1 00:00:01,003 --> 00:00:03,373 - [Narrator] The Bible, a book whose origins 2 00:00:03,373 --> 00:00:05,993 lie thousands of years ago in the Middle East. 3 00:00:05,993 --> 00:00:08,323 It still inspires billions today. 4 00:00:08,323 --> 00:00:12,060 - Creation roots us in the wonder of our own drama. 5 00:00:12,060 --> 00:00:13,186 What a beginning. 6 00:00:14,413 --> 00:00:17,013 - [Narrator] Its teachings, provoke controversy. 7 00:00:17,013 --> 00:00:19,843 - The 10 Commandments of the hysterical believers 8 00:00:19,843 --> 00:00:22,173 of a group of desert tribes. 9 00:00:22,173 --> 00:00:25,073 - We know the Bible is completely accurate. 10 00:00:25,073 --> 00:00:28,420 - It shows me how dangerous Revelation can be. 11 00:00:28,420 --> 00:00:30,130 - "Blessed are those pure in heart 12 00:00:30,130 --> 00:00:31,380 "for they shall see God." 13 00:00:32,559 --> 00:00:33,923 - [Narrator] Seven figures from different walks of life 14 00:00:33,923 --> 00:00:36,493 offer their personal perspective on the best-selling book 15 00:00:36,493 --> 00:00:38,826 of all time and what it means to them. 16 00:00:39,723 --> 00:00:43,066 - The women at the Bible still speak to us today. 17 00:00:44,003 --> 00:00:48,666 - Who was Jesus Christ and who was it that murdered him? 18 00:00:50,283 --> 00:00:52,563 - Even if you've never read a word of the Bible 19 00:00:52,563 --> 00:00:54,956 your life will have been shaped by it. 20 00:00:57,213 --> 00:00:59,336 - [Narrator] In this program, 21 00:00:59,336 --> 00:01:01,986 Howard Jacobson explores the story of the creation. 22 00:01:03,128 --> 00:01:05,878 (dramatic music) 23 00:01:10,910 --> 00:01:14,160 (dramatic music) 24 00:01:14,160 --> 00:01:15,090 - "In the beginning, 25 00:01:15,090 --> 00:01:17,916 "God created the heaven and the Earth, 26 00:01:19,710 --> 00:01:23,090 "and the Earth was without form and void, 27 00:01:23,090 --> 00:01:25,866 "and darkness was upon the face of the deep. 28 00:01:27,840 --> 00:01:31,746 "And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters, 29 00:01:33,230 --> 00:01:37,060 "and God said, 'Let there be light.' 30 00:01:37,060 --> 00:01:38,476 "And there was light. 31 00:01:41,660 --> 00:01:44,320 "And God saw the light that it was good, 32 00:01:44,320 --> 00:01:47,496 "and God divided the light from the darkness. 33 00:01:48,902 --> 00:01:52,340 "And God called the light day and the darkness 34 00:01:52,340 --> 00:01:54,150 "He called night." 35 00:02:00,133 --> 00:02:02,793 With these exquisite opening sentences 36 00:02:02,793 --> 00:02:06,213 of the Old Testament life begins. 37 00:02:06,213 --> 00:02:11,013 In six days God speaks the universe into existence. 38 00:02:11,013 --> 00:02:16,003 There is no struggle and no harshness, a mere breadth, 39 00:02:16,003 --> 00:02:19,543 and in God's own image we are made. 40 00:02:19,543 --> 00:02:23,806 And then seeing that His creation is good, He rests. 41 00:02:25,235 --> 00:02:27,808 (serene music) (congregant clapping) 42 00:02:27,808 --> 00:02:32,808 Serene itself, the creation story excites angry controversy. 43 00:02:36,493 --> 00:02:38,293 On the one hand churches 44 00:02:38,293 --> 00:02:41,506 for whom the creation story is literal truth. 45 00:02:42,873 --> 00:02:46,033 - The universe exists to display the glory of God 46 00:02:46,033 --> 00:02:47,893 and therefore those who try to give an account 47 00:02:47,893 --> 00:02:49,263 for the universe that exists 48 00:02:49,263 --> 00:02:53,173 in a non God way are not only laughable 49 00:02:53,173 --> 00:02:55,648 but they are blasphemous. 50 00:02:55,648 --> 00:02:57,981 (exploding) 51 00:02:58,853 --> 00:03:02,603 - On other hand, fervent atheists are exasperated 52 00:03:02,603 --> 00:03:06,146 that anyone should still revere the stories of the Bible. 53 00:03:09,403 --> 00:03:13,413 Today, a fierce battle rages between those who believe 54 00:03:13,413 --> 00:03:17,023 that Genesis is a true account of how life began 55 00:03:17,023 --> 00:03:19,933 and those who think it's childish nonsense. 56 00:03:19,933 --> 00:03:23,003 It is impossible not to have a position. 57 00:03:23,003 --> 00:03:26,673 The creation story is either true or it's false. 58 00:03:26,673 --> 00:03:29,603 It either happened or it didn't. 59 00:03:29,603 --> 00:03:32,206 But are these our only choices? 60 00:03:33,593 --> 00:03:36,173 In this film, I aim to find a path 61 00:03:36,173 --> 00:03:38,693 between the fundamentalism of religion 62 00:03:38,693 --> 00:03:41,323 and atheism to find a vocabulary 63 00:03:41,323 --> 00:03:45,363 for describing the wonderful poetry of the creation story 64 00:03:45,363 --> 00:03:48,043 which doesn't leave it vulnerable to the absolutes 65 00:03:48,043 --> 00:03:53,043 of faith or denial, and to explore why whatever we believe 66 00:03:53,203 --> 00:03:57,703 it's a story we cannot shake our imaginations free of. 67 00:03:57,703 --> 00:04:01,106 In the beginning, there is no where else to start. 68 00:04:02,619 --> 00:04:05,369 (dramatic music) 69 00:04:13,509 --> 00:04:15,233 (light upbeat music) 70 00:04:15,233 --> 00:04:18,363 The book of Genesis teams with stories; 71 00:04:18,363 --> 00:04:22,193 Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, 72 00:04:22,193 --> 00:04:24,736 Noah and Abraham. 73 00:04:25,653 --> 00:04:28,046 But the creation is the heart of it. 74 00:04:29,683 --> 00:04:33,803 It tells Jews and Christians alike, how their world began, 75 00:04:33,803 --> 00:04:37,323 how God pulled forth life in abundance, 76 00:04:37,323 --> 00:04:40,066 causing it to grow and multiply, 77 00:04:42,773 --> 00:04:45,436 finally creating man himself. 78 00:04:47,653 --> 00:04:49,933 To this day it provides us with the rhythm 79 00:04:49,933 --> 00:04:52,983 of our working week, crowned by the Sabbath, 80 00:04:52,983 --> 00:04:55,066 the day of rest and worship. 81 00:04:56,482 --> 00:04:58,403 (deep thoughtful music) 82 00:04:58,403 --> 00:05:01,153 But the creation story also provides us 83 00:05:01,153 --> 00:05:03,863 with something still more fundamental. 84 00:05:03,863 --> 00:05:07,833 The first unequivocal statement in world literature 85 00:05:07,833 --> 00:05:11,276 of belief in a single all powerful God. 86 00:05:13,763 --> 00:05:17,103 This concept would be the Jews' great contribution 87 00:05:17,103 --> 00:05:21,343 to civilization, the unassailable foundation 88 00:05:21,343 --> 00:05:25,536 not only of Judaism but of Christianity and Islam. 89 00:05:27,853 --> 00:05:31,483 No other idea would have such a profound influence 90 00:05:31,483 --> 00:05:32,614 on the history of humanity. 91 00:05:32,614 --> 00:05:34,372 (chanting in prayer) 92 00:05:34,372 --> 00:05:39,372 (upbeat music) (traffic bustling) 93 00:05:39,863 --> 00:05:42,333 But where did the story of one God 94 00:05:42,333 --> 00:05:46,023 gifting the world into existence originate? 95 00:05:46,023 --> 00:05:47,493 Who were its authors? 96 00:05:47,493 --> 00:05:50,803 How was it meant to be read and how thousands 97 00:05:50,803 --> 00:05:54,643 of years after it was written, are we to read it now? 98 00:05:54,643 --> 00:05:55,732 - Howard. - Chief Rabbi. 99 00:05:55,732 --> 00:05:57,496 - Lovely to see you. - Lovely to see you. 100 00:05:57,496 --> 00:06:00,213 - Lord Sacks is Britain's Chief Rabbi, 101 00:06:00,213 --> 00:06:04,136 a theologian, a philosopher and a biblical scholar. 102 00:06:05,043 --> 00:06:07,878 - To understand Genesis one, you have to understand 103 00:06:07,878 --> 00:06:09,133 that this is a polemic 104 00:06:09,133 --> 00:06:12,453 against all the stories in the ancient world 105 00:06:12,453 --> 00:06:15,673 about how the world came to be the way it is, 106 00:06:15,673 --> 00:06:18,403 which are all stories about multiplicities 107 00:06:18,403 --> 00:06:22,063 of God's huge cast list of deities. 