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00:00The Lone Ranger
00:30THE END
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02:22was using this book almost as its sanction,
02:24as the thing that gave order to the world and power to kings.
02:28It's the Book of Christendom, the single, single Book of Christendom.
02:33And it goes much further than that.
02:34It's not just the history of my family and what Europe's done with it,
02:38but this book reaches right back to the beginning of civilisation,
02:42to the ancient Near East, where the oldest Bible stories took place.
02:45So that's the Bible story, then.
02:47It goes from the most ancient world right up to modern Europe.
02:52Let's start like you would with most good books.
02:54Let's start at the beginning.
02:56First great lines of the Bible, Genesis 1, verse 1.
03:01In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth,
03:04and the earth was without form and void and darkness,
03:08was on the face of the deep, and in the next seven days,
03:10Jehovah, we are told, creates the earth and everything in it.
03:16Well, is that literally true?
03:17I mean, was there somebody who knew that and then wrote that down in the Bible?
03:22Is it history? How do we take that?
03:24Well, when my ancestors were writing their names in this Bible in the 17th century,
03:28they had absolutely no doubt that that word was literally true and the word of God.
03:34There was an archbishop of that time who worked out,
03:36by chasing back the generations from Jesus right back to Adam,
03:41that the world had actually started in the year 4004 B.C.,
03:46on the 13th of July, on a Sunday night.
03:49Actually, that made chaos starting on a Saturday evening before,
03:52so that seemed pretty good to the 17th century.
03:54But I don't think, really, it seems very good to us anymore.
03:57I mean, even Bible scholars would point out that there's gaps in the generation from Jesus
04:01back to Adam, whether you believe in him or not.
04:05So we actually have to look at Genesis in a slightly different way to see what's going on,
04:11to see where those Bible beginnings are.
04:13Now, think of the landscape that Jehovah's creating in Genesis.
04:20He's creating a landscape where there are shepherds,
04:23I mean, like Abraham, where there are sheep and rivers and cities,
04:27and you go on great long journeys, and you're a nomad and all this sort of a thing.
04:31He's creating the world of the ancient Near East,
04:33just like the book of Genesis tells us.
04:35That's the world in which the Bible was born.
04:43And Terah took Abraham, his son, and Sarah, his daughter-in-law, his son Abraham's wife.
04:56And they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees to go into the land of Canaan.
05:02And they came unto Haran and dwelt there.
05:07And the days of Terah were 205 years,
05:11and Terah died in Haran.
05:19Abraham's travels are a key to understanding the beginnings of the Bible.
05:26Just as the book of Genesis takes you on a grand tour of the ancient East,
05:31from the Garden of Eden, past the Tower of Babel, down into Pharaoh's Egypt,
05:36so Abraham's wanderings follow exactly the same route,
05:41past all the wonder and wisdom of the ancient world.
05:46The book of Genesis is filled with clues to tell us where and when this all took place.
05:54Abraham, it tells us, lived at Haran before he started his long trek south.
05:59Today, Haran is a well-known archaeological site in south-east Turkey,
06:06with a village lived in by nomads who settled down.
06:09Families, in fact, a bit like Abraham's.
06:14The name Haran means crossroads.
06:17Haran stood, if you like, at the heart of the ancient world,
06:20at Piccadilly Circus.
06:22Look, a thousand miles over there is the Persian Gulf.
06:26The two great rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates, that drain into it,
06:29run up there somewhere and end up not too far away over there.
06:33Now, of course, all down the sides of those rivers
06:35are the greatest cities of the ancient world,
06:37the cities of Mesopotamia, the land of Sumer.
06:40The Bible calls it the land of Shinar.
06:43Over there is where Abraham's going to next.
06:46Canaan, Syria, and then down into Egypt.
06:50They're rough little places, though, Syria and Canaan at this time.
06:53Little sort of mountain towns,
06:55getting most of their culture from Mesopotamia.
06:57Egypt, of course, is a land on its own,
06:59doing its own thing quite happily.
07:01So you can see that when Abraham and his family
07:03and his herds were travelling,
07:05they weren't just wandering around aimlessly in the desert,
07:07talking to God.
07:07He was going down the ancient M1.
07:10He was travelling the whole arc of the Fertile Crescent,
07:13and it was a great trading route.
07:15You see, you went in boats mostly,
07:18but sometimes with donkeys along the rivers,
07:20and then you came round here
07:22and you went down into Canaan with your donkeys.
07:24You didn't go through the middle because there was a desert,
07:28and you and your donkeys would have died of thirst.
07:31Now, this is an interesting thing.
07:34Camels, which could cross that desert,
07:36because they didn't go without water for about three days,
07:38came in about 600 B.C.
07:39So those stories that describe Abraham riding a camel
07:43must have been made about that time.
07:46The phrase Ur of the Chaldees, too,
07:48it's an interesting phrase,
07:50because the word Chaldea is a word for Mesopotamia over there,
07:53and that didn't come in till about 600 B.C. either.
07:56So it looks like those stories, at least in Abraham,
08:00date from around that time.
08:01But there are many other stories to do with Abraham
08:04which show that that sort of lifestyle
08:06is thousands of years older than that.
08:11Archaeologists have been coming up with evidence of Abraham for years,
08:14but you can't always trust them.
08:17Just because you dig up a place called Haran
08:19doesn't mean you dug up Abraham's house.
08:22And there's still no real evidence
08:24that the people in the book of Genesis ever lived at all.
08:28What archaeologists have given us, though,
08:31is an amazing amount of evidence about Abraham's ancient world,
08:36of ancient Egypt and ancient Mesopotamia and all the rest.
08:40And that you can find at sites like Haran.
08:44A Western boundary for this Venus.
08:47We know an incredible amount about Mesopotamian civilisation,
08:51largely because we've been digging it up for 150 years.
