Learning the basics of Biblical Hebrew from a book

“Our knowledge of Biblical Hebrew is directly dependent upon Jewish oral tradition and thus on the state of that tradition during and following the various dispersions of the Jews from Palestine. This dependence arises from the peculiarly deficient orthography in which the biblical text was written: it is essentially vowelless, or at most, vocalically ambiguous (see below, §8). The actual pronunciation of the language was handed down orally … The written consonantal text itself achieved a final authoritative form around the end of the first century A. D.”

– The introduction to Thomas O. Lambdin’s “Introduction to Biblical Hebrew” (1971), pages xiii-xiv

For nearly three years, I have read Thomas O. Lambdin’s “Introduction to Biblical Hebrew” – some 284 pages of it. Specifically, I read it from 14 August 2022 through 25 July 2025, at which time I completely finished it – excepting the appendices, index, and the entirety of the glossaries (although I read many parts of these glossaries). I did this completely from a book, and never had the benefit of a classroom, a professor, or a native speaker – or even a recording of one, for that matter! I’ve never heard so much as one hour of audio of the language, even from non-native speakers, and this made it somewhat daunting at times. It may have increased the difficulty level in at least some ways, and I don’t recommend it to others unless other options are not available (as they were not for me).

Why I am learning Biblical Hebrew

“And he [Jonah] said unto them, I am an Hebrew; and I fear the LORD, the God of heaven, which hath made the sea and the dry land.”

- The Hebrew Bible, “Jonah,” Chapter 1, Verse 9 (as translated by the King James Version of the Bible)

I’ve posted a lot on Facebook about how I’ve been learning Ancient Greek. There’s been a lot of good reaction to this over the years, and some of my posts about it have been surprisingly popular (at least by my standards). I plan to continue learning Ancient Greek, but I have recently decided to undertake the study of Biblical Hebrew as well. Why would I want to do this, you might ask? Why do I not content myself with the languages that I already know? This is what I address in this post. It’s easy to assume that I’m just doing this because this was the language of the “Old Testament” - or the “Hebrew Bible,” if you prefer. And in truth, that is indeed a big part of my motivation. But there are a few other reasons as well, which are also motivations for me to learn Biblical Hebrew. Thus, I thought that I’d write this post to explain.

Some thoughts about classical education

“[Chaerephon] went to Delphi and boldly asked the oracle to tell him … whether anyone was wiser than I was, and the Pythian prophetess answered, that there was no man wiser.”

“When I heard the answer, I said to myself, What can the god mean? and what is the interpretation of his riddle? for I know that I have no wisdom, small or great. What then can he mean when he says that I am the wisest of men?”

– Socrates at his trial, as recorded in Plato's “Apology”

Classical education, in this context, is the study of Ancient Greece and Rome

Classical education, in this context, is the study of Ancient Greece and Rome. It was once all the rage in Western schools, but that changed drastically in the 1960s. At that time, some thought the subject to be too focused on the “dead white guys” (as they saw them). There was also an increased focus on math and science education after the then-recent Sputnik crisis, and less focus on humanities education. The Classics survived (and still live on today), but are no longer seen as being “central” to Western education in the way that they were seen before. This is a shame, because the Greeks and Romans influenced so much of who we are today. They had a great influence on our art, sculpture, architecture, theater, drama, literature, philosophy, science, and even our form of government. If history is about understanding who we are and how we came to be that way, the Classics actually have much to tell us about our identity as a people, and how it came about.

The “Forum Romanum,” better known as the Roman Forum

How to write a killer history paper

You've probably heard of the six “journalist's questions”: who, what, when, where, how, and why. To a large degree, they are also the historian's questions; and may be good things to know about before you write that great paper about history.

Thus, I will spend some time here on each one of them, and show you the issues that might be raised by any one of them. You might not have to answer all six of them for every one of your papers, but giving some thought to each of them is not necessarily a bad idea, and might make the difference between a hit paper and a miss paper.

Reading about the trial of Socrates in the original Greek

“The unexamined life is not worth living.”

