saturday working on a replacement for a broken cooling pump. without the pump, some of the station's important electronics have been shut down. the second space walk was originally scheduled for monday, but that's being delayed while they make adjustments to one of the space suits. i'm rosa flores, you're watching cnn, the most trusted name in news. tonight on "back to the beginning," did the exodus happen? >> can we see the ark of the covenant? >> soon, the world as we know it will come to an end. >> come with us as we continue our epic journey around the world and across time, as a war correspondent who has seen everything that tears us apart -- >> christiane amanpour in israel. >> searches for what unites us. >> christianity, judaism, and

islam have so much in common. >> the danger is real and so are the discoveries. >> our guide is carrying a gun. >> look at this, guys. is this cool or what? >> as we trace the saga, spanning generations of grief, envy, love, betrayal, and forgiveness. "back to the beginning with christiane amanpour." we're thrilled to have you join us on a great adventure, a trip across the ancient world, as we plumb the secrets and the mysteries of the bible. those stories from genesis to jesus, still incredibly today have the power to comfort us and to guide us, to cause us to go to war, and also to make peace. today, jews, christians, and moslems revere the same tortured, often brave, always

fallible heroes that stride across the pages of this book. as our journey continued, we headed east into the sinai desert, following the trail of yet another complicated biblical hero. moses. wanted for murdering an egyptian slave driver who was beating up an israelite worker. the bible says that moses traveled this way to flee the pharaoh's death sentence. >> so we're whizzing through this desert at top speed because of the potential danger. >> the tension was growing in egypt as people waited for the results of their first democratic presidential election. in the political turmoil, authorities were losing control of this remote bandit ridden region. >> there are bedoins around here. our guide has put on a head scarf to try to blend in a little bit more and he's also

carrying his gun. >> wait, you have a gun, sir? >> yes. >> when was the last time someone was kidnapped? >> yesterday night. >> okay, are you nervous, kids? okay, so why are we stopping? >> suddenly our driver pulled over in the middle of nowhere to have a chat with a local. it seems out here, everyone knows one another and gossip travels fast. what does he say? >> the road, now it's okay. don't worry. and if anything happens, come back to us. don't worry. >> all right, we're safe? >> yeah, yeah. we are safe. >> with our peace of mind restored, we arrived at st. katherine's monastary. >> when people come here, they're astonished at how harsh

and stark everything is. >> we are welcomed by father justin, a greek orthodox priest and a texan by birth. he is the caretaker of the monastary. >> you must have had so many pilgrims. what is it they take away? >> they become aware that you have to be away from the distractions and routines of modern life to really become aware of god's presence. >> according to the bible and the koran, this is where moses married a local girl, had a few children, and became a shepherd, a seemingly simple existence for the man who would go on to lead the exodus. but as the bible tells it, his time as a shepherd was the perfect preparation for what was to come. >> being a shepherd so muches

t -- softens the heart of the prophet. >> meanwhile, far away, the bible says that moses's brethren, the israelites, were still enslaved by the pharaoh, building his grand palaces and temples. the bible says they were fed up and began to groan and cry out to their god. >> jews have been at the forefront of almost every social justice movement of the 20th century. when you look at the civil rights marches, there were very off jews in the front row and second row. i think there's a straight line from that groaning in the story of the exodus do-to-that. the idea that we speak up. >> it seems god heard their cries. the bible says that moses, who was living in peace and quiet, then got the surprise of his life. >> everything is peachy keen

until one day he notices a bush that seems to be on fire, and yet it's not consumed. and from that bush comes the voice of god. >> and according to tradition, that miraculous bush is still right here today. >> there's the burning bush. what is the structure around it? >> that had to be enclosed when that was engulfed with pilgrims. >> people tried to take bits away? >> a person could reach. >> father justice tells us that st. katherine's, one of the oldest monasteries in the world, has been protecting the bush from relic-hungry pilgrims for more than 15 century. >> are you convinced this is the burning bush? >> we believe this is place that god revealed himself in such an extraordinary way. >> according to the bible, it was at that very moment that god

first revealed his name. in hebrew, it means "i am who i am." >> basically moses is given the mission. go down -- shall we sing it? go down, moses. go down and tell pharaoh to let my people go. >> god signals to him that he has to be the leader of the jews. and his first response is effectively i don't want to. or i wouldn't be good at it. >> he's an unsure leader. don't pick me, god. how many of us -- you know, if some finger came out of the sky and said you, we would say no, not me, not me. >> but it turns out there was another figure in ancient egypt who didn't hesitate to give everything up to follow the path of who he believed was the one and only true god. far away from the ancient royal capitals of luxor, archaeolog t archaeologists have discovered the remains of the lost city of

