The entire photograph selection process was preceded by an intensive search of The Bible. In order to provide some structure, John Wagner and Mark Geller divided the search, and subsequently the book itself, into three sections: The Law covering the five books of Moses, The History covering Judges to Chronicles and The Poetry covering Psalms to Ecclesiastes. Their research program took many months of continuous effort prior to even thinking about looking at any photography.

Armed with around 80 key biblical passages that would make up a coherent, logical collection, they set about finding the right photographs - images of the highest quality that, when paired with the quotes, would deliver a whole far greater than the sum parts. The desired effect was to be both entertaining and informative, as well as thought-provoking.

Their search took them to individual photographer's collections and photo libraries in Tel Aviv, London and New York and, apart from studying landscapes and cityscapes, they carefully considered situations and issues. They focused on the major themes from Israel's recent history, such as war and peace, social discord, Jews and Arabs, humor, food, religion, people and so on. The end result was that during the following nine months they looked at more than 7,000 photographs to arrive at the 73 which are presented as double page spreads in the book. They looked at entire archives of photography from such celebrated photographers as Shai Ginot, Itamar Grinberg, Aliza Auerbach and Micha Bar-Am, recipient of the Israel Prize for the year 2000.

The following leading photographers have contributed some of their finest work to Testaments of Israel: