How Archaeology Supports the Bible: A Conversation with Joel Kramer

is there evidence that the patriarchs actually lived what about king david what about the place where jesus was born he grew up and the place where he died and was crucified well today we're going to look at the archaeological evidence and how it intersects with the bible and we're here with a friend of mine who is streaming all the way from amman jordan who's an archaeologist he is a filmmaker got a master's degree at the university of the holy land in archaeology and has been practicing archaeology for 15 years living in the middle east 26 years and has written just a great new book called where god came down that we're going to talk about today so joel kramer really appreciate you coming on hey absolutely it's my pleasure so before we get into some of the specific archaeological evidence and how intersect with the bible tell me your story like how did you become an archaeologist living in the middle east with your family yeah well i was raised i was raised in the middle east i grew up in saudi arabia i i ended up in utah and um i ended up pastoring there for uh eight years and i lived in a town called brigham city utah and i used to make videos they were outreach videos two mormons um bible verses the book of mormon and and uh such and so uh i was challenging the mormon faith and and uh one thing that the mormons were challenging me with was well what about the challenges to your own faith um uh you know do you ever address those do you ever deal with those and i thought that was pretty good uh you know that was a pretty good challenge so i moved to uh israel in 2007 to do just that to to study i i ended up studying in the university for 10 years under secular scholars with the idea of you know study under the the ones that are making the criticisms of the bible so that you're getting it straight from the horse's mouth so to speak and um and so that's how i got into archaeology and um and i was privileged to work under a very active archaeologist named dr shimon gibson and so i got uh it was a blessing working under him because i i was able to get a lot of experience because he was actively doing several dates so i've had the privilege to dig in jerusalem for many many seasons in bethlehem and and different places joel you and i met ten years ago when i brought a group of students with our friend eric johnson to israel and you took us to the cave of the dead sea scrolls you took us to jericho a number of other places and i appreciate that you have a masters you have training but you're actually involved in digs so you have the practical work you might say and the academic work as well which is unique as a whole looking at the field of archaeology since this is your specialty how would you describe the belief of many archaeologists when it comes to the bible do they accept it do they reject it ambiguous how would you capture as a whole that that position yeah it's it's it's uh quite confusing it was confusing to me as i um initially was introduced to the field of biblical archaeology because uh the name of the field makes it sound very positive towards uh the bible and um and really that's that's not the case it's um one thing people have to understand about the field of biblical archaeology is that it is a secular field and um and so therefore our expectations of you know what archaeologists believe should be in line with that and so um you know there are a few bible-believing archaeologists um that are out there working in uh israel in the land of the bible but the vast majority of biblical archaeologists are secular um and so you have a a clash of world view you have you know for me personally i i my world view is the christian biblical worldview and so i'm in a field that is the secular humanistic worldview those of you joining we have some folks coming in from new jersey uh different parts of the world from kentucky and we're going to jump into your book where god came down which by the way joel i was telling we chatted before i'd seen your films but not read your book and i was just thrilled it's so interesting you're telling stories supporting it visually i'm sharing some things with my family i was like hey did you guys know this i was talking to my wife about it last night it's a great great book but before we dive into some of the specific archaeological finds and then we're going to take some of the questions here you used an illustration i thought was very helpful to begin in the book where you described the relationship between the bible and archaeology compared to a 500 piece jigsaw puzzle explain yeah i'm a very visual person and so i'm always wrestling myself to try to understand things and and i usually do that visually and so if you uh say say you find a um box with a jigsaw puzzle box and you open it up and all that's in there are five pieces uh of a 500 piece jigsaw puzzle and uh you take those five pieces and you look at those five pieces and you analyze them um what can you tell about this jigsaw puzzle based on only five pieces and uh the answer is uh next to nothing and uh and and then yet if you look at the uh cover on the box then there'll be a picture of the jigsaw puzzle that will show you what that is about and if you use that picture then you can go back to your five pieces and you can understand the context of where they come from in the puzzle and so um it occurred to me that that this is like archaeology that the five pieces of the jigsaw puzzle are the archaeology when you dig you don't find whole buildings you don't find whole cities you don't find usually even whole pots um you find pieces of everything and uh and so so but but those five jigsaw puzzle pieces demonstrate that there once was an actual jitsaw puzzle uh and and so uh then the picture that's on the front of the cover of the jigsaw puzzle is like the bible the bible gives us the big picture of what happened in the past and where those things happened and so um when we dig in the ground as archaeologists and we find these pieces of evidence we need a bigger context in order to understand them and that's that's where the bible comes into and sometimes especially these days in the field the secular field of biblical archaeology things can get out of uh order and we can be taught or think that uh that it's actually the five pieces of the jigsaw puzzle that is teaching us about the jigsaw puzzle or testing the jigsaw puzzle um but really it's uh it's the other way around and so when when we're when we're told things like well archaeology tests the bible and its reliability uh now really uh the bible is what's needed to understand the archaeology that's coming out of the ground and um and so um you know and the bible can be used to test what archaeologists are telling us to determine whether it's true or not and so um so yeah it's a matter of perspective but the bible between mesopotamia and egypt the most important set of ancient texts that archaeologists use or should use to interpret what they're finding in the ground from the places and the periods that the bible is talking about is the biblical texts and if you start ignoring those then you're just talking about speculation and if you have 10 archaeologists looking about the same thing and not basing their understanding of that on an ancient text then they're going to say 10 different things and there's going to be a lot of confusion and what clears up the confusion