amanah. >> quite a deserty space. >> the pharaoh that built this city's revolutionary ideas about just one god shook ancient egypt to its core. >> how are you? >> what does your name mean? >> it's a classic arabic name meaning the story teller. >> she says that when he gave up the comfort of his palaces along the fertile nile delta and moved to this desolate place, it was an act of devotion to his one god. why did he come here? what kind of an outlier was he? >> the idea was to find a place that was never used by any other gods. to be virgin, as he called it. so he chose this place. >> at first glance, we couldn't

see much. but then a caretaker arrived to open a padlocked door and led us into one of the most beautiful tombs that we had seen so far. even thousands of years later, the walls are still covered with his radical message of monotheism. >> the main idea is the sun and the rays. >> and the influence, though, is the one god. >> that's the main idea. that the one god is responsible for everything. he looks after us. above everything, he looks after us. underneath, and he looks after us. >> in another tomb at the site, she shows us an inscription of the famous hymn. the hymn is surprisingly similar to psalm 104 from the old testament of the bible. a psalm that's often attributed to king david. connections lead you to believe certain things about moses.

>> as an archaeologist, maybe not. it goes, these type of words can never be manmade. no matter what you call this power. it's one at the end. >> and in all these religious traditions, judaism, christianity, and islam, moses finally answered god's call and headed home to face down the pharaoh. coming up, just minutes from now, snakes and hail and clouds of locusts. we go in search of the story behind the ten plagues and the pharaoh who messed with moses. our journey around the world and across time continues when "back to the beginning with christiane amanpour" returns.

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and now, snakes, storm clouds, and swarms of bugs. and who was the pharaoh who messed with moses? as "back to the beginning with christiane amanpour" continues. >> our journey back to the time of moses took us to the ruins of luxor. it is a grand reminder of the glory that once was ancient egypt. and at a dig nearby, we met betsy bryan, an american archaeologist who's unearthing clues about this place and its people. all the digging that's gone on for the last several hundred years, has that enabled us to reach a conclusion about history, about even the biblical stories? >> well, i think that there's always a new conclusion.

you know, the conclusions keep changing and people's ideas keep changing as a result of archaeology and historical studies. >> so there are always surprises. >> there are always surprises. >> and that's exactly what bryan and her team have been finding, amidst the ruins of a temple that was used during the biblical time of moses. how significant is this dig? >> this is where the workers worked and also where they lived. we have a temple over here, but you also have to have things like bread making, beer making. what's a surprise is this year we started to get a lot of human beings. they are probably the people who actually worked here, very poor people who are seemingly finding a place to bury their family members. >> really can't believe what i'm seeing. how old is that? >> well, it's probably around 1,700 bc. >> just jump down? >> if you can.

>> call it beginner's luck, but graduate student katherine davis made this rare find on her second dig. >> we were excavating this here, and we saw in the wall of this room this bone sticking out and then we saw the two arm bones, and then teeth. and actually, in excellent shape. >> in really excellent shape. >> it was the first thing we noticed. these pearly white teeth. >> is it exciting for you? >> oh, i think it's fabulous. i mean, i'll be honest. i mean, you're discovering something that nobody has seen for thousands of years. it's very hard to resist that. >> the man she's just found was one of legions who likely worked here for the pharaohs. the bible says among them were the israelites, but so far nobody has turned up hard, archaeological evidence of that. >> how much of egypt is yet to be dug up? >> i have no idea, but all i can

tell you is that you cannot dig anywhere in egypt and not find something. that's the truth. >> but bryan told us there was one place we might find a small clue as to what happened to the biblical israelites. so we left luxor and headed north to cairo. just across the street from tahrir square, the birthplace of egypt's recent revolution. there's the egyptian museum, where you can find a treasure-trove of ancient artifacts. among them, one that may prove that once upon a time, the ancient israelites were here. >> we're going to take a journey back in time? >> travel to unravel. >> this is ahmed, a young, aspiring egyptologist. we asked him to show us this monument, the earliest evidence of israel's existence in the egyptian record. it belonged to a pharaoh who ruled more than 3,200 years ago. king meramtah.