– Socrates at his trial, as recorded by Plato's “Apology”

Before beginning this project, I had just finished reading C. A. E. Luschnig's “An Introduction to Ancient Greek: A Literary Approach.” (More about that here.) I had earlier determined that after getting through this book, my first use of this (admittedly limited) proficiency would be to read all of the primary sources about the trial of Socrates in the original Greek. There aren't very many of them, I should add here, so I knew that this was a manageable task. Thus, I started doing so immediately after reading the introductory textbook about Greek.

Socrates

Learning the basics of Ancient Greek from a book

"The study of Ancient Greek has long been a bookish pursuit, and rightly so. For this language we have only the books (and other writings) of the Ancient Greeks to study. We have only part of a language, the part that can be written down."

- Preface to C. A. E. Luschnig's "An Introduction to Ancient Greek: A Literary Approach" (the book that I read), 2nd edition (2007), page x

It took me three and a half years to read this

For three and a half years, I have read C. A. E. Luschnig's "An Introduction to Ancient Greek: A Literary Approach," 2nd edition - some 280 pages of it. Specifically, I read it from 28 September 2013 through 13 May 2017, at which time I completely finished it. I did so completely from a book, and never had the benefit of a classroom, a professor, or a native speaker - or even a recording of one, for that matter! I've never heard so much as one hour of audio of the language, even from non-native speakers, and this made it somewhat daunting at times. It may have increased the difficulty level in at least some ways, and I don't recommend it to others unless other options are not available (as they were not for me). It was a long process that was sometimes tedious (though usually not at all so), but I'm nonetheless glad that I read it. It's given me access to the world of Ancient Greece, and may one day give me access to various parts of the Bible in the original.

Reflections on learning about history of Ancient Egypt

"Written by a team of pioneering archaeologists and acknowledged experts working at the cutting edge of Egyptology ... "

- The back cover of "The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt" (2000), edited by Ian Shaw

The Rosetta Stone: The key to Egypt

In 1799, one of Napoleon's soldiers discovered a mysterious stone in the Nile Delta, during the French campaigns into Egypt that year - a stone that would prove the key to Egyptology and its modern practice. The mysterious object was the Rosetta Stone, and it bore an inscription in three different writing systems - Egyptian hieroglyphics, a later Egyptian script called "Demotic," and an ancient variety of Greek that was well-known already to Europeans. Although this soldier didn't know it then, this bilingual inscription would allow a young scholar named Jean-François Champollion to decipher the pronunciations when he reached adulthood, since he was only nine years old at the time that his fellow Frenchman discovered this.

The Rosetta Stone

What is Egyptology?

The Napoleonic campaigns in general - and the decipherment of the Rosetta Stone in particular - ignited a wave of true "Egyptomania" back in Europe, which grew into the modern discipline of Egyptology. Many great discoveries have been made in this area by archaeological digs at various sites, and some of these have uncovered information that was not known to anyone for centuries. Perhaps because of this, the discipline of Egyptology is sometimes considered a subfield of archaeology - a field broad enough to include sites from Greece to Rome to China to Central America. This classification points out that the excavations done in Egypt are just some of the many across the world that attract the attention of archaeologists; and there is truth in this claim. Nonetheless, the study of Egyptology encompasses more than just "digging in the dirt," and embraces written records as well; with languages whose grammar must be seriously studied and understood before a proper and complete history of the Egyptian past can be written. Thus, the Europeans classify Egyptology as a philological discipline (or in other words, a "linguistic" discipline). This controversy over its classification continues today.

Reflections on learning about history of the Ancient Near East

"The term 'Near East' is not widely used today. It has survived in a scholarship rooted in the nineteenth century when it was used to identify the remains of the Ottoman empire on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea. Today we say Middle East to designate this geographical area, but the two terms do not exactly overlap, and ancient historians and archaeologists of the Middle East continue to speak of the Near East, as I will do in this book."

- Marc van de Mieroop's "A History of the Ancient Near East (ca. 3000 - 323 BC)", 2nd edition (2007), page 1

So I recently finished reading a book called "A History of the Ancient Near East, ca. 3000 - 323 BC" (2nd edition). This book is by Marc van de Mieroop, and it is one of the few books to cover this time period that is available on Amazon.

So why did I study this particular time period, you might be wondering? What exactly is the "Ancient Near East," anyway; and why would anyone read about it?

Falling in love with Classics: How I rediscovered Ancient Greece and Rome

"Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans, and of the Stoicks, encountered him [Paul]. And some said, What will this babbler say? other some, He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods: because he preached unto them Jesus, and the resurrection."