08:55But, you know, at the end of the day,
08:58when you've found all the splendid palaces
09:00and the heaps of gold and the great statues and all the rest of it,
09:04the thing that really tells you is the writing.
09:08Especially with Mesopotamia,
09:10because they lived in mud houses and they've all gone.
09:12But their writing survives.
09:15They invented writing.
09:17They wrote on tablets of clay like this one,
09:19polished up the surface with a beautiful shine.
09:22They got a little wedge-shaped stick.
09:24And with that, they impressed little patterns.
09:27Now, these patterns had started off as pictures,
09:29but they ended up as completely abstract signs,
09:32called cuneiform.
09:33And they stamped out all their little words in rows
09:37in such a successful system
09:39that it went straight round the Fertile Crescent.
09:42It went from deep in Mesopotamia right through here,
09:45through Haran, right down.
09:47You can find it in the state archives of Egypt.
09:49And, of course, if you invent a system of writing,
09:52even though it's taken up by dozens of languages,
09:54the style of your writing stays with you.
09:57So the Mesopotamian legal system, the legal contracts,
10:01became the legal norm for the whole of the ancient world.
10:04So Mesopotamian science and dating and all that,
10:07Mesopotamian culture came out of Mesopotamia,
10:09just like Abraham, on tablets like this.
10:13This, actually, is quite an interesting one.
10:15It's actually a land grant.
10:16It's a business contract.
10:17It tells you that Joe now owns his plot of land
10:20and he's bought it from Fred for so much money.
10:22Well, that's rather interesting,
10:24because there's a passage in the book of Genesis
10:25where Abraham is buying a plot of land.
10:30Now, archaeologists dig those land grant tablets up
10:33by the city gates, usually,
10:34because that's where the documents were made out
10:37and the announcements, the public announcements,
10:39of the change of property took place.
10:42And that's exactly what you find in the book of Genesis.
10:44But how vivid it is in Genesis.
10:46It tells you about Abraham, the man,
10:48buying the land in which he's going to bury his wife.
10:51And it's a lovely little story.
10:52This, of course, the Mesopotamian version,
10:55is a very dry, legal document,
10:57but they amount to the same thing.
10:59And if you look in those tablets,
11:01you'll find dozens of biblical customs.
11:03That lovely custom that Abraham and his family had
11:06of swearing oaths by putting their hand under their thigh.
11:10That's on these tablets, too.
11:12Just as Isaac's dying words
11:14are taken as a written will in the Bible,
11:16so are man's dying words are taken as a written will
11:19in these Mesopotamian tablets when you read about the law courts
11:22and things like that.
11:24This is actually a list of Mesopotamian laws
11:27made about 1760 BC.
11:31And they're written out in just the same way
11:33as the list of Jehovah's laws in the Old Testament.
11:36And there's a Mesopotamian king
11:40receiving his laws from a god at the top of a mountain
11:44in just the same way that Moses received the Ten Commandments
11:48from his god on top of his holy mountain
11:51in the wilderness of Sinai.
11:53You know, great numbers of those Mesopotamian tablets
12:06are actually dated.
12:09The scholars have spent many, many years
12:11trying to fix Abraham and all his family
12:14into our modern history.
12:16Well, at present, those tablets,
12:21those old Mesopotamian tablets
12:22that deal with Abraham and his sort of lifestyle
12:25date between 2500 BC and 500 BC.
12:29You can't really get much tighter than that.
12:31Perhaps they're older. Who knows?
12:33But why is there this terrific obsession
12:36to put people like Abraham into our history?
12:39Remember, biblical history isn't like that.
12:41That deals in generations.
12:43You go from Adam to Jesus,
12:44and it's to do with a family.
12:45But we want dates.
12:47Why do we want dates?
12:49I think some people think that
12:50if I could march up here and tell you
12:52Abraham lived in such and such a year,
12:54that that would actually prove the existence of God.
12:57You think so?
12:58Well, perhaps there are other people
13:00who actually think that
13:01it would be nice to believe
13:03that there was really a time on earth
13:05when there were people like Abraham,
13:07people that founded nations and talked to God
13:09when the world was a purer place.
13:12Of course, in most other religions,
13:13Abraham would himself have been a god,
13:17the founder, father of a nation,
13:19a man of mythic deeds.
13:22Well, what does Jehovah say?
13:23He says in the Bible,
13:24you shall have no other god but me.
13:26And those Bible scribes have to make damn sure
13:29that Abraham is never allowed
13:30any of the attributes of any sort of a god at all.
13:33So he appears as Mr. Heavy Normal,
13:36Mr. Heavy Normal Shepherd, Mr. Banality.
13:39And that's what gives Genesis this extraordinary tension.
13:42It's a tension between myth on one side
13:44and the most ordinary thing on the other.
13:47I'll tell you something else, too.
13:49You try and fix Abraham down in history,
13:52and in his family, he'll pick up their tents,
13:53and they'll steal away over horizons
13:55that go on for thousands and thousands of years.
14:02That's about as far as you'll get,
14:04looking for Abraham with a spade and a mat.
14:09And yet, you know,
14:10you can't work for very long in the East,
14:13even in an age of motorcars and televisions,
14:15without feeling close to people like Abraham.
14:19They seem to be just out of reach,
14:21in the air, in the dust.
14:29It might not rate high
14:30on an archaeological list of candidates
14:33for the biblical city of Ur,
14:35but the city of Urfa,
14:37quite close to ancient Haran,
14:39has a lot of Abraham's world in it.
14:42Something, too,
14:43that's more important than bricks and stones.
14:51Muslims who live here
14:52believe that their city
14:54is the city of Urfa,
14:55from which Abraham started his travels.
14:59They say that Abraham was born here,
15:01in a cave,
15:02which is now a holy place,
15:04with a holy spring of water.
15:06Abraham is counted as a prophet in Islam,
15:18the first man to proclaim
15:20that there is but one God.