how you can learn biblical archaeology is to use the bible so very very quickly the puzzle piece we have five out of 5000 or whatever it's the picture that helps place where those go without the picture we don't have a map so to speak so if the archaeological world rejects the bible which we would consider a map they're going to interpret the data very very differently so really it comes back to the world view somebody's bringing to the archaeological dig and the data more than anything is that a fair assessment absolutely it's uh you know somebody who believes in god believes in the supernatural believes in miracles is going to interpret um evidence archaeological evidence completely differently than somebody who doesn't believe in any of those things and and um you know that that five pieces from a 5 000 uh puzzle piece puzzle um is relevant to archaeology in israel because the estimation of how many of the biblical sites and how many how much of each site has been dug over the the whole time that archaeology has been going on in israel is about estimated at about one percent wow so um and so what that means is if anybody says well you know that can't be true because that's never been found well we're only talking about a one percent sample that's been dug out of the ground um in all the places that could be dug in the land of the bible and so um and and yet look it's amazing to look at how much evidence we have that comes out of just that one percent sample i remember an article years ago from edwin yamauchi and he said one percent of the holy land has been excavated of sites that have been excavated only a small percentage of those actually sites have been excavated of the small percentage of sites excavated only a small percentage that has been reported and of those reported only a small percentage that has made its way so much to the popular world and i thought my goodness that helped put a framework so to speak in our expectations of what archaeology would reveal now we're going to come to your book where god came down joel let me go off script for a second because one of the questions was about where's a dig you're working on right now and what have you found when i went to israel 10 years ago with you one of my favorite things is you took us to jericho because the traditional story is kathleen kenyon in the middle of 20th century roughly pretty much dismissed that jericho matches up with a biblical record without going into all the detail what is just one or two things you found on site digging there that makes you think uh that's a little bit too quick there is some evidence that supports the biblical account you mean ad jericho specifically at jericho yeah yeah because i haven't ever actually dug at jericho but okay but yeah but but uh um but but i've studied jericho for years and years and years and um and it is a good example that you know we got to look at things in in the big picture um first of all one thing we focus on is everything that the archaeologists disagree about what's amazing is everything that the archaeologists agree about so think about jericho they all agree that um jericho is jericho how do they know that jericho is jericho uh well the only ancient text that talks about jericho from the time period you know joshua and the conquest is the bible so the only way that they even know that they're talking about jericho is through the bible and uh everybody agrees that jericho was canaanite and then something happened and then later in history it became israelite and so uh what happened there well maybe we should go to the one historical you know the historical document that we have that tells us what happened then um everybody agrees that the city wall of jericho collapsed we have a fallen wall at jericho and what of course is jericho famous for in the bible it's famous for the walls that came tumbling down and so really when you boil down to what uh what in this case kathleen kenyon is saying critically about the bible is she's she's saying that well even though this is jericho even though this was canaanite and became israelite even though we have a fallen wall and burned destruction here the bible can't be true because there's this one particular kind of pottery that that uh is from cyprus that wasn't that i didn't find here so um really it's uh it's it's it's just an illogical ridiculous claim that in the big picture everything fits and so they're going to try to disqualify the you know based on some little my tiny detail that here here's here's a possibility maybe the archaeologist is wrong and the bible is right you know that's a possibility right there and so and so uh yeah you have all these examples of um of these minute details that nobody understands that they're trying to use to um to claim that the bible doesn't get it right when ignoring the big picture of how is it that this the this the biblical text told archaeologists what they would find if they ever got around to digging jericho what they would find uh under the ground and they and it told us what would be found this fallen wall thousands of years before archaeologists came along and dug it and found a fallen wall um a seven-year-old would understand that as evidence and that would be the end of the story you know they they wouldn't understand this whole explanation about imported pottery from cyprus and and uh and why that uh you know discounts the bible and so um really when you look at the criticisms of the bible they're really groundless they're not intimidating that's awesome i remember you describing that um thanks for the clarification you didn't dig there but i remember you took our group and we walked around jericho and you put it out when they find the city it describes the bible they burnt it well there's burnt pottery the grain matches up with the season that it was so these kind of findings that i remember you pointed out to us was really helpful now i show your video and then we're going to move back to the book to my students tell us the name very quickly when you go on site and describe jericho for those watching if they want to check it out yeah it's called jericho unearthed and when i got to israel uh the first question that i i asked the question to the professors that i was studying under and i said what's the number one challenge to the old testament and they said jericho so i started with jericho and did that film um and and brought in uh the the only one that was still alive that had worked um as a staff member under kathleen kenyon and uh he stayed with me for three weeks and and uh so so yeah it was uh and i've been studying that site ever since it's it's uh it is the number one challenge to the bible but it should be the number one example of how the bible correlates with uh with the archaeological evidence i mean it's amazing um you have a city that the wall fell down that was burned that laid abandoned and then was occupied by israelites and what does the bible say the events were they say that the wall fell down that the israelites burned the city that they that joshua put a curse on it laid abandon until the time of ahab when the bible says it was finally rebuilt as uh city so that's the chronology of events that you have in the bible and that's the chronology of events that you find in the ground uh what's your problem yeah exactly you know what let's do a whole show on this in the future let's have you back and do that i think would be really really interesting