Customer Reviews

Ancient Evidence - Mysteries of the Old Testament

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This BBC/ Discovery Channel show is in 3 parts (Joseph; Joshua; David), and all are very well

produced, with good re-enactments, computer simulations, location shots and the advice of the

most relevant experts worldwide.

"Joseph and the Coat of Many Colors" is the weakest of the 3 parts, despite its very good

production quality, because the existing knowledge of Joseph is poor, being totally without

agreement amongst the experts, and with no hard evidence. Hence this Joseph part goes off

in many well-produced tangents without coming up with any acceptable outcome. It seems

to adopt assumptions, such as the date when Joseph actually lived, which is certainly not

well agreed upon; and other ambiguous notions are put forward. The final flaw is that the

"new-age" author David Rohl is put in amongst expert guests; his credibility is mainly based

on his book, which is of rather doubtful historical accuracy or academic value.

"Joshua and the Walls of Jerico" is next, and is a much more coherent work, which culminates

in a firm, reliable conclusion. But be warned: this is not a children's retelling or a documentary

for fundamentalists, since this ruthlessly critical view of the Biblical account strips away the

traditions to reveal a rather bare, even miserable historical basis. But then the metaphorical,

figurative meaning of the Joshua story becomes clear, and is finally seen to be much more

important than the rather unhistorical tale itself.

"David and Goliath" is the final show, and it too has a modern, totally frank look at the career

of King David. After some informative studies of slings (against Goliath) and lyres (played for

King Saul) the conclusions are, again, not for children's bedtime stories or fundamentalists. It

shows David to have been a ruthless monarch, quite prepared to kill, or have killed, anyone who

stood in his way, such as Saul, or his own son Absolom; but then, as the commentary states,

this was the norm in the ancient world, with many "great" leaders, such as Constantine and

Cleopatra, being equally ruthless.

As a religion professor specializing in the Bible, I cannot recommend this documentary highly enough. I will limit my comments to the episode on Joshua and Jericho, excerpts of which I show in my class each semester. Although this documentary is rather more disconcerting for conservative believers than another that I also show, Mysteries of the Bible: Joshua at the Walls of Jericho, it is in many ways more useful. It includes not only the classic evidence from Kenyon's archaeological work at Jericho, but also considerations from fields as diverse as acoustics and genetics. It includes the most recent scholarship, including the studies of the highland settlements by Israel Finkelstein, the work on the continuity of pottery styles by William Dever and others, as well as extremely recent (and thus still ongoing) research on the relations between Israelites and Canaanites from a genetic standpoint.

The most recent evidence confirms what historians had suspected for some time, namely that the majority of the Israelites did not come from elsewhere, but from the land of Canaan itself.

The message of the documentary, however, is not only fair but extremely powerful, in showing that the story, while not historical, continues to be meaningful, in terms of its abiding message about freedom. Avery Brooks does a wonderful job of both guiding the viewer through the issues and evidence, and in expressing the emotional power of the story.

The presentation may seem to some to be one-sided, but while there is significant disagreement on various details among historians and Biblical archaeologists, there is nearly universal agreement on two points, which are accurately conveyed by the documentary. First, when there are both kinds of evidence, archaeological evidence takes priority, since it gives us direct access to the time in question, whereas any texts that may have been written will have been written later (in some cases much later). Second, there is simply no way to take the archaeological evidence seriously and to believe that the Biblical account in Joshua is a straightforward factual account. It may contain historical details that are accurate, and may reflect actual battles fought over a longer period of time, but that is to say that it may have some genuine historical information in it, which many historians agree. But there is a big gap between this historical approach and its conclusions, and the conservative viewpoint that the story provides factual details and does so inerrantly. To believe the latter, one has to ignore the evidence from so many other fields of inquiry that it is all but impossible for any honest thinking individual to do so.

I discuss these matters further on my blog at [...]

I really enjoyed this video. They interview archaeologists who discuss their ideas and theories about three Old Testament stories: David and Goliath, Joseph and the Coat of Many Colors, and Joshua and the Walls of Jericho.

In the Joseph and the Coat of Many Colors video, they discuss some archaeological findings in the Middle East that some people think is the tomb of Joseph. They also discuss how Joseph may have rose to be the Prime Minister of Egypt, from some new findings in that area.

In the Joshua and the Walls of Jericho story, they theorize that it was an earthquake that may have brought down the walls of Jericho, perfectly timed as Joshua's forces were on the outskirts. We have seismic data of Middle Eastern earthquakes over the past 100 years, and they line up almost exactly where certain cities of antiquity were destroyed, too, such as the city of Troy.

This is a really neat video!

We used this Video in one of our Sunday school classes and found it very effective. While some of the discussion might offend the die-hard ultra conservatives, most mainline denominations will find this in depth view of biblical history interesting and thought provoking.

While the analysis of Joseph's story is quite good and commendable, BBC did a poor job in gathering information about the reality of Joshua's conquests. It's biased and arrives at a farfetched conclusion that the story of Jericho is a myth. The archaeologists chosen are not authoritative and seem biased against the Bible record which weakens the conclusion. At the end they seem to infer that we have to accept the story of Joshua as mere hope and faith that the promised land was all people's desires towards liberation and freedom. Why can't we accept the Bible by faith rather than try to explain everything scientifically. Archaeology cannot provide all the answers, especially when the archaelogists are biased.

I once watched a different documentary that stated when considering the Bible, everthing from David on could be matched with archelogical investigations; implying of course that everything before David was suspect. Suspect or fable or myth or...
I read the single review of this dvd and hit on his complaint that this dvd offers 'only' conjecture. Shall we explore conjecture? The world is flat. The earth is the center of all. Neanderthals were our ancestors.
I have looked on most of the early bible/old testament as fable... morality tales. I was appreciative of a possiblity that maybe there are truths behind the fables, or historical people and/or events the tales could have been based on. 'Joseph's Canal' made my eyes wide.
And the presented version of David makes a lot more sense than the Bible's, because it doesn't just tell good bits. God's chosen one, modest child who would eventually rule God's people, who was good and honest, until suddenly he wasn't.
At this point 'most' of human history is forever more unknown, lost, only assumptions based on the limited surviving artifacts and stories leading us to our best guesses. And it was entertaining and thought provoking... or at least thought proding... on this best guest... or conjecture.