15:23At Urfa, they say,
15:24he attacked the statues
15:26of the gods of the sun and the moon,
15:28that a wicked king imprisoned him
15:30and tried to burn him on a fire.
15:31But then, miraculously,
15:34the flaming logs of wood
15:35all turn to fine, fat fish.
15:40The descendants of these fish
15:42still swim on at Urfa,
15:44in these great ponds,
15:46fed by the waters
15:47of Abraham's holy spring.
16:05The fish ponds are the heart of the city.
16:14Everyone walks here in the evenings
16:16admiring the fine fish.
16:18And God help you
16:19if you should kill one.
16:21These fish are still sacred,
16:24just as they have been
16:25for thousands upon thousands of years.
16:28Before the Muslims,
16:30there were the Christians here at Urfa.
16:32Before the Christians, Greeks,
16:34when the fish's fins
16:35were decorated with golden jewellery.
16:38Before the Greeks,
16:39there were the ancient Mesopotamians,
16:41when the fish swam about
16:42in honour of the moon god.
16:44So think about it for a minute,
16:47what you've got here.
16:48You've got this pool of sacredness.
16:52And the religions that have come
16:53and gone through the ages,
16:55they're sort of decorations
16:56to something much deeper.
16:58It's a sort of human awareness
17:00of sacredness that is here.
17:01And the theology is just, you know,
17:04different expressions
17:05of that basic idea.
17:07That is Abraham's world.
17:09That feeling that underneath
17:11everything in the world
17:13there is a sacredness.
17:14It's not a stupid world.
17:15It's not a daft world.
17:16It's not what idiots believe in.
17:18It's what the human race has made.
17:20It's one of the things
17:20that makes it different from the animals.
17:22It's a very important aspect.
17:24If you don't understand that,
17:25you will not understand the Bible
17:28and its beginnings.
17:29Look,
17:29before you had
17:33orthodox religion
17:35as we know it today,
17:36I think the most ancient religions,
17:37you might say,
17:38were invented really
17:39by poets and artists.
17:41People came to places like Earth
17:42and felt there was
17:43something sacred here.
17:45Artists made statues of gods.
17:47Poets wrote hymns for them.
17:49And the priests organized the cult.
17:51If everybody felt
17:52that those statues,
17:53those hymns,
17:53or even these fish
17:54embodied something of the sacred,
17:56the god became a success.
17:58And he didn't.
17:58It just died out
17:59and that was the end of it.
18:00Now, our Bible
18:01is a continuation of that
18:03because what that is
18:04is a definition
18:05of the sacred itself.
18:07You make a statue of a god.
18:08You're trying to define
18:09something of the quality
18:10of these fish
18:11in this marvelous pond.
18:13And our Bible
18:13is the world's
18:14most elaborate conception
18:16of a definition
18:18of the understanding
18:19of God himself.
18:20In ancient Mesopotamia,
18:32the world and all its gods
18:35was explained
18:36in sacred stories.
18:38These stories, of course,
18:39were myths.
18:41Myths, that is,
18:42not in the modern meaning
18:43of the word,
18:44as lies or falsehoods,
18:45but in the sense
18:47of a story,
18:48they're told
18:48of the underlying
18:49order of the world.
18:52Myths could explain
18:53the beauty of a spring
18:54or a fish,
18:55the mystery of a cave.
18:57They could explain
18:58your good fortune
18:59and your misfortune.
19:00They helped you feel secure,
19:02part of a sacred family,
19:03a universal order.
19:06Like all ancient people,
19:08Abraham would have seen
19:09his life
19:10in terms of myth.
19:16The people who made
19:17the Genesis creation story
19:19knew these old stories well.
19:22And they used some of them
19:23in their description
19:24of the beginning
19:25of the world.
19:26Like Abraham,
19:27the Bible's story
19:28of creation
19:29was born
19:30in ancient Mesopotamia.
19:39Mesopotamia was very fertile,
19:46bountiful even,
19:48but it also held
19:49random violence in it.
19:51For the Mesopotamians,
19:53life was precarious.
19:56Crops and cities
19:57were often parched
19:58or washed away
19:59by floods
20:00and violent storms.
20:02There was plague too
20:03and tribesmen
20:04raiding down
20:05from the surrounding hills.
20:06The Mesopotamian myth
20:10of the creation
20:11gave order
20:12to uncertainty.
20:17Enuma Elish,
20:19the ancient priests
20:20recited to their people.
20:22Enuma Elish,
20:23la nabushamanu.
20:26When, on high,
20:27the heavens
20:28were not yet named.
20:30They went on
20:31to tell an ancient
20:32and terrifying story
20:33of a family feud.
20:36of how one day
20:42the great mother goddess
20:44declared war
20:45on all six generations
20:46of her family
20:47because they were
20:48making too much noise.
20:50And then,
20:51the gods appointed Marduk,
20:53a warrior
20:54of the sixth generation
20:55as their champion.
21:00Marduk fought
21:01the mother goddess
21:02and her husband
21:03and her demon army
21:05on the great wide plain
21:06of Mesopotamia.
21:10And finally,
21:11he overcame them all.
21:12As for the mother goddess,
21:14he pushed the wild wind
21:15into her mouth,
21:17bloated her stomach,
21:18shot arrows into her,
21:19and Mesopotamia was born.
21:24With a butcher's knife,
21:26Marduk split the carcass
21:27of the mother goddess
21:28in half
21:29and made the sky
21:30and the earth,
21:31and from the arch
21:31of her thighs
21:32he made the vault
21:33of heaven.
21:35Her head
21:35he buried
21:36under the northern mountains
21:38and pierced her eyes
21:40so that Mesopotamia's
21:41two great rivers
21:42would flow down her cheeks.
21:44It's extraordinary
22:01to think of that terrible
22:02Mesopotamian mayhem.