108 00:06:22,063 --> 00:06:23,823 All of whom are fighting, squabbling, 109 00:06:23,823 --> 00:06:25,693 plotting each other's downfall 110 00:06:25,693 --> 00:06:27,963 or hacking each other to pieces, 111 00:06:27,963 --> 00:06:30,953 and they come in endless shapes and forms. 112 00:06:30,953 --> 00:06:35,203 And, of course, Judaism gets rid of the entire cast list. 113 00:06:35,203 --> 00:06:39,033 All of a sudden you get this extraordinary, radical idea 114 00:06:39,033 --> 00:06:41,716 that there is just one God, 115 00:06:43,053 --> 00:06:45,883 and He has no company up there. 116 00:06:45,883 --> 00:06:50,883 The only company He has is this creature that he has created 117 00:06:51,653 --> 00:06:54,303 in love, in His own image. 118 00:06:54,303 --> 00:06:58,543 Which is why Genesis 1 is so serene. 119 00:06:58,543 --> 00:07:01,872 God says, "Let there be," and there is. 120 00:07:01,872 --> 00:07:04,083 (upbeat music) 121 00:07:04,083 --> 00:07:06,383 - We forget how radical the idea 122 00:07:06,383 --> 00:07:09,583 of one God creating the world must have been 123 00:07:09,583 --> 00:07:12,003 in a world of many gods. 124 00:07:12,003 --> 00:07:14,870 So where did it come from? 125 00:07:14,870 --> 00:07:18,436 (light upbeat music) 126 00:07:18,436 --> 00:07:21,436 (people chattering) 127 00:07:25,640 --> 00:07:29,433 If we are to discover the origins of the creation story 128 00:07:29,433 --> 00:07:31,903 we have to track down the origins 129 00:07:31,903 --> 00:07:34,713 of the Jewish belief in that one God 130 00:07:34,713 --> 00:07:37,526 without which creation could not have been written. 131 00:07:40,783 --> 00:07:44,383 The one thing we can say for sure is that you can't write 132 00:07:44,383 --> 00:07:47,653 the story of one God creating the world 133 00:07:47,653 --> 00:07:51,343 unaided and unopposed until you've stopped worshiping 134 00:07:51,343 --> 00:07:52,446 all other gods. 135 00:07:56,123 --> 00:07:58,783 All roads lead to Jerusalem 136 00:07:58,783 --> 00:08:02,553 a city holy to the three great monotheistic religions, 137 00:08:02,553 --> 00:08:06,016 Judaism, Christianity and Islam. 138 00:08:09,623 --> 00:08:12,503 According to traditional theology, the first five books 139 00:08:12,503 --> 00:08:15,413 of the Bible are the unmediated word of God, 140 00:08:15,413 --> 00:08:19,483 as dictated to Moses 3,000 years ago, or more. 141 00:08:19,483 --> 00:08:23,653 Monotheism, allegiance to a single or powerful creator 142 00:08:23,653 --> 00:08:26,843 is supposed to go back even further to Abraham, 143 00:08:26,843 --> 00:08:29,096 only 20 generations on from Adam. 144 00:08:30,023 --> 00:08:33,773 But the findings of archeologists here in Jerusalem are 145 00:08:33,773 --> 00:08:35,993 undermining such assumptions, 146 00:08:35,993 --> 00:08:39,643 suggesting that both the creation story and the belief 147 00:08:39,643 --> 00:08:42,876 in a single God are a far more recent origin. 148 00:08:44,703 --> 00:08:47,443 These are the remains of residential dwellings dating 149 00:08:47,443 --> 00:08:51,163 from around 800 B.C. located just outside 150 00:08:51,163 --> 00:08:52,506 the walls of Jerusalem. 151 00:08:54,173 --> 00:08:58,026 Oded Lipschits is one of Israel's leading archeologists. 152 00:08:58,933 --> 00:09:01,753 Oded thinks that the Jewish belief in a single God 153 00:09:01,753 --> 00:09:05,813 of creation did not take hold until many centuries 154 00:09:05,813 --> 00:09:09,806 after Moses supposedly wrote the creation story down. 155 00:09:10,663 --> 00:09:13,393 - We have archeology and we have the Bible. 156 00:09:13,393 --> 00:09:17,133 From the pure archeological point of view 157 00:09:17,133 --> 00:09:20,543 you have 100s, you have now more than 1,000 158 00:09:20,543 --> 00:09:25,543 small kind of amulets, figurines, symbolizing 159 00:09:25,863 --> 00:09:27,940 a belief in a feminine God. 160 00:09:27,940 --> 00:09:30,803 You have two main types of it, 161 00:09:30,803 --> 00:09:34,203 one is a very simple type of a figurine, handmade, 162 00:09:34,203 --> 00:09:37,933 these are kinds of symbols of feminine goddess. 163 00:09:37,933 --> 00:09:41,373 - The presence of these fertility symbols in Jewish homes 164 00:09:41,373 --> 00:09:45,063 tells Oded that Jews were still worshiping multiple gods 165 00:09:45,063 --> 00:09:49,193 hundreds of years after Moses, which suggests the story 166 00:09:49,193 --> 00:09:52,213 of one God creating the universe could not yet 167 00:09:52,213 --> 00:09:53,113 have been written. 168 00:09:53,953 --> 00:09:57,553 For Oded it was only at the end of the eighth century B.C. 169 00:09:57,553 --> 00:10:01,133 that Jews began slowly to place their trust 170 00:10:01,133 --> 00:10:05,883 in one supreme being, a trust that was severely tested 171 00:10:05,883 --> 00:10:10,883 when in 586 B.C., the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem. 172 00:10:11,203 --> 00:10:14,446 The evidence for this disaster still survives. 173 00:10:15,373 --> 00:10:20,373 - Just in this area a huge destruction level was discovered 174 00:10:20,453 --> 00:10:24,353 was a very, very big ash layer, 175 00:10:24,353 --> 00:10:27,303 and with a lot of arrowheads 176 00:10:27,303 --> 00:10:30,176 like this one used by the Babylonian army. 177 00:10:31,499 --> 00:10:33,413 (dramatic music) 178 00:10:33,413 --> 00:10:35,563 - [Howard] The temple in Jerusalem was sacked 179 00:10:35,563 --> 00:10:39,433 and thousands were hauled off to exile in Babylon. 180 00:10:39,433 --> 00:10:41,133 What did this tell the Jews 181 00:10:41,133 --> 00:10:44,176 about their all powerful God and protector? 182 00:10:45,380 --> 00:10:48,713 - It was a horrible surprise because it went 183 00:10:48,713 --> 00:10:53,713 against all the lessons that they started to learn about, 184 00:10:53,883 --> 00:10:56,093 if we will believe in one, God 185 00:10:56,093 --> 00:10:59,723 we have insurance that nothing will happen. 186 00:10:59,723 --> 00:11:01,963 And suddenly Jerusalem was destroyed, 187 00:11:01,963 --> 00:11:04,633 and, I think, that it put a big question mark 188 00:11:04,633 --> 00:11:09,633 on all the Judean identity, belief and theology. 189 00:11:11,436 --> 00:11:14,766 (daunting music) 190 00:11:14,766 --> 00:11:17,766 (people chattering) 191 00:11:18,783 --> 00:11:20,373 - [Howard] How can you go on believing 192 00:11:20,373 --> 00:11:23,526 in a God who abandons you to your fate? 193 00:11:24,423 --> 00:11:27,023 It's the question Jews have had reason to ask 194 00:11:27,023 --> 00:11:29,426 more than once in their long history. 195 00:11:30,775 --> 00:11:33,433 (singing in prayer) 196 00:11:33,433 --> 00:11:35,133 At this stage, according to Oded 197 00:11:35,133 --> 00:11:37,736 the creation story was still to be written. 198 00:11:38,763 --> 00:11:41,026 And one wonders how it ever was? 199 00:11:42,243 --> 00:11:45,113 The disaster ought to have finished off the Jewish religion. 200 00:11:45,113 --> 00:11:46,533 It didn't. 201 00:11:46,533 --> 00:11:49,313 Instead it was from the trauma of exile 202 00:11:49,313 --> 00:11:51,123 that the extraordinary story 203 00:11:51,123 --> 00:11:54,713 of a single all powerful God speaking the world 204 00:11:54,713 --> 00:11:56,946 into existence would emerge. 