Major funding for "The Bible's Buried Secrets" is provided by The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund, and the Righteous Persons Foundation.





Additional funding for this program is provided by the Skirball Foundation and by The Solow Art and Architecture Foundation.

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Transcript

NARRATOR: In 722 B.C., the Assyrian army crushes the Northern Kingdom. Those who escape death or exile to Assyria, flood south into Jerusalem, where the descendents of David and Solomon continue to reign.

One of them, Josiah, according to the Bible, finally heeds what the prophets prescribe.

MICHAEL COOGAN: We are told, in the Book of Kings, that King Josiah, in the late 7th century B.C., was told that a scroll had been discovered in the Temple archives. The scroll was brought to him, and as the scroll was being read, Josiah began to weep, because he realized that it was a sacred text containing divine commands which the people had been breaking.

NARRATOR: Scholars believe that the lost scroll is part of the fifth book of the Torah, Deuteronomy, a detailed code of laws and observance. It inspires another group of scribes, in the seventh century B.C., whom scholars call the D writers.

According to the Documentary Hypothesis, after J and E, D is the third group of scribes who write part of the Hebrew Bible. D retells the Exodus story and reaffirms the covenant Moses made between God and the Israelite people.

MICHAEL COOGAN: "You should love the Lord, your God, because he has loved you. He has loved you more than any other nation." So the divine love for Israel requires a corresponding loyalty to God, an exclusive loyalty to God. And Deuteronomy, more than other parts of the Bible, is insistent that only the God of Israel is to be worshipped.

NARRATOR: To enforce the covenant, Josiah orders that idols and altars to all other deities be destroyed. The book of Deuteronomy contains the clearest prohibition of the worship of other gods, the Ten Commandments.

VOICEOVER (Reading from the Bible "Revised Standard Version," Deuteronomy 5:6–9): I am YHWH, your God, you shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol. You shall not bow down to them or worship them.

NARRATOR: The Ten Commandments appears in two books of the Bible, in Deuteronomy and in Exodus. It is not only a contract with Yahweh, it is also a code of conduct between people.

THOMAS CAHILL: The revelation of the Ten Commandments is an ethical revelation. And that's where the idea of justice comes in, because that's the most important thing about the way in which we treat one another. We will not kill him, we will not steal from him and we will not lie about him. We will abide by the commandments. The commandments, as God, himself, repeatedly says through the later prophets, are already written on the hearts of human beings.

NARRATOR: By associating the belief in one god with moral behavior, the Ten Commandments establishes a code of morality and justice for all, the ideal of Western civilization.

Despite Josiah's reforms, the ancient Israelites continue to worship other gods. Their acceptance of one god and the triumph of monotheism begins with a series of events vividly attested through archaeology, ancient texts and the Bible. It starts with the destruction of Yahweh's earthly dwelling, Jerusalem Temple. In 586 B.C., after defeating the Assyrians, a new Mesopotamian empire invades Israel: the Babylonians ransack the Temple and systematically burn the sacred city.

Before his eyes, the Babylonian victors slay the sons of Zedekiah, the last Davidic king, then blind him. The covenant—the promise made by Yahweh to his chosen people and to David that his dynasty would rule eternally in Jerusalem—is broken. After 400 years, Israel is wiped out.

ERIC M. MEYERS (Duke University): The destruction of Jerusalem created one of the most significant theological crises in the history of the Jewish people.

NARRATOR: The Babylonians round up the Israelite priests, prophets and scribes, and drag them in chains to Babylon. Babylonian records confirm the presence of Israelites, including the king, in exile.

WILLIAM DEVER: In every age of disbelief, one is inclined to think God is dead. And surely those who survived the fall of Jerusalem must have thought so. After all, how could God allow his temple, his house, the visible sign of his presence among his people to be destroyed?

NARRATOR: Without temple, king or land, how can the Israelites survive? Their journey begins with the ancient scrolls, which, some scholars speculate, were rescued from the flames of the destruction.

MICHAEL COOGAN: Among the exiles from Jerusalem to Babylon were priests from the Temple, and they seem to have brought with them their sacred documents, their sacred traditions.

NARRATOR: According to the widely accepted Documentary Hypothesis, it is here in Babylon, far from their homes in Israel, that priests and scribes will produce much of the Hebrew Bible, as it is known today. Scholars refer to these writers as P, or the priestly source.

MICHAEL COOGAN: It was P who took all of these earlier traditions, the J source, the E source, the D source and other sources, as well, and combined them into what we know as the Torah, the first five books of the Bible.

NARRATOR: But more than just compiling, P edits and writes a version of Israel's distant past—including the Abraham story—that provides a way for the Israelites to remain a people and maintain their covenant with God.

VOICEOVER (Reading from the Bible "Revised Standard Version," Genesis 17:11): You shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between Me and you.

SHAYE COHEN: When Genesis 17 attributes a covenantal value to circumcision, it's not really talking about Abraham. It is really talking about the exiles of the sixth century B.C.E., who, far from their native home, were desperately trying to find a way to reaffirm their difference. Therefore they began to look at circumcision as, not simply another practice, but rather as the marker of the covenant and they attributed this view back to Abraham.

NARRATOR: To the exiles, the Babylonians are the new Canaanites, the idol-worshipping, uncircumcised peoples, from whom they must remain apart.

But the Abraham story, with its harrowing tale of a father's willingness to sacrifice his own son, is also about the power of faith. It is no coincidence that the exiled P scribes place Abraham's origins in Ur, just down the river from Babylon. Perhaps with the same faith as Abraham had, so, too, will the exiles be returned to the Promised Land.

MICHAEL COOGAN: One of the pervasive themes in the Torah is the theme of exile and return: Abraham goes down to Egypt and comes out of Egypt; the Israelites go to Egypt and get out. For the exiles in Babylon in the sixth century B.C., that theme must have resonated very powerfully. God, who had acted on their behalf in the past, will presumably do so again.

NARRATOR: The Israelites still have a problem. How, in a foreign land without the Temple and sacrifice, can they redeem themselves in the eyes of Yahweh?

MICHAEL COOGAN: To assure that divine protection, the P tradition emphasizes observances, such as the Sabbath observance. You don't need to be in the land of Israel to keep the Sabbath.

ERIC MEYERS: And we have allusions in the biblical writings and the prophets to the fact that the exiles also learned to pray in groups, in what was to become the forerunner of the synagogue.

SHAYE COHEN: It is during this period, through the exile, that the exiles realized that, even far away from their homeland, without a temple, without the priesthood, without kings, they are still able to worship God, be loyal to God and to follow God's commandments. This is the foundation of Judaism.