22:06That terrifying story
22:07of creation
22:08is the same story
22:10that underlies
22:11that solitary,
22:12majestic creation
22:13of Jehovah
22:14in the book of Genesis.
22:18In the beginning,
22:19God created
22:20the heaven and the earth.
22:21It's the same story
22:23as that Mesopotamian murder.
22:25And that's important
22:26in a way.
22:27It's important,
22:28not because you say,
22:29oh, well, fancy now,
22:30you know,
22:30the book of Genesis
22:30is a rip-off
22:31of some Mesopotamian folk story.
22:33That's not the thing.
22:34It's important
22:35because what,
22:36through the Bible,
22:37that old Mesopotamian story
22:39has given the West,
22:40it's given the West
22:40a very particular model
22:42of the universe.
22:43Of a certain sort of structure
22:45of a single unit
22:46with stresses and strains in it,
22:47just like a family.
22:49Now,
22:50how these things work,
22:52how is it
22:53that the Mesopotamian story
22:54is buried
22:55in this first page
22:56of the book of Genesis?
22:58Well,
22:58you're not going to find
22:59some Mesopotamian god
23:00called Joe
23:01who ends up being Jehovah
23:02who goes off and does
23:03a similar thing
23:04in Mesopotamia.
23:06The concordance
23:07between the two stories
23:08is one of structure
23:09and number.
23:11Remember,
23:11there are six generations
23:12of Mesopotamian gods,
23:14just as Jehovah
23:15takes six days
23:16to make the universe.
23:18And on each day,
23:19Jehovah makes a part
23:20of the universe.
23:20He makes the sun,
23:21the stars,
23:21the silt,
23:22the animals,
23:22the plants,
23:23the birds.
23:24The Mesopotamian gods
23:25of each of those six generations
23:26are the gods
23:28of exactly the same things
23:30that Jehovah
23:31is making
23:31on each of his
23:32six days of creation.
23:33So underneath this text,
23:35if you like,
23:36there live
23:36the Mesopotamian gods.
23:39Look,
23:39just take,
23:40just start on the first day.
23:42God made the firmament
23:43and divided the waters
23:44which were under the firmament
23:46from the waters
23:47which were above the firmament.
23:49The waters below ground
23:50and above ground,
23:51salt water and fresh water.
23:53The waters,
23:53incidentally,
23:54are the two rivers
23:54of Mesopotamia
23:55going into the Persian
23:56Gulf.
23:57Mesopotamia going on here,
23:59but that is the gods
24:01of the first generation.
24:03The great mother goddess
24:04was the god
24:05of the salt water.
24:06Her husband
24:07was the god
24:07of the fresh water.
24:08They're the first generation gods.
24:10That's what he's making
24:11on the first day.
24:12And you can go like that.
24:13Second generation,
24:14second day,
24:14third generation,
24:15third day,
24:15fourth generation.
24:17And God made two great lights,
24:18the greater light
24:19to rule the day
24:20and the lesser light
24:21to rule the night.
24:22He's making the sun
24:22and the moon.
24:23What are the gods
24:24of the fourth generation
24:25of Mesopotamian gods?
24:26They're the gods
24:26of the heavens,
24:27of the sun,
24:28the moon and the stars.
24:29And he made the stars also,
24:31the book of Genesis tells us,
24:32on the fourth day.
24:33And that correspondence
24:34goes right down
24:35through the list
24:36until you come
24:37to the sixth day.
24:38Now,
24:38what happens
24:38on the sixth day?
24:39Marduk of the sixth generation
24:41of gods makes man
24:43so that the other gods
24:44can rest.
24:45The other gods
24:45are building Marduk
24:46a temple.
24:47It's become so splendiferous,
24:48they're going to build
24:49the guy a temple.
24:50So Marduk takes pity
24:51on them and all
24:51and says,
24:52right,
24:52I'll make you a man
24:53a slave
24:53so that you can all rest.
24:55What does Jehovah do?
24:56He makes man
24:57on the sixth day
24:58and then Jehovah
24:59takes the rest.
25:01The difference is
25:01with the sort of man
25:03that's being made.
25:05Marduk makes man
25:06to be a slave.
25:08Jehovah, though,
25:09makes man
25:10in his own image.
25:12Man is given
25:13responsibility.
25:15It's as if the people
25:16who wrote Genesis
25:17are saying,
25:18yes,
25:19we understand your world,
25:20Mesopotamia.
25:21We absolutely believe
25:22in the way you priests
25:24have divided up
25:25the whole order
25:26of the universe.
25:26You're good scientists,
25:28but you're lousy moralists.
25:29We want a different role
25:30for men.
25:31That means, too,
25:32they wanted a different role
25:33for God.
25:34So the God of Genesis
25:36isn't a Mesopotamian God.
25:38Where did he come from?
25:40Well, think of Abraham again.
25:41He's going on
25:42his intellectual journey.
25:43He's starting in Mesopotamia
25:45and he's going to Egypt.
25:48And the Jehovah of Genesis
25:50is not so much
25:52like the gods of Mesopotamia,
25:54but far more
25:56like the gods of Egypt.
26:04This is a health warning.
26:27If you want to go down to Egypt
26:30to look for Abraham
26:31and all his family
26:32to continue
26:33the intellectual journey
26:35of the book of Genesis,
26:37then leave the cinema
26:38behind you.
26:42Its vision of ancient Egypt,
26:44based on Victorian paintings
26:46like this one,
26:47is correct in all its detail,
26:49but mistaken in its broad assumptions.
26:51Egypt never enslaved other nations,
26:58nor did it build Pharaoh's tombs
27:00with foreign slaves.
27:03This tells you a lot
27:04about the 19th century,
27:06but almost nothing
27:07about ancient Egypt.
27:13Let's start at the beginning.
27:15The book of Genesis tells us
27:17that the generations of Abraham,
27:19Joseph, Jacob, and Moses
27:21all went down into Egypt.