205 00:11:59,686 --> 00:12:02,436 (daunting music) 206 00:12:07,713 --> 00:12:10,993 According to traditional Jewish and Christian belief 207 00:12:10,993 --> 00:12:14,473 the creation story was dictated by God to Moses 208 00:12:14,473 --> 00:12:16,326 more than 3,000 years ago. 209 00:12:18,293 --> 00:12:21,043 But historians and archeologists tell us 210 00:12:21,043 --> 00:12:24,473 that belief in a single all powerful God of creation 211 00:12:24,473 --> 00:12:27,213 was still in the making when the Jews were hauled off 212 00:12:27,213 --> 00:12:31,353 to exile in Babylon in 586 B.C., 213 00:12:31,353 --> 00:12:35,196 more than 500 years after Moses was thought to have lived. 214 00:12:36,373 --> 00:12:39,566 So when was the creation story written? 215 00:12:42,412 --> 00:12:44,803 Yairah Amit is a biblical scholar. 216 00:12:45,923 --> 00:12:48,383 I met her at the Shrine of the Book in Jerusalem 217 00:12:48,383 --> 00:12:52,173 where the oldest copies of Judaism's most sacred texts, 218 00:12:52,173 --> 00:12:53,926 the Torah are kept. 219 00:12:56,763 --> 00:12:59,143 Yairah believes that it's from this period 220 00:12:59,143 --> 00:13:02,753 of the Jewish exile in Babylon, that the creation story 221 00:13:02,753 --> 00:13:05,676 and many other parts of the old Testament date. 222 00:13:07,083 --> 00:13:09,923 What could have happened is that the Jewish God Yahweh 223 00:13:09,923 --> 00:13:13,703 vanishes, and that they start worshiping Babylonian gods, 224 00:13:13,703 --> 00:13:15,373 and some did? 225 00:13:15,373 --> 00:13:19,533 - I'm sure, but what is very interesting 226 00:13:19,533 --> 00:13:21,796 that not all of them assimilated. 227 00:13:23,143 --> 00:13:26,183 And if you ask why, is the question is 228 00:13:26,183 --> 00:13:31,183 because of spiritual or intellectual leaders 229 00:13:31,283 --> 00:13:34,160 and those leaders said to them, 230 00:13:34,160 --> 00:13:37,243 "We sinned and here were punished." 231 00:13:37,243 --> 00:13:40,143 - The thing that you're describing is extraordinary, really. 232 00:13:40,143 --> 00:13:41,560 You were saying that, "We have sinned 233 00:13:41,560 --> 00:13:45,083 "therefore everything that's happened is our fault." 234 00:13:45,083 --> 00:13:46,153 - Yeah. 235 00:13:46,153 --> 00:13:49,793 - I mean, how new a theological concept is that? 236 00:13:50,723 --> 00:13:53,893 This concept is very new 237 00:13:53,893 --> 00:13:57,273 that we are here because our God 238 00:13:57,273 --> 00:14:02,043 who is the only one God wants us to be punished 239 00:14:02,043 --> 00:14:05,723 and therefore the exile is temporary. 240 00:14:05,723 --> 00:14:10,053 And if we will, if we are loyal to our God 241 00:14:10,053 --> 00:14:14,833 and if we behave according to his laws 242 00:14:16,123 --> 00:14:19,683 we have hope and we shall come back to our country. 243 00:14:19,683 --> 00:14:22,236 And this seed is the beginning of Judaism. 244 00:14:23,508 --> 00:14:28,508 (water gurgling) (thoughtful music) 245 00:14:28,633 --> 00:14:31,203 - Rather than believe their God had abandoned them 246 00:14:31,203 --> 00:14:35,643 or simply been defeated the Jews read their exile as proof 247 00:14:35,643 --> 00:14:37,326 of His unequal power. 248 00:14:38,411 --> 00:14:42,033 They had sinned and this was His thundering punishment. 249 00:14:42,033 --> 00:14:45,066 Even the Babylonians were subject to His command. 250 00:14:48,053 --> 00:14:50,383 It was in this period that Jewish thinkers 251 00:14:50,383 --> 00:14:54,663 began to write their history in earnest wishing to show 252 00:14:54,663 --> 00:14:56,873 that their God was without peer, 253 00:14:56,873 --> 00:15:00,453 had always been with them and had planned their destiny 254 00:15:00,453 --> 00:15:02,386 from the very start of creation. 255 00:15:04,793 --> 00:15:07,203 Is that the order of it, we discover the necessity 256 00:15:07,203 --> 00:15:09,573 to think historically about ourselves, 257 00:15:09,573 --> 00:15:11,283 so we must write the history of us. 258 00:15:11,283 --> 00:15:13,593 - We must write the history because the history 259 00:15:13,593 --> 00:15:18,483 is the real evidence for what happened to us 260 00:15:19,323 --> 00:15:20,973 from the historical point of view 261 00:15:22,535 --> 00:15:25,343 and in order to to understand our belief. 262 00:15:25,343 --> 00:15:28,993 - And the creation story is is written out of this? 263 00:15:28,993 --> 00:15:30,233 - Of course. - At this time. 264 00:15:30,233 --> 00:15:32,318 - Yeah, yeah, yeah. 265 00:15:32,318 --> 00:15:35,568 (deep pondering music) 266 00:15:37,473 --> 00:15:40,943 - The creation story draws heavily on Babylonian 267 00:15:40,943 --> 00:15:43,296 and other Middle Eastern creation myths. 268 00:15:44,433 --> 00:15:48,493 They too see creation as the victory of order over chaos, 269 00:15:48,493 --> 00:15:51,683 but in these the world is born out of conflict 270 00:15:51,683 --> 00:15:53,076 between the gods. 271 00:15:54,873 --> 00:15:58,213 The Jewish God by contrast works alone 272 00:15:58,213 --> 00:16:01,503 in wonderful isolation creating the world 273 00:16:01,503 --> 00:16:03,726 in an act of benign will. 274 00:16:05,651 --> 00:16:08,901 (deep pondering music) 275 00:16:11,443 --> 00:16:14,983 50 years after the fall of Jerusalem, Babylon was conquered 276 00:16:14,983 --> 00:16:17,816 by the Persians and the Jews were set free. 277 00:16:18,693 --> 00:16:21,223 Their faith had been rewarded and they returned 278 00:16:21,223 --> 00:16:26,223 to Israel with a monotheism made more fervent by exile. 279 00:16:26,393 --> 00:16:29,783 They now had a sophisticated creation story 280 00:16:29,783 --> 00:16:32,903 shaped to demonstrate God's good intentions 281 00:16:32,903 --> 00:16:34,503 from the very beginning, 282 00:16:34,503 --> 00:16:37,633 and a new dedication to scholarship and analysis. 283 00:16:37,633 --> 00:16:41,536 They returned, in other words, as people of the book. 284 00:16:42,532 --> 00:16:44,513 (speaking in foreign language) 285 00:16:44,513 --> 00:16:46,583 - 2,5000 years later 286 00:16:46,583 --> 00:16:49,683 his passion for learner disputatiousness 287 00:16:49,683 --> 00:16:53,073 in which no word is allowed to go unexamined 288 00:16:53,073 --> 00:16:55,490 or unilluminated still survives 289 00:16:55,490 --> 00:16:59,096 in the yeshivas or seminaries of Jerusalem. 290 00:17:00,196 --> 00:17:03,196 (people chattering) 291 00:17:05,193 --> 00:17:08,363 So the creation story might not after all 292 00:17:08,363 --> 00:17:11,403 have been handed down by God to Moses, 293 00:17:11,403 --> 00:17:13,943 but it reflects an extraordinary development 294 00:17:13,943 --> 00:17:15,136 in religious thinking. 295 00:17:16,223 --> 00:17:18,123 By reading the humiliating defeat 296 00:17:18,123 --> 00:17:21,073 of their nation, as proof of the power 297 00:17:21,073 --> 00:17:26,073 of their almighty God, the Jews turn a political disaster 298 00:17:26,363 --> 00:17:28,733 into a theological triumph. 299 00:17:28,733 --> 00:17:32,593 Instead of residing in a temple in a ruined city 300 00:17:32,593 --> 00:17:35,813 God can now go everywhere with the Jews, 301 00:17:35,813 --> 00:17:38,400 He is the God of the creating word 302 00:17:38,400 --> 00:17:42,483 and the soul-loving architect of humanity. 303 00:17:42,483 --> 00:17:47,303 For the next 2,5000 years He reigns unchallenged 304 00:17:47,303 --> 00:17:48,276 in his heavens. 305 00:17:51,743 --> 00:17:56,743 600 years after he cleared out all rivals as God of the Jews 306 00:17:56,913 --> 00:17:58,766 he became the God of the Christians, 307 00:18:02,283 --> 00:18:05,563 and 600 years after that, the God of Islam 308 00:18:07,763 --> 00:18:11,113 Despite the best efforts of historians, archeologists 309 00:18:11,113 --> 00:18:14,813 and scientists to dissuade them, millions of Jews, 310 00:18:14,813 --> 00:18:17,183 Christians and Muslims still believe 311 00:18:17,183 --> 00:18:19,113 with unshakeable conviction 312 00:18:19,113 --> 00:18:22,026 in the literal truth of the creation story. 