I wouldn’t care a thing about this if it wasn’t for the fact that some my tax dollars go to PBS.
Dear Jeremy,
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.
Sincerely,
Donald E. Wildmon,
Founder and Chairman
American Family Association
Sign the Petition
Sign the petition urging Congress to stop using tax dollars to fund PBS. Let PBS operate like every other non-commercial network, raising its own money from its viewers instead of using tax money.
I’m no expert, but what about the Amarna tablets for the exodus? And what about Hebrew inscpriptions in ancient mines in Egypt that speak of a single God? As for the Canaanite thing, what the heck? No one disputes that the Isrealites spent time in Canaan prior to going to Egypt, so what is the point there?
For a long time, Christian philosophers and theologians such as Saint Augustine considered portions of the early creation story to be alleghorical representations of God’s lessons to man. There is a movement afoot to return to that belief, that much of Genesis need not be read as literal. Not being a theologian myself, I cannot grasp the consequences of such interpretations. I merely note that it is happening.
But I do know that my faith in Christ is not subject to the whims of documentary filmmakers or the current trends in theology. Indeed, it is not subject to anything. It simply is. Whether the world was made in six 24 hour days, or whether it was made in 6 epochs that God called days, or whether God used Darwinian evolution or Behe’s Intelligent Design…none of it makes a bit of difference to me. I’ll let someone else argue over it.
Oh, and I definitely am signing the petition. Why we have to pay for this garbage with our tax dollars I’ll never know.
Hope my little excursion into theology didn’t stifle conversation. This is an important topic. PBS, a publicly funded company, shouldn’t be cramming questionable religious views down the public’s throat. One could make an argument that this documentary harms a Christian’s free practice of his/her religion by casting it in an unfair light as unreasonable. It’s not the role of a taxpayer funded entity to do that.
I agree that this is a waste of my tax dollars.
I will take one of their stances, and give several plausible explainations. Afterall, to assume that the Bible is false, is what they want to believe, they won’t see the other explainations.
“There is no archaeological evidence of the Exodus.”
Historically speaking this is true. It isn’t recorded in Egyptian history, it isn’t recorded anywhere except in biblical text. There are no digs or Red Sea recovery that would indate that a people lived there for 40 years, or that chariots and horses were covered by the sea. However, there are several perfectly plausible explainations. First, why in the world would the Egyptians, who wished to potray themselves as the elite of the elite, the best civilization in the world, why would they record such a humliating defeat of their number one in the world army by a bunch of slaves. Second, the salt content of the Red Sea would spead up the rapid decay of wooden and metal used in chariots, and the rapid decomp of the horses and bodies, would leave us nothing to look at 4,000 yrs roughly later. Third, we are told in the Bible that their clothing didn’t wear out, and nothing needed to be replaced. God fed them as well, therefore, you would not have the usual trash pits left behind by ancient civilizations. Granted this last one means that I am working inside of the paradigm that the bible is true, however, I merely mean to point out that these people are using science to prove what they want, and not letting the facts speak for themselves.
I think they have reason to believe a fairly recent discovery in the Red Sea was a chariot wheel:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=33168
I doubt this would be enough evidence to convince anyone, but interesting, nonetheless. As for everything you said, I agree.