starting on wednesday. i'm rosa flores. "back to the beginning" with christi christi christi christi christian amanpour begins right now. tonight, a special holiday event. was the christmas star real? >> there was extraordinary activity in disguise. >> did noah's flood happen? >> the land went under and stayed under. >> where is the garden of eden. >> figure out where all four rivers are and then you have the location. >> come along on an epic journey around with christiane amanpour. who has seen everything that tears us apart. searches for what unites us.

the danger is real. >> our guide, he's carrying a gun. >> so are the discoveries. >> look at this guys. >> as we trace the spectacular saga of greed, envy, love, betrayal and forgiveness. "back to the beginning" with christiane amanpour. >> out here in this vast emptiness, you can really get a sense of how the idea of one all powerful god first started to spread around the deserts of this region. hello, everyone, i'm christiane amanpo amanpour. i want to invite you on a journey back in time where we explore the mysteries of the oldest stories ever told. we start in a place that many of us are thinking about. this time of the year. bethlehem.

where the bible tells us that a young woman named mary stopped for the night and where shepherds, angels and kings were led by an especially bright star to welcome and worship her newborn child. >> he's the prince of peace. that's what we call him. that's what christmas is all about. >> and so every year, two million pilgrims are drawn here to the church of the nativity. where there's a small cave that marks the humble beginnings of their savior. >> so excited to be here. >> do you believe this was where jesus was born? >> i do. >> i met alexander drew and his mother teresa who travelled from north carolina to try to really connect with their faith. >> i believe it's somewhere here, whether it's right at that spot, i don't know. now, when i go down there into the grotto, i may feel like this

is the place. >> but first, we must wait. as the greek orthodox caretakers propre -- prepare and purify this sacred place. and down here in this grotto in the church of the nativity is this altar. it's marked by a silver star and it's where christians in the tradition says that all of this began. this is where they believe jesus was born. the faithful gathered in this intimate space believe that the birth of jesus here was the fulfillment of a series of predictions and promises that begin more than 2,000 years ago. 70 miles north of bethlehem is the small hill city of nazareth, an old orthodox church marks the spot where it's said the angel gabriel told the virgin mary she would bear a savior. >> i think mary's response to the angel's words is nothing

less than startling. instead of saying, impossible, mary said, bring it on. let's roll. what took you so long? >> she had good reason to welcome the angel's news. mary like jesus was jewish and for generations prophets such as isaiah had been telling the jewish people that a messiah would come and lead them to their destiny. >> but many jews were looking for a mighty king and the lord himself will give you a sign. >> for example, in isaiah, a virgin would bear a son. >> like her old testament ancestors from noah, to the prophets, mary answered the call and she's become an icon to more than just christians. >> in fact, in the koran, she is the only woman who has a chapter dedicated to her. mary is is the most unifying factor within all world

religions. >> back at the cave, beneath the church of the nativity in bethlehem, alexander and his mother teresa finally get their turn to touch the silver star. >> it's unbelievable and to think that this is where jesus was born. >> you know, actually being able to go down and touch the stone, you know, every christmas this is what we hear about. before i wasn't really sure about my faith, but now that i'm seeing all this i love it. it's amazing. >> the christmas story is all about stars and light. in the gospels a star leads the three wise men, the magi, to the birth child. >> it was usually the birth of an important, prominent person. ♪ >> but could there really have been such a star on the night

jesus was born? >> scientists do indicate there was extraordinary activity in the skies. >> but for many scholars, looking for proof of the star of bethlehem or proof of the nativity itself misses the real point. >> we don't know very much about the historical birth of jesus. we know, however, that the tales that were told are powerful and still moving to the present day. >> but the story we celebrate this holiday season didn't start here. it actually follows the stories of all our ancient ancestors from the old testament. if you think about it, it's very heart, the bible is a story of the family, it sprawls across the generations. like most families, they started off by fighting one another. and by making peace. they tried to make rules to

deliver -- to live by and to keep them or at least learn from their mistakes. like every family they were convinced they were special, even when everything was working against them. so to really understand this great family saga, i brought along my son darius as we set off on our biblical detective story. >> can i get -- >> flying high. look at this. and low above the nile delta in egypt. don't fall out. >> i'll try not to. >> what did moses do at mount sinai? >> he received the ten commandments. >> we visited archaeological digs. >> isn't it cool we're up here? >> it is so cool. >> we saw unexpected reminders of home. >> what's the difference between this and the washington monument? >> in many ways, darius is the reason i'm on this journey.

