You must have all heard
about Herod the Great. He wanted to kill Jesus, so instructed
to kill the babies in Bethlehem. He also was the one to expand
the Second Temple in Jerusalem, that big giant temple,
the great and glorious temple. But what you might not know is that Herod the Great also constructed
three temples for Caesar, what Jews would consider
an idol-worshiping temple. (Sergio) <i>In this episode,
we head to the site of Horvat Omrit,</i> <i>where the ruins of a pagan temple
believed to be built by Herod the Great</i> <i>remain to this day.</i> (Rhoda) It has just something on it,
on that rock. (Sergio) <i>But why did Herod,
who was raised as a Jew,</i> <i>who was appointed as King of the Jews,</i> <i>who expanded the Second Temple
to an unprecedented size and glory,</i> <i>why would a seemingly pious Jew
build a pagan temple?</i> You must think
he must be a really pious Jew, very sided with the Jews. Well, actually he also sided
with the Romans. He played on both sides, and today we're going to explore one of those
idol-worshiping temples for Caesar, up at the north of Israel
called Horvat Omrit. (Sergio) <i>In this video,
we asked the question:</i> <i>What was Herod's motivation
to order the massacre</i> <i>of all the infants in Bethlehem
in order to kill Jesus?</i> <i>And could this temple be the missing clue
in discovering the answer?</i> ♪ (music) ♪ Okay, it's time for a short
history mystery lesson. Ready? Let's go. King Herod the Great
was born and raised Jewish, and he lived in the first century BC. Herod is very famous
for his grand architectural projects. He was the one who expanded
the Second Temple in Jerusalem to an unprecedented size
and marvel of architecture. In fact, today his architecture style
is so famous that we even have a name for it,
the Herodian architecture. But if you haven't heard
about his architecture, you surely heard
about his persecution of Jesus. According to the Gospel of Matthew, King Herod was the one who wanted
newborn baby Jesus dead. He wanted him dead so badly that when he heard
that Jesus was born in Bethlehem and he could not find him
without the wise men help, he ordered all of the male children
in Bethlehem, two years and younger to be killed. Most of my life I thought
Herod was a pious Jew simply following his piousness, constructing this extraordinary
Jewish temple and persecuting Jesus. But no, recently we found out that he was trying to find favor
with the Romans, and he constructed three pagan temples. And here is the mystery. (Sergio) <i>Josephus Flavius,
a 1st-century historian,</i> <i>writes that King Herod the Great</i> <i>constructed three magnificent temples
in honor of the Roman emperor Augustus.</i> <i>Two temples have been found,
and their ruins can still be seen today,</i> <i>one in Caesarea Maritima and another one
in the ancient city of Samaria.</i> <i>However, the third temple,
Josephus writes, was located up north,</i> <i>near Banias, a city also known
as Caesarea Philippi.</i> But some archaeologists were puzzled because there's just
not enough archaeological evidence to support the writings of Josephus, at least not until 1998. <i>At the end of the 90s,</i> <i>a team of archaeologists
excavated two miles away from Banias</i> <i>at a site called Horvat Omrit.</i> <i>They found the foundation
of an enormous structure</i> <i>that they thought to be the very temple
that Josephus wrote about.</i> <i>Could this be the missing temple
that Herod had built?</i> And if it, is how is it all related
to Herod's plot to kill Jesus? To find the answers
we decided to drive up north and examine the site for ourselves. ♪ (music) ♪ The snow is right at the top
of the Mount Hermon, but just at the peak. ♪ (upbeat music) ♪ (Anna) Let's see about turning around
up here, maybe park up here. (Sergio) Yeah. (Rhoda) <i>I'm so happy
our friend Anna came along.</i> <i>She is a walking encyclopedia,
first of all,</i> <i>so she had a lot of good insight
about these places.</i> She has been to Israel,
she's lived here, she studied here, so she's incredible. ♪ (music) ♪ (Sergio) She was actually the one
who introduced us to the site. If she didn't tell us about it,
we would have never found out that King Herod built pagan temples. <i>So it is really cool that she is here
and now taking us to this location.</i> (Sergio) I can see it's right over there. (Anna) Yeah. (Rhoda) Oh, should we cross like that? ♪ (music) ♪ (Sergio) I don't suppose
this is a very touristic place or tourist accessible. (Rhoda) No, I don't think
they set it up for visitors. I think we are here in the wrong season. This is not going to be easy. Oh, your poor shoes. <i>(Rhoda) The mud is sticking to my shoes,</i> <i>and my feet are becoming
heavier and heavier as I walk,</i> and it's just not very comfortable. It's so beautiful though. You can see the split hoofs for the cows,
that means they're kosher because you can see also
the plants they were chewing on. So they chew the cud
and have a split hoof. We can definitely eat one. ♪ (music) ♪ I think we have a problem. It's been raining a lot. (Rhoda) We can go from there. (Sergio) <i>At a first glance
it doesn't look that deep</i> <i>but it's going to get your shoes wet,</i> and you don't want that
in the beginning of the hike. (Rhoda) Is it doable on the sides? Like on the green stuff. (Sergio) <i>Rhoda and I are now
in strategic planning mode.</i> I'm saying, all right,
let me engineer a bridge, I can go look for wood,
we can cross this, or us thinking, okay,
meanwhile you do that, <i>I'm going to see their spots
that we can jump over</i> <i>and just cross it this way, great,
and we start planning and thinking,</i> then we look around
and we see Anna without her shoes, just easily walking right through it, and she just makes it look
like it's a walk in a park. What do you think? I'm not taking off my shoes,
that's for sure. That's the only way. ♪ (music) ♪ It's nice and fresh. Next time I'm taking fishing boots,
the ones that get up to your waist. Thank you. (Rhoda) <i>I have
the best husband in the world.</i> <i>I don't know what I would do without him.</i> (Sergio) Wait. We have to do this on the way back too. Ugh. ♪ (music) ♪ (Sergio) <i>We're finally at the temple.
