All language subtitles for empires.david.e01-sprinter

In the ancient world, rulers worshipped
as gods sent out great armies

to create great empires.

(DRAMATIC MUSIC)

These emperors
changed the course of history

by conquering country after country.

One tiny nation
conquered again and again

was the Israelites.

Perhaps no people in history
were more likely to be forgotten.

But these were not just any people.

These were the people of the Book.

The people of Abraham,
the first to encounter the one true God.

Of Moses, the only human being
to see God face to face.

And of David,

warrior, king and adulterer.

The Israelites' stories
taught unique lessons about God.

And in the hands
of great rabbis like Hillel...

and preachers
like Jesus of Nazareth,

the Israelites' Bible would change
how human beings understood

what was right and what was wrong

and how they should treat one another.

And against all odds,

the Israelites
would change human history

as much as any empire
that ever existed.

(DRAMATIC PERCUSSION)

In 589 BC, the people of Judah,
the last of the Israelites,

rebelled against the Babylonian king
Nebuchadnezzar.

(FRANTIC YELLlNG)

He responded by ordering his troops
to lay waste to Jerusalem...

and destroy the Judeans
most precious possession.

The Temple of Solomon.

Then, Nebuchadnezzar ordered
that the King of Judah

should watch his sons be put to death

as a sign to all that his royal line
had come to an end.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

Afterward, the Babylonians led the people
of Jerusalem into e xile in Babylon.

As they travelled the 600 miles
from their tiny homeland to Babylon,

the Judeans future looked grim.

Only a few generations earlier,

the northern tribes of the Israelites
had been taken into e xile

and vanished forever.

Now the Judeans too
seemed destined to disappear,

with all memory they had e xisted
as a people lost forever.

(BlRDSONG)

Their mood was captured in a poem
from the Book of Psalms.

"By the rivers of Babyblon
we sat and wept

"when we remembered Zion.

"On the poplars there
we had hung up our harps,

"for our jailers asked us
to sing them a song.

"But how can we sing a song of the Lord
in a strange land? "

(BlRDSONG)

In spite of their despair
and the incredible odds against them,

the Judeans decided to fight
for their survival as a people.

(LAMB BLEATS)

They chose to fight
not with spears and swords,

but by writing a book.

In every spare moment they could find,

the greatest of the Judean scribes
began to rewrite and edit together

stories about their past, which had been
handed down to them by their ancestors.

The book they compiled

was the first edition of the most
influential work in human history...

the Hebrew Bible.

The Bible was the first... book.

And you can argue it's good history
writing or bad history writing.

I think it's extraordinarily... remarkable
history writing for humans' first time out.

But it is the first.

It's the first time humans set down
a story like that through many generations.

And the fact that we did it so well
the first time out

and that it impacted for so long
is, uh...

it's a wonder.

The scribes were driven by
what they saw as a sacred mission...

to bring the lessons taught by the stories
alive for their fellow e xiles,

so they would understand
why they were in Babylon

and how they could get home
to Jerusalem.

Their book was a guide to how
the Judean e xiles should live,

not a literal history.

MAN: Many sceptics today want to ask

are the stories in the Hebrew Bible
true in any sense?

They are true in some senses
and not in others.

In other words, the biblical writers
want to expand upon events

to shed light upon their meaning,
as they understood that meaning.

We moderns say "But wait a minute.
We want to know what really happened. "

So for us, sceptical or not,
the question is often

"Can stories which are
not true in every detail

"nevertheless be morally edifying? "

My answer is yes.

The Bible does not have to be
literally true in every detail

to be true in other senses.

The story said that
the father of all Jews was Abraham.

Abraham was born in the city of Ur,
in Mesopotamia.

According to the Jewish book
of tradition and law, the Talmud,

the people of Abraham's land
worshipped the sky

and each city venerated
a different heavenly body.

Abraham's father made and sold idols
to the people of the city of Ur.

But Abraham could not accept
his father's ideas about religion.

