"The Bible's Buried Secrets" says the Bible is not true - PBS

[buffalo]

The Public Broadcasting System (PBS), probably the most liberal network in America, will present a program this fall that says the Old Testament is a bunch of made-up stories that never happened.** “The Bible’s Buried Secrets” says the Bible is not true.** It is scheduled to air on November 18.
Producer Paula Apsell said: “…It’s (The Bible’s Buried Secrets) designed for intelligent people who are willing to change their mind. …it will give intelligent people who want to read the Bible in a modern way a chance. If we insist on reading the Bible literally, in 25 years, nobody will read it any longer.”
Among highlights of “The Bible’s Buried Secrets”:
• The Old Testament was written in the sixth century BC and hundreds of authors contributed.
• Abraham, Sarah and their offspring didn’t exist.
• There is no archaeological evidence of the Exodus.
• Monotheism was a process that took hundreds of years.
• The Israelites were actually Canaanites.
• The Israelites believed that God had a wife.
I have often said that PBS should not receive tax dollars. “The Bible’s Buried Secrets” is simply one more reason Congress should stop supporting PBS with our tax dollars. Congress gives PBS hundreds of millions of tax dollars to help support the network.
For more information, go here.

 

[dhgray]

What else would you expect from PBS?

 

[Telemachus]

Among highlights of “The Bible’s Buried Secrets”:
• The Old Testament was written in the sixth century BC and hundreds of authors contributed.
• Abraham, Sarah and their offspring didn’t exist.
• There is no archaeological evidence of the Exodus.
• Monotheism was a process that took hundreds of years.
• The Israelites were actually Canaanites.
• The Israelites believed that God had a wife.

I’m really ignorant of independent Biblical history and archeology, so could you answer why none of these things are true real quick buffalo? Seriously, I’m really interested in seeing the evidence that justifies the Old Testament as historically valid, so could you provide me with some links to read about this? Are there publications that have refuted these claims already?

God Bless,
Telemachus

 

[buffalo]

I’m really ignorant of independent Biblical history and archeology, so could you answer why none of these things are true real quick buffalo? Seriously, I’m really interested in seeing the evidence that justifies the Old Testament as historically valid, so could you provide me with some links to read about this? Are there publications that have refuted these claims already?

God Bless,
Telemachus

Rest assured these attacks have been going on for quite a long time. Archeaology validates the Bible everyday. Why?
Because its true.

The “Toledoths” of Genesis

New Evidence of Genesis Genealogies To Be Understood as an Accurate Calendar of History

 

[mercygate]

The Public Broadcasting System (PBS), probably the most liberal network in America, will present a program this fall that says the Old Testament is a bunch of made-up stories that never happened.** “The Bible’s Buried Secrets” says the Bible is not true.** It is scheduled to air on November 18.
Producer Paula Apsell said: “…It’s (The Bible’s Buried Secrets) designed for intelligent people who are willing to change their mind. …it will give intelligent people who want to read the Bible in a modern way a chance. If we insist on reading the Bible literally, in 25 years, nobody will read it any longer.”
Among highlights of “The Bible’s Buried Secrets”:
• The Old Testament was written in the sixth century BC and hundreds of authors contributed. Actually some of it was written both earlier and later than the sixth century. This is supposed to be “news”?

• Abraham, Sarah and their offspring didn’t exist.

OK. Is the evidence that they did NOT exist stronger than the evidence that they did exist?

• There is no archaeological evidence of the Exodus.

This has long been a burr under the saddle of Jews and Christians; a couple of years ago there was an article in the Biblical Archaeology Review that gave some good evidence pointing to the Exodus.6

• Monotheism was a process that took hundreds of years.

Again, this is news?

• The Israelites were actually Canaanites.

Huh? Is this a DNA argument? They didn’t become “Israelites” until they became a people in the generations after Jacob. Since Abraham had been told to go to Canaan – what would they be?
• The Israelites believed that God had a wife.They’ve been reading BAR.

I have often said that PBS should not receive tax dollars. “The Bible’s Buried Secrets” is simply one more reason Congress should stop supporting PBS with our tax dollars. Congress gives PBS hundreds of millions of tax dollars to help support the network.

For more information, go here.
This stuff isn’t even news. It is just presented here to show it in the most shocking light. It sells.

 

[Christy_Beth]

The scary thing for me is that more and more people are willing to believe this junk. Some of the are supposedly christians.