- The New Testament, "The Acts of the Apostles," Chapter 17, Verse 18 (as translated by the King James Version of the Bible)

I have long been a fan of Classical Studies, which - in the world of academia - has the specialized meaning of Ancient Greece and Rome. I wouldn't have predicted it in my youth, but I really got into classical studies when I got older. I didn't major in it or anything - I am merely an amateur who studies Classics as a hobby. But it was something that would change my life for the better, when I really got into it.

My favorite painting of Jesus Christ

Reflections on learning about history of Ancient Rome

"The great historian Edward Gibbon was right when he said that the story of the fall of the Empire was 'simple and obvious' and that therefore 'instead of inquiring why the Roman Empire was destroyed, we should rather be surprised that it had subsisted so long.' "

- D. Brendan Nagle's "Ancient Rome: A History" (published 2010), pages 309-310 - quoting Edward Gibbon's "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," Volume IV (published 1788-1789)

So I recently finished reading a textbook about the history of Ancient Rome. Any observations about my being a shameless nerd are readily agreed with.

Reflections on learning about history of Ancient Greece

"The history of the ancient Greeks is one of the most improbable success stories in world history. A small people inhabiting a country poor in resources and divided into hundreds of squabbling mini-states created one of the world's most remarkable cultures."

- Preface to "A Brief History of Ancient Greece: Politics, Society, and Culture" (2nd edition, 2009), page xv

So I recently finished reading a textbook about the history of Ancient Greece. (I've still got a long way to go in my book about the Ancient Greek language, but I've just finished my book about their history.) Fascinating stuff - I'm glad I invested the time in learning it.

Why the distant past isn't talked about

"One might also say that history is not about the past. If you think about it, no one ever lived in the past. Washington, Jefferson, John Adams, and their contemporaries didn't walk about saying, 'Isn't this fascinating living in the past! Aren't we picturesque in our funny clothes!'

"They lived in the present. The difference is it was their present, not ours. They were caught up in the living moment exactly as we are, and with no more certainty of how things would turn out than we have."

- David McCullough's "The Course of Human Events" (2003)

If you turn on the TV or go to a cinema, you'll most likely see movies and shows focused on the present. This is as it should be - the present should be lived in and understood. But one might assume from this that people aren't interested in history. To some degree, they aren't; but even though shows about the past are in the minority, you still see a sizable number of movies about World War II and other recent history. Once in a while, you even get a movie about some older history - anything from a John Adams miniseries or a Lincoln movie, to films about the Roman Empire or the Middle Ages.

But they're not as common as media about more modern history, like World War II or Vietnam. Even in the documentary world, talking about the more distant events is rare. Why is this?

Some thoughts about history education

My theory on learning history is that most people are interested in the subject - they just don't all realize it.

Why I am learning Ancient Greek

"I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last."

- The New Testament, "The Revelation of St. John the Divine," Chapter 22, Verse 13 (as translated by the King James Version of the Bible)

I've actually had the desire to learn Ancient Greek for a long time, but I didn't think I'd ever have the time or the opportunity to do it. I took an ethics class from NAU's philosophy department in May 2009 where we talked about the Greek philosopher Plato, and I posted on the 28th of that month that I "want[ed] to learn Ancient Greek."

Plato

But I never thought that I'd actually have the opportunity to do it. I thought: "I don't think I'll ever live near someplace where they offer a class in it. Only one university in Arizona has a Classics department, and that's U of A (which is 3 ½ hours away)."

But I recently realized that with a dead language, taking a class in the subject isn't as important, since I won't be needing to speak or listen to the language. If reading it is enough, I can learn it from a book. So it recently occurred to me to get a textbook about it, and start teaching myself Ancient Greek.

My passion for history

"History is about high achievement, glorious works of art, music, architecture, literature, philosophy, science and medicine - not just politics and the military - as the best of politicians and generals have readily attested. History is about leadership, and the power of ideas. History is about change, because the world has never not been changing, indeed because life itself is change ... History is the course of human events. And it must therefore be, if truthful, about failure, injustice, struggle, suffering, disappointment, and the humdrum. History demonstrates often in brutal fashion the evils of enforced ignorance and demagoguery. History is a source of strength, a constant reminder of the courage of others in times more trying and painful than our own."