what is it? >> view it as a facebook page. the royal facebook page for the king. this is a propaganda. >> it tells the story of the king's successful military campaigns. and one of the last entries talks about a victory over the people of israel. >> when you look at the inscription here, israel. what does this say? israel is laid waste. and literally, then, it's no more. >> the monument originally belonged to the famed ramsese the great. was he the pharaoh that moses confronted? it's not fully proven, but the idea is backed up by the biblical account of the israelite slaves. if there was evidence of the exodus, would it make sense that it would be around the time of

ramsese? >> the bible speaks of slaves being put to work by a cruel pharaoh. and names the cities that they were put to work in, and one of them is ramsese. so it's a real place. so those kind of clues make one think well, maybe there really is something to placing this exodus in that time period. coming up, did the red sea really part? and what was the route of the exodus? wait until you see what we discovered on our journey when "back to the beginning with christiane amanpour" returns. if yand you're talking toevere rheuyour rheumatologistike me, about trying or adding a biologic. this is humira, adalimumab. this is humira working to help relieve my pain. this is humira helping me through the twists and turns. this is humira helping to protect my joints

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and now, snakes, storm clouds, and swarms of bugs. and who was the pharaoh who messed with moses? as "back to the beginning with christiane amanpour" continues. >> in the bible's story, after decades in the desert, moses obeyed god's order to go back to egypt. >> and so moses goes back to the egypt in which he grew up, to the court where he learned and became a young man. and confronts pharaoh.

surely someone he knew as a young man. to say here i am, i'm not the egyptian you thought i am. i too am an israelite and i'm asking for my people to be released. >> to convince the pharaoh, god gave moses the power to perform what the bible refers to as signs and wonder. >> it's not the case that he goes to pharaoh and says let my people go and pharaoh says -- >> okay. >> okay. >> the most famous of these powers was the ability to turn his staff into a snake. in the ancient world, stories of snakes and magic were common. >> a magician takes a little image of wax, which can be held in the hand of a crocodile, and as soon as he throws it on the ground, it becomes a real crocodile, until the magician grabs the crocodile by a tail, and once again, it reverts to a small size in his palm. >> these magicians were men of high status in ancient egypt.

it's a tradition that continues to this day. >> yikes! >> back in luxor, we met mohamed. he comes from a long line of snake charmers. his snakes, on the other hand, not so charming. oh, my goodness, there's something -- oh, he's pooped. gross snake. do you know the story of moses, mohamed? >> turn into a snake, this was from god. god made that happen. >> right. so can you turn the snake into a stick? >> he says he doesn't have the special powers. >> you don't have special powers? he can't do it. it only comes from god? moses was a prophet. moses gave his brother aaron the job of impressing the pharaoh. >> he throws down his staff, it becomes a serpent. >> and when the magicians of egypt attempted to do the same

thing, but moses's rod had the advantage. he swallowed them all up. >> the magicians effectively laugh at him. they say this is a little piece of trickery. forget about it. >> unimpressed, pharaoh still refused to let the israelites go. it was at this point that god unleashed a series of disasters, known as the ten plagues. >> these are absolutely horrible. as horrible as anything you can imagine. >> and every spring, jews commemorate the exodus story in the passover. they remember the ten plagues by placing on each plate a drop of wine for every plague. >> hail, gnats, flies, things of that sort. >> wild beasts. plague. boils. darkness. which is supposedly not only a darkness that was the absence of light but a darkness that was too thick to pass. it was so dark that you

literally couldn't walk through it. >> it would look like a short series of natural disasters. most of the people sort of understood in terms of their gods and their religion. >> can we account for the plagues naturally? probably. is that the point of the story? certainly not. in the space of a year, these ten disasters destroyed egypt. and that's the point. it's a miracle. miracles don't beg natural descriptions. miracles are miracles. they are when god intervenes in the order of nature. >> then god told moses to prepare the people for the coming of the tenth and worst plague, the killing of all the first born. >> moses instructed the jews to sacrifice a lamb and to paint its blood on their door so that the angel of death would know who was jewish and who wasn't. this is where the term passover comes from. >> passover that house. >> right. >> the sadah is a time when jews are encouraged to ask questions,

