Empires - The Kingdom of David - The Saga of the Israelites
by Carl Byker, Mitch Wilson
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Actor: F. Murray Abraham, Glenn Hoeffner, Jake Borowski, Keith David, Rene AuberjonoisDirector: Carl Byker, Mitch Wilson
Brand: Paramount
Producer: Carl Byker
Writer: Carl Byker
Producer: Brian Donegan
Producer: David Davis
Writer: David Mrazek
Writer: Isaac Mizrahi
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 5.1; English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.66:1
Running Time: 220 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2005-03-08
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: PBS
DVD Reviews of Empires - The Kingdom of David - The Saga of the Israelites
DVD Review: Kingdom born of ideas
Summary: 4 Stars
This is rather an amazing production, in four hour-long parts, on the early history of the Jewish people, through the 4th century of the Common Era (CE) It demonstrates the historical basis of Jewish longing for freedom---and for undying hope, supported by belief in God and His laws.
With biblical readings by Jeremy Irons and Derek Jacobi, and video reenactments of many of the most important biblical stories, this Public Broadcasting Service series recounts the evolution of the Jewish people, after Abraham's meeting with God, and the Jewish Exodus from Egypt led by Moses.
Following Jewish slavery in Egypt, the series covers numerous conquests of Judea, by the Assyrians (which scattered ten of Israel's 12 tribes), the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks (Hellenists) and the Romans.
One especially moving (and important) part of this saga comes 80 years following the Jewish return to Jerusalem from Babylonian exile. Ezra reads the Five Books of Moses (Torah) to the Judeans (Jewish people), noting that God's teachings are accessible to anyone who chooses to understand--and all based on the Ten Commandments, commanding mankind to honor life, one another, and not to covet others' spouses, or possessions.
PBS consulted an impressive number of religious and archaeological scholars, including Harvard University's James Kugel, Yale's Wayne Meeks, and Rabbis from many of the foremost Jewish institutes of learning.
The tradition of disagreeing with scripture, the series notes, was established by Job, who mourns his loss of everyone held dear; He dares to ask why good people often suffer, while bad people often prosper. The suggestion of a reward in the afterlife, is a Jewish teaching developed further in the Book of Daniel.
During the 2nd Century BCE, Ben Sira (Sirach) established a Jewish educational academy to study the Torah, generating the idea of divine inspiration, and providing devout Jews intellectual power to best their contemporary oppressors, the Greeks. and even to interpret God's words.
In 185 BCE, Antiochus IV ordered Jerusalem's Jewish temple to be dedicated to chief Greek god, Zeus; His outrageous establishment of Greek shrines in all Jewish villages drove Judeans to become the first people in history to declare war for the right to freedom of religion.
When the Greeks slaughtered more than 1,000 pious Judeans, who preferred not to violate the Sabbath by defending themselves, the Jews also became the first people in history willing to die for their religion. Thus the Judeans established Jewish tradition, during defensive wars, not only to fight on the Sabbath, but to be obligated to protect themselves. In 164 BCE, Judah Maccabee miraculously restored the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. Antiochus ultimately tracked and killed him. However, Judah's brother Jonathan, by gathering 10,000 men, gained enough strength to negotiate for Judeans' independence, which persisted for the next 100 years. During that time, the self-governed Judeans developed the idea of defending God's law, along with their kingdom of Judea (the Jewish people).
Judea's next conqueror, the Roman empire, crucified tens of thousands of Jews and besieged Jerusalem. But only when the Romans appointed King Herod, a non-Jewish prince, did Jewish rebels counter attack. Herod's men ruthlessly murdered them, followed them into the hills and literally smoked out them and their families from their caves. Even Herod's reconstruction of Jerusalem's Holy Temple did not redeem him for the Jewish rebels.
Following Herod's death in 4 BCE, chaos and civil war reigned in Judea, spawning the Pharisees, and their great Jewish philosopher Hillel. He taught that Judeans needed no priests to reach God--but only to study. Jewish legend says that Hillel, once asked to recite all of Torah while standing on one foot, replied, "What is hateful to you, do not do unto others. All the rest is commentary."
According to Yale Professor Meeks, the post-Herodean age also spawned Jesus, whose lessons were entirely Jewish in nature. In 33 CE, the Romans arrested and crucified Him, like tens of thousands of other Jewish "troublemakers" murdered during that era.
In 67 CE, the Romans sent 60,000 soldiers to Jerusalem, then home to 100,000 Jews, Judeans in the holy city were starving, and factions fought between themselves. One "expert" inexplicably compares the Zealots' rebellion to 21st century jihad. While these Judeans considered revolt against Rome the only way to save the Jewish people, neither the Torah nor Jewish law commanded them to do so. Qur'anic doctrine and Islamic jurists, by contrast, fix military jihad as central to Islamic faith and law.
Furthermore, other experts mistakenly compare the situation of 1st century Jews to that of Jews during the 20th century Holocaust. Wrong again. While the murderous the Romans, in destroying the Temple, also ruined the Jewish political, religious and economic center--they did not plan to murder all Judeans. They only wanted to kill Jewish ideas. Thus, they renamed Judea, Palestine, and exiled Jerusalem's remaining people, all Pharisees.
It was only after the Bar Kochba rebellion, from 132 to 135 CE, that the Romans sent 13 legions, who razed 900 Jewish villages and killed 580,000 men--not to mention the countless others who perished through famine and disease. And even then, the survivors were not murdered--they were exiled.
In which exile, the Judeans (Jewish people) prospered spiritually--by adhering to traditions established more than 500 years earlier in Babylon, namely, teaching and prayer, longing for freedom--and hope, not only for themselves, but for all of mankind.
--Alyssa A. Lappen
Description of Empires - The Kingdom of David - The Saga of the Israelites
This tells the epic story of the jews and the creation of the worlds 1st and most profoundly monotheistic religion. The stories of patriarch abraham the liberator moses the poet king david and his son solomon all come to life in the dramatic tale of loss and triumph that shaped humanitys moral struggle. Studio: Paramount Home Video Release Date: 03/08/2005 Run time: 240 minutes Rating: NrBestsellers in DVD
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