MAN: There's a very famous legend that
says that when Abraham was a young boy,

his father, Terah, owned a shop.

The shop was full of idols.

One day, he said to his son

"Watch the store for a while
while I go out. "

And when he came back, he found that
every idol in the store had been smashed,

except for the largest idol,
that had a wooden staff in its hand.

The father said to Abraham "What went on?
I left you in charge. What happened? "

Abraham said "Don't get mad at me.

"The largest god here
destroyed all the others. "

His father said "What, are you nuts?
They're wood and stone! "

And Abraham said "Aha! That's the point.
They're just wood and stone. "

And that story comes to tell us
that it was Abraham

who was the first one to discover the idea
that there was one God in the universe.

That God created
the heavens and the earth

and not the other way around.

(CAMEL SNORTS)

According to the stories,

once Abraham began
to voice his belief

that the universe was ruled
by a single God,

that God gave him a mission.

"And the Lord said to Abraham

'Leave your country, your kindred
and your father's house

'for a country which I will show you.

'And I will make you a great nation.

'I will bless those who bless you
and curse those who curse you.

'And all clans on earth
will bless themselves by you. '

The stories say God led Abraham
to a land near Egypt, called Canaan.

(DARK MUSIC)

In Canaan, God tested Abraham,

and Abraham tried to learn about God.

In their most disturbing meeting,

God asked Abraham
to sacrifice his son.

'Abraham, Abraham' God called.

'Take your son, your only son,

'your beloved Isaac,

'and offer him as a burnt offering

'on one of the mountains
which I shall point out to you. '

"Abraham took the wood
for the burnt offering

"and loaded it on Isaac. "

"When they arrived at the place,

"Abraham built an altar
and arranged the wood.

"Then Abraham stretched out his hand

"and seized the knife to kill his son.

"But the Angel of the Lord
called to him from heaven.

'Abraham, Abraham' he said,

'Do not raise your hand
against the boy.

'For now I know you fear God.

'You have not refused your son,
your only son.

'Take the ram which I have provided
and sacrifice it instead. '

MAN: I regard this as a game of chicken.

At the last moment,
when Abraham has the knife

poised and ready
to make the sacrifice,

who blinked?

Well, God, or his angel, says "Okay.

"I'm satisfied. Don't do it. "

Would Abraham have done it?

Nobody says.

Maybe he was testing the deity

just as the story tells us
the deity was testing Abraham.

(SOLEM N M USlC)

The stories say that
because of Abraham's obedience,

God made him a promise.

'I swear by my own self

'because you have done this,

'because you have not
refused me your son,

'I will shower blessings on you.

'I will make your descendants
as many as the stars of heaven. '

(THUNDER RUMBLES)

Abraham is, I think, a...
if you will, a mythic figure.

Whether he existed in history or not
is almost incidental to what he represents,

which is the turning away from idolatry

and the notion that we become
one people who worship one God.

In Jewish imagination,

Abraham is noted for his hospitality,
for his welcoming of others,

and I think that is the corollary
of his monotheism -

that we all are brothers and sisters

and therefore we are all welcome
under the same tent.

(MIDDLE-EASTERN MUSIC)

The story
of Abraham's relationship with God

would speak so powerfully
to future generations

that Abraham would be embraced

as a founding figure
of lslam and Christianity,

as well as Judaism.

(MEDlTATlVE MUSIC)

But for the scribes
in exile in Babylon,

simply writing down stories
about their ancestors was not enough.

Their great challenge
was to make sense of their own world.

How had the people that God promised
Abraham he would make a great nation

wound up on the verge of e xtinction
in Babylon?

FRIEDMAN:
One of the burdens of monotheism

is you got nobody to blame
when you're in trouble.

In pagan religion,
if another nation defeats you,

you can say their god
was more powerful than your god.

But in monotheism,

if you're suffering, it must be
that you did something wrong.