313 00:18:23,133 --> 00:18:26,143 This for them remains the only account 314 00:18:26,143 --> 00:18:27,646 of how the world began. 315 00:18:31,466 --> 00:18:34,049 (upbeat music) 316 00:18:36,872 --> 00:18:40,453 (thundering) (light upbeat music) 317 00:18:40,453 --> 00:18:43,503 In pursuit of such unshakable conviction 318 00:18:43,503 --> 00:18:46,483 I am returning to where I began, 319 00:18:46,483 --> 00:18:49,816 not exactly the garden of Eden, but Manchester. 320 00:18:50,774 --> 00:18:54,033 (light upbeat music) 321 00:18:54,033 --> 00:18:56,243 I grew up here as a non-Orthodox Jew 322 00:18:57,413 --> 00:19:00,103 not so much rejecting the Jewish religion 323 00:19:00,103 --> 00:19:02,063 as leaving it to others. 324 00:19:02,063 --> 00:19:05,333 Judaism confused and frightened me 325 00:19:05,333 --> 00:19:08,683 and too much of it was in a foreign language. 326 00:19:08,683 --> 00:19:11,883 I read the Bible in English, not Hebrew. 327 00:19:11,883 --> 00:19:14,423 When God said, "Let there be light," 328 00:19:14,423 --> 00:19:16,336 he said it in a Manchester accent. 329 00:19:18,163 --> 00:19:20,876 But I had relatives who were very different. 330 00:19:21,793 --> 00:19:24,565 - Howard. - How lovely to see you. 331 00:19:24,565 --> 00:19:25,398 - [Rabi] Lovely, you as well, come in. 332 00:19:25,398 --> 00:19:26,333 - [Howard] How are you? 333 00:19:26,333 --> 00:19:27,643 - [Rabi] Thank God, I'm fine and you. 334 00:19:27,643 --> 00:19:30,103 - [Howard] I'm all right, thank you. 335 00:19:30,103 --> 00:19:32,383 I'm all right. 336 00:19:32,383 --> 00:19:33,683 - Hey! - Howard (laughs). 337 00:19:34,931 --> 00:19:38,931 (speaking in foreign language) 338 00:19:41,903 --> 00:19:46,773 - My cousin Susan married, Avraham, a rabbi who belongs 339 00:19:46,773 --> 00:19:50,056 to the strictly Orthodox Chabad-Lubavitch movement. 340 00:19:52,360 --> 00:19:55,526 Avremi is their son-in-law and also a rabbi. 341 00:19:56,461 --> 00:19:59,152 (singing in foreign language) 342 00:19:59,152 --> 00:20:00,809 - And what exactly did the words 343 00:20:00,809 --> 00:20:03,053 (speaking in foreign language) mean? 344 00:20:03,053 --> 00:20:05,573 - They mean, we bless you God King of the universe 345 00:20:05,573 --> 00:20:08,186 who has created the fruit of the vine. 346 00:20:09,423 --> 00:20:13,323 - They are reminding me how Jews commemorate the Sabbath, 347 00:20:13,323 --> 00:20:16,096 the day, God rests after the creation. 348 00:20:18,279 --> 00:20:19,863 - You have to light the candles, cover your eyes 349 00:20:19,863 --> 00:20:23,533 so that you don't see actually the candles. 350 00:20:23,533 --> 00:20:25,753 - As Orthodox Jews they could never allow us 351 00:20:25,753 --> 00:20:27,353 to film the real thing 352 00:20:27,353 --> 00:20:31,243 because for them the Friday night ritual is deeply holy, 353 00:20:31,243 --> 00:20:35,953 nothing less than a reenactment of creation itself. 354 00:20:35,953 --> 00:20:37,643 - That is what Shabbat is. 355 00:20:37,643 --> 00:20:40,033 It's the day when the world is the celebration 356 00:20:41,133 --> 00:20:43,203 of God's combination of the perfection 357 00:20:43,203 --> 00:20:44,413 the completion of the world. 358 00:20:44,413 --> 00:20:46,003 And we celebrate the wonderful gift that he has 359 00:20:46,003 --> 00:20:47,663 given us, this world. 360 00:20:47,663 --> 00:20:50,253 The Talmud says that when we hold a glass of wine 361 00:20:50,253 --> 00:20:51,713 on Friday night and say these words 362 00:20:51,713 --> 00:20:54,203 we become partners in the act of creation. 363 00:20:54,203 --> 00:20:55,036 - Really? - Yeah. 364 00:20:55,036 --> 00:20:56,863 - Do I need to be saying these words at the same time 365 00:20:56,863 --> 00:20:59,223 as I'm drinking the wine or drinking the wine 366 00:20:59,223 --> 00:21:00,056 be enough? - You drink 367 00:21:00,056 --> 00:21:01,573 after you say the words. 368 00:21:01,573 --> 00:21:02,873 - When you finish your drink. 369 00:21:02,873 --> 00:21:04,193 - That's lovely idea being, 370 00:21:04,193 --> 00:21:06,866 it is a lovely idea of being a partner in it, right. 371 00:21:08,100 --> 00:21:09,343 So we're partner with God 372 00:21:09,343 --> 00:21:11,403 in a sense? - With God, oh yeah. 373 00:21:11,403 --> 00:21:13,513 - This is not a question you normally bring up 374 00:21:13,513 --> 00:21:17,153 at a family occasion, but I have to ask it. 375 00:21:17,153 --> 00:21:21,766 God made the Earth and all the creatures on it in six days, 376 00:21:23,233 --> 00:21:26,936 is that your understanding of how we got here? 377 00:21:29,173 --> 00:21:32,393 - That's what we've been taught for thousands of years, 378 00:21:32,393 --> 00:21:33,756 from childhood onwards. 379 00:21:34,673 --> 00:21:36,203 - And you believe that? 380 00:21:36,203 --> 00:21:37,533 - Implicitly. 381 00:21:37,533 --> 00:21:42,023 - The bottom line is belief transcends rationale 382 00:21:42,963 --> 00:21:45,293 and understanding, and understanding takes us 383 00:21:45,293 --> 00:21:49,906 to a certain level, but then belief and faith kicks in. 384 00:21:51,033 --> 00:21:52,586 You can't rationalize faith. 385 00:21:56,943 --> 00:21:59,653 - I'm much effected by that. 386 00:21:59,653 --> 00:22:03,693 I love the idea of our being partners in creation 387 00:22:04,683 --> 00:22:09,273 because it humanizes the whole story, 388 00:22:09,273 --> 00:22:12,943 and it reminds us of our creativity. 389 00:22:12,943 --> 00:22:17,173 And I'm touched too, by the fact that every Friday night 390 00:22:17,173 --> 00:22:20,123 creation is remembered and reenacted. 391 00:22:20,123 --> 00:22:22,513 I think that's extraordinary that there are people, 392 00:22:22,513 --> 00:22:25,233 Jews who are able to feel that they are 393 00:22:25,233 --> 00:22:28,053 living continuously with that story, 394 00:22:28,053 --> 00:22:30,593 and living as though again and again, 395 00:22:30,593 --> 00:22:33,786 week upon week as though at the beginning of time. 396 00:22:34,673 --> 00:22:38,266 But for it to work they say that you have to have faith. 397 00:22:39,373 --> 00:22:43,773 And if you don't have the faith in that story, 398 00:22:43,773 --> 00:22:46,346 the truth of that story, where are you? 399 00:22:48,179 --> 00:22:51,012 (pondering music) 400 00:22:54,563 --> 00:22:58,693 The big question for me is how to believe or not believe 401 00:22:58,693 --> 00:23:02,553 at the same time, to do justice to the poetic subtlety 402 00:23:02,553 --> 00:23:06,963 of the creation story without exposing it to the ridicule 403 00:23:06,963 --> 00:23:10,163 of those for whom scientific evidence is the only 404 00:23:10,163 --> 00:23:12,166 measurement of truth? 405 00:23:13,033 --> 00:23:17,973 Let's confront the absolutists, those who absolutely believe 406 00:23:17,973 --> 00:23:20,096 and those who absolutely don't. 407 00:23:23,965 --> 00:23:26,715 (dramatic music) 408 00:23:30,230 --> 00:23:33,793 "And God saw everything that He had made, 409 00:23:33,793 --> 00:23:35,620 "and behold, it was very good. 410 00:23:35,620 --> 00:23:39,010 "And the evening and the morning were the sixth day. 411 00:23:39,010 --> 00:23:42,250 "And on the seventh day God ended His work 412 00:23:42,250 --> 00:23:45,673 "which He had made, and He rested on the seventh day 413 00:23:46,932 --> 00:23:49,990 "and God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it." 414 00:23:52,933 --> 00:23:55,653 Today, there are many for whom this image 415 00:23:55,653 --> 00:23:58,243 of a God made world is not good. 416 00:23:58,243 --> 00:24:01,643 A militant new atheism is in the wind and I've come 417 00:24:01,643 --> 00:24:06,283 to its holiest shrine, The Natural History Museum in London, 418 00:24:06,283 --> 00:24:09,936 a temple to Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. 