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9 onscreen video guides each with their own "pathway" telling the religious, social, military and archaeological history of Jerusalem, the world's most Holy city. Click here to see King David's Intro
movie Click here to see a 1.4 mb small, low resolution video DEMO of Pathways Click here to see a 2.6 mb slightly larger, longer and clearer video DEMO of Pathways This 2 CD set has been one of our most acclaimed offerings since it's inclusion in one of our very first catalogs. Five of the video guides are historical: King David, King Herod, Queen Helena (Byzantine period -- Constantine's mother), Dirk the Crusader, and Suleiman the Magnificent (Islamic period). Their portrayals are full of wit, scholarly insights, interesting historical footnotes and humor. King David (pictured right) is insightful AND funny. When he pulls out his wallet to show you his children, it's a kick!
Throughout the tours, guides appear in the foreground via video among various re-creations and ruins, illustrations and animations. Each tour has a soundtrack and literally dozens of options to select from and "learn more" as you move through the pathways on that subject. Throughout each of the nine presentations (which last on average 35 minutes each if you don't stop them), the program pauses to offer the user various "explore in depth" options of a scriptural, archaeological, tradition nature. They are called onscreen "Source," Discovery" and "Legend." There's a control panel (seen bottom left corner of the Temple graphic below) you can roll over to pause the pathway presentation, go forward or back. It even has a handy overview of the pathway built in. Legend is one of my favorites. In it the program presents you with interesting historical tidbits that have a twist, or whose story comes from non-biblical sources. Another unique option in each pathway is the TIME MORPH option. Say you're in Herod's Jerusalem Temple tour and you wonder how his Temple compares to David's. Click "Time Morph" and you can jump right into David's pathway where he is touring Solomon's Temple.
Four of the video guides are contemporary: A Jew, a Christian, a Palestinian Muslim, and a Secular tour bus operator. Each describes the sites in Jerusalem holy to their particular faith. Those who have visited or studied Jerusalem will feast on the content. The three religious contemporary guides also describe the major beliefs and practices of their individual faiths. For example, Raphael the Christian guide tours the locations where Jesus spent his last two days of his life in Jerusalem explaining their significance.
Located on the right-side of each screen in Pathways are several other controls: Database, Jump to new guide, and Time Morph. The Database --seen here at the right, provides you with some interesting background reading that's printable. See the + arrows icon in the upper right corner of this screen at the right? That's another database which allows you to search the CD's content via a map of Jerusalem. Say you wanted to learn more about the Temple Mount. You'd scroll down the index, click "Temple Mount," hear a brief narration about it while you saw the picture of it, then be presented with animated icons of EACH guide which tours the Temple Mount. Click on them and you are immediately taken inside their pathways tour directly to the spot where they discuss the Temple Mount. Very handy and very clever.
How much Video do we mean? Pathways faithfully presents the world's three great faith. It is frequently put to use in Sunday School to study other religions. Suleiman and Azziz's muslim tours are faithful and fascinating. The Crusade content and Tammar's modern Israel pathway do a good job and stoking the discussion of "holy" land and who owns it. Pathways doesn't present any political agenda. It illuminates. Our 40 page study guide contains background notes, suggestions and comments on these important subjects. The multimedia and attention to detail in Pathways is unsurpassed in the software world --it's really quite amazing. Theologically Speaking....the program is scholarly and well mainstream. Much of the archaeological and historical information is straight from the pages of such magazines as Biblical Archaeological Review. Pathways is popular in older elementary and youth Sunday Schools, and it projects well to a larger adult education audience (using a data projector). It is also a favorite program for pastors, CE staff, and teachers to put in their personal collections.
Don't forget to order our Pathways Study Guide: The 40 page spiral bound Study Guide includes: A Complete & Detailed Outline to every bit of content on the two CDs, teaching notes, questions, background articles, study devotionals, and eight sample worksheets for student use. Pathways is an extremely deep program with hundreds of places to go. Our guide helps teachers know what's where. It's $12 and only from Sunday School Software. Click here to view a sample of the guide. |
Our history with Pathways...
Our ministry has been pretty ga-ga over Pathways ever since it hit the market in 1996. It is one of the most acclaimed programs we've ever offered. Customers love it. We loved it so much we wrote a 40 page study guide to the program --mapping out its enormous 1300 megabytes of territory and including a series of teaching comments, background articles and student worksheets. Made in Israel and released in 1996, it looks like it was made yesterday. Their huge production budget made sure of that. In fact, most people are surprised when I show the program in a seminar and then tell them when it was made. They are shocked and want to know why they didn't hear about it "way back then." I tell them Pathways is a great example of how GREAT software can sometimes go unnoticed. WE noticed it, and stayed in touch with the copyright holder ~ and are now it's exclusive distributor.
Occasionally we review Israel travelogue CDs that come and go on the market. Pathways is not like them at all. It is unique and has high production values. In short... it's an awesome work. In 6 years of distributing it, I have NEVER had a copy returned. Not one. <>< Neil
King
Herod's scholarly tour of Jerusalem is led by a very funny actor
who portrays Herod as a meglomaniac with a New York cabbie demeanor
and accent. Queen Helena is expectedly regal, and Dirk the Crusader
looks like the bloke just got back from a Crusade.
Example of Pathways content: King David begins by introducing himself, and
tells the story of how Israel became a nation under his leadership.
His tour of Solomon's Temple is probably the most popular part
of Pathways to teach with. It includes an animated-illustrated
discussion of altar sacrifice and how the Israelites worshipped
in the Temple. Following his presentation (which lasts about
five minutes!) viewers are given the option to jump back to a
spot in his presentation, or dive into four related options:
SOURCE- view a scripture passage about the Temple; DISCOVERY-
hear narration and view picture about the only known Temple artifact
in existence; LEGENDS & Related Traditions- A brief animated
retelling of the sacrifice of Isaac on Mt. Moriah (temple mount);
MORPH- jump to other guided tours that deal with the Temple and
Temple Mount. This one section alone could fill and be the entire
focus for your class.
Users have complete control over each pathway through
a pop-up control panel that includes a pause button. Each
of the nine pathways runs about 30 to 40 minutes in length WITHOUT
the users taking the many sidetrips each pathway offers.
System Requirements: Windows
95/98/Me/XP or Power Mac, 100 mhz or higher, 32 mb RAM minimum,
24X CD speed or higher. 256 color.