The Bible Unearthed

The Bible Unearthed is a modern documentary based on the book of the same name which describes the current knowledge of the origins of the bible from Israeli and international archaeology efforts.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bible_Unearthed:

The authors characterize the book as “our attempt to formulate a new archaeological vision of ancient Israel in which the Bible is one of the most important artifacts and cultural achievements [but] not the unquestioned narrative framework into which every archaeological find must be fit.” Their main contention is that

“…an archaeological analysis of the patriarchal, conquest, judges, and United Monarchy narratives [shows] that while there is no compelling archaeological evidence for any of them, there is clear archaeological evidence that places the stories themselves in a late 7th-century BCE context.”

On the basis of this evidence they propose

“…an archaeological reconstruction of the distinct histories of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, highlighting the largely neglected history of the Omride Dynasty and attempting to show how the influence of Assyrian imperialism in the region set in motion a chain of events that would eventually make the poorer, more remote, and more religiously conservative kingdom of Judah the belated center of the cultic and national hopes of all Israel.”^[2]

Sources:

http://www.amazon.com/Bible-Unearthed-Archaeologys-Vision-Ancient/dp/0684869128

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bible_Unearthed