especially the children. >> how do you wrestle with that? what does it mean? >> i think there are a lot of ways to wrestle with it. you can wrestle with the political ramifications. freedom never comes easily. wars never end easily. people do not obtain rights easily. but it says that when we divorce justice from mercy, that is pure evil. so it was unquestionably just to free slaves. and it's unquestionably right to be merciful. but it certainly seems in the tenth plague, like mercy has been divorced from justice. whatever we think about the egyptian enslavers, we must believe that some of them were good people. some of them were at least indifferent. and we know that the instant in were innocent. >> the bible says the angel of death swept through egypt. even the pharaoh lost his own son and he quickly sent for moses. >> through all the first nine,

it was possible for the pharaoh to say this was not enough. say i'm not ready to free the jews yet. it's hard to imagine that the egyptians themselves weren't saying -- >> enough already. >> enough already. especially because these palaces weren't being built for them, but for the pharaoh. but at the killing of the first born, which included the pharaoh's son, the pharaoh finally said enough. >> and the bible says the pharaoh told moses, "take your people and go." coming up, did the red sea really part? and what was the root of the exodus? wait until you see what we discovered on our journey, when "back to the beginning with christiane amanpour" returns. o. shave a face with anything but proglide... what are we, animals? the gillette fusion proglide, precision equipment with less tug, less pull for unrivaled comfort even on sensitive skin.

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and now, we follow the route of the exodus. did moses really part the red sea to escape the pharaoh's armies? as "back to the beginning with christiane amanpour" continues. >> the story of the exodus begins here on the banks of the river nile. a mighty pharaoh has been humbled, and he allows moses to lead the israelites out of egypt. the bible is talking about a massive mobilization of people. >> the figure is given 600,000

weapon-bearing males. if you add in the men, women, and children, you're approaching two million people. >> our exodus is just a bit smaller. my son dareus and i along with our train board a train at luxor station. >> here we are. number one. we are going to find and follow the biblical route into the sinai. >> but the route, the number of people, in fact the exodus itself, has left no archaeological trace. nor any written record other than the biblical account. >> there is virtually no evidence, as the torah says, that 600,000 jewish males with their wives and children and elders left egypt in the exodus. those are big numbers. you'd think someone would notice. >> the bible tells us the pharaoh had just lost his son and many of his people to the plagues, the wrath of god, and

now, with the israelites about to flee, the pharaoh was also going to lose a vital work force. >> with crushing results for the economy of the country and also for the political structure. >> and so the bible says pharaoh has a change of heart. instead of letting the israelites go, he musters his army and pursues them. >> and they wind up suddenly in a very, very bad situation. in front of them is the red sea. behind them is pharaoh's army. >> and moses says have you brought us this far only to abandon us? >> moses is there, his back is against the red sea. he doesn't know what to do. so the faith of our people rooted in that tradition and those stories says you may think that there are insurmountable obstacles before you. oh no. but there is a god somewhere who

is going to make things right. and god gives him instruction. >> and god says, why are you shouting to me? go. and moses lifts his hand, lifts the rod. and the sea splits. >> behold his mighty hand! >> the most famous image, of course, comes courtesy of hollywood in "the ten commandments" starring charlton heston as moses. contrary to popular belief, the bible doesn't tell us exactly where this took place. and as we tried to follow the route, we came across several possibilities. first, we traveled under the canal through a tunnel and then across the gulf on a ferry. and the holiday destination, we dipped our toes in the red sea

itself. one of the most dramatic moments of the exodus story could have taken place right here. that would have been the parting of the red sea, of course. only today, it's a middle eastern gold coast full of beach resorts and diving holidays, and the waters look decidedly less ominous. but today's red sea may not be the place. the original hebrew bible refers to it as the sea of reeds. and that leads some scholars to suggest the story might be describing more of a marsh. >> or the lagoon of swamp grasses, or something like that, which puts you in mind of a fairly shallow body of water. >> somehow a swamp crossing doesn't quite measure up to hollywood's "the ten commandments." >> the israelites passed through the sea on dry land and the water was like a wall on their right and on their left. >> the egyptians are coming on

their chariots and coming in, they're trying to get through that patch, and god stopped their chariot wheels, so the sea came crashing upon them and they all drowned on the command of moses's staff. >> 12-year-old samara shaw has been studying this story as she prepares for her bat mitzvah. and it's also the story that jews commemorate every year. >> these words have so much meaning, and this song in particular is really symbolizing our freedom, because this is the song that they sing once they were free. ♪ >> people of african decent were singing these spirituals based on the story of moses.