i think people would enjoy it so let's jump back to your book where god came down and you start with the patriarchs and one of the standard narratives at least that i've read correct me if i'm wrong that many in scholarship completely dismiss these stories as being mythological you take issue that for example believe we actually have the very campsite where abraham stayed known as mamrie explain why that site is significant first biblically speaking okay uh yeah first of all to to the claim that you hear all the time that there's no archaeological evidence for abraham okay uh well first of all abraham lived in a tent four thousand years ago you know archaeology is the study of ancient people from what they've left behind so what does a guy living in a tent four thousand years ago leave behind what should we expect we should expect nothing and in fact i hang out with uh with bedouin i've been hanging out with better one for years and years and years and i can assure you it is very difficult to figure out where a better one campsite was a week after they moved much less 4 000 years after they because they don't have a bunch of excess stuff that they leave behind everything that they have they use and when they move their camp i mean they're gone you're where where were they and so it's it's really a hypocritical statement that you hear over and over again well there's no archaeological evidence for the patriarchs well what would we expect so that's why it's so amazing that there is archaeological evidence for abraham now why um because for most nomads that lived in the ancient past there isn't so why with abraham and and the answer is is because god came down and met with abraham and promised him promises and and uh one of the main promises that he made to abraham uh at mamrie um genesis chapter 18 is he he promised abraham that you will become something more than you are right now you will become a great and powerful nation well archaeologically great and powerful nations do leave things behind that show that they exist and so we know we know uh abraham uh archaeologically through what he becomes just as mamrie we know as an archaeologically archaeological site because of what it becomes so we have this amazing um event where god comes down and speaks to abraham and his wife sarah and promises them a son and then we have uh but we have the israelites remembering that and so they they built a structure around that site to remember and to commemorate that important event in their history and then we have um herod the great for example uh building on that site and enclosing it with a wall to to please his jewish subjects um and of course people the jews continue to worship at that place and visit that place and then we have in constantine's day in the christian era the byzantine period we have uh one of four churches that that constantine builds in the land uh there at mamrie and so um and then and then we have uh islam also honored the site which is important because the palestinian town of hebron as it as it grew out to that area didn't cover it over but but um grew around it they recognized it as sacred ground and so what you have then is you have this stack one thing on top of another of all these different periods and the structures that were built that date all the way from the islamic period all the way back in time archaeologically okay to the time of abraham who built uh who built an altar there that's what he left behind in his campsite the bible specifically says that when god made him that promise he built an altar and it was that altar that that was then being commemorated and other structures being built around it and of course that original altar was was used for all kinds of things like pagan rituals and and it was destroyed and rebuilt and all these kinds of things but you can see in the site itself that it is built around a center point and that center point is where abraham's altar was so if if if if the claim that abraham is mythological is true then you have to explain what this stack of archaeology is that commemorates some event that dates all the way back to 4 000 years ago and and what is the reason for that why have why have people um considered this ground sacred for so long for thousands and thousands of years you have to give an explanation for that which of course they don't and um and you know the best explanation again is in the historical text that talks about that place and what happened there and uh and so it stands as an archaeological monument to the realness of of abraham the father of our faith so so connect for me the place itself how do we know what is labeled today as mamrie is the site abraham was at i see that there's church fathers there are muslim scholars and others going back but what originally tells us they got the site right because if they got it wrong and people believed it and then these others came after them it'd be like oh that makes sense because they trusted the earliest sources what's the chain of command that gets us back as close as we can to the events themselves yeah it's uh it's you know i mean one of the main things with the site like mamrie is when the bible describes where mamrie is mammary is in the land that is controlled by the city of hebron and so it would it would be a problem if these different commemorated sites from these different periods were in several different places so that you have three or four or even two places that are called mammarian that are understood to be the campsite of abraham we don't have that in this case we have them not in different places we have them stacked on top of each other okay so the archaeology that shows that the site was occupied at the time of abraham which is pottery and this altar that was built there that's what is being commemorated in each one of these periods that are building walls around it and commemorative walls around it and and then we have uh also a whole um list of historical sources as you mentioned that are that are speaking about this place and so it's it's it's actually quite obvious because you um you have basically three archaeological sites that are mentioned in the hebron area the city itself of febron the um uh mammary which was the campsite of abraham and then where the patriarchs were buried at mcpella and you have all three of them uh that that have been found so when you're asking the quest question well you know this famous person was buried in this tomb or buried in this cave or had this campsite of all the places around here that could possibly be that campsite or be that cave that they were buried how do we know which one it is well it's the one that has this commemorative stack of archaeology built over the top of it that is saying uh it's right here and it goes back the potter we have and other archaeological evidence fits that time and place so you can rule out other options i think some people forget how small israel is i realize you can take a plane across it not that long at all it feels like the us or alaska there's endless space but there's really only so many options so in some ways it's just isn't this kind of a process of just ruling out following the data and when it comes to memory these pieces just kind of fit together yeah and there there are a few instances where there are competing uh sites you know where okay where the same event is claimed to have happened at two different places just like in manuscript evidence we have