The Whirling Dervishes from Turkey are visiting Australia to perform a 700-year old rite based in the Mevlevi sect of Sufism. Carli Ratcliff explains the religious ideas symbolised by their unique costumes, dance and music.
Did the Red Sea really part before the Israelites? Why didn't the fire consume the Burning Bush? What was the Manna in the Wilderness? Distinguished British scientist, Colin Humphreys, examines the evidence and provides a remarkable account of "what really happened".
New customs are being invented in Jewish tradition and the internet is partly responsible. Breaking the glass under the wedding canopy is now being preceded by breaking a plate with one's mother-in-law. Dr Sam Cooper explains why the trend is growing.
In 1992, Hanifa Deen journeyed through Australian Muslim communities and wrote a sensitive portrait of them in her book, Caravanserai. A decade later she revisits those communities and finds them profoundly changed.
As a Lutheran pastor in Germany during the 1930s Bonhoeffer actively resisted the Nazi regime. For his part in an attempted plot to assassinate Hitler, Bonhoeffer was executed at the age of 39 just days before the end of WWII.
Until the 1960s most Catholic girls in Australia were educated in convents. The Ark this week tells the story of one of these convents - Kerever Park, in the Southern Highlands of NSW, run by the Society of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Located in Los Angeles, the city where last year there were 900 gang-related homicides, the Museum of Tolerance has branched out from its central focus, which is teaching people about the Holocaust. Dr. Karen Umemoto, consultant to the Museum, is an expert on racially based gang "warfare" and ways that communities can overcome race hatred.
In 14th Century Europe, when the bubonic plague was still raging, the heavenly powers vied with one another to intercede for the populace and save them from the Black Death. All this is depicted in the paintings by Renaissance artists whose works were commissioned by influential patrons. Art historian Louise Marshall from the University of Sydney tells the story.