27:24But is there any scientific evidence
27:27of such foreigners
27:28ever living in Pharaoh's kingdom at all?
27:34At the archaeological site
27:36at Tel al-Dabba
27:36in the Egyptian delta,
27:39they've dug up the very town
27:40that such travellers
27:42would have seen
27:42when they'd first crossed
27:43the deserts
27:44to go down into Egypt.
27:49You know,
27:50it's not very often these days
27:51that you can actually
27:52suddenly come across
27:53something completely new,
27:55which really verifies
27:57the truth
27:57of ancient history.
28:00Most of the ancient history
28:00we've got
28:01is built on a framework
28:03of ancient books themselves
28:05and, of course, the Bible.
28:06And it's very seldom
28:08you can come across
28:08something which actually
28:09seems to corroborate
28:11things that are going on
28:12in the Bible,
28:12major events
28:13that took place
28:14over hundreds of years.
28:16So this,
28:17in the Egyptian delta,
28:18this strange little field,
28:19is one of the most important digs
28:21in the Middle East
28:21since the Second World War.
28:23Here look,
28:24just like ordinary fields, right?
28:26But just down in front of me,
28:28that is real history.
28:29It's the sort of thing
28:30that the ancient authors
28:32and the Bible itself
28:33was talking about.
28:36It doesn't look much,
28:37does it?
28:37These few walls
28:38are going to be filled in again
28:40next year
28:41and there'll be growing onions
28:42on here
28:42and the archaeologists
28:43will be moving
28:44into the next field.
28:45At the moment,
28:46you can see the remains
28:47of a grain bin there
28:49from 1500 B.C.
28:51Down there,
28:52a bit further,
28:53is a wall
28:54from a house
28:54of 2000 B.C.
28:56That's the same time
28:57as that wonderful painting
28:59from Egypt
29:00which shows
29:00a family of foreigners
29:02arriving from Syria,
29:03from Canaan,
29:04in their wonderful robes,
29:06so reminiscent
29:06of the patriarchs
29:07and the descriptions
29:08of them in the Bible.
29:15The reports
29:16of the Austrian archaeologists
29:18showed what modern science
29:19could make
29:20of what at first
29:21had seemed to be
29:22one of the most
29:23unpromising sites in Egypt.
29:25Under the little
29:26houses of ordinary people
29:28in small graves,
29:30they found family treasures
29:31and the very bones
29:33of the foreigners,
29:34people like Abraham
29:35and Joseph
29:36who had come down
29:37into Egypt.
29:39And at the dead men's feet
29:41they even found
29:42the bones
29:43of the little horses
29:44that had carried them
29:45on their travels.
29:46What then
29:59did the ancient Egyptians
30:01think
30:02of all these foreigners
30:03that came down
30:04into Egypt?
30:05The same Egypt
30:06in which
30:07the Bible says
30:08Abraham
30:09and all his family
30:10should be included.
30:11The evidence
30:13is surprising
30:15and rather different
30:16from the attitudes
30:17you find
30:17in the Old Testament.
30:19The facts
30:20are best seen
30:21in Egypt's famous
30:23tomb paintings
30:23like those
30:25in the 3,500-year-old
30:27tomb chapel
30:28of the Vizier
30:29Rechmire
30:30at Thebes.
30:34Look at the amazing
30:35care and interest
30:36that the Egyptian
30:36artists showed
30:37when they looked
30:38at foreigners.
30:39How intrigued
30:40they were by them all.
30:41Here are black people
30:42from the south
30:43and they're bringing
30:44tribute to the man
30:46who owned this tomb.
30:47What are they bringing?
30:47Logs of ebony,
30:50wild cheetahs
30:50from the desert,
30:51white desert foxes,
30:53baboons
30:54that jumped up
30:55and down
30:55when the sun came,
30:56elephant tusks,
30:58ostriches,
30:59ostrich feathers,
31:00more monkeys.
31:01And look at this marvel.
31:03I bet few Egyptians
31:04have ever seen a giraffe,
31:05especially one
31:06with a monkey
31:06on its neck.
31:10And look here,
31:12the change of pace now,
31:13not animals
31:13and people
31:14from the south,
31:15but fair-skinned people,
31:16Syrians,
31:17Palestinians
31:17from the north,
31:19elegant men
31:19in long white robes
31:20with a baby elephant
31:22and a bear
31:23from the mountains
31:23and horses too.
31:25Syrians brought horses
31:26into Egypt
31:27and with them
31:28the chariot,
31:29the great Egyptian
31:30war machine.
31:32But the interesting
31:33thing about these scenes
31:34is that the artist
31:35isn't looking down
31:36at the people.
31:37He's intrigued by them.
31:38He doesn't have
31:39that modern obsession
31:40with race.
31:41You could be Egyptian
31:41whether your skin
31:42was Syrian white,
31:43Nubian black,
31:44Libyan with blonde hair,
31:45anything.
31:46It didn't matter.
31:47All you had to do
31:47was to live
31:48in the Nile Valley
31:49in the right way,
31:50put the right clothes on
31:51and change your name
31:52and you were Egyptian.
31:55For the most part,
31:56then,
31:57the harshness
31:58and prejudice
31:58that the Egyptians
31:59show in the Old Testament
32:00is not reflected
32:02in the reality
32:03of the ancient records.
32:05in the book of Genesis.
32:07Nonetheless,
32:08there's a great deal
32:09of evidence
32:10in the book of Genesis
32:11to show that whoever
32:12wrote it
32:13knew Pharaoh's Egypt
32:14and knew it
32:15at first hand.
32:19Once again,
32:20to see evidence
32:21of that,
32:22you must go into
32:22the great tombs
32:23of Thebes.
32:24Some of these
32:40Egyptian tombs
32:42will have to go
32:43right down
32:44into the ground,
32:44into the burial chamber
32:45itself
32:46to find the finest paintings.