- David McCullough's "The Course of Human Events" (2003)

Most of my Facebook and Blogger friends have seen my posts about history. Whether it's talking about the latest historical book or documentary that I've watched, or noting the anniversary of an important historical event, or even posting about a major historical individual on their birthday, I love posting about history. A few people have given me positive feedback on these historical posts.

But I have never, as yet, talked publicly about how I got interested in history. At the risk of boring my readers, I will now share some of the story about how I acquired my passion for history.

My favorite history documentaries

Disclosure: I am an Amazon affiliate marketer, and can sometimes make money when you buy the product using the link(s) below.

Ancient history

Egypt's Golden Empire (PBS Empires) - 2 ½ hours

Michael Wood's In Search of the Trojan War (BBC) - 6 hours

The Greeks: Crucible of Civilization (PBS Empires) - 2 ½ hours

Bettany Hughes' The Spartans (shown on PBS) - 3 hours

Bettany Hughes' Athens: The Dawn of Democracy (shown on PBS) - 2 hours

Michael Wood's In the Footsteps of Alexander the Great (BBC) - 4 hours

Rome: Rise and Fall of an Empire (History Channel) - 10 hours

Ancient Rome: The Rise and Fall of an Empire (BBC, requires code-free DVD player) - 6 hours

The Roman Empire in the First Century (PBS Empires) - 3 ½ hours

The Germanic Tribes (German-made) - 4 hours

Art history

Great Epochs of European Art: Art of the Ancient Greeks & Romans (German-made) - 2 hours

The Dark Ages: An Age of Light (BBC) - 4 hours

Kenneth Clark's Civilisation (BBC) - 11 hours

The Medici: Godfathers of the Renaissance (PBS Empires) - 4 hours

Michael Wood's Art of the Western World - 9 hours

Civilizations (BBC, shown on PBS) - 9 hours


Religious history

The Buddha: The Story of Siddhartha (PBS) - 2 hours

Kingdom of David: The Saga of the Israelites (PBS Empires) - 4 hours

Simon Schama's The Story of the Jews (shown on PBS) - 5 hours

Jerusalem: Center of the World (PBS) - 2 hours

How the Celts Saved Britain (BBC) - 2 hours

Ancient Roads from Christ to Constantine (shown on PBS) - 5 ½ hours

The Life of Muhammad (BBC, shown on PBS) - 3 hours

Islam: Empire of Faith (PBS Empires) - 3 hours

Martin Luther (PBS Empires) - 2 hours

David Starkey's Henry VIII: Mind of a Tyrant (requires code-free DVD player) - 3 hours

David Starkey's The Six Wives of Henry VIII - 3 hours


The Middle Ages

Byzantium: The Lost Empire (The Learning Channel) - 3 ½ hours

The Dark Ages (History Channel) - 1 ½ hours

Michael Wood's In Search of the Dark Ages (BBC, requires code-free DVD player) - 6 hours

Vikings: The Real Warriors (BBC) - 3 hours

The Normans (BBC, requires code-free DVD player) - 3 hours

The Normans: The Complete Epic Saga (privately made) - 3 hours

The Crusades (BBC) - 3 hours

The Crusades: Crescent and the Cross (History Channel) - 3 hours

The Plague (History Channel) - 1 ½ hours (often available as bonus feature for The Dark Ages)

The Plantagenets (BBC, requires code-free DVD player) - 3 hours

Britain's Bloodiest Dynasty: The Plantagenets (British-made) - 4 hours

Britain's Bloody Crown (British-made) - 3 hours

The Wars of the Roses: A Bloody Crown (British-made) - 2 hours

The Stuarts & The Stuarts in Exile (BBC, this part is technically post-Middle-Ages, requires code-free DVD player) - 5 hours


History of the British Isles generally

Simon Schama's A History of Britain (BBC, with American financing) - 15 hours

David Starkey's Monarchy (U. K.) (British-made) - 17 hours

Michael Wood's Story of England (BBC) - 6 hours

Frank Delaney's The Celts (BBC) - 6 hours

Neil Oliver's A History of Scotland (BBC Scotland) - 10 hours

Huw Edwards' The Story of Wales (BBC Wales) - 6 hours

Fergal Keane's The Story of Ireland (BBC Northern Ireland) - 5 hours

Andrew Marr's Modern Britain 1901-2007 (BBC - requires code-free DVD player) - 10 hours