(UNSETTLING MUSIC)

The scribes' book was, above all,
an explanation to their fellow exiles

of what the Israelites had done
to lose God's favour.

(CROW CAWS)

The story began
with the life of the man

to whom the scribes devoted
more words than any other.

His name was Moses

and he was one of the most
unlikely heroes ever portrayed.

According to the Bible,

Moses's ancestors had fled
from Canaan to Egypt during a famine

and been enslaved there.

Then Moses had to flee Egypt

after killing an Egyptian
who was abusing an lsraelite slave.

In the desert,
he married a nomad woman

and was given the menial job
of tending his father-in-law's sheep.

But God had a different job
in mind for Moses.

(LOUD THUNDERCLAP)

"God appeared to him in a flame,
blazing from the middle of a bush.

"Moses looked.
There was the bush, blazing.

"But the bush was not being burnt up.

"Moses said 'I must go across
and see this strange sight. '

(DRAMATIC MUSIC)

"When God saw this, he called to Moses
from the middle of the bush.

'I am Yahweh,
the God of your ancestors,

'the God of Abraham,
the God of Isaac,

'the God of Jacob.

'I have seen the misery
of my people in Egypt

'and I am sending you to Pharaoh

'for you to bring my people,
the Israelites, out of Egypt. '

"Moses said to God

'Who am I to go to Pharaoh
and bring the Israelites out of Egypt? '

"God said 'I shall be with you. '

(DRAMATIC DRUM ROLL)

"Moses then said to God
'Please, my Lord, send someone else,

'for I have never been eloquent.

'I am slow and hesitant of speech. '

MAN: The sense that we get from the Bible
is that Moses is overwhelmed,

humbled and frightened.

He's frightened
because Moses recognises

that meeting God is not only
an exhilarating experience,

but it makes demands
on the human being that meets God.

And Moses knew, from that moment on,
his life couldn't be the same.

And because he had
just achieved a stable life,

you get from him both a sense of
'This is an enormous moment for me' -

as it would be for any human being-

and 'I wish I could run away from it. '

(MlDDLE-EASTERN MUSIC)

Reluctantly, Moses went to Egypt.

There, on God's orders, he inflicted
ten plagues on the Egyptians.

During the tenth plague,
which gave rise to Passover,

Moses told the Israelites
to put blood on their doorposts

so the Angel of Death would pass over

as it struck dead the firstborn son
of every Egyptian family.

According to the stories,

after the tenth plague,
Egypt's Pharaoh let the Israelites go.

Moses then led them out of Egypt

and into the Sinai Desert.

DEVER: In later traditions
in the Hebrew Bible,

the Exodus story
is the point of beginning.

That is where
the great epic of Israel starts.

But is any of it true?

According to the stories in the Bible,
for instance, there would have been

as many as 2 or 3 million Israelites
wandering around in the wilderness.

A list of dozens of sites
that they visited is given.

The fact of the matter is,

the desert could never have supported
more than a few thousand nomads.

And of all the dozens of sites
mentioned in the Hebrew Bible,

we can identify only one or two.

So most archaeologists have given up

trying to provide any archaeological
background for the stories of the Exodus.

We don't have any evidence.

For the scribes, it was impossible
to write an historically accurate account

of what had taken place as much
as 700 years before their time.

What was possible was to communicate
to their fellow e xiles

the eternal lessons
that Moses' story taught.

WOLPE: Modern scholarship disputes
many parts of the story of the Exodus.

But what is central about the story

is not that it is factual,

but that it is true.

In other words, the story of the Exodus
is a story that embodies

some of the deepest and most profound
truths of the human condition -

what it is to be in the wilderness,
what it is to hope for a promised land,

what it is to escape slavery

and to be both bewildered and exhilarated
by the prospect of freedom.

And this is a story that is a sacred story
because it not only embodies truths

but it embodies truths that are
animated by and inspired by God.

And so the story of the Exodus can actually
be a story by which we lead our lives,

even if there weren't 600, 000 men
that left Egypt.

