Saw yesterday the more than two hours long American documentary.
I have many times among others with Tim of Aclea discussed the bible related history as for instance the King David palace and the controversy about it and many other controversy items...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Stone_Structure
In this documentary it seems to me that all the latest knowledge is summarized in a rather "neutral" historical way...
And I was not surprized to read in the wiki about the mixed appreciation in the US...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bible%27s_Buried_Secrets

"Reviews and reception[edit]

The Biblical Archaeology Review wrote: "The producers have done a magnificent job summarizing over a century of biblical archaeology and biblical scholarship in two hours. The film strikes a balance between the old-fashioned biblical archaeology approach, which tried to prove the Bible’s historicity, and the extreme skepticism of some minimalists, for whom the Bible contains little factual history."^[3]
According to Rabbi Wesley Gardenswartz: "Conservative Judaism is fully accepting of the type of scholarship featured in this documentary."^[4]
Reverend Kenneth Himes says: "For some, the ideas presented may seem novel or surprising, but this is material that is being discussed in the theology courses found at many Catholic universities."^[5]
The conservative American Family Association has issued an online petition urging Congress to cut off federal funding for PBS.^[6] "PBS is knowingly choosing to insult and attack Christianity by airing a program that declares the Bible ‘isn't true and a bunch of stories that never happened,’" signers of the petition are encouraged to declare to members of Congress.^[7]
Apologetics Press, a publishing organization affiliated with the Churches of Christ, has written a response to this program that is summarised with the concluding paragraph: "... if Christians are to change their minds about the historicity of the events recorded in the Hebrew Bible, a better case, supported by adequate evidence, would have to be made than the one presented in The Bible’s Buried Secrets."^[8] "





If Tim of Aclea is interested?

Kind regards, Paul.

Hi Paul

thanks for the invite.  I am very rarely on this site these days but will have a look at the programme and get back to you.

best wishes

Tim

Tim of Aclea wrote:

Hi Paul

thanks for the invite.  I am very rarely on this site these days but will have a look at the programme and get back to you.

best wishes

Tim

Thank you in advance Tim.

Your friend, Paul.

Paul

some time ago you asked me to have a look at the topic you started on the Congo, I have not been able to as I have not been on the site but can you tell me under which heading it comes?

many thanks

Tim

Tim of Aclea wrote:

Paul

some time ago you asked me to have a look at the topic you started on the Congo, I have not been able to as I have not been on the site but can you tell me under which heading it comes?

many thanks

Tim

It's also in this section, Tim: "Civilisation and Community"
https://reshistorica.forumotion.com/t910-colonial-attitudes-in-the-thirties

Kind regards, your friend Paul.

Hi Paul
I have watched the first 50 minutes of the first programme and can understand why it did not go down particularly well with conservative evangelicals in the USA.  I found it a bit ponderous at times but there was really nothing dramatically new there.  The Documentary hypothesis for the Pentateuch originated in the 19th century while the ‘peasant revolt’ theory for the origin of Israel was first put forward in the 1960s.  There was a much longer BBC series on the Old Testament on the BBC back in the 1970s saying much the same. 
That there is no mention of the Patriarchs outside the Bible is true but hardly surprising given that they are portrayed merely as nomadic clan chieftains.  However, there is contemporary evidence of the existence of such people from the time where the patriarchal period is set.  The programme seemed to see monotheism as unique to Judaism, but that is to ignore Atenism under the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten.  Psalm 104 appears to borrow directly from the ‘Hymn to Aten’.  Nor was there any mention in the programme of the Apiru. 
There are 3 theories for the emergence of Israel in the highlands of Canaan at the end of the 13th Century BC as recorded in the Merenptah victory stela for 1209BC and the growth of settlements in these highlands.  These are the conquest hypothesis, the nomads settling down hypothesis and the peasants’ revolt hypothesis, the third was featured in the programme.  The trouble is that the archaeology does not really support any of them.  I was also struggling to remember any examples from history of such a successful peasants’ revolt leading to them upping sticks, leaving the cities and settling down in virgin territory.  What the archaeology does show is that the new highland settlements spread westwards which would be more consistent with immigrants from east of the Jordon, and there are plenty of historical cases of immigrant populations.  These settlements also showed a lack of pig bones in food refuse, consistent with Israelite dietary taboos. 
Concerning the traditionally imagined conquest of ‘the entire land’.  In fact a detailed reading of the book of Joshua shows that apart some later ‘added gloss’, this is not what is in reality claimed.  Rather what is recorded is a series of armed raids led by Joshua with the Israelite forces returning their base at Gilgal without any territory being occupied.  It could be said that such raids may have both interfered with the gathering of tribute taxes for Egypt from Canaanite city states and also prompted Merenptah to launch a punitive raid into the highlands which Egypt normally ignored.
I would also note the programme’s failure to mention the Song of Deborah which, like the Song of Sea or Song of Moses, which it did mention, is considered to be very early - dated to the late 12th or early 11th C BC and is considered to provide valuable information concerning Israel during the pre-monarchical period.
I will get back on the second half of the first programme when I have had a chance to watch it.
best wishes
Tim