32:49This is the tomb
32:50of the mayor of Thebes.
32:51There he is,
32:54Mr. Senefer
32:54and his wife.
32:56But here in the underworld,
32:58they're dead
32:58and it's their son
32:59who is giving him
33:00the offerings.
33:02And scenes like this
33:03are full of detail,
33:04the sort of detail
33:05that you find
33:06in the Bible stories.
33:07The eldest son it is
33:08who communes
33:09with his dead parents.
33:10The eldest son,
33:10in fact,
33:11communicates
33:11with all the ancestors
33:12of Egypt.
33:13So, for example,
33:15when Jehovah
33:15smites the eldest son,
33:17he's not just killing
33:17off a member
33:18of the family,
33:18he's breaking Egypt's
33:19connection with the dead.
33:20And that's the sort of
33:22link that you find
33:23with the Bible stories
33:24with these tombs.
33:25You can also find
33:26quite interesting
33:27direct details
33:29of Bible stories.
33:30Like many other
33:31of these wonderful tombs,
33:34Senefer's fine paintings
33:35are just filled up
33:36with little,
33:38tiny references
33:39to Bible stories
33:41and Bible things.
33:42Look at these figures here.
33:44You can see
33:45Senefer himself,
33:47the grand mayor,
33:48high public dignitary
33:49with his wife
33:51and she's offering him
33:52a beautiful necklace
33:52on a basket.
33:54Now, remember the incident
33:55in the story
33:56of Joseph and Pharaoh.
33:59Joseph, who comes,
34:00is a Hebrew
34:00and he comes into Egypt
34:01and because of his
34:02wonderful telling of dreams,
34:04gets to be made
34:05the highest official
34:06in the land.
34:07And Pharaoh says to Joseph,
34:08I will give you authority
34:09over all the land of Egypt.
34:11And what does he give Joseph?
34:13He gives him
34:13exactly what?
34:14Senefer,
34:15another high official,
34:16is wearing.
34:17He gives him
34:17the seal of the king.
34:19He gives them
34:20a collar of gold,
34:22which you can even find
34:23still on mummies.
34:24You can see it in x-rays
34:25under their bandages.
34:26Very common,
34:27these great golden collars
34:28of the high officials.
34:29And he gives him
34:30fine linens.
34:32Now, this tells you
34:33something else interesting
34:34about the Bible.
34:35It tells you
34:36that the Bible
34:37is not only giving you
34:38a lot of Egyptian detail,
34:39but it's doing
34:40that typical biblical thing.
34:41It's turning something,
34:42which is actually
34:43a state ceremony,
34:45something quite formal,
34:46like a knighting
34:47or a coronation,
34:48into something
34:48quite personal.
34:50And in that way,
34:51the Bible is unique
34:52in the ancient world.
34:54But there's another thing
34:55this beautiful tomb
34:56can suggest to us.
34:57Perhaps it's more important
34:58than all those little details
34:59that you can read
35:01from the tomb
35:01to the Bible.
35:02And that's something to do
35:04with the vision
35:05of the people
35:05who made the place,
35:06the sheer joy of it,
35:07the grapevines,
35:08the carpets,
35:09the lovely, lively painting.
35:10It's the work of people
35:12who know what paradise is,
35:14who live in beautiful circumstances,
35:17the sort of thing
35:17that you didn't get
35:18in the rest
35:19of the ancient world.
35:20In fact, it's a vision
35:21of a land of milk and honey.
35:25And perhaps it's the first
35:27and original example
35:28of that land of milk and honey
35:30that the Israelites
35:32so desperately wanted
35:33for their own.
35:42Here, then,
35:56you come to the nub
35:58of the sea.
35:58The deep, deep influence
36:16of Pharaoh's Egypt
36:18upon the book of Genesis.
36:21It's to do with the basic notion
36:23of what a nation is,
36:24of what a state is,
36:26and of what a god can be.
36:29Ancient Egypt, remember,
36:30was the first nation state
36:32in all the world.
36:35And Egypt, too,
36:36was a supreme example
36:38of the fruitful unison
36:39of men and gods.
36:41The effect of this colossal kingdom
37:09upon foreigners
37:11must have been
37:11completely overwhelming.
37:13The sheer power,
37:15the size,
37:15the skill of it all,
37:17the Pharaoh,
37:18above him,
37:19the gods,
37:20the heavens,
37:20beneath him,
37:21the people,
37:21and then underneath them,
37:23the foreigners.
37:23Everything has an order
37:24and a shape here,
37:25and that single shape
37:26must have just projected itself
37:28upon everybody who came here
37:30with its supreme confidence
37:32and ability.
37:33But there's something
37:34more than that here, too,
37:35because these palaces
37:38and the temples
37:39of the gods
37:39were private,
37:41shut-off,
37:41dark, secret,
37:42mysterious places.
37:44Foreigners,
37:45most Egyptians,
37:46wouldn't have got
37:46past the gateway here.
37:50Our visitor
37:51wouldn't merely
37:52have received
37:52an impression
37:53of this open,
37:54structured state,
37:55but of something
37:56mysterious and hidden,
37:57and at its centre,
37:59a oneness of mystery
38:00and sacredness
38:01which he would have
38:01never have seen.
38:02Behind these great walls
38:04would have been a power
38:04sort of throbbing away
38:06like a nuclear reactor.
38:11This would have been
38:13ancient Egypt's greatest gift
38:15to Abraham,
38:17for it's certainly
38:17Egypt's greatest gift
38:19of the Old Testament,
38:20a vision of a calm
38:22and universal holiness.
38:24At the heart of the Egyptian temples
38:31stood the gods.
38:35Their vitality controlled the universe
38:38and made Egypt prosper.
38:40And though ancient Egypt
38:42had a thousand gods in it,
38:44it also held a notion
38:45of an underlying holiness
38:47that ran deep beneath everything.