Even if there were five,
even if there were none.

T o the writers of the Bible,
the most important truths of all

were found in the story
of how God gave Moses the laws

that his people
were to observe for all time.

The Bible says
God gave those laws to Moses

in his only face-to-face meeting
with a human being.

(MYSTlCAL MUSIC)

"The Lord descended on Mount Sinai,

"and called Moses
to the top of the mountain,

"and Moses went up.

"Then God spoke all these words.

"He said 'I am Yahweh, your God,

'who brought you out of Egypt.

'You shall have no other gods
to rival me.

'You shall not make carved images,
or bow to them, or serve them.

'You shall not misuse
the name of Yahweh.

'Remember the Sabbath day
and keep it holy.

'Honour your father and your mother.

'You shall not kill.

'You shall not commit adultery.

'You shall not steal.

'You shall not give false evidence.

'You shall not set your heart
on any of your neighbour's possessions. '

"When Moses came down
from Mount Sinai,

"the skin of his face was radiant

"because he had been talking to God. "

WOLPE: The revolution
in the Ten Commandments

was that God cares not so much
for how human beings treat God.

That was, after all, the pagan ideal-

you have to sacrifice to us the right way,
you have to watch all your observances,

because the gods will treat you well
if you treat them well.

But the Ten Commandments says

God cares how human beings
treat each other.

It shifted the focus from
'You honour God by treating God well'

to 'You honour God by treating well
the person standing in front of you. '

The Ten Commandments summarised

the essence of the Jewish message
for all the ages.

To the scribes,

what happened at Sinai
was key to understanding

why they were in trouble with God.

For the Ten Commandments
were the heart of a binding covenant

between God and the Israelites.

FRIEDMAN: One of the great discoveries
of scholarship of the last century

was that in the ancient Near East

there were all sorts of
legal documents, treaty documents,

between nations and individuals.

And, in the Bible,

the covenant between God and Israel

follows the form
of those ancient treaties.

It's in the legal terminology
of the day.

It would be as if, if the covenant were
given today, it would say something like

"Hereinafter in this covenant, God will
be known as the party of the first part

"and Israel will be known
as the party of the second part.

"Whereas the party of the first part
brought the party of the second part

"out of the land of Egypt
out of the house of bondage,

"therefore, you shall have
no other gods" and so on.

The covenant is really
in legal terminology.

It was understood to be
a contract between God and Israel.

"God has done this, this and this for you.
Now here's what you have to do. "

(MYSTlCAL MUSIC)

After Sinai, all the rest
of the stories of the Israelites

would, at their core,

be about whether or not
they had obeyed God's commandments.

It was a challenge they would face
without Moses to guide them.

For, according to the stories,

after leading his people through the desert
to the promised land of Canaan,

Moses himself
was forbidden by God to enter.

(MELANCHOLY MUSIC)

"Moses went up Mount Nebo

"and Yahweh showed him
the whole country.

'This is the land which I made an oath
to give to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,

'saying "I shall give it
to your descendants."

'I have allowed you to see it,
but you shall not cross into it. '

"Then Moses,
servant of Yahweh, died.

"Since then, there has never been
such a prophet as Moses...

"the man who knew Yahweh face to face. "

WOLPE: Here is somebody who didn't
want to be a prophet in the first place,

who was forced to it by God,

all with the aim
of entering the promised land,

and now, at the very foot
of the promised land,

is told "You cannot enter
and you must die. "

And the pain of that moment,

and the sense that we have
that Moses's life, for all its triumphs,

was ultimately a life of frustration,

is almost unbearable.

And the only thing that makes it
possible for the reader to go on

is that the Bible ends by saying
that Moses saw God face to face.

So, even though
Moses didn't get to see the land,

which was the aim of his life,

he did get to see God,

which, the Bible tells us,
is the aim of every life.

(UNSETTLlNG PERCUSSIVE MUSIC)

(UNSETTLlNG PERCUSSlVE MUSIC)

The stories say
that after Moses's death,

the Israelites
invaded the land of Canaan.

