The Bible: A History

Seven figures from different walks of life offer their personal perspective on the best-selling book of all time and what it means to them. The first programme, `Creation', is written and presented by leading British novelist Howard Jacobson. He describes himself as a "non-practising Jew who fear...

Rageh Omaar examines Abraham, one of the most revered patriarchs of both the Jewish and Christian Bible and of the Muslim Holy Qur'an.

Conservative and Christian Ann Widdecombe goes in search of the law of Moses, tracing the historical origins of the Ten Commandments and their profound influence over British society for over two millennia. She has robust encounters with scholars and with leading atheists Christopher Hitchens and...

Historian Bettany Hughes meets the feisty women figures of the Bible, in `The Daughters of Eve'. It's fashionable to dismiss the Bible as a manifesto for misogyny. Undeniably, many of its pages are rank with sexism: the proud Queen, Jezebel, is fed to the dogs, the teenage girl, Salome, is used a...

Irish Republican Gerry Adams investigates the life and death of Jesus Christ against the backdrop of his own life and career. Adams describes himself as an `Irish Catholic who, despite all the let-downs and scandals that the Church has been embroiled in, remains a member'. He sets out to discover...

After Jesus himself, Paul is the most important person in the story of the origins of Christianity. Of the 27 books of the New Testament, no fewer than 13 are attributed to Paul. Even today, at a time when the influence of the Bible seems to be fading, Paul continues to make the headlines. When t...

Since it was written in the first century AD, the Book of Revelation has been seen as one of the most controversial books in the entire Bible. Its narrative circles round and round, layering images and symbols on top of one another to create a text so complex that scholars still debate what it me...