest, forms of Hebrew to ascertain which passages were written first.
• reviews the story of Exodus and notes that the one of the few items in biblical accounts that can be connected to non-biblical material is the supply cities, one of which has been found in the eastern Nile Delta and dates to the reign of Ramses II.

running time 8:53

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The Canaanite Cities

This segment:

• speculates how the Israelites came to arrive in Canaan, the Promised Land.
• relates the biblical story of the Exodus.
• reviews archeological evidence regarding the destruction of two Canaanite cities, Hazor and Ai.

running time 8:50

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Israelite Origins

This segment:

• reviews evidence revealing a large increase in Israelite sites in the central hill country of Canaan, including pottery and types of houses found.
• reports that some archeologists now think that most early Israelites were originally lower-class oppressed Canaanite citizens who fled and resettled when an internal revolt toppled the Canaanite society.
• considers why the biblical version of the origin of the Israelites cast them instead as outsiders.

running time 9:19

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The Search for YHWH

This segment:

• explores where the Israelites found their ancient God, whom they called YHWH (pronounced yah-weh).
• suggests that while there is no evidence for a mass exodus, some archeologists think a small group of Canaanite slaves may have fled Egypt and begun to worship a new god they learned about on their journey to the hill country.

running time 7:04

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House of David

This segment:

• relates the story of David and Solomon, including the creation of a new covenant with God that promises that David and his descendants will rule forever.
• reports on a 1993 find of an Aramaic victory stele stating that the king of Damascus killed the king of the house of David, making David the earliest biblical figure to be confirmed by archeological evidence.
• notes that in the later time periods, beginning with the time of David, historians have written and contemporary eyewitness sources with which to more reliably date events.
• conveys how scholars identified two biblical sources who each referred to God by a different name—Yahweh, penned by a source known as "J," and Elohim, penned by a source known as "E."

running time 8:26

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Archeological Methods

This segment:

• reports on the excavation of a monumental building in Jerusalem that has generated debate about whether it could be King David's palace.
• describes how two groups of archeologists, both using radiocarbon dating, came to different conclusions regarding the date of pottery traditionally associated with the time of David and Solomon.

running time 10:17

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Architectural Evidence

This segment:

• identifies three buildings, in different cities, having similar six-chambered gates, suggesting a regional central governing authority.
• shows how an Egyptian wall inscription commemorating a military campaign provides historical evidence that David and Solomon lived in the 10th century B.C.

running time 6:55

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Ideas About Worship

This segment:

• points out that while archeologists cannot dig where they think Solomon's Temple is, they can recreate what the temple may have been like through biblical narrative and looking at similarly built structures in the region.
• profiles Samaritans in Palestine who claim direct descent from the original tribes of Israel and who practice the ancient Israelite form of worship that includes animal sacrifice.
• reports on findings that suggest to some archeologists that the Israelite's God, Yahweh, may have been linked to a female goddess.
• presents archeological evidence of continued pagan worship at a time when the Israelites had pledged devotion to one God.
• reviews how the Assyrians came to dominate the Israelites.

running time 9:18

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Birth of Judaism

This segment:

• relates how Josiah ordered that all idols and altars be destroyed after a long-lost law code is discovered in the Jerusalem Temple.
• looks at the role the Ten Commandments played in establishing a code of morality.
• describes how the Babylonians conquered Israel, destroyed Solomon's Temple, and brought the Israelites to Babylon.
• examines how the Israelites found ways to continue to worship one God far from their homeland.

running time 11:02

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Sacred Scrolls

This segment:

• details how Israelite priests and scribes—sources described as "P" (for "priestly" group)—used scrolls and oral traditions to produce much of the Bible as it is known today.
• examines the contents of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the most celebrated surviving biblical texts.
• reports on the discovery of small silver scrolls dated to the late 7th century B.C. that contain a familiar prayer still spoken in synagogues and churches today and that are the earliest existing references to written biblical narratives.
• states that the scrolls offer evidence that the Bible was created from text, poetry, oral traditions, and prayers that go back to the time of Josiah and perhaps even back to the earlier authors of biblical text, E and J.

running time 8:34

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The Bible Today

This segment:

• recounts how the Israelites regained their identity as a people and came to be the first to abandon polytheism.
• describes the return of the Israelites after the Babylonian Empire toppled, and the reestablishment of the covenant in the newly written Torah.
• points out how the new text was part of a transition the Israelites made from an ancient cult to a modern religion, and how the Israelite deity Yahweh transformed into the God of the three great monotheistic religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

running time 4:56