419 00:24:11,123 --> 00:24:16,123 Here room after room of fossils and skeletons testify 420 00:24:16,263 --> 00:24:18,153 sometimes with great beauty 421 00:24:18,153 --> 00:24:20,803 to the Earth's not being thousands 422 00:24:20,803 --> 00:24:23,107 but billions of years old. 423 00:24:23,107 --> 00:24:25,690 (mellow music) 424 00:24:27,143 --> 00:24:30,503 Conclusive evidence that life is not the product 425 00:24:30,503 --> 00:24:33,393 of divine will, but of the brutal laws 426 00:24:33,393 --> 00:24:34,806 of natural selection. 427 00:24:39,753 --> 00:24:43,243 Doubts about creation did not suddenly surface 428 00:24:43,243 --> 00:24:46,693 the day Darwin published on the "Origin of Species." 429 00:24:46,693 --> 00:24:48,923 Doubt is as old as faith, 430 00:24:48,923 --> 00:24:51,773 but Darwin's certainly armed religious skeptics 431 00:24:51,773 --> 00:24:55,483 with an alternative explanation of how life began. 432 00:24:55,483 --> 00:24:58,163 If we got here the way Darwin said we got here 433 00:24:58,163 --> 00:25:01,343 they argue, then God, hasn't only left us, 434 00:25:01,343 --> 00:25:03,643 he never made us in the first place, 435 00:25:03,643 --> 00:25:06,333 and to think otherwise is willful 436 00:25:06,333 --> 00:25:08,936 not to say wicked irrationality. 437 00:25:11,203 --> 00:25:14,293 I am meeting a good friend who has no patience 438 00:25:14,293 --> 00:25:15,736 for such irrationality. 439 00:25:16,903 --> 00:25:20,393 Professor A.C. Grayling is a distinguished philosopher 440 00:25:20,393 --> 00:25:23,156 and one of Britain's most vocal atheists. 441 00:25:24,153 --> 00:25:25,524 - How lovely to see you. - Lovely to see you. 442 00:25:25,524 --> 00:25:27,243 You all right? - Yeah, absolutely. 443 00:25:27,243 --> 00:25:30,713 - We meet beneath the disconcertingly benevolent gaze 444 00:25:30,713 --> 00:25:31,966 of Charles Darwin. 445 00:25:32,840 --> 00:25:37,763 "In the beginning God created the heaven and the Earth." 446 00:25:37,763 --> 00:25:40,743 I would like to ask you, did he? 447 00:25:40,743 --> 00:25:42,633 Accept, I'll know what you're going to say, 448 00:25:42,633 --> 00:25:44,143 so I'll ask you instead, 449 00:25:44,143 --> 00:25:45,963 how do you know he didn't? 450 00:25:45,963 --> 00:25:47,973 - Well, firstly, there are so many different creation 451 00:25:47,973 --> 00:25:50,133 myths from so many different parts of history, 452 00:25:50,133 --> 00:25:51,583 so many different cultures, 453 00:25:51,583 --> 00:25:53,653 and all of them share something in common, 454 00:25:53,653 --> 00:25:55,743 which is the ignorance of the people 455 00:25:55,743 --> 00:25:57,853 who created the creation myths. 456 00:25:57,853 --> 00:25:59,783 What they wanted was a story to tell, 457 00:25:59,783 --> 00:26:01,063 they wanted a narrative, 458 00:26:01,063 --> 00:26:03,183 they want a beginning for things, 459 00:26:03,183 --> 00:26:05,563 and so they made up a story about an agent 460 00:26:05,563 --> 00:26:07,013 bigger, stronger than they were 461 00:26:07,013 --> 00:26:08,233 from which the world came. 462 00:26:08,233 --> 00:26:09,103 - Out of ignorance? 463 00:26:09,103 --> 00:26:09,936 - [Grayling] Out of ignorance. 464 00:26:09,936 --> 00:26:12,393 - That's quite, I mean, that's quite scornful. 465 00:26:12,393 --> 00:26:13,343 - Think of this. 466 00:26:13,343 --> 00:26:16,533 If you thought that the wind and the thunder were agents 467 00:26:16,533 --> 00:26:18,813 like yourself, but invisible or more powerful, 468 00:26:18,813 --> 00:26:21,413 and then you discovered over many generations 469 00:26:21,413 --> 00:26:23,543 that they weren't, that they were part of nature, 470 00:26:23,543 --> 00:26:26,653 the agencies in question will begin to move out of nature 471 00:26:26,653 --> 00:26:28,623 up to the mountain tops and then into the sky 472 00:26:28,623 --> 00:26:31,513 and finally outside space and time all together. 473 00:26:31,513 --> 00:26:33,453 As the horizons of knowledge advance, 474 00:26:33,453 --> 00:26:34,463 so the gods vanished, 475 00:26:34,463 --> 00:26:35,603 further and further. - Then you're not 476 00:26:35,603 --> 00:26:37,373 explaining the necessity for them. 477 00:26:37,373 --> 00:26:40,373 If we've answered all those other questions, why did men go, 478 00:26:40,373 --> 00:26:42,043 why didn't they just jettison it? 479 00:26:42,043 --> 00:26:44,103 - Nobody really believes it. 480 00:26:44,103 --> 00:26:47,133 What people want is they want to believe it. 481 00:26:47,133 --> 00:26:48,803 And they therefore stop themselves 482 00:26:48,803 --> 00:26:50,273 thinking about it too clearly. 483 00:26:50,273 --> 00:26:52,283 - Well, let me tell you, I am the opposite. 484 00:26:52,283 --> 00:26:53,413 I don't believe it. 485 00:26:53,413 --> 00:26:54,773 I don't believe any of it. 486 00:26:54,773 --> 00:26:57,663 I don't believe it as much as you don't believe it, 487 00:26:57,663 --> 00:26:58,983 but I want to believe it 488 00:27:00,163 --> 00:27:03,803 because it seems to me it's an access. 489 00:27:03,803 --> 00:27:05,553 No, it's not true that I want to believe it. 490 00:27:05,553 --> 00:27:06,663 I just think there are, 491 00:27:06,663 --> 00:27:09,406 I just think there is something there that they believe 492 00:27:09,406 --> 00:27:10,676 that is not negligible, 493 00:27:10,676 --> 00:27:14,393 this this issued in great thought, in great beauty, 494 00:27:14,393 --> 00:27:17,333 and in beautiful literature, and in beautiful music. 495 00:27:17,333 --> 00:27:22,303 I simply want to honor the imaginative necessity 496 00:27:22,303 --> 00:27:23,616 that drives people to believe, 497 00:27:23,616 --> 00:27:26,823 and hat all your reasoning in the world doesn't answer for. 498 00:27:26,823 --> 00:27:29,983 - Then nobody can deny, absolutely no one can deny 499 00:27:29,983 --> 00:27:32,593 that our emotional lives, what in a secular sense 500 00:27:32,593 --> 00:27:34,423 I would call our spiritual lives, 501 00:27:34,423 --> 00:27:36,643 are the most important thing about us. 502 00:27:36,643 --> 00:27:39,173 That is why poetry and music matter. 503 00:27:39,173 --> 00:27:40,323 That is why love matters. 504 00:27:40,323 --> 00:27:42,913 That's why human relationships matter. 505 00:27:42,913 --> 00:27:44,453 Why is it necessary 506 00:27:44,453 --> 00:27:47,233 in addition to the beautiful music, 507 00:27:47,233 --> 00:27:50,113 to the starring poetry, to the profundity of our love 508 00:27:50,113 --> 00:27:53,733 for other people to add on these ancient stories 509 00:27:53,733 --> 00:27:55,303 of gods and ghosts-- - That's not the order. 510 00:27:55,303 --> 00:27:57,830 - They don't do anything to enrich it, 511 00:27:57,830 --> 00:28:00,680 and even indeed, historically, they get in the way of it. 512 00:28:02,233 --> 00:28:03,956 - There's an old Jewish joke, 513 00:28:05,360 --> 00:28:07,190 "That God you don't believe in, 514 00:28:07,190 --> 00:28:11,503 "the rabbi tells the atheist, "I don't believe in either." 515 00:28:11,503 --> 00:28:15,513 How many religious people I wonder recognizes the God 516 00:28:15,513 --> 00:28:17,676 in whom atheists don't believe, 517 00:28:17,676 --> 00:28:20,193 and how many religious people feel driven 518 00:28:20,193 --> 00:28:24,423 by the new atheism to assert their faith more obstinately 519 00:28:24,423 --> 00:28:26,096 than they would have in the past? 520 00:28:31,976 --> 00:28:34,703 ♪ So sing my soul ♪ 521 00:28:34,703 --> 00:28:38,111 ♪ Then sing my soul ♪ 522 00:28:38,111 --> 00:28:42,003 ♪ My Savior God to Thee ♪ 523 00:28:42,003 --> 00:28:45,023 - No, this isn't the American Bible Belt 524 00:28:45,023 --> 00:28:46,276 it's Central London. 