Mysterious Figures Of Religion | The Naked Archaeologist | Parable

this channel is part of the history hit network stick around to find out more [Music] i'm going on an adventure [Music] so there's only one way to figure it all out unzip the archaeology make it naked [Music] [Music] john the baptist is an enigmatic figure in the new testament he was a simple man who led a simple life living in the desert surviving on locusts and honey but he had a powerful message baptism he told his followers it could save their souls his fiery preaching style drew massive crowds in first century israel jesus himself was impressed and he went to him to be baptized in fact some say in his day john was bigger than jesus he was so popular that king herod cut up his head but if he hadn't lost his head could it have been john the baptist superstar the gospels and tradition are full of contradictions about who is more important john or jesus to this day there's a sect of people in iraq who think john was the messiah following clues encoded in the new testament christian folklore art and stunning new archaeological finds will cut through the contradictions to find the real john the baptist i'll start my search in israel in a village just outside jerusalem so here we are in nkrm nkrm is the traditional home of john the baptist and as you can see it's a place full of water it's pouring rain we're waiting for judith who's a tour guide around here she knows and karen like the back of her hand there she is how are you hi i'm fine thank you now it's pretty straight straight today this is really raining this village is filled with holy sites and legends of john the baptist born and raised here 2 000 years ago and this is it this is where saint john the baptist was born the tradition says he was born here oh wow and then anyways about people praying here i guess because it's a holy place of course very holy place [Music] now what is john the baptist what does he mean as a person for you he means so much because he came to prepare the way for the coming of christ so you feel it here you feel it so much yeah so much john the baptist and jesus were cousins according to tradition this is where they first met in the wombs of their miracle moms when the virgin mary on her way to bethlehem visited the once barren elizabeth mother of john the baptist so beautiful some of it is natural rock and this of course is the most important spot where he was born a star marks the spot where john was born there's a very similar star at the church of the nativity in bethlehem where jesus was born and the painting is also very beautiful what's interesting is that the woman who's holding john is not elizabeth his mother but mary she was more important and she's always wearing the blue she's holding john and elizabeth is barely you can see her she's like she's back there could there be a kind of a code i think it's only showing that mary was more important than elizabeth you know historically speaking there is evidence that uh john the baptist was in a sense bigger than jesus maybe the painter is saying john not jesus maybe maybe if we decode it do you know anything about these codes well i'm decoding this one yeah there's a powerful message there showing mary holding john not jesus where is jesus they're born he's not even in karem in any of the paintings it's all about john the baptist and the cousin mary in this place john the baptist is still the star yeah for sure he's the star here that's good [Music] in the early first century the end was always near messianic fever was in the air the romans under herod were oppressing the jews the elite priests were corrupt the people wanted a savior john the baptist was thought to be that savior and his way to salvation was through ritual cleansing baptism to save souls from the coming fire i spoke to steve mason about john's take on baptism there were lots of people at the time in jewish circles announcing that the world was about to end and john was one of these people you have this image of terror of coming terror this is what god will do and john the baptist he says look if you don't repent if you don't straighten out the mighty one is coming and he'll separate out the good wheat from the chaff and he'll burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire so what his saying really is is this you either face a river of fire in the future or you can be immersed in water it's much more pleasant one of the world's largest protestant denominations takes its name from john the baptist today there are about 35 million baptists around the world like john himself they only baptize adults who choose to symbolically wash away sins and commit themselves to a moral faithful life baptizing his disciples is what made john famous but where did john do all this baptizing i heard about this incredible new archaeological find a cave near jerusalem where john may have baptized thousands of his followers but there's a news blackout right now so the archaeologists aren't talking but that won't stop us i've got to see this place we're going to the john the baptist cave our first obstacle a locked gate we'll just crawl through this hole come on come on we got to move fast if you love history then you'll love history hit we have tons of exclusive documentaries about the most important people in history