Walking the Bible

It's a bizarre but intriguing idea: to embark on a 10,000-mile adventure to “experience the Bible in the land where it was born.” Based on Bruce Feiler's New York Times bestseller of the same name, this three-part documentary is, if nothing else, an extraordinary travelogue. By conveyances both orthodox (truck, rowboat, train, foot) and unorthodox (camel), Feiler visits 10 countries (and several war zones) on three continents. His companions are archeologist Avner Goren and the Good Book, which Zeiler respectively consults for historical and spiritual guidance (“the Bible had lost relevance to my life,” he notes). Feiler is not the most gripping of guides, lacking a certain gravitas that would have lent weight to this project, and his writing can be alternately pedestrian and overblown (as witness his observation that Goren knows “every grain of sand” in the Middle East). But Feiler's physical journey and personal odyssey—from the Garden of Eden on the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, to Mount Ararat, where Noah's Ark is said to have landed, to the “great and terrible wilderness” of the Sinai Desert, through which Moses and the Israelites trekked for 40 years in search of the Promised Land—often makes for compelling viewing. DVD extras include behind-the-scenes photos, a book excerpt, and a Q&A with Feiler. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (D. Liebenson)