situations where two manuscripts are conflicting uh they're saying different things so what's the general rule of thumb with manuscript evidence well the general rule of thumb is that we take the earlier manuscript and it's the same way in archaeology if you have two sites that are commemorating an event you take the older one the one that goes back further a great example of that would be the garden tomb and uh and the site which is now the church of the holy sepulcher both of them are saying you know this is the tomb of jesus where he was raised in golgotha and everything so which one do we take well one of them uh archaeologically goes back in the stack to uh the time of the events in the new testament and the other one starts in the late 1800s so if you're thinking manuscript evidence you would take the first century manuscript over the one that uh the first copy is in the 1800s let's take a couple more from the old testament then we'll jump to the new testament i just noticed that our books line up it almost looks like we could be in the same room together almost not perfectly but we're actually 7 000 miles away because i'm in southern california you are in amman jordan where you're studying and actually a part of archaeological digs those of us join us we're here with joel kramer uh archaeologist and we're talking about his recent book where god came down and some of the evidence pointing towards the bible getting it right archaeologically speaking now you mentioned mak pela i've been israel four times i've studied archaeology to a degree i don't know how i missed it but i was reading your book and you said it is the second most revered or holy site in judaism can you explain why it's so significant and then we'll jump to some of the evidence that we actually have that site known today yeah it's uh it's it's not on the tourism trail as you said but it's uh but it's it's definitely um you know for the jews that live in the land they visit it quite frequently and uh and so forth and it's um you know mamrie would also be a very important site to them but they're they don't have access to mammary like they do uh to make cappella because of the the political situation over there but um yeah it's uh it's the burial place of the patriarchs it's uh it's very similar to um the temple mount and that um it's never been excavated because it's a it's a important site to both the jews and the muslims and so to at excavate temple mount would probably start world war three and the same is the case uh you know in in hebron and so which is where mcpella is and so uh but yeah it's um it's where abraham and sarah and um isaac and rebecca and jacob and leah are buried um not rachel because if we'll remember the bible uh says that she was buried um near bethlehem and so when you look at the specific uh patriarchs and matriarchs that are buried at mecapella they are the lineage of king david who ruled there at hebron for seven and a half years and of course they're also the lineage of jesus the messiah and so the the um it's it's pretty amazing experience when you go there because herod the great built walls commemorative walls around that side just as he did at mamrie just as he did at mount moriah the temple mount and when you're standing there in front of the wall at uh mcappella you wouldn't know whether you were there's like our bookshelves you wouldn't know if you were there or at the western wall because the the stones you know look the same and um and so uh and of the places that that harry the great built up and commemorated the one that's the best by far preserved is mcpella and that's what another reason why mamrie is so important because mamrie has been excavated down to bedrock whereas the other two sites that are like it mount moriah temple mount um and and mcpella that have never been excavated we we can learn a lot about them through mamrie that has been so what's one or two of either say early church fathers or like an archaeological digger discovery that tells us we got mac macpilla right where they actually were buried like how do we know that wasn't added later on yeah so so um so when you're at the city of hebron um and you're looking out to the surrounding hills and and uh you know which the bedrock is showing like in any ancient city in this part of the world you have tombs um you know the living live inside the city and the dead are buried uh on the ridges outside surrounding the city so you have lots of tombs and you have lots of caves for burial so when you're looking out there one of these caves has the biblical patriarchs buried in it the bible tells us that that bronze so how do you know which one which one it is well it's probably the one that's got this massive wall built in the first century bc around it that is commemorating that cave as that thing so then when then when somebody like josephus or or somebody is mentioning uh that that place and what it looked like you know in their day you know what they're talking about it's obvious because they're they're talking about the site that's was commemorated in their day because of course herod the great was before josephus for example and um right and so you you have uh the same thing how do you know of all the hills that are in jerusalem how do you know which one is mount moriah it's the one with a big massive ancient commemorative walls that are built around it you know that that served as a platform for the buildings to be built on top of and so it's it's obvious there's not you know five tombs commemorated in such a way there's one team commemorated in such a way and then it's discussed in historical sources as as being mcpella and what else would it be okay so let me play skeptic and then we'll move to mount moriah uh this is four four thousand years ago and you describe walls built in the first century bc that gets us halfway to the time of abraham so we're trusting a source as far from abraham as we are from the time of jesus without the tools we have today to study things archaeologically so is that where we're just saying yeah they probably got right we're trusting them what would be the basis for trusting those first walls that were put up and the tradition yeah that's a good question and um and you know the way i would answer that is well that's what mammary would have looked like before it was excavated you would have seen the uh the herodian walls sticking out from the mound of ruins um you know at that time and you would have said huh this must be something significant look at these these walls from the first century bc then archaeologist named mater comes in and he excavates down and then he finds in the layers underneath that first century bc he finds uh he finds a gate that's from an earlier period that that was an enclosure that was most of it was destroyed when herod the great built his enclosure but there's enough of it left to know there was an enclosure then you keep going down from there and you find the pottery that dates to the time of abraham and so um and so that has been done for mamrie but it can't be it hasn't been done for me cappella or for uh the temple mount because again it would probably start world war three so gotcha so but but even and the same is true with the temple mount even though we can't excavate there archaeologically there's still plenty of archaeology that you can see without even digging so you could look at it the other way um you know it wasn't herod the great didn't