wickedness may reign. satan's cause may seem to gain. but there is a god who rules above, with a hand of power and a heart of love. and if i'm right, he'll fight my battles. >> the story of the exodus is, of course, timeless, as dramatically relevant today as it ever was. because freedom is a song that continues to be sung by those who have it and those who still struggle for it. >> what we say at the end is "next year in jerusalem." jerusalem is more than a place. it's an ideal. an ideal place where there are no slaves. where everybody has free do. >> does that mean the exodus continues? we never leave egypt, so to speak? >> or even if we're lucky enough to have left egypt, has everybody left egypt? one of the great ironies,

actually, is our thoughts are off with egyptians and their struggles. >> when they were marching in tahrir square, what was great was it was freedom that was born in the soil that had come back to the soil. what the moses story stands for is that the power is with the powerless. >> we had no guns. we hardly had a vote. we had no money. the only power that we had was the moral high ground. and god. ♪ coming up just minutes from

now, the ten commandments. what really happened on that mountain top? and what do you find when you climb sinai today? follow the amazing journey when "back to beginning with christiane amanpour" returns. ♪ ♪

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[ female announcer ] today cisco is connecting the internet of everything. so everything works like never before. "back to the beginning with christiane amanpour" continues. out of the darkness of slavery, freedom. moses and the israelites cross into the sinai. >> step number one on to moses's

sinai. >> my son dareus and i along with our team got up before dawn to join dozens of tourists and pilgrims to climb to the mountain top and see the place where the bible says god gave moses the ten commandments. mount sinai is no leisurely hike. >> i don't want to talk, i just want to climb. >> two hours into our climb, we were getting tired. dareus thought a camel might be a nice break. >> whoo! >> but it's not as easy as it looks. >> you feel like you're going to topple over the edge? >> yeah. >> as we regrouped in the dark and remote mountain range, it wasn't hard to imagine how the israelites waiting for moses to return got nervous. >> moses is up on the mountain 40 days, 40 nights. the israelites down at the foot of the mountain terrified that he is gone. >> alone, the bible says the israelites began to doubt the

one god and took comfort in a familiar bad habit. >> at the very moment that moses is sealing the deal with god, that's when they build the golden calf. >> when moses came down from the mountain with the commandments, he was shocked to find they had abandoned all self-control, drinking, carousing, and worse. worshipping a false idol. >> he's furious. god's furious. moses smashes the tablet. ultimately everybody shapes up and moses goes back up the mountain for a second shot at it. >> we've made it to the top of mount sinai, the sun has risen, and we're amongst pilgrims from all over the world. perhaps the sheer physical effort of getting up here -- >> pretty rough. >> adds to the spirituality.

♪ glory glory hallelujah ♪ >> the view is out of this world. and it seems fitting that this is the first and only place the bible says man ever came face-to-face with god. no matter what your faith, what happened here, this part of the exodus story, this part of moses's story, has affected all of us for millennia. ♪ his truth is marching on ♪ >> the ten commandments tell us not to kill, not to steal, not to lie. they tell us to worship and love god completely, to honor a day of rest, and to honor our mother and father. they have left an indelible mark on our moral code and our civil law. and in a sense, they're an early unifying response to the chaos and cruelty of the world, a declaration that with freedom

comes responsibility. >> it's why the statue of liberty, which was modelled on moses -- okay, the tablet's in her arms, the rays of light on her head, both of which come from the moment in which moses comes down mount sinai with the ten commandments. >> but like many stories in the bible, things weren't so straight forward. >> the story most people know was that moses got ten commandments on two tablets on mount sinai. there are a whole lot more than ten commandments. traditionally 613. >> many of these laws must have had some meaning during the time of moses, etch if they seem puzzling to us today. >> if you're wearing a fabric, you are not allowed to mix that fabric wool and linen together. if you ask the rabbis why, the answer is i don't know. god commanded it. >> god also commanded moses to build a portable temple for the

tablets called the ark of the covenant. >> the basketball tells us the dimensions of the ark of the covenant and what it looks like. it's a box, longhandles, supposed to have angels on the top. >> archaeologists have found evidence that boxes such as these were common in biblical times, sunlighting that the ark and its contents may have actually existed. and the ark would have come in handy because it was a long time before moses and his people had a permanent place to settle. according to the bible, the israelites were constantly on the move, spending 40 arduous years wandering in the desert. >> for 40 years in the wilderness, the jews just bitched at each other constantly. it is a nonstop rant. we are human. we complain. the israelites actually had the temerity to say maybe it would have been better to stay in egypt.

