Category: Bible Secrets Revealed

The third and fourth episodes of Bible Secrets Revealed finally saw broadcast in Canada over the weekend. I am particularly interested in these episodes as they focus their attention on non-canonical texts, including 1 Enoch, the Life of Adam and Eve, the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Mary, the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, and a few others. Though often the discussion of CA in television documentaries leaves much to be desired, BSR deserves credit for their informative and evocative presentation of the material. Of course, it wasn’t perfect.

Episode three, “Forbidden Texts” (a summary from Robert Cargill available HERE), concentrates on two interrelated themes: the political motivation for the selection of texts for the canon (both HB/OT and NT), and the suppression of feminine imagery and figures in early Christianity and Second Temple Judaism. The show opens with mention of the variety of canons (e.g., the 81 books of the Ethiopic church, the expanded OT of Orthodox and Roman Catholic Christianity); this is a favourite topic of mine and I am pleased to see it discussed. However, there was some imprecision in the delineation of “Apocrypha” (as the term for the Deutero-canonical texts but the narration and accompanying images roughly seguéd into Christian Apocrypha), and the repeated statement that texts were “removed” from the Bible, rather than not selected, was misleading (though perhaps the topic is even more nuanced than that—if a group valued …

The much-talked about (on certain biblio-blogs, at least) new documentary series Bible Secrets Revealed finally aired in Canada this past weekend. I may be a bit late to the party on this but, with an episode due December 15 on the Christian Apocrypha, I thought it would be helpful to my readers to bring some attention to the series. While such programs are helpful for bringing scholarship on biblical and nonbiblical texts to a broader audience, I worry, after watching the first episode, that these documentaries are now doing more harm than good. 

First off, in the interest of full disclosure, I am involved in a documentary that is due to air in November of next year. So I am fully aware that I may be part of the problem. However, my issues with BSR are not with the scholars involved in the program, but with the narrative imposed upon the scholars’ contributions by BSR’s producers.

Bible Secrets Revealed is the creation of Promethus Entertainment, a supplier of a host of docudramas (including Ancient Aliens and America’s Book of Secrets) to the History Channel and other providers. The titles and airdates of the six scheduled episodes of BSR are:

“Lost in Translation” – November 11, 2013 (re-airs in Canada December 13 and 14)“The Promised Land” – November 18, 2013 (December 6 and 7 in Canada)
“The Forbidden Scriptures” – November 25, 2013 (December 15 in Canada)
“The Real Jesus” – December 2, 2013 (December 15 and 16 in Canada)