come along or in his time they didn't come along and just you know randomly pick some there was something there that was that that was commemorative of that cave um there were people visiting it for centuries and centuries before and so his archaeology you know he he wasn't a great father he wasn't a great husband but he was a great builder and so um yeah so his walls still stand to this day and unless we can get in there and do some archaeological work uh then then the specific questions of what comes before that can't be answered but if we know that the archaeology goes all the way back to abraham at mamrie there's no reason to think that if we could dig the temple mount and macapella that we would find a similar okay so in a sense when i when i did my research on the apostles i came up with a probability scale and like the martyrdom of peter was as high as possible because it's consistent early sources and nothing that contradicts his early martyrdom and even where he was martyred then i get to some other apostles a little later i think it's more probable than not but not as strong so mamrie because they've dug there there's a very strong case mach payla is the most likely place but since we haven't dug there would have to admit that our confidence is a little less than mammary is that fair yeah i think that would be fair but um but the other thing about it is is that there's not competing we know that the patriarchs were real people they died they were buried um we know they were buried uh in a cave um that was bought from the people in hebron and so it's right next to hebron and so we have one commemorative cave that the walls that without digging go back to the first century bc we don't have any other site that says this is the cave that the patriarchs were buried in so there really isn't a controversy about it where there might be in what you were studying there might be controversy about that and people arguing all different things i'm not aware of anybody arguing that that that mcpella isn't actually you know the site i mean of course the scholars that don't believe in the bible and believe that it's all mythology aren't going to believe in it but for anybody that does there would be no controversy i don't know of any controversy with mecapel and again the ones who are saying that there isn't any evidence for the patriarchs is ignoring the the big picture reality that the cities that are talked about and patriarch narratives exist and that these um these holy sites where god came down as i called my book and spoke to uh these the patriarchs and and and met with them and and therefore these places were commemorative that stack of archaeology has to be explained what's it doing there okay why is that cave being commemorated if it's not what it what it uh what the bible is saying you know it is that makes sense we've talked about three archaeology things from the old testament they all start with them mamrie machpelah mount moriah you hinted at all towards abraham which is fascinating we're going to skip the chapter on king david you have a chapter that talks about confidence where his tomb was and where uh the not only the temple obviously but where his own palace was and i was there a few years ago and i remember our guide took us through and said you go back just a few decades and a lot of people doubted that david even existed but then they find that the the tella the little inscription so to speak to tell dan inscription and now we have the palace of david if people want to see visuals and a good case for this check out uh joel's book where god came down let's shift to the new testament now for for sake of time nazareth uh pretty obvious question but why is this significant and you talk about uh some modern day temples and archaeology over the years at the very bottom they find something very significant from the first century tell us about that yeah it's uh it's the same thing that we've been talking about it's uh the evidence for nazareth is is one thing on top of another and so if you take the layers as they dug down first of all they had to remove a an old church they they tore it down that was built in the seventh 1730 so that they could build the one that stands today so when they got that out of the way then they could dig down layer by layer so they they dug down through the ruins of a crusader church which you can see still see then they got down to a byzantine layer where there was a byzantine church and then um and and the crusader and byzantine church were oriented as they usually are towards the east towards the rising sun then remarkably underneath that were the ruins of a um a synagogue and um and and the floor of the synagogue was oriented in a different direction than the church floors above it and it was oriented south now why would why would a building be oriented south well all of the synagogues uh in that area and then like around galilee in that area that have been dug face south because they're facing the temple in jerusalem and so um and then we have the mosaic floor a large patch of it that is preserved from that synagogue uh and then um then we have all kind of symbolism that is uh christian in nature you know like crosses and uh and whatnot and then and graffiti that mentions mary and and uh and we have um the name of jesus represented and and so forth and then underneath that from the house itself that once stood there we have a mikvah which is a jewish ritual bath so um from my only from my own experience of excavating um you know i've excavated in a couple of villages and so how do you know when you're digging a house how do you know if that is a jewish house well one of the major ways is if you find a mikvah this jewish ritual bath and you know that that's a jewish house and so that is what's left because you've got to keep in mind that um you know we we you've been to israel and you see uh pottery everywhere okay and you pick up a piece of pottery well that that piece of pottery is evidence that once there was a whole pot and that's the way that archaeology works you're not finding entire buildings you're finding pieces of them that are left and if if you think about it logically the further you go down in your layers the less you would expect to find intact because of course it's being rebuilt and rebuilt on top of each other and stones are being reused and they're they're digging down to the bedrock to put their walls in like the previous buildings did builders did and so um so at nazareth again we have this stack of archaeology where the archaeology itself goes down through these periods all the way back to the time of the event that is being talked about in the new testament with the announcement to marry that um she's going to conceive and have the messiah so and you don't have stacks of archaeology all over you have one stack that's been commemorated and so today we have the church of enunciation built in the in the 50s and 60s standing over this side and they they did a great job as far as preserving the archaeology that had been uncovered so that when you walk into that church today you can uh go up and look down and you can see um the floor from the synagogue and you can see the apps from the byzantine church and you can see the wall and the apps is from the crusader building and so you can see you can see the mikvah and um and so it's it's an amazing site it's a it's a stack of evidence saying physical evidence saying this right here