you see my mother is a christian from england and my father is a muslim. i married a jewish-american. in my son, all three of the great faiths come together. i spent most of my professional life traveling from conflict to conflict. where the bloodshed usually had something to do with religion. so we wanted to find out whether these biblical stories that are shared have the power not just to divide and harm, but to unite and heal. extraordinary just staring out of the window and you see all these mosques overlaying churches. i think one of these things is to realize and remember that christianity, judaism and islam have so much in common. and these three faiths trace their stories back to the biblical patriarchs, back to the beginning.

coming up, just minutes from now, the real search for the garden of eden. what do we really know about adam and eve? the amazing journey around the world and across time when "back to the beginning" returns. of days that crash headlong into night. and nights that say nothing but yes. you don't explain it. you just experience it. los cabos. live it to believe it. ♪ here we are, me and you ♪ on the road

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. and now the fascinating search for the garden of eden and what do we know about adam and eve as "back to the beginning" with christiane amanpour continues. >> in the beginning the bible tells us, god created the heavens and the earth. then god's wind swept over the surface of the dark waters and god said, let there be light.

he separated the day from the night and then he created life. and after all this, god saw that it was good. and so it goes the story of humanity, our story begins. god created a man and a woman. and gave them a perfect place to live, a garden called edepp. >> well, the garden is depicted as an orchard. god gives them a wonderful orchard. tells them they can eat all the fruit they want. >> they live in peace with animals and it's an image of completion, wholeness. >> when we imagine the garden of eden, most of us think of a paradise like this, the ultimate shangri-la. better than anything we can find on earth. but what does the bible actually say about where it all began?

>> the biblical descriptions is actually very short. there are four river, tigris and euphrates are two of them. then the other two are actually kind of unknown. that's the problem. if you can figure out where all four rivers are, then you've got the location. >> and it is the tantalizing mention of these two remaining rivers that has fueled a never ending search for the garden of eden. for centuries, people have looked everywhere from the depths of the persian gulf to rural missouri and even the planet mars. >> i have a problem with the whole looking for the garden of eden because how are you going to know when you found it? there's no sign posts to it because writing hasn't been invented yet. >> and that brings us back to the bible writings, tigris and the euphrates.

a perfect back drop for the biblical beginning. >> you have got the place that early man and early women could live kind of in idyllic harmony and with the food readily accessible and all that. we've talking about an earthly paradise. >> we're told that adam and eve have everything they could need, but in order to keep this, they had to obey one rule. >> god tells adam and eve not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. >> and god warned them that if they disobeyed they would die. a snake comes along and says once you have access the tree of wisdom you can become like the gods. you can move up the ladder. >> in a very human moment we're told, eve couldn't resist the temptation to take more. so she took a bite and she passed the apple to adam. it was the snack that changed history.

>> the man and the woman hide because they're afraid. because they know they have done something wrong. >> when god says did you eat? it's adam who points the finger at eve and not only at eve, but at god. because he says, she gave me, and you gave her to me. >> now an angry god casts his creation out of paradise. and just like adam, throughout the millennia everyone has blamed eve. >> women are blamed for lots of things that perhaps they need not. adam could have said, that's fruit. i'm not going to eat it. but he took the fruit and he ate it. >> does that trouble you the way it's been portrayed? >> of course it's troubling, but it reminds me that the bible for all that we say it's a divine document it is written from a man's point of view. >> ironically in the koran, there's more than enough blame to go around.

>> both adam and eve are to blame equally for eating the forbidden fruit. so they're coequal human beings. i think that's been lost in today's narrative and i think that's something important to keep in mind. >> but in the end it didn't really matter whose fault it was. they both suffered the consequences of disobeying god. the first lesson of genesis is cold and hard. for humans sustaining life on this earth is not meant to be easy. >> we have to go out into that cold, suffering world where we labor by the sweat of our brows and give forth our children in pa pain and we have to suffer and die. >> we christians believe that this is why jesus came, to solve that problem. to pay the penalty for sin. >> but maybe when eve made the choice that christians call original sin, it was something more. maybe it was the first act of original thought.