World history

Alistair Cooke's America: A Personal History of the United States (BBC, requires code-free DVD player) - 10 hours

Canada: A People's History (CBC and Société de Radio-Canada) - 32 hours

Australia: The Story of Us (Australian-made - requires code-free DVD player) - 6 hours

Africa's Great Civilizations (PBS) - 6 hours

Michael Wood's The Story of India (BBC) - 6 hours

Michael Wood's The Story of China (BBC) - 6 hours

Japan: Memoirs of a Secret Empire (PBS Empires) - 2 ½ hours


History of the English language

Melvyn Bragg's The Adventure of English (British-made) - 6 hours


Famous reigning queens

David Starkey's Elizabeth (Elizabeth the First, British-made) - 3 hours

Catherine the Great (PBS) - 2 hours

Queen Victoria's Empire (PBS Empires) - 3 ½ hours


Early Latin America

In Search of History: The Aztec Empire (History Channel) - 1 hour

Breaking the Maya Code (PBS) - 2 hours

Michael Wood's Conquistadors (BBC, shown on PBS) - 4 hours


Colonial America

Secrets of the Dead: Jamestown's Dark Winter (PBS) - 1 hour

The Pilgrims (PBS) - 2 hours

The Seven Years' War

The War That Made America (PBS) - 4 hours


The American Revolution (my main posts and my other posts)

Overviews of the war

Liberty! The American Revolution (PBS) - 6 hours

History Channel's "The Revolution" - 10 hours

Rebels & Redcoats: How Britain Lost America - 4 hours

American Revolution biographies

Muffie Meyer's Benjamin Franklin (PBS) - 3 hours

Ken Burns' Benjamin Franklin (PBS) - 4 hours

George Washington the Warrior (History Channel) - 1 ½ hours

Marquis de Lafayette: The Lost Hero (PBS) - 1 hour

Alexander Hamilton (PBS) - 2 hours

Founding Fathers (History Channel) - 3 hours

Founding Brothers (History Channel) - 3 hours

John and Abigail Adams (PBS) - 2 hours

Ken Burns' Thomas Jefferson (PBS) - 3 hours


Frontier exploration

Ken Burns' Lewis and Clark (PBS) - 4 hours


The French Revolution/Napoleonic Era

Versailles (French documentary, with episode about King Louis XVI - requires code-free DVD player) - 9 hours

David Grubin's Marie Antoinette (PBS) - 2 hours

The French Revolution (History Channel) - 1 ½ hours

David Grubin's Napoleon (PBS Empires) - 4 hours


The War of 1812 (North America)

The War of 1812 (PBS) - 2 hours - available online

Dolley Madison (PBS) - 1 ½ hours

Andrew Jackson: Good, Evil, and the Presidency (PBS) - 2 hours - available on YouTube


The Mexican-American War

The U.S.-Mexican War 1846-1848 - 4 hours - available on YouTube - link to first half

The Gold Rush - 2 hours


The American Civil War (my main posts and my other posts)

The Abolitionists (PBS) - 3 hours

Ken Burns' The Civil War (overview by PBS) - 11 hours

Reconstruction: The Second Civil War (PBS) - 3 hours

Civil War biographies

Abraham and Mary Lincoln: A House Divided (PBS) - 6 hours

The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln (PBS) - 1 ½ hours

Jefferson Davis (privately made) - 3 ½ hours

Ulysses S. Grant (PBS) - 3 ½ hours


Various other topics

Michael Wood's In Search of Myths and Heroes - 4 hours

Ken Burns' The Congress (PBS) - 1 ½ hours

Modern Marvels: The Suez Canal (History Channel) - 1 hour

Transcontinental Railroad (PBS) - 2 hours

Ken Burns' Not for Ourselves Alone; Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony (PBS) - 3 hours