This is really exciting.</i> ♪ (music) ♪ <i>I can't believe
how massive the platform is.</i> <i>Look at just those stairs. Wow!</i> <i>In the report of the excavations</i> <i>I remember seeing that there are
two excavation sites here,</i> and one is for the temple,
and the other one-- they found a later
periods of occupation here but we came here to examine the temple,
not the later centuries. (Sergio) Beautiful steps.
Was this like an altar? <i>The [inaudible] report says
that this temple was 40 meters tall.</i> That's very tall. <i>Especially standing here in this area,
where there's nothing else high around,</i> <i>this being so tall would have really
stood out in this entire area.</i> - (Rhoda) Oh, there are stairs here.
- How convenient. Look. It says something on it. (Sergio) <i>This is certainly
not a Hebrew text.</i> <i>It looks Greek to me.</i> <i>But I don't speak or read Greek,</i> <i>but if somebody's watching this
who reads and speaks Greek,</i> it will be cool, if they could know what it says. (Rhoda) Go, go, see inside in there. ♪ (music) ♪ This is just awesome, look at these guys. Plaster from 2,000 years ago, structure. (Sergio) <i>These giant limestone boulders
would have been brought here</i> <i>from somewhere afar off,</i> <i>because in this area
you can't find any limestone.</i> It's all basalt. Wow, this blaster is 2,000 years old,
and it is so preserved well. I've never seen it preserved so well. Incredible. (Anna) No wonder Josephus would have
described it as being built of marble, even though it's made of limestone, it was plastered and maybe even painted
to look like marble. (Rhoda) Guys, I'm going to show you
how it looks like. (Sergio) Rock preserved
from rain and damage, but you can see there the original plaster
and the fixture that it had Look how beautiful. Like with many
archaeological sites in Israel, there's usually more than one theory. And this one in particular
has archaeologists split into two groups. One group believes the temple was built inside the old city of Banias,
Caesarea Philippi, while the other group believes
it was built here, in Horvat Omrit, and there are two wonderful BAR articles
written on this subject dating back to 2003 that are written
by the archaeologists themselves. One of them presents a lot of evidence in support for this place
being the true location, while the other
tries to refute these claims. Let's put the location of the temple
aside for a moment and ask these questions: Why did Herod build it
in the first place? And what does this have to do with Jesus? (Sergio) <i>From historical writings we know</i> <i>that Herod wanted to find favor
with the Roman emperor</i> <i>so that he may stay in power,</i> <i>that he may stay the King over Judea.</i> It seems like if you truly follow
the law of the Jews you wouldn't dare to build a pagan temple. But he did, which means that politics and power
were more important for him than the Law of Moses. And this sheds a lot of light
on his character and could be the reason
why he persecuted Jesus. According to Matthew chapter 2
a few wise men came to Jerusalem and started asking, "Where is He
who has been born King of the Jews, for we saw His star in the East
and have come to worship Him." King of the Jews?
Herod is the King of the Jews. It must have been
such a tough pill for him to swallow that he immediately summoned
all of the chief priests and scribes and inquired them
where the Messiah was to be born, and they gave him the answers
straight from the Scriptures: The Messiah was to be born in Bethlehem. Herod knew that
the greatest prophecy of all times is being fulfilled
right in front of his eyes. The Jews, they were waiting
for the Messiah to come, and according to the Gospel of Matthew
he has indeed come. And Herod knew it. If he didn't believe Jesus
to be the Messiah, then he wouldn't have cared
to go after him or kill the entire
male toddler population of Bethlehem. Could it be that Herod
wanted to kill Jesus because he knew
he is the King of the Jews and he did not want
to step down from his throne and give it to Christ? ♪ (music) ♪ There's a river! If there's a river, Sergio's there. (purl of water) (Sergio) <i>I love water.</i> <i>If there is fresh water, I'm going there.</i> It's source of life,
it's refreshing, it's incredible. (Rhoda) Is it cold? Oh, it's freezing. (Rhoda) <i>That looks fun.</i> If it was a little warmer,
I bet he swam in it too. Did you zoom in? - (Rhoda) Yeah.
- (Sergio) Awesome. (Rhoda) I'm zooming out. (Sergio) I don't know how to get back. That was fantastic.
What a soft, cold, fresh water.
