National Geographic Misses the Real Treasure in the Lost Treasures of the Bible Series

A series overview of National Geographic’s Lost Treasures of the Bible

by Corey East on January 31, 2025

When I saw that Disney+ had released their new National Geographic series Lost Treasures of the Bible, I was both excited and skeptical. How would a secular organization present the history of the Bible and archaeology together? I have rarely seen it done well, so I approached these episodes with an open mind and guarded heart.

Asking the Right Questions

When I watch documentaries pertaining to the Bible, I suggest asking three primary questions: How do they treat the Bible? What primary sources do they use? What assumptions do they start with? I watched six episodes covering the following topics: “Nineveh – The City of Sin,” “Noah’s Great Flood,” “Mysteries of the Exodus,” “Secrets of the Tower of Babel,” “Mystery of King Solomon,” and “The Real King Herod.” After watching them, I was disappointed in the overarching conclusions. As one of the archaeologists stated:

Instead of taking the much later biblical literature and scriptures as a rite of how these things happened, the responsible thing to do is to take them as piece evidence and evaluate them with what we can prove through the physical record.1

While this statement is correct in one aspect—that we should be able to observe how the archaeological record confirms the historical account of Scripture—I believe this statement is very misleading.

Evolving Evidence

In archaeology, we say, “The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” What do we mean by this? If we do not find evidence of a person or people in a particular place thousands of years ago, it doesn’t mean they never existed; instead, the evidence has not been found. For example, archaeologists once believed Sargon II, mentioned by name in Isaiah 20:1, did not exist or that Isaiah the prophet got his information wrong. After all, the only Sargon known then was Sargon the Great, who lived hundreds of years before Isaiah. So did the Bible get it wrong?

The Bible’s testimony of a person, place, or event is very good evidence by itself that it existed.

In 1843, archaeologist Paul-Émile Botta discovered a palace at Khorsabad in present-day Iraq. This palace was Sargon II’s, who lived during the 720s BC, confirming what Isaiah the prophet wrote. Just because there was no evidence in the archaeology of Sargon II before Botta’s excavations in 1843 does not mean he didn’t exist. Archaeology is limited by what is currently known in the field. Because of this, there are numerous examples of archaeology catching up with what the Bible recorded. So the Bible’s testimony of a person, place, or event is very good evidence by itself that it existed, whether or not we currently have evidence from archaeology to corroborate it.

Every episode opened with a summary of the biblical account they would be addressing and then a type of research question that they were attempting to answer. This was an excellent and precise method for mapping out a documentary, and I appreciated this aspect. This type of framework assisted me in understanding their arguments and how they provided the evidence in support. So let us look at how this series answered the three questions I posed earlier.

How Do They Treat the Bible?

This documentary series treats the Bible as a document that could prove useful in certain areas where it was “proven” to be accurate by science. They state that it is a valuable book that has changed history and how we tell it. Still, they claim it was also written by people with agendas telling history from their perspectives and, therefore, must be treated with caution when understanding other nations and peoples throughout history. For example, in the episode “Nineveh – The City of Sin,” they sought to know why the Bible spoke of Nineveh as evil and wicked. They walked through various historical facts of how brutal the Assyrians were to their captives, referring to well-known monument inscriptions depicting the horrific torturing of their victims and how they were hated by the people they conquered because of their brutality and cruelty. A primary example of this brutality lies carved into the walls of Sennacherib’s palace, where they depict prisoners being flayed and disemboweled, and even Israelites who were conquered at the fall of Lachish being impaled outside their city walls. The prophet Nahum even listed the Assyrian’s brutality as a contributing factor to and prophesied about the city’s downfall. The documentary summarized these acts of brutality and even calls them “atrocities”; however, since they start with the assumption that the book of Jonah was written after the Babylonian exile, this information is written as a response to the atrocities and oppression years later rather than a recording of literal events in that present day.

What Primary Sources Do They Use?

According to the documentary, the Bible would not be considered a primary source written by eyewitness testimony; instead, it was compiled thousands of years after many of the events occurred. For instance, they believe Genesis was written after the Babylonian exile, assuming the Jews had been influenced by texts like The Epic of Gilgamesh. Because of this view, they referred to other sources, such as ancient inscriptions, for the bulk of their data when filling in the context of the biblical account.

It is not invalid to ask how archaeological evidence could shed light on a biblical account. It is valuable to use the king lists, other ancient writings such as The Epic of Gilgamesh, palace wall inscriptions, and much more as they do in this series to help build cultural context around the Bible.

However, they view archaeological evidence as more trustworthy than Scripture’s testimony and seek to use it to cast doubt on the Bible’s account. But as in so many other areas, this evidence doesn’t say anything by itself, it must be interpreted. And how we interpret evidence depends on our presuppositions.

What Assumptions Do They Start With?

Where the series goes wrong is in their assertion that certain evidence disproves the biblical account when, really, it is a matter of one’s assumptions. National Geographic’s worldview is based on the naturalistic perspective that all living things, including mankind, evolved over millions of years from random chance processes. Therefore, the idea of the Creator inspiring his Word and working through mankind as the vessel of inscription and preservation is beyond belief. Because of this presupposition, they state multiple times throughout the season that eyewitnesses did not write the Bible. Instead, its writers eventually recorded the echoes of past events over hundreds and sometimes thousands of years. According to the evidence that archaeology can provide, the Bible is guilty until “proven” innocent.

My greatest disappointment in this documentary is the improper view of Scripture. The foundational claim lies in the belief that the Bible, especially the OT, was written centuries after the events occurred. For instance, they claim that the books of the Bible dealing with the Assyrians were written centuries after the events they record. Because of this, the writings are mere shadows of potential historical facts. This is a statement by one of the archaeologists in the series concerning the Exodus that is very telling, “There is a lot of evidence for the Exodus as long as you are not trying to make it some sort of literal story that's word for word what's in the Bible.”2

Their claim that eyewitnesses did not write the Bible is an overgeneralization. First, not all Scripture claims to be written by eyewitnesses. Moses was not present for the events of Genesis, Luke was not an eyewitness to the life of Jesus, and much of Kings and Chronicles may be a later compilation of Jewish history.

Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth

The truth is that the Bible consists of 66 books, most penned by eyewitnesses but some probably not (however note that the Holy Spirit, who certainly was an eyewitness, inspired the writing!). They make statements like this to dismiss the historicity of Scripture, but even if all the books were written centuries later (which nobody believes), they do not disprove their historicity. They would need to demonstrate that the Bible is inaccurate and untrustworthy, which no one has done. They use the Bible and other ancient documents but are inconsistent with the standard they apply to other texts and the Bible itself. When analyzing the biblical flood account, they utilize the Sumerian king list as their primary source of information and state that this king list “records a historical account.” The fact that we have found many of the kings from the list within the archaeological record is a factor for why they deem this record as a “historical account.” Similarly, the Bible has recorded countless names of peoples, places, and details of events that have been found in the archaeological record. Yet when this series reviews the Bible’s accounts of these same events, they label them as “fantastical.” Join me as we walk through the different episodes and review the data from a biblical perspective while asking our questions in order to understand what a treasure the Bible really is.

Footnotes

  1. National Geographic, Lost Treasures of the Bible, season 1, episode 5, “Mystery of King Solomon,” posted December 20, 2024, on Disney+, 38:32–38:48.
  2. National Geographic, Lost Treasures of the Bible, season 1, episode 3, “Mysteries of the Exodus,” posted December 20, 2024, on Disney+, 41:00–41:33.

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