can you imagine? >> good morning. >> welcome. >> thank you. >> nice early morning to see the promised land. >> it is indeed. >> we met father fabian overlooking the place that moses has spent his whole life searching for. >> i think this is the last of the life of moses. when he's standsing here looking out, he's completed his mission. >> but moses would never cross into the promised land. after years of carefully following god's orders, risking it all on faith, he was denied his goal because of one mistake. as god had done so many times before, he gave moses some complicated orders to follow. he told him to speak to a rock to bring forth water.

instead, moses smacked the rock with a stick. the water came, but god was angry. and he delivered an unspeakably harsh punishment. for not listening, god told moses that though he had led his people here, they would go to the promised land without him. it strikes me that this must have been such a disappointment for him. that was his life's work. >> he knows this is the end of his journey. he's delighted because he's finished. he's 120. >> the bible says moses did the only thing he could. he reassured his people. >> i told the story to my son and he started to get weepy. it is an emotional story. if you think about all the things this person went through and then he can't enter the promised land. so my son starts to get weepy. >> how'd you comfort him? >> i said we're here to tell the story. that's the comfort, actually. there's certain stories in story

telling like greek myths that capture our imagination over time. it's hard to imagine a future in which they're not told. >> indeed, the story of moses at the mount echoes even in our own time. it is the story of a leader who's taken his people as far as he's able to go and who leaves him with the only thing that will sustain them. faith and the justice of their cause. >> i see god working in the 20th century. >> martin luther king who's been called the american moses gave this speech the night before he was assassinated. >> like anybody i would like to live a long life. >> martin luther king saying that just before he died as if it was a premonition. i mean, you must have thought of that a lot. >> of course i've thought of that a lot. i thought that he understood that his transition was at hand. he understood that it might even be a violent transition. >> and i've seen the promised

land. i may not get there with you but i want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land. next, from jericho to jerusalem, david and goliath, king solomon, what happened to the arc of the covenant? and is the staging for the apocalyp apocalypse? when "back to the beginning with christiane amanpour" continues.

tonight an amazing jury knew across. in search of daifrd and goliath, the arc of the covenant, the real armageddon. >> we are in the end times. >> as we investigate the mysteries behind the stories of the bible. if these stones could talk, what would they tell us? and can a war correspondent who has seen all that tears us apart discover what it is that can bring us together? "back to the beginning with christian amanpour" continues. driving through the region today known as the west bank,

the heart in biblical times, it's hard to believe that this was the promised land that moses tried for so long to reach but never did. until an unexpected batch of green comes into view signaling our arrival into jericho. >> jericho is one of the most interesting cities. there's a spring there that's still gushing out hundreds of gallons of water per minute. it's a beautiful place to live. this oasis in what is now the middle of the desert. >> it's believed to be the oldest continuously habited community in the world. traces of 23 distinct civilizations have been found in a small archaeological part on the outskirts of town. but what draws pilgrims from around the world is actually the biblical account of how one of these ancient civilizations may have disappeared. flying over the sprawling modern day jericho, we can just see the

footprint of ancient jericho where the bible tells us joshua led his people in their first conquest of life in the promised land. the bible tells us before his death of mount nibo, moses chose a man named joshua to lead the israelites on the last leg of their journey. >> we have this handing over of one generation to the next. where moses and his generation have been wandering. joshua is more action packed. it's where they come in and take over. >> as told in the book of joshua, the conquest has all the trappings of a summer blockbuster. >> sounds like a movie. it's an action-packed scene. >> with the arc of the covenant leading the way, joshua crossed the river jordan with his army. >> this is an elite fighting

force. >> the conquest is where -- >> conquered jericho by walking around the city seven times. >> the whole time carrying the mystical arc of the covenant which the bible describes as having special powers. >> god at that moment causes the walls to crumble and fall down. it's at that moment you get this image of them just rushing in on the city and flooding in and taking it over for better or for worse. however you view that kind of image. whether that's one of excitement and action or that's one of, hey, this is war. and war can be ugly. >> in this war, the bible makes clear that no prisoner should be taken alive. every man, woman, and child should be slaughtered. and according to the bible, this bloody battle was just the first stop on joshua's campaign.