that you will not find anywhere else there is a great collection of religious history content available to history hit subscribers from the crusades to the birth of islam there are plenty of topics to choose from for your next documentary fix we're committed to bringing history fans award-winning documentaries and podcasts that you cannot find anywhere else sign up now for a 14-day free trial and parable fans get 50 percent off their first three months just be sure to use the code parable at checkout [Music] we're on our way to make an unofficial visit to what archaeologists say is the cave of john the baptist they wouldn't come with us today but that won't stop us until recently we thought john stuck to the jordan river this cave near his hometown may be the spot where his ministry began it's not the right key this is a pretty serious lock why do they put obstacles between people and the archaeology do you think i can get through here why not i think somebody can get through here i'm not joking is it you can't get through this sure you can our yoga fanatic cameraman squeezed in for a closer look what do you see in there there's a bath right there yeah that's a football yeah hey look it's a giant pool a ritual bath a mikvah there's a mikvah in there a ritual hebrew bath something he would have used there are supposed to be drawings of john the baptist on the walls but it's pretty hard to see there it is there it is it's very primitive i see it there's a person there let's see the head hey simka how come you got in here i'm too fat is one of the few times we really could use an archaeologist that's naked archaeology in the meantime back to in karen to look at some paintings that may hold some clues according to the gospels one of the many people who came to john to be saved through baptism was jesus artists love to tackle this watershed moment in christian theology but why do so many of these paintings make john look more important than jesus in saint john's church i discover another hidden message but what does it mean was john trying to tell me something no the baptizing of the baptism of jesus of jesus by john the baptist it was done in 1889 in a tiny little village near montreal you're telling me that's a canadian it's a canadian painting yeah it looks amazing it's french beautiful canadian that makes sense john the baptist is the patron saint of the province of quebec can you see two beavers i i i'm actually having a little bit of a culture shock because you're right there are beavers on top of the painting no canadians have very deep feelings for beavers and it's appropriate that they would be here in a place where it is spiritual okay the canadian painting is one thing but it's not just in paintings and churches that you see what appears to be hidden meanings the great masters tackle this topic too some of leonardo's most enigmatic paintings are of john the baptist da vinci also seems to be highlighting john not jesus i'm meeting with art consultant albertan oaks to see what she thinks about my theory davinci makes me think look at john again look at john look at john look at john here is a john he's got the cross he's higher levels he didn't have to do that he's on a higher level than baby the infant jesus he's the one that's being embraced by by the virgin mary he actually seems to me like an usurper he's actually taking over the role that one would expect for jesus for painters like leonardo and the renaissance and for early christians john and christ were pretty much equal in a lot of people's eyes because the baptism and the crucifixion are absolutely linked it takes the two of them to turn christ into the redeemer of all mankind and notice here again call me just a code-affectionado but notice the blue mary is all in blue and part of her blue is over john's head not jesus you could perhaps argue that the blue here is symbolic of uh greater divinity for for john because blue uh is a color that's usually equated with the virgin in um renaissance painting the da vinci john the baptist code is what we're talking about here i bet you believe in the grassy knoll theory conspiracy theories aside it is true that john the baptist gets a lot more ink than jesus in first century accounts other than the gospels and the biggest historian of the day is flavius josephus josephus spends more time on john the baptist than he does on jesus then that tells us that he has more to say about john the baptist which is a very interesting historical observation essentially what he says is he was a very wise man he taught piety and justice and fair treatment of one's fellow human beings he talked he taught that you should be immersed and he the reason he was killed according to josephus is that he had a very large following history says john was the headliner is it possible that the gospel writers turned john into a warm up act for jesus he must have been very charismatic if he was alive today he have his own television show well jesus is the star in this case right and john is the one doing the announcing the image that comes to mind is ed mcmahon and johnny carson you know here's jesus even jesus called john the greatest man ever born a woman so how did john get to be runner-up if you look at the gospels in the order they're written john gets smaller with every retelling well the gospel