is where this event that you're reading in the bible happened a couple things there's quite a few people saying they really appreciate your work so just want to encourage you uh thanks for all that you do so uh they're enjoying that and your conversations here last question this one then we'll move to another one what about the name nazareth how do we know that's actually the city itself going back to the first century well we have uh we have name preservation um a lot of the a lot of the cities that um that we're reading about in the bible were called uh the same thing down through the different time periods and um and so we have a lot of the same names that are in the bible that are still called today and um and so and then what's really interesting is because hebrew was of course spoken um and then over time you know greek took over aramaic and then greek and and uh and then um even in the roman period greek because we're talking about the greek eastern side of the roman empire and then um and then eventually arabic was spoken in these areas so when um when a when a city nazareth is palestinian now when a city is is called by a name that doesn't mean anything in arabic then um it's preserving usually the ancient name of that site so we have many many examples of name preservation uh uh in in the land and so um jerusalem would be one bethel would be one and and we also have nazareth mentioned in an inscription that was found in a synagogue in uh caesarea and so we we do have an inscription mentioning nazareth and and then we have the town of nazareth which it hasn't been lost it's kind of like comparing the bible manuscripts to uh to some other manuscript that got lost and had to be discovered again mamrie would fit in that description where it's okay it was kind of lost for a while people weren't sure what these ruins were and then they were excavated and realized oh this is mamrie um whereas a site like nazareth or jerusalem is like the bible it never was lost it always was passed on down to present time from ancient times and that's what these names were because there were pilgrims visiting nazareth visiting bethlehem visiting jerusalem from the time of the events right after the time of the events until today so a lot of cities over time change in their names like saint petersburg wasn't oe st petersburg but you're saying it comes to nazareth this name has been preserved through the archaeological record the written record back to the first century and potentially earlier so there really is no debate that we have nazareth as a place is that is that fair yeah yeah okay exactly yeah and even jerusalem was called alia capitalina for a while but but the understanding that alia capitalina was the jerusalem of the bible was never lost gotcha that makes sense by the way there's a quick comment here it's written in spanish it says sean thanks for your work we need to get this translated spanish i believe in youtube there's a feature you can go in that will put in the language in spanish maybe somebody can comment and uh help me out here if i'm mistaken but i believe there's a way to do that if you trust youtube translation um side note let's keep going uh one of the other new testament places you talk about is the birthplace of jesus now i'm gonna read to you what you wrote because i know this was intentional but it sounds pretty strong you said quote the textual and archaeological evidence places the birthplace of jesus at bethlehem into the category of historical fact i'm not going to ask you why the birthplace of jesus is important actually i will for sake of prophecy very quickly tell us why does it matter that we have the place and then let's look at the evidence defending that claim um well i mean it's it's amazing uh the fulfillment of prophecy is an amazing and persuasive uh evidence for uh the bible being true obviously and so in order to establish that first of all you have to show that a prediction is really a prediction so micah 5 2 which is the passage where micah predicts that the messiah would be born in bethlehem is found in the dead sea scrolls and predates the birth of jesus by 125 years so there's the evidence that this is this is really a prophecy this is really a prediction and so then on the other side is in order to show that it was fulfilled then you have to um uh show that it's that the birth of jesus is historical and that he is a historical person and that he really was born in jerusalem so are sorry in bethlehem and uh and so bethlehem is is uh in particular uh important to me because because i worked there and uh excavated in the church of nativity and just next to it and so i've i've uh had several seasons as a staff member digging there and um i dug under two uh co-directors in that project both of them secular scholars one is a secular um historian and uh the other one as a secular archaeologist and and i uh go into the quotes with them because but but basically secular historians don't uh dismiss that jesus was born in you know bethlehem uh okay i do hear that argument in america it seems like in america the the main argument against jesus is that he's a myth in this part of the world you don't ever hear that you'd be laughed out of a room if you ever said that that would be ridiculous oh yeah that'd be like me trying to argue that mormonism isn't true because joseph smith never existed see it doesn't work and so nobody argues that over here and um nobody argues that jesus wasn't a real person where would christianity have come from if if he wasn't a real person and so of course they don't believe that he was the messiah they don't believe that he was god they don't believe in those kinds of things but they certainly believe that he was a historical person and every historical person is born somewhere why not the place that the historical documents uh point to and so that's what i asked joan taylor who was the uh the historian and she you know and it's a stupid question that i'm asking her she's looking at me like you know so how do we know that jesus was really born here and she's looking at me like what what are you asking me that for i mean what do you think we're digging here for you know um all the historical sources say that jesus was born here both in the bible and extra biblical uh sources and so there there really isn't a debate on on that at least in this part of the world and if students are being taught that jesus is a myth or that he wasn't born in bethlehem then that's just some irresponsible teacher teaching that you know without any basis to do so whatsoever like i said you're going to get laughed out of the room so one thing that i do in my book is i i interview a jewish um archaeologist and because i because i want to make the point that that even this well-known jewish archaeologist i asked him the question hey where was jesus born and he's looking at me like what are you asking me that question for he was obviously born in bethlehem that's where all the historical sources that's where the archaeology points and and so and so it's not an issue it's not a controversy it's it's a historical fact it's also an archaeological fact because um when we dug uh bethlehem you know we're digging inside of a church but that church is sitting on top of a tell an ancient ruin okay and so we could dig uh down through the floor of that church which we did and then down to uh the material and the village that uh from the time of jesus and then you