God made the walls of Jericho
fall before them

and they swept the Canaanites
from the land

in a series
of great military victories.

But according to historical evidence,

the Israelites
did not invade Canaan at all

but were, in fact,
Canaanites themselves.

(HAUNTlNG MUSIC)

DEVER: Why would archaeologists today
argue that the earliest Israelites

are not newcomers to Canaan at all
but indigenous peoples?

How do we know that?

We know it from such things
as their pottery,

which is in the old Late Bronze Age
Canaanite tradition.

There is nothing new in the pottery

of these 12th-century settlements
that we call 'Israelite'.

They're making a style of pottery
that local people had made for centuries.

We also know that the oldest
passages of the Hebrew Bible

describing Israelite religion

make it look very much
like Canaanite religion.

So the continuities between
Canaanite culture of the Late Bronze Age

and so-called Israelite culture
of the Iron one are very striking.

(SERENE M USlC)

The historical evidence suggests

that the Israelites were
the underdogs of Canaanite society-

slaves, shepherds, nomads-

who started new lives together
in the hill country of Canaan.

They became a people
not by fighting battles,

but by telling stories.

MAN: One of the mysteries we face is how
to explain how a people becomes a people.

How does ethnic and cultural identity
come into being?

If early Israel was a motley group
of shepherds, nomads, peasants, bandits,

how is it that they moved into this area
and formed an identity that was so strong?

One of the things
that we've learned in recent years

is that cultural identity
is very much a cultural fiction.

This is how the Israelites
made their identity,

in large part
by telling these stories.

It is as much as if the story
were shaping the people

as much as it is that
the people are telling the story.

The stories told by the Israelites

were well suited to inspiring
and guiding a new community,

for they contained
an incredible richness of detail

about the lives and interactions
of human beings.

After they became a people,
the Israelites continued to tell stories

which explored the good and evil
inside the human heart,

to teach lessons about God
and his covenant with lsrael.

One of the greatest portraits ever
of a human being,

in all his strengths and weaknesses,

was the story of King David.

MAN: David is a story of a human being
that really throbs with realism.

It's not just a hero story.

It's a story
of a highly dysfunctional family

and a very flawed man,

but a man who could not be ignored.

And that inspired
some early literary genius,

perhaps the first
literary genius in history,

to set this man's life down on paper
or, if you will, on parchment.

(SHEEP BLEAT)

In the first story told about him,

David was only a peasant boy.

Until, one day,
God spoke to the prophet Samuel.

'I am sending you
to Jesse of Bethlehem,

'for I have found myself a king
among his sons. '

Samuel journeyed to Jesse's home
to search for the future king.

"Samuel looked
at Jesse's eldest son

"but Yahweh said to Samuel

'Take no notice of his appearance
or his height,

'for I have rejected him.

'I do not see as human beings see.

'They look at appearances,

'but I look at the heart. '

One by one, God told Samuel
to reject seven of Jesse's sons.

"Samuel then asked Jesse
'Are these all the sons you have? '

"Jesse replied
'Only the youngest is left.

'He is looking after the flock. '

"God said 'Get up and anoint him.
He is the one. '

The Israelites
already had a king named Saul,

but he was a tormented man
who had angered God.

(GENTLE HARP MUSIC)

Unaware of David's destiny,

Saul brought the young boy
into his palace

to play the harp
to soothe his spirits.

Soon, David was like a son to Saul.

Then, one day,
word reached the palace

that the greatest warrior
of the Philistines, Goliath,

had challenged the Israelites
to send someone out to fight him,

one on one.

(OMlNOUS MUSIC)

No one dared
to take up the challenge.

Except... for the king's young harpist.

(PERCUSSIVE MUSIC)

"With his sling in his hand,
David went to meet Goliath.

"The Philistine looked at David,
and what he saw filled him with scorn

"because David was only a boy.