525 00:28:50,933 --> 00:28:54,913 Here just a short bus ride from the Natural History Museum, 526 00:28:54,913 --> 00:28:57,153 but undeterred by its findings 527 00:28:57,153 --> 00:29:00,266 people flock to hear the teachings of creationism. 528 00:29:04,716 --> 00:29:07,873 I cannot myself feel contempt for whatever consolations 529 00:29:07,873 --> 00:29:11,233 this congregation finds in its religion, 530 00:29:11,233 --> 00:29:15,886 belief assuages sorrow, but at what cost to reason? 531 00:29:18,400 --> 00:29:22,793 - "In the beginning God created the heavens and the Earth," 532 00:29:22,793 --> 00:29:25,363 and you'll notice there's no attempt made here 533 00:29:25,363 --> 00:29:29,373 or anywhere else in the Bible to prove the existence of God. 534 00:29:29,373 --> 00:29:31,723 Actually the very attempt to do so 535 00:29:31,723 --> 00:29:34,703 can be somewhat insulting to Him. 536 00:29:34,703 --> 00:29:36,830 It's like someone asking you, 537 00:29:36,830 --> 00:29:39,570 "Prove that you had a father or mother.' 538 00:29:41,613 --> 00:29:44,686 Well, you wouldn't be here (chuckles) if you hadn't. 539 00:29:44,686 --> 00:29:48,413 - Greg Haslam is senior pastor at the Westminster Chapel 540 00:29:48,413 --> 00:29:51,823 and an ardent believer in the literal truth of the Bible, 541 00:29:51,823 --> 00:29:54,333 including the creation story. 542 00:29:54,333 --> 00:29:56,843 For you creation is true? 543 00:29:56,843 --> 00:29:57,983 - Absolutely true. 544 00:29:57,983 --> 00:29:59,383 - God makes the world 545 00:30:00,393 --> 00:30:03,623 and everything alive in it in six days? 546 00:30:03,623 --> 00:30:05,023 - In six days, yeah. 547 00:30:05,023 --> 00:30:08,533 - You are, of course, well aware that there are many people 548 00:30:08,533 --> 00:30:11,653 out there who would say this is bunkum. 549 00:30:11,653 --> 00:30:13,663 - I'm very much aware of that. 550 00:30:13,663 --> 00:30:17,443 I certainly am familiar with all that our critics say 551 00:30:17,443 --> 00:30:19,833 about us, but I believe 552 00:30:19,833 --> 00:30:22,243 the science is on our side, not theirs. 553 00:30:22,243 --> 00:30:23,683 You have the science on your side? 554 00:30:23,683 --> 00:30:25,433 I believe so, yeah. 555 00:30:25,433 --> 00:30:27,863 I was taught the same things that they believe 556 00:30:27,863 --> 00:30:30,513 and then came to see them with different pair of eyes 557 00:30:30,513 --> 00:30:32,473 as it were, different pair of glasses. 558 00:30:32,473 --> 00:30:34,653 So the fossil record and sedimentary layers 559 00:30:34,653 --> 00:30:38,673 of the Earth, fossils aren't formed gradually over time 560 00:30:39,523 --> 00:30:44,003 because dead animals, rot, or they're eaten by predators. 561 00:30:44,003 --> 00:30:46,363 How could a whole dinosaur be preserved 562 00:30:46,363 --> 00:30:48,803 without sudden catastrophic burial? 563 00:30:48,803 --> 00:30:50,073 Noah's flood. 564 00:30:50,073 --> 00:30:53,323 So that's a different lens to look at the same facts 565 00:30:53,323 --> 00:30:54,633 and interpret them differently. 566 00:30:54,633 --> 00:30:57,013 - Why do you even want the science on your side? 567 00:30:57,013 --> 00:30:58,440 Why don't you say to the scientists, 568 00:30:58,440 --> 00:31:01,503 "You do your thing, I do my thing." 569 00:31:01,503 --> 00:31:03,883 - Because biblical faith, as opposed 570 00:31:03,883 --> 00:31:06,843 to other religious perspectives in this world is rooted 571 00:31:06,843 --> 00:31:09,063 in events that happen in history, 572 00:31:09,063 --> 00:31:11,173 and if the facts could be proved to be untrue 573 00:31:11,173 --> 00:31:12,683 the faith is without foundation. 574 00:31:12,683 --> 00:31:15,093 - But you're becoming, you're fighting the scientist 575 00:31:15,093 --> 00:31:16,273 with his own tools. 576 00:31:16,273 --> 00:31:18,004 Let them have mere fact, what do you want 577 00:31:18,004 --> 00:31:20,343 fact for? - It's not mere fact. 578 00:31:20,343 --> 00:31:21,463 - You've got this wonderful poetry, 579 00:31:21,463 --> 00:31:22,965 you've got these wonderful stories, 580 00:31:22,965 --> 00:31:25,803 which talk to us in so many ways, fact! 581 00:31:25,803 --> 00:31:28,793 - So my faith is not anchored 582 00:31:28,793 --> 00:31:32,253 in a mythical upper story realm that has nothing to do 583 00:31:32,253 --> 00:31:35,543 with the real world, it's anchored in the total reality 584 00:31:35,543 --> 00:31:37,623 God has made, and it ought to accord 585 00:31:37,623 --> 00:31:38,843 with that total reality. 586 00:31:38,843 --> 00:31:41,013 That's why science is important. 587 00:31:41,013 --> 00:31:43,263 - It is not Reverend Haslam's faith 588 00:31:43,263 --> 00:31:45,663 I find problematic, but the distortion 589 00:31:45,663 --> 00:31:47,616 of science to support it. 590 00:31:49,503 --> 00:31:52,263 The religious are easy pickings for atheists 591 00:31:52,263 --> 00:31:54,376 when they fly in the face of reason. 592 00:31:56,043 --> 00:32:00,593 A longing for absolute truth hides in the human heart, 593 00:32:00,593 --> 00:32:04,193 absolute atheism, absolute creationism dance 594 00:32:04,193 --> 00:32:06,933 to the same tune, each driving the other 595 00:32:06,933 --> 00:32:10,883 to further and further extremes of absolute conviction. 596 00:32:10,883 --> 00:32:14,173 For me, neither position leaves room for what the poet 597 00:32:14,173 --> 00:32:17,803 John Keats called negative capability, 598 00:32:17,803 --> 00:32:20,923 mystery, uncertainty, doubt. 599 00:32:20,923 --> 00:32:23,753 And since these are what make for creativity 600 00:32:23,753 --> 00:32:27,386 they are precisely what we must bring to the creation story. 601 00:32:28,373 --> 00:32:31,290 (pondering music) 602 00:32:36,943 --> 00:32:41,033 Let us see then where mystery and uncertainty 603 00:32:41,033 --> 00:32:42,784 ought to be found. 604 00:32:42,784 --> 00:32:45,367 (upbeat music) 605 00:32:51,425 --> 00:32:55,073 (upbeat tickling music) 606 00:32:55,073 --> 00:32:56,683 My attempt to steer a path 607 00:32:56,683 --> 00:33:00,193 between the competing extremes of unswerving belief 608 00:33:00,193 --> 00:33:03,663 and unswerving disbelief has brought me to Cambridge 609 00:33:03,663 --> 00:33:07,323 where I read English literature in the 1960s. 610 00:33:07,323 --> 00:33:10,323 Among the writers I most enjoyed was Coleridge 611 00:33:10,323 --> 00:33:13,053 who dismissed attempts to subject the Bible 612 00:33:13,053 --> 00:33:17,253 to scientific inquiry by saying that the Bible found him 613 00:33:17,253 --> 00:33:18,880 and that was evidence enough. 614 00:33:19,793 --> 00:33:22,523 It's the final word on all writing. 615 00:33:22,523 --> 00:33:24,736 It finds you or it doesn't. 616 00:33:26,933 --> 00:33:28,613 You were never far from literature 617 00:33:28,613 --> 00:33:30,583 when you put your mind to religion 618 00:33:30,583 --> 00:33:32,443 and you were never far from religion 619 00:33:32,443 --> 00:33:34,743 when you put your mind to literature. 620 00:33:34,743 --> 00:33:37,583 I studied English literature here in Cambridge 621 00:33:37,583 --> 00:33:40,783 imagining I was leaving Jewishness behind. 622 00:33:40,783 --> 00:33:43,733 But, in fact, I was doing what the boys I observed 623 00:33:43,733 --> 00:33:47,673 at the Jerusalem yeshiva were doing interpreting, 624 00:33:47,673 --> 00:33:50,813 interrogating, discriminating. 