Northwest Arkansas News reports on an upcoming (in November) PBS Nova episode that will doubtless be of interest to many readers here:

The Bible’s Buried Secrets: Nova says the film has “new discoveries that shake the foundation of biblical archaeology.” The two-hour special will delve into the origins of the Israelites to explore their slow transformation into a monotheistic people. It attempts to uncover who wrote the Hebrew Bible and whether it’s history or parable. Two of the biblical experts on hand were authors Thomas Cahill and William Dever. Each has a tall stack of credentials. One question from the assembled TV critics contained a reference to Mike Huckabee. “Dr. Dever,” the writer asked, “we had a guy who almost got nominated for president who believes that the world started 6, 000 years ago. How is one TV movie going to change the beliefs of people who don’t really understand science ?” “It won’t,” Dever said. “It’s a waste of time to argue with fundamentalists. And this film doesn’t do it. It’s designed for intelligent people who are willing to change their mind. And of course, one film is not going to change religious life in America, but 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.” Suddenly, most of the critics were furiously taking notes. Cahill, who was educated by Jesuits, added fuel to the fire a few minutes later. “One of the interesting things about [Bible ] literalists,” he opined, “is that they’re always selective literalists. I don’t know why that is. They hang onto one thing or another that they preferably want to shout at you, and they forget all the other texts.” I suspect the usually outraged will be outraged as usual over this Nova presentation. I suggest watching it first before getting out the pitchforks and torches.”

As soon as Dever appears before a conservative audience, he will change his tune.   And their attributing to him the title of ‘biblical expert’ is funny to boot!  Anyway, who doesn’t love these ‘Biblical Archaeology’ specials! The Orlando Sentinel has a bit more info on the actual program. I especially liked this bit:

“Nova” series producer Paula Apsell acknowledged that biblical literalists and revisionists both will probably hate the film. “When I set out to do this, I very explicitly did not want to make a program that was proving or disproving that things happened in the Bible,” Apsell said. But the film challenges long-held beliefs. Abraham, Sarah and their offspring probably didn’t exist, [Carol] Meyers said. “These stories are unlikely to represent real historical events, but rather there’s some kernel of ancient experience in there which has survived and which helps give identity to the people at the time the Bible finally took shape centuries and centuries later,” Meyers said. There’s no archaeological evidence of the Exodus, either, Meyers said. “It doesn’t mean that there’s no kernel of truth to it,” she said. Apsell said she found it “extremely shocking” to learn that monotheism was a process that took hundreds of years.