Abraham and Sarah are fiction. The Exodus never happened. And Moses didn’t write the first five books of the Bible. Those are some of the claims made on The Bible’s Buried Secrets, a new two-hour PBS special that airs November 18, nationwide.

One expert not on the program is Dr. Paul Maier. He’s professor of ancient history at Western Michigan University, a graduate of Harvard, and appeared on the ABC special, The Search for Jesus. We asked him about the claim that Abraham never lived. Here's what he said:

There is absolutely no evidence against the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob--not at all.  If there were positive evidence for it, well then the whole historicity of the Genesis account would be called into question, and it would be a fair subject for argumentation.  But there is nothing like that found at all.

Dr. Maier says we can trust the Bible, but not this PBS special:

Clearly, the Nova special on PBS is one- sided.  It presents only the evidence which opposes the biblical record, which claims that Abraham never existed, his wife Sarah never existed, the patriarchs, Isaac, Jacob never existed.... and so on into the night.  This is, frankly, ridiculous in terms of the evidence.

So, for this special and its claims, viewer discretion is advised.

We hope this has helped you learn to discern—and that you’ll share this with a friend.