 

[Robbinson]

1 Cor 1:18

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

Blessings,

Brian

 

[Rolltide]

• There is no archaeological evidence of the Exodus.

Yes… but you wouldn’t expect any either, now would you? The Egyptians only recorded victories. Anything that even hinted at embarrassment was permanently etched out of the hieroglyphic record, and the Exodus would certainly qualify as an embarrassment for Egypt. This neither proves or disproves anything.

 

[tobinatorstark]

I officially boycott ever watching PBS for anything

 

[mercygate]

Yes… but you wouldn’t expect any either, now would you? The Egyptians only recorded victories. Anything that even hinted at embarrassment was permanently etched out of the hieroglyphic record, and the Exodus would certainly qualify as an embarrassment for Egypt. This neither proves or disproves anything.

I wish BAR allowed subscribers access to their archives. The article (by guy on the faculty of the Evangelical Trinity College (if I remember correctly) showed Egyptian tomb paintings of “Apiru” [Hebrew?] slaves making bricks and the bricks getting smaller . . . . There were other points as well (brain drain going on here). I made copies of the article, and if I can remember where I filed it, I’ll get the reference.

 

[KingAlfred]

I’m really ignorant of independent Biblical history and archeology, so could you answer why none of these things are true real quick buffalo? Seriously, I’m really interested in seeing the evidence that justifies the Old Testament as historically valid, so could you provide me with some links to read about this? Are there publications that have refuted these claims already?

God Bless,
Telemachus

For me, the question has always been this: Do you believe in Judeo-Christian salvation history, whereby God chose to reveal Himself gradually, first to and through the Jews, and then to and through the Christian community? The answer has always been ‘yes’. Therefore, the details of the Bible don’t really matter to me as much as they do to others. The Bible is a *by-product *of a long, providential journey. The Bible consists of the documented impressions of some of our more enlightened so-journers. In so being, it will always be ‘valid’ to me, no matter what anyone might say, supposedly ‘uncover’ or reveal. I focus on Jesus, and the ‘bigger picture’, concerning His people and their past. I’m so very grateful to be a part of it.

 

[jblake]

Telemachus;:

Seriously, I’m really interested in seeing the evidence that justifies the Old Testament as historically valid,

Most of the “proof” is an argument from silence.

One major issue is that most places mentioned in the Bible have not been located.

Take, for example Jericho. It had one location during most of the New Testament. It had a different location during the Intertestamental period and later part of the Old Testament. There is evidence to suggest that it had yet a third location during the early part of the Old Testament. This is a place whose location is “well established”.

In the desert, places frequently had two or three different names. It was not uncommon for those names to be used for different geographical locations. Usually, but not always at different periods of time.

You can see the same phenomena today. Before OTR drivers had GPS units in their rigs, it was not uncommon for them to roll into Duluth GA, expecting to be in Duluth MN, and vice versus.

A slightly different example is Victoria BC, and Victoria County NB. There also is a hamlet called “Victoria” in one of the maritime provinces, but I don’t remember which one. ]

xan

jonathon

 

[mercygate]

For me, the question has always been this: Do you believe in Judeo-Christian salvation history, whereby God chose to reveal Himself gradually, first to and through the Jews, and then to and through the Christian community? The answer has always been ‘yes’. Therefore, the details of the Bible don’t really matter to me as much as they do to others. The Bible is a *by-product *of a long, providential journey. The Bible consists of the documented impressions of some of our more enlightened so-journers. In so being, it will always be ‘valid’ to me, no matter what anyone might say, supposedly ‘uncover’ or reveal. I focus on Jesus, and the ‘bigger picture’, concerning His people and their past. I’m so very grateful to be a part of it.

That was very well stated. The Scriptures reflect the story of a people. For them “history” was about the MEANING of the past more than about the events of the past.

 

[TDiGaetano]

Actually the bible was written in 400ish A.D. by the church… as a tool used in spreading the faith. Just happened to be that the tool held inspired books of God’s revelation to Man. And many copies and translations since…

To find an “original” bible that dates back to the days of Moses would be impossible as it doesn’t exist, just letters and books passed down over 100’s of generations. War, disasters would also destroy these documents of faith and they would have to be reproduced.

All that matters is that Jesus was present in the beginning and exaulted at the end.

 

[onetimeposter]

Even if the old testament turned out to be nothing more than metaphorical tales written by an ancient society…so what of it?

It is a part of our Christian foundation and one that speaks of how an ancient society related to and viewed God.

The Bible is still true, but perhaps some of the Bible is not literally true.