Murder of a President: James A. Garfield (PBS) - 2 hours

Ken Burns' Mark Twain (PBS) - 3 ½ hours

New York Underground (PBS) - 1 hour

Ric Burns' New York: A Documentary History (PBS) - 17 hours

Crucible of Empire: the Spanish-American War (PBS) - 2 hours

The Boer War (British-made - requires code-free DVD player) - 1 ½ hours

TR: The Story of Theodore Roosevelt (PBS) - 3 ½ hours

Ken Burns' Horatio's Drive: America's First Road Trip (PBS) - 2 hours

Panama Canal (PBS) - 1 ½ hours

The Great San Francisco Earthquake (PBS) - 1 hour

War of the Worlds (PBS) - 1 hour

Ken Burns' Hemingway (PBS) - 6 hours


History of American business

The Men Who Built America (History Channel) - 6 hours

The Gilded Age (PBS) - 2 hours

The Circus (PBS) - 4 hours

Joseph Pulitzer: Voice of the People (PBS) - 1 ½ hours

Edison: The Father of Invention (PBS) - 2 hours

Tesla: Master of Lightning (PBS) - 1 ½ hours

Citizen Hearst (PBS) - 3 ½ hours

Ken Burns' Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio (PBS) - 2 hours

Henry Ford (PBS) - 2 hours - available online

Walt Disney (PBS) - 4 hours

Silicon Valley (PBS) - 1 ½ hours


World War One

BBC's The Great War (interviews veterans) - 17 hours

CBS's World War One (the complete story) - 10 hours

PBS's The Great War (American Experience) - 6 hours

Biographies of major figures

Woodrow Wilson (PBS) - 3 hours

Coverage of particular portions of the war

The Storm That Swept Mexico (PBS) - 2 hours - available on YouTube

The Irish Rebellion 1916 (PBS) - 3 hours

Lawrence of Arabia: The Battle for the Arab World (PBS) - 2 hours

Influenza 1918 (PBS, American Experience) - 1 hour

Paris 1919: Inside the Peace Talks That Changed the World (Canadian-made) - 1 ½ hours


World War Two (my main posts and my other posts)

The Road to War (BBC) - 3 hours

War of the Century: When Hitler Fought Stalin (BBC) - 3 ½ hours

Allied powers

ANZAC: Australians at War in World War Two (Australian-made) - 10 hours

Canada at War (Canadian-made, World War Two) - 6 hours

Ken Burns' The War (PBS) - 15 hours (focuses on United States in World War Two)

BBC History of World War II - 30 hours (technically a collection of different World War II documentaries)

The World at War (British-made, World War Two) - 23 hours (an actual unified history, which talks about the major powers on both sides)

Axis powers

The Nazis: A Warning from History (BBC) - 5 hours

Horror in the East: Japan and the Atrocities of World War II (BBC) - 1 ½ hours

Auschwitz: The Nazis and the "Final Solution" (BBC) - 5 hours

Biographies of Allied leaders

Franklin Delano Roosevelt (PBS) - 4 hours - available online

Eleanor Roosevelt (PBS) - 2 ½ hours

The Roosevelts: An Intimate History (PBS, Ken Burns) - 14 hours

Winston Churchill (British-made) - 3 hours

Harry Truman (PBS) - 4 hours - available online

Dwight D. Eisenhower (PBS) - 2 ½ hours


The Cold War (my main posts and my other posts)

The Cold War (CNN) - 18 hours

Korea: The Forgotten War (Timeless Media Group) - 5 hours

Ken Burns' The Vietnam War (PBS) - 18 ½ hours

Cold War political biographies (other)

John F. Kennedy (PBS) - 3 ½ hours

Robert F. Kennedy (PBS) - 2 hours

Lyndon B. Johnson (PBS) - 3 ½ hours - available online

Richard Nixon (PBS) - 2 ½ hours - available online


Ethnic history

Black in Latin America (PBS) - 4 hours

Native America (PBS) - 3 ½ hours

Asian Americans (PBS) - 5 hours

The Jewish Americans (PBS) - 6 hours

The Latino Americans (PBS) - 6 hours

The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross (PBS) - 6 hours

Ken Burns' Jackie Robinson (PBS) - 4 hours

Ken Burns' Muhammad Ali (PBS) - 8 hours

The Long Walk of Nelson Mandela (PBS Frontline) - 2 hours

General American history in the 20th century

Ken Burns' Baseball (PBS miniseries) - 19 hours

Ken Burns' Jazz (PBS miniseries) - 19 hours