"The Philistine said to him

'Come over here and I will give
your flesh to the birds of the air

'and the beasts of the field. '

"But David answered

'You come against me
with sword and spear.

'But I come against you
in the name of the Lord God. '

For the writers of the Bible,

the story of the underdog, David,
killing Goliath

was about far more
than just one battle.

MAN: Despite certain fantasies
they entertained

of being a powerful people

and being more numerous than
the stars in the heavens and so forth,

they knew that they were tiny people

and there were these vast empires
to the south and to the east

that could, at any moment,
overwhelm them.

So, again and again,
they stress the idea

that there is something
more important in the affairs of men

than physical power.

After David killed Goliath,
his fame spread throughout lsrael.

King Saul's love turned to jealousy

and he tried to kill David
again and again.

David fled Saul's court
and became an outlaw.

Then, one night, from his hideout,
David spotted Saul and his army.

(MELANCHOLY MUSIC)

To David's men, it was the perfect chance
both to save David's life

and make him king.

"In the dark, David and one of his men
made their way towards the enemy force

"and found Saul lying asleep
inside the camp.

"The man then said to David

'Let me pin him to the ground
with his own spear. '

"David replied 'Do not kill him.

'But let us take the spear beside
his head, and his pitcher of water,

'and let us go away. '

When he reached a nearby hilltop,

David held up Saul's spear
and called out to him.

ALTER: David comes out
and makes a big speech to Saul

saying that he has
no ill intention against Saul.

Then, all of a sudden,
in one of those breathtaking pivots

that are so remarkable
in biblical narrative,

Saul says
"Is it your voice, my son David? "

And he cries.

(SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC)

After King Saul died in battle
with the Philistines,

the young shepherd boy's destiny
was finally fulfilled.

David was crowned king.

But using his new power wisely

turned out to be
David's greatest challenge.

And by far, the most important lessons
taught by David's story

come from his failures.

KIRSCH:
David is NOT a plaster saint.

He's not a perfect man.

He's a man governed
by his passions and ambitions...

specifically, his passions for women.

So, parallel to his struggle for power,

the Bible allows us to see
the intimate details of his private life,

his love affairs with many women,

the most famous of which
is his love affair with Bathsheba.

(TANTALlSl NG M USlC)

One day, while standing
on the roof of his palace,

David saw a young woman bathing
on a nearby rooftop.

"David made enquiries about this woman

"and was told 'Why, that is Bathsheba. '

"David then sent messengers to fetch her.

"She came to him and he lay with her. "

When Bathsheba told him
she was pregnant,

David arranged to have her husband
killed in battle.

ALTER: He looks out
the window of the palace

and sees this beautiful woman bathing
on the roof of a house below him.

And that's where he gets into trouble.

But the trouble is not just sex.

The trouble is his bumbling attempts
to cover up the adultery

and when he can't do that,
to get rid of the husband by murder.

Once he's done that, everything
starts to fall apart in his life.

After David married Bathsheba,
God sent a prophet to confront him.

And David confessed to his sin.

WOLPE: In the ancient world,
the king is the law.

And the key moment of this story
of David and Bathsheba

is when David stands there and says

"Yes, I sinned and will be punished. "

Because it is at that moment
that we realise

that Israel's revolution has won,

that, in fact, David recognises
that God is above all human beings

and that no human being-not a king,
not a warrior, not even a prophet-

can be above the law.

(MELANCHOLY PERCUSSlVE MUSIC)

In punishment for his sin,

God cursed David and his descendants.

"For this, your household
shall never be free of the sword.

"You have worked in secret,
but I shall work for all Israel to see. "

In his later years, David would
be betrayed by his favourite son

and grow to be
a frail and lonely old man.

For the writers of the Bible,

David's breaking of the commandments
and God's curse upon his house

helped to e xplain the disasters
lsrael would suffer

in the years after David.