>> adam and eve, free will? >> oh, absolutely free will. that's the story of you can make a choice. what's the most horrible thing that faces a human being. you've got to choose. >> on our journey, we met believers who say the bible is the literal truth, straight from the mouth of god. do you think that it happened? and we met others even those of faith who believe that these are stories, and have been passed down through the generations. >> what brought you to israel? a regard of a people's struggle with the world. and their place in it. so how are we meant to read the book of creation? >> this is a wonderful myth. a myth is more than history. it's telling you the meaning of history. the meaning of events. >> god can communicate truth

through different types of literature. it doesn't have to be newspaper-style account of what happened. >> for instance, was the world created in seven days or did it take millions of years of evolution? both. both. >> so you're saying that as a catholic priest? >> yes, absolutely. >> science gives us insight into the how, how the universe works. how particles behaves but gives zero insight into why. i mean, why are we here, what's the meaning of it all? for some people, religion offers some degree of insight into those very important questions. >> important and difficult questions the bible forces us to think about. like jealousy and rage. and why some people come to hate and harm each other. a lesson starkly taught in the story of the first children, the first siblings.

kane is a shepherd and abel is a farmer. both offer sacrifices to god, but god likes abel's better. >> this is about life as we know it. and life as we know it is not fair. we feel the pain of those whom god hasn't chosen. >> in a fit of jealousy, cain kills his brother abel. >> information the first example of murder and the gravity of which god holds the tank of another human -- taking of another human life. >> and yet, human kind is still at it. as surely as cain killed abel, the slaughter of innocence continues in the very place the bible tells us this story was set -- today's syria. racked by the most brutal of wars. and in a sleepy town in connecticut, the horrifying massacre of children in their

elementary school. >> how do we make sense of our torn war and torn personalities and the conflict and the despair we fall into when we see suffering and injustice? >> what we think the bible does really well, how could we do this better? if i were in this person's shoes, how would i have acted? if i'm judge and jury, what punishment would i assess? what would i want my peers to do to me? coming up, with all the extreme weather punishing our planet, hurricanes, floods, tsunamis, imagining noah's flood isn't hard to do. so did it happen? we meet a man convinced it did and he's building an ark of his own. ♪ ♪

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who was jesus? >> was jesus a healer and exorcist? i think so. >> that's enough for me in employ devotion. not enough as a scientist. >> where was he born? >> this is the bethlehem we ought to be looking. a. >> what did he look like? >> i can never reconcile myself to having long blond hair and blue eyes. >> join cnn as we explore the mystery of jesus, christmas eve on cnn. and now, amid hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis, meet a modern day noah who is rebuilding the biblical ark as "back to the beginning with christiane amanpour" continues.

>> the story of noah and his ark is one of the best known and best loved. so we came here to the netherlands. crisscrossed by canals and sitting below sea level where people live under the constant threat of flooding. we had heard that a kind of modern day noah had done something extraordinary. thanks for having us to your ark. >> it's amazing. >> to be frank, i never thought i'd say that to anybody. >> he built himself his own biblical ark. >> so that was a rooster? >> that was a rooster. >> what animals have you got in your ark? >> i was plastic animals. >> not quite like noah. >> no. he had the real animals. >> in fact it's a real flood that inspired johan webers, a

born again christian, to build this ark. he normally drowned in a storm surge in 1992 and a next day a book caught his eye among the wreckage. >> it was the book of noah. i looked at the book, i said, oh, wow, i'm going to build the ark of noah. my children were so excited. and they ran to my wife. >> what did she say? >> she was not happy. >> yeah, women are sensible. >> yeah. it took 13 years to get permission. >> it took you 13 years to convince her? >> yes. >> you must have really believed th in this. >> 100%. >> it took johan over four years to build his ark. and he even used the bible as a blueprint. >> 50 elbow is the wide and 50 elbow is high. >> elbow -- >> from here to the top of your

finger. >> the cubit. >> yeah. i took mine. >> noah spent 120 years on his ark. and it's every child's favorite story. when the flood finally did come, he was ready. >> god sends two of every animal. all of them, two of every single one. came on to his ship. from the giraffes to the small little a little ants and the bears. it rained for 40 days and nights, and finally the whole entire earth was flooded. >> adam shaf is 17 when we meet him. and as fantastic as the noah story sounds even tonight not far from his home in new york, people are still trying to cope with the aftermath of hurricane sandy. it seems that whether it's a devastating storm hitting the present day united states or 7,000 years ago when a wave washes away the home you build, the children and community you love, the first question we all