625 00:33:50,813 --> 00:33:52,923 You could say that creation itself 626 00:33:52,923 --> 00:33:56,083 was the first great act of discrimination. 627 00:33:56,083 --> 00:33:59,333 God calling for light, and then distinguishing 628 00:33:59,333 --> 00:34:02,863 this from that, see here land there, 629 00:34:02,863 --> 00:34:05,883 this day holy that day not. 630 00:34:05,883 --> 00:34:09,383 The emergence of clarity from lightless chaos 631 00:34:09,383 --> 00:34:11,783 in the creation story is to me a thing 632 00:34:11,783 --> 00:34:14,333 of immense intellectual beauty, 633 00:34:14,333 --> 00:34:17,346 a beauty which scientists too can appreciate. 634 00:34:18,655 --> 00:34:21,488 (pondering music) 635 00:34:23,373 --> 00:34:26,776 I'm off to meet one who does appreciate that beauty. 636 00:34:30,463 --> 00:34:34,003 The Reverend John Sir Polkinghorne is a particle physicist 637 00:34:34,003 --> 00:34:37,133 and one of Britain's most celebrated scientists. 638 00:34:37,133 --> 00:34:41,283 He's also an ordained Anglican priest, a combination 639 00:34:41,283 --> 00:34:44,766 that bewilders people who are rigid in their distinctions. 640 00:34:45,793 --> 00:34:48,593 I noticed that you have the distinction, 641 00:34:48,593 --> 00:34:51,253 the dubious distinction of being mentioned 642 00:34:51,253 --> 00:34:53,773 by Dawkins in his "God Delusion" book as one 643 00:34:53,773 --> 00:34:56,263 of the good scientists who believe or one 644 00:34:56,263 --> 00:34:57,680 of the good religious scientists. 645 00:34:57,680 --> 00:34:59,263 - Yes, he's sort of incredulous 646 00:34:59,263 --> 00:35:01,083 about how I could be so stupid. 647 00:35:01,083 --> 00:35:02,707 - Well, that's what I was going to ask you. 648 00:35:02,707 --> 00:35:05,453 What's he so puzzled about? 649 00:35:05,453 --> 00:35:07,543 - He's puzzled because he has such a distorted 650 00:35:07,543 --> 00:35:09,333 and caricature view of religion. 651 00:35:09,333 --> 00:35:13,763 I mean, he thinks, for example, that typical creationists 652 00:35:13,763 --> 00:35:16,210 and believes the world is 6,000 years old and so on, 653 00:35:16,210 --> 00:35:18,693 and came into being in the course of a hectic week 654 00:35:18,693 --> 00:35:20,133 is the typical religious believer. 655 00:35:20,133 --> 00:35:23,063 And of course it's very easy to scorn and demolish 656 00:35:23,063 --> 00:35:24,953 straw men of that kind. 657 00:35:24,953 --> 00:35:27,513 - So what is it in relation to the creation story 658 00:35:27,513 --> 00:35:29,973 which is our subjects that you believe? 659 00:35:29,973 --> 00:35:32,383 - When you read something like the early chapters 660 00:35:32,383 --> 00:35:33,703 of the Bible you have to figure out 661 00:35:33,703 --> 00:35:34,843 what it is you're reading? 662 00:35:34,843 --> 00:35:36,143 You think it's a scientific account 663 00:35:36,143 --> 00:35:38,733 of a hectic six days of divine activity, 664 00:35:38,733 --> 00:35:40,693 then, of course, you'll think it's all nonsense. 665 00:35:40,693 --> 00:35:43,403 But it isn't that, and you're abusing the text 666 00:35:43,403 --> 00:35:45,933 if you try and read in that way, it is something deeper 667 00:35:45,933 --> 00:35:48,683 and more interesting than that it's theological text. 668 00:35:48,683 --> 00:35:50,993 The message of Genesis 1 is not, 669 00:35:50,993 --> 00:35:52,576 God did this and then did that, 670 00:35:53,515 --> 00:35:55,753 but nothing exists except through the will of God. 671 00:35:55,753 --> 00:35:57,913 God said, "Let there be." 672 00:35:57,913 --> 00:36:00,923 For Dr. Polkinghorne, his scientific knowledge 673 00:36:00,923 --> 00:36:04,723 far from undermining his faith actually bolsters it. 674 00:36:04,723 --> 00:36:07,873 He's fascinated by how precisely the physics 675 00:36:07,873 --> 00:36:11,023 and the chemistry of the universe must be structured 676 00:36:11,023 --> 00:36:14,636 in order to make it possible for life on Earth to evolve. 677 00:36:16,423 --> 00:36:18,953 - Science, explores the world, and it finds 678 00:36:18,953 --> 00:36:21,413 that the world is deeply and wonderfully ordered. 679 00:36:21,413 --> 00:36:24,363 And that suggests to me that there is a divine mind 680 00:36:24,363 --> 00:36:26,743 behind the order of the world, for example, 681 00:36:26,743 --> 00:36:28,713 we have discovered that we live in a universe 682 00:36:28,713 --> 00:36:31,483 that is very special, very particular. 683 00:36:31,483 --> 00:36:33,543 We find that a world that is capable of producing 684 00:36:33,543 --> 00:36:37,963 carbon-based life has to be a very particular world indeed 685 00:36:37,963 --> 00:36:39,513 in it's given physical fabric. 686 00:36:39,513 --> 00:36:42,133 That's to say the laws of nature, which operated 687 00:36:42,133 --> 00:36:45,513 following the Big Bang, have to take a very specific form. 688 00:36:45,513 --> 00:36:47,413 If they'd been a little bit different, there would be 689 00:36:47,413 --> 00:36:50,453 no carbon and there would be no carbon-based life. 690 00:36:50,453 --> 00:36:52,083 That's very surprising. 691 00:36:52,083 --> 00:36:53,343 And again, you have to ask the question, 692 00:36:53,343 --> 00:36:55,103 is that just our luck? 693 00:36:55,103 --> 00:36:57,143 Or is it because we don't, in fact, live in a world 694 00:36:57,143 --> 00:36:59,843 that's any old world, but a world that is a creation 695 00:36:59,843 --> 00:37:01,943 which has been designed by its creator 696 00:37:01,943 --> 00:37:05,566 in the sense of being given the intrinsic potentiality 697 00:37:05,566 --> 00:37:07,823 that will enable it to have the fruitful history 698 00:37:07,823 --> 00:37:09,673 that brings forth carbon-based life. 699 00:37:09,673 --> 00:37:12,013 And, of course, it's the last understanding 700 00:37:12,013 --> 00:37:15,013 that I find the most coherent and intellectually satisfying. 701 00:37:17,593 --> 00:37:20,483 - This much I am now settled in my mind about, 702 00:37:20,483 --> 00:37:22,283 you don't have to deny the findings 703 00:37:22,283 --> 00:37:25,803 of science to call yourself a religious man, 704 00:37:25,803 --> 00:37:29,173 you can be for Darwin and for the Creator. 705 00:37:29,173 --> 00:37:33,513 It's a nonsense to say the creation story fails the science, 706 00:37:33,513 --> 00:37:37,542 the two are on entirely different errands. 707 00:37:37,542 --> 00:37:40,959 (light thoughtful music) 708 00:37:41,813 --> 00:37:45,513 So what is the errand of the creation story 709 00:37:45,513 --> 00:37:48,153 and why does it resonate so powerfully 710 00:37:48,153 --> 00:37:50,726 with an unreligious man like me? 711 00:37:52,154 --> 00:37:55,571 (light thoughtful music) 712 00:37:56,734 --> 00:38:00,353 Mary Midgley is a moral philosopher, she's 90 years old, 713 00:38:00,353 --> 00:38:03,653 and throughout her distinguished career has put her mind 714 00:38:03,653 --> 00:38:06,636 to what religion means for human beings. 715 00:38:09,590 --> 00:38:11,063 She believes we cannot understand 716 00:38:11,063 --> 00:38:13,723 what the creation story is for 717 00:38:13,723 --> 00:38:16,326 unless we grasp the power of myth. 718 00:38:17,653 --> 00:38:20,263 - I do think we have to shake ourselves 719 00:38:20,263 --> 00:38:24,693 and think again about how we view myths in general 720 00:38:24,693 --> 00:38:28,513 because this is primarily a myth that is to say, 721 00:38:28,513 --> 00:38:31,473 it's an imaginative vision, which serves 722 00:38:31,473 --> 00:38:33,963 as a background to all the rest of life, 723 00:38:33,963 --> 00:38:38,963 and that is not something that anybody can live without. 