Channel 4 (in the Uk) obviously read this forum, they are doing a documentary called "Who wrote the bible?" in which a theologian travels the world trying to track down who wrote and edited the bible.

Its on christmas day, channel 4 20:30 to 22:35.

I'd recommend that those outside the forum got it on *********, but all the sites seem to have gone down at once.

Might settle a few of the arguments here, if anyone can watch it... :D

Since this documentary is commercially available (assuming we're thinking of the same one, this came out several years ago), I would hesitate against encouraging people to download it here.

Just a warning...


Documentaries can be nice, but they're not the end-all-be-all of investigations or discussions, so I doubt it will really "settle" anything, but that's what I think. ; )

Rather, well-made documentaries can be a good introduction to a subject. Since it's been years since I've seen this, I don't really recall how good or bad it was.

Kurgan, I believe this is a different documentary than what you're thinking of.

I actually have this documentary and it raises some interesting points. I'll have to watch it again and perhaps write a mini-review, but the work is well done. The narrator/host is Robert Beckford (http://www.channel4.com/culture/microsites/C/can_you_believe_it/debates/bible.html), a theologian, and he spends a lot of time in Israel with other theologians, archaeologists and the temple where the oldest Torah is kept. He ends the show in the United States and interviews Rev. Land and comments on modern perception on biblical texts.

He concludes by saying, "to have faith in the world today, you have to ask questions and not have the wool pulled over your eyes."

Ok yes, this is a different documentary than the one I'm thinking of. The title was what threw me "Who Wrote the Bible?." I finally found out which one I was thinking of, it was produced by A&E and it was made in 1996 (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/6303936997/102-9618666-8444958?v=glance) (yes, it's an amazon.com link so it may not work properly.. just type in "who wrote the bible" for movies):

Anything produced after 1997 has the potential to be more up to date than stuff from before, because that was the date that the Dead Sea Scrolls were finally made available mainstream in english. The Scrolls themselves were scanned/copied and made available sometime later (2000-2001?) and that's another bit that helps make these kinds of things (beyond the few that actually work on said projects hands on).

Likewise there have been a few discoveries lately like the "impact crater" in Iraq that may or may not let us date the origin of the flood stories, etc.

I'm always one to enjoy documentaries like that. This past weekend the History Channel (?) had a piece on Hell. Sadly it was very generic, choosing to focus more on the "Gory details" and brushed over historical figures like Augustine, Milton and Dante a little too quickly (for example no mention was made of Dante's other writings, or Augustine's own account of his conversion to Christianity). But then that was probably the main draw of the show. And they discussed the Church of Satan without any mention of the supposed influence of Alester Crowley on Anton LeVay's ideas. Oh well...

Like I said before, documentaries are a mixed bag. The good ones get you introduced to the subject and promote further study. The unfortunate part is that many people don't get past the stage of watching it, so they have a responsibility to provide accurate information as much as possible.


Side note: As to the legality of distribution, I personally don't see a problem recording shows off of your TIVO and passing them around vs. downloading the show or watching it on your VCR. That's not official policy, that's my personal opinion. However for stuff that's available commercially this is a tricky area, so to err on the side of caution we don't promote that stuff here, so please don't post links to download it unless it's been made explicitly clear that it's officially sanctioned (ie: the people in charge of the show say "here, download our show").

Likewise there have been a few discoveries lately like the "impact crater" in Iraq that may or may not let us date the origin of the flood stories, etc. [/i]

Funny you should mention Noah's Flood. I once wrote a short paper on the subject: http://home.earthlink.net/~ctfeagans/noahsflood.htm)

It's basically a review of the work of two geologists and their theories surrounding the Black Sea.

In my research, I did happen upon the impact crater you mentioned, but I've also read criticisms that indicate that such an impact would not be sufficient to cause the destruction being hypothesized by the popular media. Dr. Sharad Master is the geologist that has discovered it, but at the time the popular media hyped the story, he had not yet actually visited the site and had only conducted remote sensing analysis (i.e. sat photos) and applied what can be observed with what is already known of the geology (that the region is comprised of young, alluvial sediments from the confuence of the Tigris & Euphrates).

To date, I know of no peer-reviewed studies of the site.

Should the ring structure of southern Iraq be identified as an actual impact crater, it would still be an unlikely cause for the widespread social collapse of the civilizations in the region from Egypt to Akkad. Indeed, there are more plausible explanations that manifest themselves in the archaeological record.

On a slightly related note I saw a bit of a documentary on the BBC last night which was mainly about Muslims in British Society. The bit i saw though was talking about how the Saudi Royal Family have spent millions producing free and cheap translations of the Quran over the last decade or so... and how those translations are much more hardline and extremist than the translations that came before.

From what i understand the changes mainly relate to the status of jews and christians (kuffar(?)) and whether they will be damned, etc..