The Bible says,
and the archaeological record confirms,

that in 720 BC,

the Assyrians conquered
the northern ten tribes of the Israelites

and deported them
to the far-flung reaches of their empire.

Before long, they assimilated
with their new neighbours

and most of the Israelites were
lost forever from the pages of history.

Soon after,
the Assyrians began to threaten

the last remaining tribe
of the Israelites... Judah.

The account of what happened
is one of the most important in the Bible,

for hidden within it
is the surprising story

of how monotheism
actually took root in Judah.

In 640 BC, the land of Judah
was ruled by King Josiah.

Josiah was desperately afraid
that his people were unprepared

to face the threat,
not just from Assyria,

but from Egypt and Babylon.

Most Judeans were still rural people

who cared nothing about Jerusalem
and its king.

They also knew little about
lsrael's covenant with the one God.

In fact, many Judeans appear to have
worshipped a goddess named Asherah,

who they believed
was the God of lsrael's wife.

DEVER: FROM a superficial reading
of the Hebrew Bible,

you would suppose that
all the early Israelites were monotheist.

Most archaeologists and most biblical
scholars now believe, however,

that monotheism developed very late
and perhaps did not emerge full-blown

until after the fall of Jerusalem
in the early 6th century.

So, most of the early Israelites
were polytheist.

They worshipped
a new god, Yahweh, perhaps,

but alongside them
they worshipped El,

the old male deity
of the Canaanite pantheon.

And, above all, they worshipped Asherah,
the mother goddess. We now know that.

This is very disturbing to many people,
but God had a lady friend.

But King Josiah and his allies
among the temple priests in Jerusalem

decided to rally the nation around
the belief in one all-powerful God.

And so, in 622 BC,

they claimed that,
deep within the Temple,

they had found an unknown book
written by Moses

called Deuteronomy.

(MYSTERIOUS MUSIC)

MAN: While they were
cleaning out the Temple,

suddenly someone comes
running out to the high priest.

"Look! We found a book in the Temple. "

Now, from the language of...
in which this book is quoted,

we know that we are dealing
with the Book of Deuteronomy.

Contemporary scholars believe

that the Book of Deuteronomy
was actually written around that time

and placed in the Temple to be discovered
in order to motivate the reform.

The Book of Deuteronomy
banned the worship of Asherah

and other pagan gods.

Even more importantly,

it said that Yahweh himself
could only be worshipped

at the Temple in Jerusalem.

And so, according to the Bible,

Josiah sent his troops to the mountaintops

where Israelites had been
making sacrifices for centuries.

"Josiah destroyed
all the shrines on the high places

"which the kings of Israel had built
to provoke Yahweh's anger.

"All the priests of the high places
who were there,

"he slaughtered on the altars...

"and on those altars
burned the human bones. "

FRIEDMAN: It was one of the major
religious revolutions of ancient Israel

because now you couldn't just go any place
you wanted to sacrifice the animal.

You could only do it at one place.

This was the beginning
of monotheism in Israel.

The archaeological record
and the biblical record itself

attest to the fact that monotheism
didn't catch on overnight.

People didn't just run out saying
"Oh, I see! There's only one God.

"I'll just get rid of all these statues
I have in the house

"that belonged to my great-grandfather
and everyone before him

"and I'll stop worshipping all these gods
that I've always worshipped. "

It was an extraordinary
new thought for people.

Deuteronomy
was an incredible achievement.

It brought monotheism to life for Judeans
by retelling the story of Moses,

focusing above all on his teachings about
how human beings should treat one another.

The first to be inspired
by the new book

was one of the great
social prophets, Jeremiah,

who told the people of Judah

of the promise God made to them
in Deuteronomy.

"If you truly
treat one another fairly...

"if you do not steal from the stranger,
the orphan or the widow...

"if you do not shed innocent blood...

"and if you do not follow other gods...

"then I shall let you stay in this place,

"in the country I gave forever
to your ancestors of old. "

VISOTZKY:. The demand is that we care
for one another, and love one another.