Tim, thank your for this detailed comment on the first episode. After all what I read including the recent archaeologic findings I think the search about the Jewish history, as perhaps about every history, is a never ending story...each year new findings and theories....what is always a good thing for historiography...provided that it is done in all honesty and with as less bias as possible...

Thanks again for this interesting message, Paul.

Hi Paul

just to say that I have watched through to the end of the first programme.  I felt that some of the dramatization was unnecessary and that it missed out quite a lot.  I was not clear whether the programme was suggesting that circumcision only started during the exile or that it took on a new meaning during the exile.  The first seems highly unlikely as Jeremiah, who is predominately pre exilic makes more than one reference to circumcision and he makes these references before the fall of Jerusalem and also there is no record that the exiles then imposed it on those who had not gone into exile. 

they do go into the crucial point that the most surprising thing is that the Jews did not just give up on YHWH after the fall of Jerusalem and Judah.

I will get back with more comments later.

best wishes

Tim

Hi Paul

'what is always a good thing for historiography...provided that it is done in all honesty and with as less bias as possible...'

I would agree but the problem is that the Hebrew Bible is a theological history.  Other may have been written but, if they have survived at all, have not had the huge impact that the it has had.  The trouble is that too many want too see it as entirely correct, the fundamentalists, or entirely wrong, the minimalists.  I mentioned on another thread my exchange with Prof Andrews, a fundamentalist added a comment that 'I think it's very simple.. If any part of the bible is a lie or myth, Then it all has to be a lie and myth.. There is no inbetween..' (sic).  To such people the programme would be an anathema.  I felt on its treatment of the Davidic Empire it was quite balanced and although it mentioned the minimalists it did not include any of them. 
That the Israelites failed to follow a monotheistic YHWH is clear from the bible itself.  This is from 2Kings ch 23 concerning Josiah's reforms in the 7th century BC
4  The king ordered Hilkiah the high priest, the priests next in rank and the doorkeepers to remove from the temple of the LORD all the articles made for Baal and Asherah and all the starry hosts. He burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron Valley and took the ashes to Bethel. 
5  He did away with the idolatrous priests appointed by the kings of Judah to burn incense on the high places of the towns of Judah and on those around Jerusalem—those who burned incense to Baal, to the sun and moon, to the constellations and to all the starry hosts. 
6  He took the Asherah pole from the temple of the LORD to the Kidron Valley outside Jerusalem and burned it there. He ground it to powder and scattered the dust over the graves of the common people. 
7  He also tore down the quarters of the male shrine prostitutes that were in the temple of the LORD, the quarters where women did weaving for Asherah. 
Even in the Temple there were Asherah and male prostitutes
I was surprised that there was no mention of the Mesha Stele or the Philistines in any part of the programme.  The Mesha stele is one of the most important non Hebrew sources for the period.  The Philistines illustrate one of the problems with accessing the history the period.  All we know about the Philistines is either from archaeology or from other peoples writing about them.  Not one word of Philistine writings have survived.

best wishes

Tim

Tim, thank you as ever for your valuable comments.

"The trouble is that too many want too see it as entirely correct, the fundamentalists, or entirely wrong, the minimalists.  I mentioned on another thread my exchange with Prof Andrews, a fundamentalist added a comment that 'I think it's very simple.. If any part of the bible is a lie or myth, Then it all has to be a lie and myth.. There is no inbetween..' (sic).  To such people the programme would be an anathema."

That is indeed the difficulty...both the fundamentalists and the minimalists are both the dogmatics, who are not open to new research and discoveries...many try even to let fit new research and discoveries into their presupposed bias...

Thanks again for your thoughts and kind regards, Paul.