can keep going you can go down to uh the time of david and and find material from the time of david because that's also where david was born and where he was from and you can keep going even beyond that you know uh back to the time of abraham and back to the time when it was a canaanite city and and so forth so uh that's why i asked that question to joan taylor a secular historian that's why i asked the same question to my archaeology professor uh are you sure that jesus was born here and he's what do you think we're digging here for of course he was born here you know and that's why i asked it also to a jewish um archaeologist and i and you know in my interview with him i say i'm asking you this because you're a jewish archaeologist and he says that that's that's good you know and uh so where was jesus born well obviously he was born in bethlehem sure so uh nobody is arguing that he was let me read somewhere else he says uh you say where personally do you believe jesus was born and this is barkay who's a jewish archaeologist he says under the church of the nativity in bethlehem there are some caves and those cavities were in use in the first century beyond any doubt for very important places very significant places in christian faith i would regard the traditional place as authentic that's pretty significant that's a great quote you're saying that's pretty much the standard view among archaeologists at least on this issue even though they differ on others that's the standard uh yeah that's a standard understanding because what he means by the tradition is he means the historical sources that we have that say where jesus was born all say that he was born in bethlehem that's why people have been coming to that site for thousands of years and commemorating it and building it up and that's why constantine built a church over it and uh and so to to try to change that now it would be impossible how would you do that um you would claim he was born somewhere else well there's nothing commemorating it and there's no historical sources that say that that's the case it would just be your your modern take on it and you would be laughed out of the room and to say that okay he didn't exist is is in the same category so it's it's been interesting to me the the arguments and the things that people talk about and say and argue in america are quite different than um what they what they argue about and and talk about over here that is really interesting by the way you got what i would presume would be maybe uh the greatest compliment you could get being an archaeologist that is you remind someone of indiana jones so i'm thinking that's probably i mean what's cooler than that so you got an awesome uh you know what there's a ton of questions in here about sodom and gomorrah about the copper scroll i'm thinking why don't we have you come back and we'll just do kind of a live q a i realize you haven't studied all of these issues and know some more than others but we can do the one of the conquests to be fun to have you on and just kind of say hey what do you think about this and just kind of unpack archaeology i think based on the comments people would really really enjoy that so let me ask you one last one um for sake of time i'll kind of jump in there you'd say the evidence points towards not only having the birthplace of jesus bethlehem the city he grew up in nazareth but quote you say we can be sure and to me anytime a scholar says sure that gives me pause because we're told to nuance things and not overstate the evidence you said we can be sure that the church of the holy sepulchre standing today in the old city of jerusalem marks the place where jesus died and where he rose again now obviously where he rose again is a belief that we hold for different reasons than the site itself establishes but you are sure that the church of the holy sepulchre is where jesus died tell us what basis that give us the reasons you have for such confidence in the death place of jesus at the holy sepulchre yeah um i mean first of all i would say you know in regards to all these places that people don't forget people don't forget i mean think about american history think about something that happened more recently like uh 9 11. do you think that uh it's been 20 years now since 9 11 do you think that uh americans have forgotten new yorkers have forgotten what happened and where it happened um everybody would agree no do you think they'll forget in 50 years from now 100 years 200 years 300 years they're not going to forget they're not going to forget where those towers stood and what happened and so as long as there are americans in america and new yorkers in new york they will not forget where that event happened and that is the key to understanding uh the the place where jesus was buried and crucified is that christians lived in jerusalem followers of jesus lived in jerusalem from the time of that event until today unbroken except for one tiny little time period um in the destruction the 7080 destruction but they left for that destruction and came back right afterwards uh they're not going to forget where jesus where the two most climatic events of all human history happened and so we have the most archaeological com commemoration this stack of archaeology that i've been talking about for these other sites as they're in abundance in these places we have the most historical sources that are referring to those places we have them in the new testament explaining you know where they are and describing hold this yeah hold your thought just a second this is crazy but give me 30 seconds hang on just a second i forgot to plug in my mac it was about to lose the entire stream so keep going i apologize brother no so so you have uh you know john's uh description and the gospel of john telling us how close the the place of crucifixion and the tomb were to each other that they were nearby that they were in the same garden and then you have the the text you know to me it's an incredible story um where where you hear of what constantine is saying to do and eusebius is recording it all for us and um and so they are given the task to go and dig up the tomb of jesus and they do that it takes two years it's a two-year project they got to rip down a temple that is put then put over the site to desecrate it to supplant it which has a statue of jupiter over the tomb of jesus and a statue of venus over the crucifixion place and so the question is is how did they know where to dig a hole for two years to find these uh these sites well they knew because they had been desecrated and everybody knew where they were they were under the temple that desecrated them and so you have all the these to me that's the first recorded archaeological dig in jerusalem because they're digging for something from antiquity and so you have all this history you have all these historical sources you have you it doesn't look like much when you go there today because uh the church itself you know everybody says the church of the holy sepulchre but of course the church of the holy sepulchre is crusader before that there were previous churches that were destroyed and when an enemy comes in and destroys a church they're going to also destroy that which it commemorates which in this case is the tomb and the crucifixion place and so it's gone through several destructions and all those kinds of things but um but the historical sources and the archaeology is phenomenal for those