accounts for example are increasingly trying to do two things with john they're trying to show that he was a friend of jesus but at the same time they're trying to show that he was clearly subordinate to jesus someone might think he was a follower someone might say it was a follower that jesus was a follower of john exactly and why not john had thousands of followers in his day he still has followers i think it's time to meet some of them [Music] john the baptist first century superstar christian prophet is famous for baptizing jesus he led a very simple life he lived in the desert wore a camel hair shirt and survived on a diet of locusts and honey can a man in the desert really survive on that in yemen people still eat locusts i tracked down a locust eating yemenite medicine man to see if this new testament story makes sense first he healed my energy then we talked locus you know it says the christians you know they talk about john the baptist wasn't living in the desert yes eating honey john the baptist was eating honey and locust very good it's long it's the best health in the desert you ate it yes when i was young i was eating and what does it taste like uh chips uh smoked chips yeah french fries when you say chips you mean like pineapple it's selling one let's say salomon tastes like salmon sea and you know which one is kosher which one's not yeah it's a big one all of them with kosher to eat honey and locust yeah it's the best thing to eat in a day but you have to cook it and then you eat it like hot spicy honey whatever you want yeah by the way it's good for the uh men it's very tasty what the hell between chicken and this one locus honey roasted available everywhere where snacks and plagues are found in his day john like jesus was just one of many possible messiahs both men were contenders the apostle paul tells of a church of john the messiah in turkey paul goes to ephesus in western turkey he encounters a group of students of john the baptist and paul says to them well have you received the holy spirit and they say we haven't even heard of the holy spirit what are you talking about and then paul has to explain to them well right well what john was really talking about was his holy spirit jesus coming yeah but paul has to explain that to them in iraq today there are over 30 000 people who still follow john the baptist teaching called mandiants they believe that john not jesus is the true messiah john the baptist story continues to inspire i'm on the way to a couple of his modern disciples we're going to an area where john the baptist writes to go and be alone he used to go to be alone in the caves in the mountains of judea and so on and since he went there like 2000 years ago until today people come all these strange people come say there's really special energies there and they come to live there really yeah they want to connect with john the baptist something like that yeah like john barbara and her husband gave up the good life they sold all their possessions and moved from europe to this cave near john's hometown wow this is amazing do you mind if i make myself at home yes please please please be careful it's it's an ascetic bed it's hard don't throw myself oh yeah it's an aesthetic i see what you mean it's yeah it's a city if you throw yourself on it you break your bones okay okay so this is very cozy this is uh totally within the john the baptist it's totally you two are in his tradition he was a beautiful man he was beautiful and humble his beauty was humility it's written he's one of the biggest prophets there are and he lost his head because of a woman of a dance of a woman the most popular story of john's demise is that of salome herod's stepdaughter who when spurned by john asked for his head on a platter she got it as a reward for some dirty dancing the story is actually not true it's just a figment of playwright oscar wilde's imagination in reality according to josephus king herod chopped off john's head because he was becoming too popular very close to barbara and john's cave is an ancient crusader church where elizabeth john the baptist's mother is said to be buried this actually if you have a little fantasy was all forest and wilderness and here in the middle of this forest and villain john the baptist buried his mother so they can go inside here's the cave at the tomb were there templars here because the templars they were involved in like the da vinci code during the 14th century the knights templar were put on trial for heresy under torture many confessed to worshipping the head of john the baptist this is the grave john the baptist buried his mother now the french crusaders who built this they had all kinds of secret societies yes yes do you think there's a secret code here in this there is a secret code there is yeah and what is it it's secret it's a secret it's a secret can i get a clue about the secret code is this you put pressure on me is it a secret quote from the time of john the baptist or is it a secret quote from the time of the crusade from the time of john the baptist yeah yes did you let your husband john into this he knows it i know nothing you'll find it i will find the secret code you think you just told me what it was i can play that i can play that tape over and over again figure it out what what we may not have figured out the secret