ask is why. >> life often seems inexplicable. we need to make sense of it. we need something that will help you to assuage your grief and anguish and rage. these biblical stories are a way of finding meaning. >> when i was younger, the story was kind of a fairy tale for me. i think that when you get older you kind of see the sadness and the -- kind of the sorrow in the story because lots of people die in this flood. >> destroying the earth, the bible tells us is the only thing god ever regrets. so he sends a rainbow as a promise. >> this rainbow shows that god will never send a flood again to hurt humanity. and all the animals that live on this earth.

>> what happens next is left out of the colorful pages of storybooks. >> noah comes out of the ark and he plants a vineyard and gets drunk. now remembering a story of a holocaust story who went home to his village and found everyone had gone. he said i could understand exactly why noah got drunk. if you imagine what it would have like after the flood, devastation, all these swollen, bloated bodies lying around. terrible. >> and it turns out that flood stories like this are not unique to the bible. they can be found all over the ancient world. >> these stories didn't drop from heaven one day. like a clump of words all sent by god in book form. these stories developed in a certain place and time. >> leading some archaeologists to believe they're based on real events. >> people do not make these

things up. so does this mean that we have got a flood way back in antiquity? it may. the story is created to explain something that happened. >> but in the biblical account the story is layered with new meaning. the flood is sent as a punishment for people's sins. >> hurricane katrina was the judgment of god. >> i don't know how much that has to do, we've had an earthquake, a hurricane. he said are you going to start listening to me today? >> you know today some christians will say that the tsunamis and the floods are retribution from god for the sips being created. >> i don't know what basis they will say. >> on the noah basis? >> sometimes things happen. it doesn't mean he's judging people. >> but johan isn't so sure. do you believe he'll do it

again? >> worldwide, not anymore. but small ones, yes. >> so small places might be wiped away? >> like new york isn't a small place. >> no. >> it was a big disaster at that time. >> does that frighten you? >> yeah. but i'm also -- but also the problems of god it is in his hands. >> i feel like the moral of the story for me helping others will make the world a better place. and a better place for myself will be a better place for everyone. and for my children and for my children's children. and that's the kind of world that i want to live in and the kind of world that noah tells us about. >> coming up, just minutes from now, if you're the scientist who discovered the "titanic," what do you do for an encore? how about proving noah's flood really happened and where. see the amazing story when "back

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and now, he's the man who found the "titanic." but can he find evidence the biblical flood of noah's time happened too? "back to the beginning with christiane amanpour" continues. >> a journey to investigate the

story of noah and the ark led us to the black sea in turkey where we heard that tantalizing crews were being uncovered by the leading underwater archaeologist. >> let's get down on the deck. get closer down. >> we were astonished to learn that he believes the biblical flood could have actually happened. and he says he can find proof. >> stop here. what's this? what's this? >> if you were to discover definitively something that could pin science on the noah story, how fantastic would that be? >> well, it would be pretty cool. i'm confident we can. we just have to look. >> and ballad's track record speaks for itself. in 1985, he and his crew tracked down the world's most famous shipwreck -- the "titanic."

>> yeah! >> and the blockbuster movie about the night she went down was based on ballad's discoveries. now using advanced robotic technology, he's traveling even further back in time. >> i'm putting a lot of money in the water, obviously can't wait to see what it's going to see. >> on a watery archaeological dig that might even support the noah story. so you were saying as a scientist that it's not a crazy thing to think that this happened and you can find evidence for it. >> it's not a crazy thing to think that the flood stories of the various cultures including ours are based upon true, cataclysmic events.