sites as you would expect because it doesn't get any more important than those two events and um and so if we don't know historically and archaeologically where jesus was crucified and buried and rose from the dead if we don't know that we don't know nothing you know i mean because we have uh you know again back to uh gabby barkai the jewish uh the jewish archaeologist where does he believe jesus was crucified and uh and and buried he would that would be a stupid question to him it really would you'd be like well that makes you don't know anything uh everybody knows where jesus was crucified and buried in jerusalem are you brand new here do you not know have you not you know read the i mean it's that obvious okay it's uh it's not controversial at all um the whole thing between protestants and and so forth looking at the um at the you know the the garden tomb came along and everything like that it had a lot to do with the reformation and the way that protestants were being treated when they went to the church of the holy sepulchre and okay well we're going to go find our own tomb over here and and uh and and that kind of thing and so um again it's like it's like comparing a manuscript that uh that the oldest copy of it is uh 18 late 1800s to a manuscript that uh that that evidence that goes back to the first century and the ark there is no comparison really and so um and and it's important because there's so many deceptions one of the films that i did is called uh the jesus human mask because there's this huge deception in jerusalem which will eventually get to america but um that where they're claiming um this is the tomb of jesus over here we found the bones of jesus see and there's this whole argument well if you're gonna if you're you know the new testament says that they stole the body of jesus away well now we're saying we we found where they put it where they put his bones and all this kind of stuff and so to defend against that you really want to use the real tomb of jesus and the real evidence you don't want to use uh something that that doesn't have any backing or support and that's what we have and i understand that it's sensitive to people these things can be emotional because we we win and we visited the garden tomb and and uh we had um a amazing experience there and everything so then to be told um well that's not that that's not where the evidence uh lies you know for the team of jesus can be emotional for people and i want to be sensitive to that and and so forth but at the same time we want to you know uh reaching a younger generation we want to teach them the truth about where these places are and how we know those things so that they can uh so that they can understand it and and um and utilize it so yeah that's why i'm passionate about it good well your passion's coming i get passionate you know and uh i get kind of bottled up over here hey that is that is totally totally understandable i've i appreciate your sensitivity too i've been in the garden tomb and everything inside of me wants to believe that's the place because it feels like it you get to walk into the tomb there was the cliff before it fell recently that looked like a skull i mean it just matched what you want it to be like yeah but truth has to be supreme and i appreciate you promote that and there are 12 questions i'll go ahead and think just think about this though for a second you know um what would you expect the tomb of jesus knowing human nature to be like 2 000 years later would you expect it to be a nice peaceful garden where the birds are singing and a nice place that you could worship or would you think that would you expect it to be a place of absolute mad chaos where people are bringing their cultures and their beliefs and their rituals from all over the world to this place and that's what you have in the in the church of the holy sepulchre is madness craziness but it in itself is is also evidence that um that this is the place you know that's such a good point what would we expect knowing human nature because i've been to bethlehem you know the church where they believe he's born right over the spot at the garden of gethsemane there's the church i forget the enunciation of mary i forget the title of it um that's right next to what's believed to be garnet of all nations yeah oh like i said church of all nations i'm kidding that's exactly what it is and there's the sense where we're not comfortable with this just not earthly powerful and humble ruler and we still want to make them in our image now i understand that beautiful churches are bringing a reverence and respect i get that point but there's still the sense where we kind of want to make jesus into somebody that he never was and i that tension is very interesting to me when you visit those sites well joel i got to tell you there's a ton of questions that are coming up here for you about the garden tomb uh we didn't get the copper scrolls about your thoughts on the ark um if you're okay we'll have you back and we'll just do an archaeological q a and we will open it up for folks we've had a good number stream in and i think they would really enjoy hearing your opinions on that so those of you quite a few of you gave some positive comments appreciating joel's work one thing you could do is just support him his new book called where god came down can i tell you where guy came down it's excellent it's interesting i'm sharing it with my kids i was telling my wife about some of things last night that as much as i've studied this i didn't know so pick up a copy of where god came down and that's one way do a book review form you can just kind of spread the word and support what joel is doing if you've enjoyed this interview give us a thumbs up make sure you hit the subscribe button because here's some of the other interviews we have come up we have come up with a medical doctor soon on near death experiences barna is releasing a second part to the gen z study the gen z study they did was has sold more copies than any other study from gen z that they put into a monograph part two comes out we're gonna have the first interview on some of that data uh next week talking to uh rachel joy welcher about purity culture gonna have an interesting discussion there lee strobel nancy pearcy we got a lot of interesting guests coming on uh so make sure you hit subscribe the notification and this channel is brought to you in partnership with biola apologetics we are now fully online so if you have ever thought about getting a master's degree from really anywhere in the world and you have an undergrad degree we would love to help train and partner with you uh to be a resource to the church there's information below so joel hang on don't don't disappear you gotta be falling asleep because it's so late there in jordan uh but to the rest of you and thanks for coming in thanks for great questions and somebody jokingly said they'd pitch in to get me a new avengers shirt i am always up for new superhero shirts so uh bring it on i'm welcome to that one all right everybody god bless have a great rest of your day

Channel: Dr. Sean McDowell

Views: 31,142

Rating: 4.8995814 out of 5

Keywords: Bible, old testament, new testament, evidence, proof, archaeology, archaeological, manuscript, cave, upper room, gate of heaven, Abraham, Herod, Israel, Babylon, tomb, Garden

Id: A_k4noV95kk

Length: 67min 0sec (4020 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 21 2021