And in so doing, the prophets tell us,
that is how you find God.

The social prophets are ferocious
in their insistence

that if you have wealth,
it must be shared.

You can't just simply, as Amos says,

Iie on your couches of ivory
and drink wine.

If you're not feeding the poor,

it doesn't make a difference whether you go
to church or synagogue, you're failing God.

With the nation now governed
by the laws of Deuteronomy,

King Josiah believed
he would have God on his side

in his battle to save Judah.

(MEN CONVERSE EXClTEDLY)

He decided to launch a surprise attack
on the Egyptian-Assyrian alliance

that he judged to be
the greatest danger to his people.

In 609 BC, Josiah and his men
ambushed an Egyptian army.

But in the battle that followed,
the Judeans were routed...

and King Josiah was killed.

(FLUTE PLAYS WlSTFULLY)

After Josiah's death,

the kings that followed him
re-established the worship of Asherah

and all of the other gods.

In response
to their abandonment of monotheism,

the prophet Jeremiah
told the people of Judah

that he had received
an ominous message from God.

"The word of Yahweh came to me.

'Make your way down
to the potter's house. '

"So I went down to the potter's house,
and there he was, working at the wheel.

"But the vessel he was making
came out wrong,

"as may happen with clay
when a potter is at work.

"So he began over again.

"Then the word of Yahweh came to me.

'House of Israel, can I not do to you
what this potter does?

'Listen.
I am preparing a disaster for you. '

According to Jeremiah,

God was so angry, he decided
to send the Judeans into e xile

and start over.

(FIERCE, PERCUSSIVE MUSIC)

"Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babyblon,
advanced on Jerusalem...

"and carried off all the treasures
of the temple of Yahweh

"and all the treasures
of the palace.

"Then he carried Jerusalem
off into exile. "

(MOURNFUL MUSIC)

With the Babylonians' conquest of Judah,

the scribes had come
to the end of their story

of how the chosen people
were sent into e xile.

Yet, even with this new Bible
in their possession,

the Judeans seemed destined
to disappear,

Iike all the other tiny nations
uprooted from their homelands.

For in a world where empires swept away
all who stood in their path,

how could a book of stories
save a people from extinction?

But in Babylon,
something remarkable happened.

As the Judean exiles
read and studied the Bible,

their vision of who they were
was transformed.

FRIEDMAN: These would be great stories
even if they were just stories of the past.

But for the people of Israel,
these stories were THEIR story.

So when you learned the story of Israelites
becoming free of slavery in Egypt

and experiencing
extraordinary things on the way out,

you didn't just read that
as a great story to tell the kids.

It was your own belief

in the power, the importance
of liberation, of becoming free.

So it's not just history,
it's not just memory.

It's a life. It's part of you.

The exiles also came
to a new understanding

of why they were in Babylon,

from reading the Bible.

ZEVIT:. It contains
a record of the covenant

between the people of Israel
and their God.

But it also lists the penalties
for violating the covenant

and among the penalties
that are listed is exile.

Here, you have a historical book
that tells a religious story.

It's not a real historical book, it's a...
vehicle expressing a religious philosophy,

but the religious philosophy
is 'God is fair'

and if you are punished,
there's a reason for it.

The stories also contained
another message.

For those who accepted their guilt
and changed their ways,

there was hope.

"If you return to your God,

"if, with all your heart
and all your soul, you obey his voice,

"then he will bring back
your captives.

"Should you have been banished
to the very sky's end,

"your God will gather you again
even from there. "

ZEVIT:. For the short term,
it was obvious what they had to do.

They had to look at the covenant

and they had to start
living by the covenant in exile.

And what you actually see
in the Babyblonian exile

is the transformation
of Israelite religion

into something new that we can call
the earliest form of Judaism.

In Babylon, the Judeans embraced
the belief in one all-powerful God

as never before.

And soon, in one of the most
remarkable twists in history,

their conviction that their God would
allow a faithful people to return home

was going to come true.