Television has lots of time to be small and petty.

Now comes the opposite: a PBS week with big subjects and grand vistas. It views the American eagle, the British monarch and the birth of the Bible.

Plenty of cable specials have poked around in biblical history. "I participated in two dozen of these," says archaeologist William Dever. "And most of them are dreadful."

The difference is that "The Bible's Buried Secrets" is done by PBS' "Nova," mixing serious science and pretty pictures. "There's real depth and beauty to the imagery," says author Thomas Cahill.

That's true throughout four ambitious days on PBS.

The stretch starts Sunday, when "Nature" views the eagle. "It made a remarkable comeback," says producer Fred Kaufman. "Just last year, the bald eagle was removed from the (endangered species) list."

It concludes Nov. 19 with the midsection of "Monarchy: The Royal Family at Work," a lush, three-week documentary.

In between, there's a new "Masterpiece" movie ("Filth," about a moral watchdog in 1960s England), an "American Experience" rerun (on Lee Harvey Oswald) and that hugely ambitious "Nova" piece.

"It's a very controversial film," Dever says. "But it ends on a positive note."

It will stir controversy among people who take every biblical passage literally. Archaeologists have found little proof of Israelites in conquest.

"There's no evidence of it," says Carol Meyers, a Duke University religion professor. "It doesn't mean there's no kernel of truth to it."

The Old Testament is filled with grand stories, Meyers says. Authors told "what values were important to them ... profound ideas like liberation."

And lately, archaeologists have found historical backing. At one point, the film says, some historians considered King David to be as fictional as King Arthur. Recent findings, however, include:

• References to Israelites, more than 1,000 years B.C.

• An inscription about the House of David in that time.

• A carved Hebrew alphabet, also in that time.

• A sprawling excavation site, suggesting the literate royal court of David and Solomon.

Until that era, cultures had believed in multiple gods. The Israelites led to a time when three major religions — Judaism, Christianity and Islam — would spread belief in one god.

That didn't come quickly. There are still signs of multiple gods among early Israelites.

"I like to say monotheism was not a gift — it was an achievement, a very difficult achievement," Dever says. "And it took several hundred years."

Along the way, people defined this God.

"God on Trial," a powerful PBS film shown last week, had a character reciting the brutality that biblical stories attribute to God. Historians have found little to support those.

"Most of these horrific narratives that we read, about mass slaughters of peoples, probably are stories and not the actual recording of events," Meyers says. "Those were ways to communicate power."

It's comforting, she says, that archaeology doesn't support the most violent passages. "We no longer have to believe that the Israelites did go out and kill all men, women and children," she says.

A softer story emerges: The Israelites may have been Canaanites who left a harsher culture. They slowly formed a new tribe and a belief in one God.

"It was inextricably linked with a set of values," Meyers says, "with the idea of liberation, with the idea of justice."

And that seems to fit a PBS week of grand visions.