code but now the news blackout is lifted and the archaeologist is ready to show us around the john the baptist cave maybe he has the keys to the puzzle you have to protect yourself there's like also filmmakers that try to sneak into these kinds of you are you admitting something no no no i'm just saying there's those kinds of people and you got to protect yourself from it yes [Music] i'm back at the john the baptist cave with shimon gibson the archaeologist who discovered it he's been digging here since 1999. have a look luckily i've got keys here keys are very important and it's important to protect archaeological sites from intruders but i want to point out something yeah a skinny person could make his way right through here yes like i'm like not me not me i got a two-foot person no like a skinny cameraman [Music] along with the tons of earth stones and remains of pottery removed from the cave shimon and his team have recently drained the water in order to better examine the site it's a beautiful cave it's 24 meters in length five meters wide and five meters deep when i discovered it back in 1999 i was all the way up here closer to the roof and i kept on banging my head on the ceiling what was here it was full of soil shimon shows me an ancient foot bath that he believes may have been used by john the baptist himself so what we found here was that at the bottom here we found in the level which is associated with the time of john the baptist you can see there's a round insulation here which is connected anointing of feet so i can now put my right foot into and you can see like with cinderella it fits perfectly so once again so somebody would take oil and say here you've been baptized yes now go on your way yes be a good man what's interesting is that there's a possibility that what uh the anointing of feet as we represented the stories relating to jesus may have actually started from something which the jesus group of disciples adapted from the john the baptist it could have started here it could could have yes the problem is the gospels are not interested in john the baptist in so far as he is not connected to jesus he's the only interest in john the baptist how as to how he fits into the jesus story one of the most compelling finds in the cave is an ancient drawing that gibson believes depicts john the baptist this is the figure here you have this figure with upgrades arms yes in prayer he's holding a staff in his left hand um but what's important here is that this person is wearing a hairy kilt hairy kilt you see these there's 32 uh nicks here showing that this this garment was hairy now you could say well that could indicate that he was a hermit that he was some sort of holy man an ascetic but when you take this figure and you look at it in combination with the other drawings here then it all fits together you have two other symbols which have to deal with john the baptist because they don't appear in byzantine iconography his relic head and his relic arm well how do you know where do you have a tradition of an arm i've counted that 19 heads 15 arms and any amount of of just bone material unidentified bone material which appear as relics in churches uh traditional churches of john the baptist so he was like an octopus yes but you're being an actor the point i'm making is not that any one of these uh heads or arms is real but the head and the arm are symbols of john the baptist i could see that somebody could come and argue against ever you know to say that's not a staff that's a hockey stick and you know he's wearing a helmet and this is ancient hockey or they could say that's not a head it's a crown or that's not the staff it's jesus on the cross you could pick away at bits of it but to me once you have a collection of things then it's very hard to argue against the collection of things the facts are very very clear that you have people who are baptizing here in this cave at the time of john the baptist and then later byzantine monks come here and they celebrate a specific individual who has symbols his head and his arm and the only figure which comes to mind is out of john the baptist we'll never know whether john could have rallied a bigger following than jesus because his career was cut short the fact is he was a big part of the messianic fervor that gripped judea at the time of the romans and historians gave him lots of ink now archaeologists are digging up evidence of his importance uncovering this huge site where he may have baptized thousands [Music] he still has faithful followers from africa to quebec to iraq and bigger than jesus in his day john popularized the ritual that made a huge splash baptism is just about the only thing about john that didn't get watered down [Music] i'm going on an adventure so there's only one way to figure it all out unzip the archaeology make it naked [Music] [Music] david the simple shepherd boy who became a noble warrior king in a time of conflict he did it all fighter poet lover mighty monarch of a mighty nation david the greatest hero of all time almost everything we know of david comes from the greatest source of david memorabilia the bible the bible paints a picture of a glorious and pious king who establishes a mighty empire but contemporary scholars are singing a different tune they say that over generations of telling and