>> ballard believes about 12,000 years ago much of the earth was covered in ice that began to melt. the oceans began to swell, causing a series of devastating floods all over the world. >> we talk about the floods of our living history. boy, they don't compare at all to the floods of ancient time. the question was there a mother of all floods? >> ballard thinks there was and he's testing a controversial theory that the biblical flood happened here. >> why the black sea? well, because the black sea appears to have had a giant flood. not a slow moving advancing sea level, but a really big flood and people were living there. >> the theory goes, this was once an isolated fresh water lake, but then when the mediterranean swelled -- >> at some moment, it broke

through and flooded this place violently. >> what did noah or the people who lived there during what you believe to be this huge flood, what did they see? >> they probably -- it was probably a bad day and a lot of real estate, 150,000 square kilometers of land went under. >> and 400 feet below the surface, ballard believes he's found proof of that catastrophic event. >> i love it. i love it. i love it. i love it. >> they unearthed an ancient shore line. >> well, we dated it. about 5,000 b.c. >> that is about the time that the bible says that noah and the great flood happened. >> exactly. >> i mean, wow. >> wow. so it nailed it. >> ballard and others who agree with the so-called black sea theory believe the survivors of this traumatic event passed the story down generation to generation and inspired the biblical account. >> here's the problem. when people read the story, they

said, well, did it cover the whole planet in water? no. but it covered their world. >> so that explains the stories that were handed down? >> correct. remember, you have to take it from the perspective of the storyteller. i mean, they didn't know there was a north america and a south america. as far as they were concerned it was the whole world. >> scientists disagree with the details of the flood, but ballard is confident that he's on the right track. >> you feel lucky, don't you, gielgt? >> they have been finding things. >> what's this, what's this? >> what is that? >> that's it, baby. come on in. >> like ancient pottery. >> big ones. >> and even more. so what are we look -- >> you're looking at what you shouldn't be looking at. that's a perfectly preserved ancient shipwreck and all the

lumber. >> this dated back to 500 b.c. was in surprisingly good condition, preserved because the black sea has almost no ox general and that slows down the process of decay. >> if you look closely you will see the femur bone right there. >> you found human remains from 2,500 years ago? >> correct. we have just begun. so imagine what's waiting for us. >> ballard is now convinced he'll find evidence of a civilization from the time of noah, 7,000 years ago, that was completely washed away. i think perhaps most people other than the true, true believers would think it was a fool's errand to try to retrace noah, to try to find -- >> yeah, foolish to think you'll ever find a ship, but can you find people who were living? can you find their villages that are under water now and the answer is yes.

coming up, so many adventurers, true believers, even a former "baywatch" star believe this is where noah's ark came to rest. journey there with us when "back to the beginning with christiane amanpour" returns. [ male announcer ] the new new york is open. open to innovation. open to ambition. open to bold ideas. that's why new york has a new plan -- dozens of tax free zones all across the state. move here, expand here, or start a new business here and pay no taxes for ten years...

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and now the search for noah's ark, adventurers, astronauts, even a "baywatch" star can't resist one of the most forbidden mountains. what lies at the top? as "back to the beginning with christiane amanpour" continues. >> the bible tells us when the great flood finally began to recede, the ark holding noah and the earth's only other survivors came to rest on the mountains of ararat. and today a mountain by that very name can be found towering 16,000 feet over the badlands of eastern turkey. >> from the history of the bible it's a first place that can be located with any degree of certainty. >> we're sure it's there? >> you know what, all i can say is that ararat was the tallest

mountain in the middle east and if there was a flood and if the waters started to go down, this would have been the first piece of land to emerge. >> pinpointing mount ararat on the map has inspired true believers and treasure hunters from all over the world to climb the jagged peak in search of the biblical boat. among them, some very unlikely pilgrims like donna d'errico. a former playmate and "baywatch" star. >> up there, that's one of the areas that we think two pieces of the ark are. >> i know it sounds ludicrous and i know that most people out there don't think that noah's ark ever really happened and they don't believe in that stuff. where the rocks fell, right? >> right. >> but that's not how it is for me. i'm looking for something that is there.

i wasn't on vacation. i was there to fulfill my dream. it was very frightening climbing up there. >> wow. >> whoa. >> exhaustion and a couple of close calls took their toll. d'errico risked life and limb, driven on by her renewed catholic faith. >> we were all raised in the church and, you know, i fell away for a while. and i did some things that today i would never do. but i have returned to the church and i'm living my life more like i used to. >> and she's recording this experience to spread the message of a story that so deeply affected her. >> the entire human civilization was wiped out, except for the eight people on the ark. we all came down from them. i believe the bible and i believe it happened. i believe it landed on mount ararat and it's still there.