38:49For thousands upon thousands
38:52of years,
38:53Egyptian priests
38:54had studied and defined
38:55this sacred order
38:56and developed the ceremonials,
38:58the rituals,
38:59by which Egypt
39:00had become a partner
39:01of the gods
39:01in a single universal scheme.
39:13Ancient Egypt gave the Bible
39:15just as it gave to so much
39:17of the ancient world,
39:18a special sense
39:19of right and ritual
39:20with holiness
39:22and deity.
39:233,300 years ago,
39:43one of the greatest cities
39:44in the world
39:45stood just over these fields here.
39:47Just where that road is,
39:48there's a little canal.
39:49In ancient times,
39:50it was one of the main branches
39:51of the Nile.
39:53And down it came ships
39:54from Cyprus,
39:55from Syria,
39:55from Crete,
39:56all over,
39:57all over the Mediterranean,
39:59bringing goods,
40:00foreign, rare,
40:01wonderful things
40:01into the courts
40:02of the pharaohs
40:03that stood here.
40:04Of course,
40:04by the canals
40:05stood the warehouses,
40:07behind the warehouses,
40:08the offices of the administration,
40:09and then the royal palaces,
40:10and then the temples,
40:12clouds of incense
40:13going up into the air,
40:14like this town's gone,
40:15straight up into the air.
40:17Look at this.
40:21Aren't they extraordinary?
40:23It's a very old pair of feet
40:25left in a field.
40:27They're about eight or ten times
40:28bigger than our feet,
40:29so the statue must have stood
40:3050, 60 feet high.
40:32Then, of course,
40:33on top of that,
40:33you have a great crown
40:34and the pedestal underneath.
40:36It must have been
40:36a massive statue,
40:38dragged here
40:39from the limestone cliffs
40:40of Egypt.
40:41And down here in front
40:43is the name of the man
40:47in whose honour
40:48the statue was brought here.
40:51Usa, Mart, Ra, Mary, Ammon.
40:53Ramesses II,
40:54beloved of the gods.
40:56And he called his city
40:57Ramesses after him.
40:59And this city,
40:59the Bible tells us then,
41:01is the city of the Exodus.
41:02Yodal, Moses,
41:11went down in Egypt land
41:16and old Pharaoh
41:21to let my people go.
41:26When Israel was in Egypt land
41:34let my people go.
41:39Oppressed so hard
41:43they could not stand
41:46let my people go.
41:51No doubt, Moses,
41:57way down in Egypt land
42:04and old Pharaoh
42:09let my people go.
42:15Exodus
42:21is simply
42:23the Greek word
42:24for going out.
42:25And of course,
42:26the Exodus
42:27is the going out
42:28of the children of Israel
42:29from Egypt
42:30to wander in the wilderness
42:31for 40 years
42:32and then come into
42:33their promised land
42:34in Israel.
42:36The Israelites.
42:38Now,
42:39Egyptian records
42:40tell us that
42:41there were already
42:41Israelites
42:42in their promised land
42:43in a particular day.
42:45It's a precious
42:45record,
42:46the only one
42:46from ancient Egypt.
42:47But there it is
42:48and the date
42:49is 1207.
42:51At that time
42:51the children of Israel
42:53were already
42:53in their promised land
42:54according to the
42:56ancient Egyptian texts.
42:58So,
42:58they wandered
42:59as the Bible tells us
43:00for 40 years
43:01in the wilderness.
43:02They must have started
43:02from here,
43:03from Ramesses,
43:05not later
43:06than 1247 B.C.
43:09That's a pretty
43:09precise date
43:10because that is
43:12exactly the time
43:13when Ramesses
43:13was on the throne.
43:14And if we take
43:15back history
43:16a little further
43:17we can see
43:17there's about
43:18a 30-year period
43:19when the exodus
43:20could have occurred
43:21in the time
43:22of Ramesses.
43:24Sounds amazingly
43:24precise,
43:25doesn't it?
43:26But there's
43:27one problem.
43:29Unlike Tel al-Daba,
43:30it's the old city
43:31under its ash,
43:32unlike the palaces
43:33here,
43:33unlike Ramesses'
43:34statue,
43:35you can't actually
43:37find any
43:38archaeological evidence
43:39that the exodus
43:40ever took place.
43:43In a country
43:44where thousands
43:45upon thousands
43:46of documents
43:47have survived,
43:48that is very
43:49extraordinary.
43:51There's not a hint
43:52of Israel and Egypt
43:54in the ancient texts,
43:55nor of the biblical exodus.
43:59In fact,
44:00the exodus
44:01never took place
44:02in history
44:02as the Bible
44:03describes it.
44:04But then,
44:06of course,
44:07the truth
44:08of the exodus story,
44:10like all truths
44:10in the ancient world,
44:12is not the sort
44:13of truth
44:13you'll find
44:14in history books.
44:18In the 19th century,
44:20lots of English vicars
44:22used to come
44:22to the Sinai Desert
44:23to escape
44:25the English winter
44:26and to look for
44:26Moses
44:28and the traces
44:28of the exodus.
44:31Most of them
44:31were only here
44:32a few days,
44:32of course.
44:34before they discovered
44:36there was just
44:38no way
44:39that 600,000 people
44:40could survive
44:42in this wilderness.
44:43There are other
44:44problems, too.
44:46In a place
44:47where you can find
44:48traces of Bedouin
44:50encampments,
44:50just two or three people
44:52that stayed one night
44:53thousands of years ago,
44:55there was no trace
44:56of these 600,000 people.
44:58And that's the biggest
44:59number of people
45:00that have ever been here,
45:01apart from the
45:02two armies
45:03in the recent wars.
45:05Then there's another
45:05problem,
45:06the ancient Egyptian
45:06records.
45:07There's no record
45:08of the quarter
45:09of the population
45:09in the country
45:10ever getting up
45:10and leaving,
45:11either.
