Inside My DVR: Exodus Decoded

Inside My DVR – this is a new ongoing column where I will discuss different shit I’ve recorded. I use the word “discuss” because these won’t necessarily be reviews per se. For this column I figure on focusing more on one-off type programs. So either obscure movies that practically no one has seen, or perhaps not so obscure movies that I simply haven’t seen yet, or more prevalently specials and events.

I may also write about the weekly’s I watch, as I did with Z Rock here, and there are many of them, but I just won’t be doing it in this column.

Today’s topic falls into that Specials category.

STATS

Title: Exodus Decoded

Network: History Channel HD

Channel: 439

Date Recorded: Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Airing At: 11:00am

Running Time: 120 min

Guide Summary: “Documentarian Simcha Jacobovici defends the veracity of the biblical account of the Jews arrival in Egypt, enslavement and the Exodus claiming that scholars have misdated the Exodus, which he believes occurred in 1500 B.C. (Documentary)”

 

THOUGHTS

Okay, first a little off topic, but I love the History Channel. I actually had recorded 2 other shows that were on before this one, got erased by newer shows before I got a chance to watch them and I’m super pissed. One was about the assassination of Lincoln and the other was something called the St. Valentine’s Massacre about some 1930’s era Chicago mobsters that got got. Anyway…

Simcha, you got me. I’m convinced. This was a well put together and through examination. Despite being the devout biblical scholar that I am, I was sitting there watching this going, “And then what happened? Crap another commercial. Skip. Skip. Skip. Skip. Shit too far.”

Look, I don’t know Exodus from Leviticus from Genesis, but this doc really held my attention. Jacobovici has made some claims of, dare I say, biblical proportions. Among them:

• Exodus actually happened 200 years earlier than everyone thought
• The Ark of the Covenant (as in Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark) exists and may very well be hidden away in a warehouse somewhere
• It wasn’t the Red Sea that was parted, it was the Reed Sea because everyone’s been getting the translation wrong this whole time
• He explains how the 10 plagues occurred and how the Sea was parted
• Oh, and he claims to have found the actual Mt. Sinai, the same Mt. Sinai atop which God gave Moses the 10 Commandments

So as you can see, it was no small undertaking he had in front of him. But dammit, if he doesn’t go on to explain and detail his reasoning behind each and every one of these points (and more).

If he wasn’t a documentarian but a guy in the street making these claims, we would all think he had just escaped from the nuthouse. But with the help of a myriad of scholars and scientists from professors to theologians to geologists to archaeologists to James “Terminator” Cameron, Jacobovici can make even the greatest of skeptics doubt all they knew to be true.

All that being said, a quick check of IMDB tells us that this was originally released in 2006. So my question is, what the hell?! Why have we not heard of this? Why is this not a huge revelation (no pun intended)? Have the scientific and theological communities debunked his claims in the three years that have passed?

I mean as I was watching this I kept thinking, “how has nobody ever figured this out until now?” And as we were shown all the degreed talking heads back up Jacobovici’s claims, I couldn’t help but wonder just how renowned these men really were.

Were these men truly experts? Or were these the guys that the real experts laughed and snickered at? How revered were they in their individual fields? I obviously had no way of knowing. And like I said early on, I’m a believer, but still the questions persisted.

And that, I think is where the brief inclusion of James Cameron worked it charms. It gave this doc a feeling of legitimacy. The rationale being that Cameron wouldn’t put his face and name on something that was bunk. So for the common folk like myself, it was a big plus.

This doc’s piece de resistance which is teased at the beginning and not revealed for about an hour and fifty minutes is a small gold artifact/etching/carving that is a mere bauble without the perspective that only Jacobovici brings. It really it comes to life (literally, with the help of some excellent 3d imagery) once he shows us what he sees.

Overall, if you’re into things historical, this was a fascinating special that made many controversial theories, but backed them up with evidence to support it’s claims. In Cameron’s introduction, he tells us that Jacobovici has been working on this for over 10 years. It was a daunting task at which he excelled, leaving us with no lingering doubts, save for the question of the existence/location of the Ark of the Covenant.

- Lenny