>> she also made videos to send to her children at home. >> i miss you guys, i love you. better i can't tell you exactly where we are because we're kind of keeping that a secret. >> ed davis was an american world war ii soldier who also braved this ugh rugged terrain. >> i found i think one of ed davis's caves that he stayed in. he's one of the witnesses of the ark. >> davis claimed to have seen the ark while on a mission to deliver supplies from the russian front. the artist elfred lee later made this drawing based on davis's description. >> you see the rock slide? >> shifting rocks under foot were a constant danger, and just

days into the assent, she nearly fell to her death from 10,000 feet. >> i stepped on a rock that wasn't secure and the rock gave way and all of them started moving with me on top. i was headed towards the edge of the cliff. my feet were dangling. i would have been a goner. >> a fellow climber pulled her to safety, and despite her injuries, d'errico pressed on. >> my injury is much better. you can see. here's the view from inside my tent. yesterday we climbed up there. it was a really tough climb. >> it just so happens that right here, the turkish army and kurdish separatist guerrillas are always fighting, and a flare-up of tensions between them ultimately forced d'errico off the mountain. >> the dangers just got to be too great on the mountain. i look really awful. i'm really happy and excited to be going home. >> with ararat's mysteries still

shrouded in snow and ice, she left empty handed, badly injured, but undeterred. >> i'm so drawn to there and i feel like i didn't finish what i set out to do because i had to cut it short. i always said they would do it before i die. yeah, i'm going to go back. >> over the years, there have been many claims of success. but archaeologists think the discoveries have more to do with faith or fraud than actual fact. >> you have to think scientifically. there's probably not going to be anything left. the ark is made out of wood. it's going to have disintegrated. the story is from the early part of genesis, which we're not sure actually happened. >> if nothing's ever been found, bruce filer wanted to know what keeps drawing people back year after year? so he decided to climb the mountain himself, and he brought along a film crew to capture what, if anything, was hidden

beneath the snows of mount ararat. and on his journey, he spoke to a man whose family has lived on the mountain for generations. he has no doubt the ark is there. >> he was this kurdish man and he's claimed to have fallen into this hole on the top of the glacier and found this piece. i asked if he would show it to me. you believe what you found is that the arc came to rest on this mountain. >> yes. >> will you take me there? >> no. >> i said my mother is dying, which is a lie. if you show it to me, my mother can live in peace. he wouldn't show it to me. >> why wouldn't he? because he didn't have it? >> he said you can tell your mother that in all the world, there's one person who's seen the noah's ark and the story is real. even if he's got a piece of wood with a sign on it that says noah built me, there is still not going to be evidence that god called noah to do this. we're not going to find some lost voice of god, like some lost beatles song that we can

digitally remaster and put on the internet. >> so instead, he believes that people will continue to search for the ark and anything else from the bible stories that they might be able to see or touch or feel. >> there is this desire to reconnect with the story and that continues today. i think if you can prove that one screw existed, you can prove that the whole machine existed. next, we dig through the sands of egypt and trek across the ancient deserts of caanan to unravel jealousy and betrayal, when "back to beginning" returns. ♪

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i'm christiane amanpour, and we're on a journey back to the

beginning. we've set off to try to unravel some of the history and the mysteries that lie behind the stories of the bible, from genesis to jesus. we're overlooking the old city of jerusalem, where so many of those stories are said to unfolded. but our journey is taking us to cities and deserts across the ancient world. so come along with us. after the great flood, the bible says that god made a promise to never again destroy the earth. noah's family prospered and their descendents spread across the world. but noah's drunkenness and the bad behavior of his sons had greatly displeased god. still unsatisfied with his creation, he set out again to find the one man that he could trust above all others. >> he tries adam and eve, and that fails. he tries noah, and that fails.

he is searching for a human partner. it's 20 generations after adam and eve that he first meets abraham. >> when we first meet abraham in the book of genesis, we're told that he had settled with his father and his wife sarah in a town called haran. a place where people were known to worship many different gods. and then out of the blue, this lowly shepherd received a call from the god of the hebrew bible, summoning him to leave his home for a new life at once. >> god says to abraham, go to this land that i will show you and i will make of you a great nation. it would have been helpful if abraham would have said which land, and by the way, does it have oil. >> but abraham did not question god's promise, and this one man's unflinching devotion to only one god