724 00:38:39,723 --> 00:38:41,893 - I'll tell you, when I hear you speaking like this 725 00:38:41,893 --> 00:38:44,333 you might be surprised to hear me say this, 726 00:38:44,333 --> 00:38:46,623 but you remind me of D.H. Lawrence. 727 00:38:46,623 --> 00:38:50,990 Lawrence says, "The human heart must have an absolute. 728 00:38:50,990 --> 00:38:53,380 "And when the human heart doesn't have an absolute 729 00:38:53,380 --> 00:38:55,793 "the center falls apart," he says. 730 00:38:55,793 --> 00:38:59,253 And I have read you, and you talk about the center bleeding 731 00:38:59,253 --> 00:39:00,806 when there's nothing beyond ourselves. 732 00:39:00,806 --> 00:39:03,533 - I mean, I think the point is 733 00:39:03,533 --> 00:39:05,813 that we are far too limited, isn't it? 734 00:39:05,813 --> 00:39:08,023 I mean, the natural way to think of ourselves 735 00:39:08,023 --> 00:39:13,023 is as part of a greater whole, to try to do without that, 736 00:39:13,163 --> 00:39:17,513 I think is totally unnatural to Homo sapiens. 737 00:39:17,513 --> 00:39:19,363 - What do you think about the new atheists 738 00:39:19,363 --> 00:39:21,683 and how they're reading these stories? 739 00:39:21,683 --> 00:39:26,053 - Well, they've made an extraordinary jump to the idea 740 00:39:26,053 --> 00:39:30,863 that only literal meaning should ever be taken seriously. 741 00:39:30,863 --> 00:39:34,413 And if you've just been to performance of King Lear 742 00:39:34,413 --> 00:39:36,110 your question afterwards is not 743 00:39:36,110 --> 00:39:38,790 "Well, was there a King Lear at that particular time? 744 00:39:38,790 --> 00:39:40,053 "Did his daughters really?" 745 00:39:40,053 --> 00:39:43,063 You know, it isn't that kind of question. 746 00:39:43,063 --> 00:39:46,043 The sort of importance that people feel science has 747 00:39:46,043 --> 00:39:49,993 these days is due to a great quest for certainty. 748 00:39:49,993 --> 00:39:51,433 - So it's no different from religion. 749 00:39:51,433 --> 00:39:53,220 - Oh, no, not in that respect, yes. 750 00:39:53,220 --> 00:39:55,036 Except it is not so nutritious. 751 00:39:56,963 --> 00:39:58,173 - It's not so nutritious (laughs). 752 00:39:58,173 --> 00:39:59,006 - [Mary] Yes. 753 00:40:03,013 --> 00:40:05,430 - We have forgotten how to read the Bible, 754 00:40:05,430 --> 00:40:07,873 mot because we are too sophisticated, 755 00:40:07,873 --> 00:40:10,296 but because we are not sophisticated enough. 756 00:40:11,313 --> 00:40:15,223 Mary Midgley reminds us of the lessons to be drawn from art 757 00:40:15,223 --> 00:40:17,903 whether it's King Lear or a soap opera. 758 00:40:17,903 --> 00:40:22,183 We know they are made up, but still we are enthralled. 759 00:40:22,183 --> 00:40:25,133 The made up issues from our imaginations 760 00:40:25,133 --> 00:40:29,706 and our imaginations outstrip mere fact and reason. 761 00:40:31,263 --> 00:40:34,563 The concept that something can be both true 762 00:40:34,563 --> 00:40:37,603 and untrue is one that religious people seem 763 00:40:37,603 --> 00:40:40,793 better able to grasp than atheists. 764 00:40:40,793 --> 00:40:44,323 - It seems to me that what Genesis is, is a kind of Jewish 765 00:40:44,323 --> 00:40:48,533 equivalent of what in Greece was philosophy. 766 00:40:48,533 --> 00:40:51,463 Only the Greek saw truth as system, 767 00:40:51,463 --> 00:40:54,593 and the Jews saw truth as story. 768 00:40:54,593 --> 00:40:56,723 So the opening of the Bible is, 769 00:40:56,723 --> 00:40:58,533 here are the first principles, 770 00:40:58,533 --> 00:41:00,773 this is what life is about. 771 00:41:00,773 --> 00:41:03,763 - Does this get us out then of having to argue 772 00:41:03,763 --> 00:41:06,553 with scientists about what could 773 00:41:06,553 --> 00:41:09,666 scientifically have happened at such and such a date? 774 00:41:10,703 --> 00:41:15,333 - I think so because clearly the Bible isn't science, 775 00:41:15,333 --> 00:41:19,233 it's about, you know, telling the human story and adding 776 00:41:19,233 --> 00:41:23,223 that one crucial dimension that we are not alone. 777 00:41:23,223 --> 00:41:28,223 The idea of God in search of man is the real drama, 778 00:41:28,623 --> 00:41:30,826 the driving drama of the Bible. 779 00:41:31,853 --> 00:41:35,673 Religion is not an explanation of how the universe 780 00:41:35,673 --> 00:41:39,173 came into being, it's not a means of saving 781 00:41:39,173 --> 00:41:41,476 our eternally guilty self. 782 00:41:42,393 --> 00:41:45,726 Religion is the redemption of solitude. 783 00:41:48,200 --> 00:41:50,783 (upbeat music) 784 00:41:54,219 --> 00:41:57,886 (people chanting in prayer) 785 00:42:08,413 --> 00:42:12,243 - It's just possible that in the course of making this film 786 00:42:12,243 --> 00:42:14,333 I have become a little more religious 787 00:42:14,333 --> 00:42:18,593 or at least a little less non-religious than I was. 788 00:42:18,593 --> 00:42:21,253 I've grown in my attachment, anyway, to the God 789 00:42:21,253 --> 00:42:25,463 of creation who was yet to become the glowering Yahweh 790 00:42:25,463 --> 00:42:29,463 so detested by atheists, he is fresh to himself 791 00:42:29,463 --> 00:42:32,753 as we and creation are fresh to ourselves 792 00:42:32,753 --> 00:42:35,453 everything is to play for. 793 00:42:35,453 --> 00:42:38,273 That's what moves me most, the idea 794 00:42:38,273 --> 00:42:42,063 that we are delivered still warm from the kiln as it were 795 00:42:42,063 --> 00:42:47,025 into our own hands and yet not cast adrift. 796 00:42:47,025 --> 00:42:50,103 (dramatic music) (waves whooshing) 797 00:42:50,103 --> 00:42:54,503 A myth does not shrivel at the first dry touch of science. 798 00:42:54,503 --> 00:42:57,753 Those who wrote this myth 2,5000 years ago 799 00:42:57,753 --> 00:43:00,883 did not know what we know, but creation still 800 00:43:00,883 --> 00:43:04,243 describes existence in a magnificent simplicity 801 00:43:04,243 --> 00:43:07,233 of language that binds us to them. 802 00:43:07,233 --> 00:43:08,883 It remains a story. 803 00:43:08,883 --> 00:43:10,873 It does our hearts good to know 804 00:43:10,873 --> 00:43:14,143 that we are made in the image of a Creator who reveled 805 00:43:14,143 --> 00:43:16,733 in creativity for its own sake. 806 00:43:16,733 --> 00:43:21,373 He made us out of no other motive than an artist's joy 807 00:43:21,373 --> 00:43:24,316 in making and saw that we were good. 808 00:43:25,913 --> 00:43:29,473 This I now understand is the enchantment 809 00:43:29,473 --> 00:43:31,423 of the creation story. 810 00:43:31,423 --> 00:43:36,073 Forget the supernatural, creation roots us in the wonder 811 00:43:36,073 --> 00:43:39,913 of our own drama, the children of a marvelous, 812 00:43:39,913 --> 00:43:43,003 utterly mysterious act of giving, 813 00:43:43,003 --> 00:43:46,723 gifted with the marvelous ourselves. 814 00:43:46,723 --> 00:43:47,736 What a beginning. 815 00:43:49,465 --> 00:43:52,215 (dramatic music) 816 00:43:57,079 --> 00:43:58,344 - [Narrator] In the next program 817 00:43:58,344 --> 00:44:00,383 journalist Rageh Omaar goes in search 818 00:44:00,383 --> 00:44:02,423 of the prophet Abraham. 819 00:44:02,423 --> 00:44:05,063 - We're descendants of Abraham, who is the man who signed 820 00:44:05,063 --> 00:44:06,643 on the dotted line with God. 821 00:44:06,643 --> 00:44:09,590 - [Narrator] But Abraham's children seem to be at war. 822 00:44:10,693 --> 00:44:14,073 - Is Abraham's legacy one the greatest sources of division 823 00:44:14,073 --> 00:44:16,673 in the world today or does the great patriarch 824 00:44:16,673 --> 00:44:19,636 hold the key to peace and reconciliation? 825 00:44:20,896 --> 00:44:25,896 (chanting in prayer) (upbeat music)