I’ve read this ’ Everything in the Bible is true and some of it actually happened.'

If it turned out to be nothing more than metaphorical tales…it would change nothing for me…it is through those stories that we may learn to approach God and the sacred.

 

[Rand_Al_Thor]

• The Israelites believed that God had a wife.

Yes, they did. And His bride was Israel. If these people are talking about reading the Bible literally and using the historical beliefs of the Jews, then they would have clearly seen that Yaweh was referred to as the bridegroom and Israel as His bride. That’s why Christ was the bridegroom, tying it back to the Old Testament.

In Christ,
Rand

 

[Orogeny]

Yes… but you wouldn’t expect any either, now would you? The Egyptians only recorded victories. Anything that even hinted at embarrassment was permanently etched out of the hieroglyphic record, and the Exodus would certainly qualify as an embarrassment for Egypt. This neither proves or disproves anything.

The comment is about archeological evidence, not historical evidence. Things like camp sites, villages, etc.

The Egyptians could not remove all trace of a large group of people travelling through the desert for a period of 40 years.

Peace

Tim

 

[strngrnrth]

This issue goes around and around every generation since the modern science of archaeology developed, and the Bible wins every round. Yet the anti-Bible contingent starts again with fresh insistence every twenty to thirty years – not challenging, but ignoring, the last round’s results.
Apiru/Ipru/Ipri/Ibri/Ibru settlers in the Nile Valley around 3500-6000 years ago are documented pretty thoroughly, and their connection to the Hebrew/Israelite people is confirmed by the way they built their houses and laid out their farms, and they were brickmakers at some point, and they did all leave at once. There have been some quick dryings of parts of the Red Sea, but whether any coincided with the exodus of the brickmakers is still uncertain, historically speaking. However, the exodus does correspond to an economic collapse in Egypt, and a famine occurred sometime in that century, as did the appearance of a few Egyptian-style decorative objects such as would have been found in broken jewelry, in the sand of northern Arabia. Linguistic influences are harder to use to pin down such a migration, because the Egyptian and Hebrew languages were fairly similar then and neither was written using vowel markers most of the time. Influence of either language on the other is hard to trace.
As to the development of monotheism, the “primitive universal polytheism” hypothesis is unsupported. When it had no competition, it passed as the “latest knowledge”, but now signs of early monotheism have turmed up everywhere. Indeed, the primitive religions that have been documented in their development show signs that the number of gods increases over time, and might have begun with just one, maybe two or three, in every case. The Bible does say that during several periods of Israel’s history the people did worship the gods of their polytheistic neighbors. It also says this was wrong and that God punished it.
More Biblical histories have been confirmed by archaeology than ever before, and more will be before the debate is done. But the anti-Bible people will never admit the significance of such finds, not collectively. One by one, though, historians, investigative reporters, scientists, archaeologists and philosophers will keep quietly converting to Christianity because of their work. Eventually, the ones still fighting the Bible will only be shouting to themselves.

 

[onetimeposter]

Eventually, the ones still fighting the Bible will only be shouting to themselves.

I don’t think that very many Christian North Americans believe the Bible to be without error and to be taken literally.

A child knows that dinosaurs did not live with humans and yet some funamentalists think that they should be taken seriously when they state that it is a Biblical fact, that dinosaurs lived among humans…6000 years ago.

 

[Neal]

Actually the bible was written in 400ish A.D. by the church… as a tool used in spreading the faith. Just happened to be that the tool held inspired books of God’s revelation to Man. And many copies and translations since…

To find an “original” bible that dates back to the days of Moses would be impossible as it doesn’t exist, just letters and books passed down over 100’s of generations. War, disasters would also destroy these documents of faith and they would have to be reproduced.

All that matters is that Jesus was present in the beginning and exaulted at the end.

Well…the Bible as we know it was officially stamped and proclaimed complete by the Church in a handful of councils between 382 and 419, the New Testament books were written in the 1st century, and as for the old testament books, most think it was written between 600 and 400 BC, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t exist before hand, they were probably oral, or at least not written in one book as we have them today. We do have original copies of the Septuagint, written between the 3rd and 1st centuries BC, and we know that the rabbi’s who wrote it would have had access to very early copies of the old testament books, but the church didn’t write it around 400, we assembled it.

This whole series just sounds like more attempts from secular society to discredit the Christian claim, its nothing new, its been happening for 2000 years. We are still around, we will continue being around, despite what the 8 people who watch pbs think.