in the bible story, after decades in the desert, moses obeyed god s order to go back to egypt. and so moses goes back to the egypt in which he grew up to the court where he learned and became a young man and confronts pharaoh, surely someone he knew as a young man, to say here i am, i m not the egyptian you thought i am, i too am an israelite, and i m asking for my people to be released. to convince the pharaoh god gave moses the power to perform what the bible refers to as signs and wonder. he goes to pharaoh and says let my people go and pharaoh says okay. okay. reporter: the most famous of these powers was the ability to turn his staff into a snake. in the ancient world stories of snakes and magic were common.
warrior. the bible tells us that joshua conquered jericho by walking around the city seven times. he marched around the wall seven times reporter: the whole time carrying the mystical ark of the covenant, which the bible describes as having special powers. god at that moment causes the walls to crumble and to fall down. and it s at that moment you that just get this image of them just rushing in on the city and flooding in and taking it over for better or for worse. however you view that kind of image. whether that s one of excitement and action or that s one of hey, this is war, and war can be ugly. reporter: in this war the bible makes clear that no prisoners should be taken alive. every man, woman, and child should be slaughtered. and according to the bible, this bloody battle was just the first stop on joshua s campaign. now, according to the book of joshua, the israelite troops invaded en masse from
grasses or something like that, which puts you in mind of a fairly shallow body of water. reporter: somehow a swamp crossing doesn t quite measure up to hollywood s the ten commandments. the israelites passed through the sea on dry land, and the water was like a wall on their right and on their left. and the egyptians are coming on their chariots and coming in. they re trying to get through that patch. and god stopped their chariot wheels. so the sea came crashing upon them and they all drowned on the command of moses staff. reporter: 12-year-old samara schaub has been studying this story as she prepares for her bat mitzvah. and it s also the story that jews commemorate every year during the passover seder. these words have so much meaning, and this song in particular is really symbolizing our freedom because this is the song that they sing once they
it. reporter: we ve made it to the top of mount sinai. the sun has risen and we re amongst pilgrims from all over the world. and perhaps the sheer physical effort of getting up here pretty rough. adds to the spirituality. glory, glory hallelujah the view is out of this world. and it seems fitting that this is the first and only place the bible says man ever came face to face with god. no matter what your faith, what happened here, this part of the exodus story, this part of moses story has affected all of us for millennia. his truth is marching on
reporter: but they also offered hope. the prophet isaiah comforts the king of judah, predicting the birth of a child called emanuel, which literally means god is with us. and what he says is when that kid is still young enough to be eating baby food the enemies you re worried about will be gone. they ll be conquered. a couple of centuries later the gospel of matthew picks up that prophecy in isaiah. reporter: but it s unlikely that isaiah intended his prophecies to hold such meaning even centuries later, much less in our own day. people didn t write down and pass on the stories of their families and their people in order for a bunch of americans a couple thousand years later to learn about their own world. reporter: but prophets also