45:13Oh, well,
45:13say the experts,
45:14that's because
45:15ancient people
45:15generally get
45:16the numbers wrong.
45:17Let's fine it down.
45:19Instead of 600,000,
45:20let's call it 5,000.
45:21And let's say
45:22that the miraculous
45:23parting of the Red Sea
45:25was actually caused
45:26by a volcanic explosion
45:28that somehow
45:29created this enormous
45:30tidal wave,
45:31and on and on
45:31you go
45:32with these explanations.
45:33What you end up
45:34doing, of course,
45:35is translating
45:37a marvellous,
45:38miraculous event
45:40into a banal Bedouin
45:43trot through the desert
45:44with a few guys
45:45wandering around.
45:47Of course,
45:47the story is not
45:48about a documentary
45:49about people leaving
45:50Egypt.
45:51The story is about
45:52the birth of a new God
45:53and the birth
45:54of a new nation.
45:55But strangely enough,
45:57it's told in the
45:58old, old ways
45:59of ancient Egypt
46:00and Mesopotamia.
46:01That is,
46:02on the great wave
46:03of a myth.
46:09The Exodus story
46:10is a remake
46:11of some of the East's
46:13most ancient tales.
46:15That is how
46:16the book of Genesis
46:17tells us all
46:18its most important things.
46:20ancient Israel
46:23knew nothing
46:24about science
46:25or history books,
46:26but it did know
46:27the old creation stories
46:28and what, therefore,
46:30the creation
46:31of ancient Israel
46:32must have been like.
46:34And that's exactly
46:35what the Exodus story
46:37is,
46:38a creation story.
46:40The very name
46:42of Moses
46:42is the Egyptian
46:43word for birth.
46:46With the parting
46:46of the waters
46:47of the Red Sea,
46:48Israel was born again
46:50just as the world
46:51had been made
46:52at the time
46:52of the creation.
46:54And that
46:55is the truth
46:56of this extraordinary saga.
47:04You know,
47:05if you want to,
47:06you can explain
47:07the whole beautiful story
47:09of the Exodus
47:09in terms of
47:11a volcanic explosion.
47:13You can say,
47:14for example,
47:14that the parting
47:15of the Red Sea
47:16was due to the
47:17after-effects
47:17of a tidal wave.
47:18You can say
47:19that Jehovah
47:20appearing in a column
47:21of fire
47:22was the glowing ash
47:23of the volcano
47:24in the night sky.
47:25There was a volcanic
47:26explosion like that,
47:27too,
47:27about 1450 B.C.
47:29But the miraculous
47:30thing about that
47:31is that not one
47:32ancient scribe
47:33of that time
47:34ever saw fit
47:35to write about it.
47:36It's not that surprising,
47:37actually,
47:38because ancient scribes
47:39in that time
47:39didn't write about
47:40things like that.
47:41They didn't think
47:41they were important enough.
47:42So if that story
47:44really is behind
47:45the Exodus,
47:46what you can say
47:47is then that only
47:48Moses himself
47:49saw God
47:50in that cloud
47:51and that explosion.
47:52And that perception
47:53of God,
47:54that new understanding,
47:55that new awareness
47:56of what a God was,
47:58was far more thunderous
47:59than any volcanic explosion.
48:06Just think about
48:07this new God.
48:08Just think about
48:08Jehovah for a moment.
48:09Jehovah traveled
48:13with Moses
48:14and his people
48:16from Egypt
48:17to the Promised Land.
48:19He wandered with them
48:20for 40 years
48:21in the wilderness.
48:23This Jehovah, then,
48:24is a God
48:25that moves through space
48:26and through time.
48:28And that makes him
48:29the most revolutionary God
48:31that there ever was,
48:33that anybody ever saw.
48:36Look,
48:37the gods of Egypt
48:38and Mesopotamia
48:39were usually gods of place.
48:40They usually stayed
48:41in one place.
48:42They were gods
48:43of the washing
48:43or the fields
48:44or the rivers
48:46or the skies
48:46or the mountains
48:47or the towns
48:47or something like that.
48:48They were gods of place
48:49and they were often
48:50in families.
48:52And as far as time went,
48:53they were usually
48:54gods of cycles.
48:55They were gods
48:56of the sun
48:56going over every day
48:57or gods of the river
48:58flooding every year
48:59or the moon
49:00or things like that.
49:01And men moved
49:02in those rhythms.
49:04Jehovah's not like that,
49:05though.
49:05He moves through time
49:07with time.
49:07Time is now
49:08a linear thing
49:09like a river.
49:10And Jehovah
49:11and his people
49:11are moving along together.
49:13That makes it
49:13not only a new idea
49:14for God,
49:15but a new idea
49:16for man
49:17and what man can be.
49:19And that's the fantastic
49:20thing about this God.
49:21It actually gives man
49:22a new potential.
49:23Now he can develop,
49:24not over the course
49:25of a year
49:25and through one harvest,
49:27but through centuries,
49:28and he can do
49:28a deal with God,
49:30this amazing,
49:31moral, abstract,
49:32theological thing
49:33that if he does
49:34the right thing,
49:35he will get better
49:36and better and better
49:37as the millennia go by.
49:39What an extraordinary
49:40new God then.
49:41So, think of the Bible now.
49:43Think of the gods
49:44of Mesopotamia
49:45that have given
49:45the book of Genesis
49:46its universe,
49:48its order,
49:48its stage on which
49:49all the rest
49:50of the Bible is set.
49:51And the gods of Egypt
49:52who gave, really,
49:54I suppose they gave
49:55Jehovah something
49:56of his power
49:57and majesty,
49:57something of that
49:58secret quality.
49:59But it's only
50:00this new God,
50:01this new God
50:02of space and time
50:03which is in Israel.
50:05And that's the God
50:05that is still with us
50:07and our civilization today.
50:27God bless them.
50:37.
50:46.
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