Transcripts for CNN Back to the Beginning With Christiane Amanpour 20141222 03:24:15 archive.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from archive.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
fictitious. yes, there are some battles. yes, there s some killing. but overall, they re coming in and they re living side by side with some of the canaanites. this sounds radical, but when i talk to most people they re relieved. the genocide that is god s will, yahweh s will, never happened. reporter: for some the story told in the book of joshua presents a troubling picture of a violent god. but others draw a sense of mission from the very same story. a few days after we visited jericho our team was invited to the graduation ceremony for jonathan friedland and his elite unit of the israeli defense force cadets. just like joshua and his troops came to israel and had their battles here and were able to live here, i m just continuing it just like my brother did it and my father did it and my grandfather did it.
middle of the desert. reporter: it s believed to be the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world. traces of 23 distinct civilizations have been found in a small archaeological park on the outskirts of town. but what draws pilgrims from around the world is actually the biblical account of how one of these ancient civilizations may have disappeared. flying over the sprawling modern-day jericho, we can just see the footprint of ancient jericho, where the bible tells us joshua led his people, the israelites, in their first conquest of land in the promised land. reporter: the bible tells us that before his death on mount nebo, with guidance from god, moses chose a man named joshua to lead the israelites on the last leg of their journey. and so we have this real transition, a handing over of power from one generation to the next, where moses and his generation have been wandering
everything he s heard in terms of god s commandments. he says she s hot and i want that, bring me that. and his henchmen go, bring him bathsheba. and so that eye leads him to the act of adultery. and when the woman says i am pregnant, he goes deeper and deeper into the darkness. reporter: and here is where the bible becomes a little like pulp fiction. king david tried to cover his tracks by getting bathsheba s husband uriah drunk. in the hopes that uriah will immediately bed his wife and be none the wiser. all does not go according to plan. david has uriah killed. and then brings bathsheba to live with him. reporter: the intimate details of david s personal life are unlike anything else found in the bible.
reporter: but prophets also spoke of a day when the lord would make a new covenant. the temple would be rebuilt. and the land would be ruled by a righteous leader, a figure who came to be referred to as the messiah, god s anointed one. this is a cemetery outside the walls of the old city of jerusalem. in fact, this is a valley filled with cemeteries. jewish, christian, and muslim. all lying side by side in death. because they all believed that the words of the prophets will be fulfilled, that the messiah will come to this very valley, and they all want to be first in line when he raises the righteous from the dead. the valley, called the kidron, is the final scene of that final fiery battle between good and evil, accompanied by a mass resurrection of souls who will be gathered into god s army. and half a world away, in kansas city, missouri we went to meet