retelling the story david's character has evolved into something larger than life they say david was a little guy and there was no big empire for them the biblical david is the stuff of hollywood movies we're in jerusalem the city of david why is it called the city of david because according to the bible king david moved his capital here he took all the israelite tribes that are mentioned in the bible and he united them into one nation he also established the messianic lineage both christians and jews believe that messiah comes from the line of david but who is this man is he just a literary figure is he a figment of some ancient shakespearean imagination or is he a real person the bible introduces david as a young shepherd boy chosen by god to lead his people the israelites david's most famous feat was the slaying of the giant goliath a philistine the philistines were the israelites great enemies an israelite boy slaying a philistine giant is definitely a big deal so this is the first story i need to investigate and there's nowhere better to start than where it all happened just outside goliath's hometown the ancient city of gut it's here that philistine expert dr aaron mayer can help us separate the man from the myth wow a pile of rocks this is it this is what you brought me this looks like a pile of rocks that's what it is a big pile of rocks here it's one of the larger ancient mounds in the land this ancient mound was the biblical city of gut beneath this ground like clues to the real story of david and goliath king david lives here well yeah probably isn't that amazing now david would have come from over there exactly in that general area the story of david and goliath the the location of the battle according to the biblical text is right in the ela valley to the north of us david's showdown with the giant goliath was his debut on the battlefield armed with only a tiny sling and a few rocks the young david toppled the tremendous brute with a well-aimed shot to the temple but could it have happened that way the bible says it did now the battle was right over there david would have picked up a stone an ordinary stone just like this one and he would have put the stone in the slingshot whoop and this slingshot would have accommodated stones better first time in 3000 years no 2 000 some 2 900 years and almost 3 000 years who else came here at the precise location where david slew goliath are you okay so david confronted goliath right here yeah exactly so what do you make of that story is it history or mythology well i think it's a combination of a bit of both i think the size of this person was exaggerated you know larger than like i caught a i caught a fish this this big you know but on the other hand the type of weapons and the armor that he's depicted and i think fits in very nicely with what we can think that the sea peoples would have with an early iron age uh panoply monopoly a soldier's monopoly means all the various armaments that he has oh i never heard that okay perhaps the strangest part of david's panoply was the 204 skins the bible says he carried as an engagement gift for king saul's daughter the bible says the king desireth not any dowry but a hundred foreskins of the philistines david upped the ante and brought 200. he wore like what some 200 foreskins but this is biblical isn't it uh well i don't think he wore them he he what's the story there he he uh he wanted to prove his uh his prowess to saul so he went and killed the philistines and brought back their foreskins i guess it was a way he did that in battle i mean it wasn't he wasn't like a ritual circumcision yeah no no and but that was something quite common in the ancient near east and unfortunately even till now is that where foreskins no is that when you kill somebody in battle you bring back a trophy whether it's his head or his hand or in some cases foreskins i think there may be more to this foreskin story than just a bunch of battle trophies and i bet with a little more work archaeology will offer some clues [Music] leonard cohen wrote a beautiful song called hallelujah that's the story of david and bathsheba he saw her bathing on the roof and he fell in love with her and that precipitated one of the uh most problematic episodes in uh david's uh career you see achieva was a married woman since her husband's away at war she's easy peckins for the suave david when she gets pregnant david orders her husband on a suicide mission and it works david then marries bathsheba who bears him a son solomon according to the bible david and his son solomon built a unified israelite monarchy a kind of mini empire complete with big gates and great temples but some scholars believe there was no empire no gates no archaeology the main guy behind this theory is professor israel finkelstein we're on our way to tel aviv where professor israel finkelstein the superstar of archaeology he teaches there at tel aviv university and what's his line his line is that it's all or a lot of it is a figment of somebody's imagination according to professor israel finkelstein the bible is fantasy it's mythology or at least most of it is certainly david is okay here's the clap hey i'll wait i clap professor did david exist yes he did was he a big guy or a little guy well he was the reasonable guy was he as big as the bible paints him out to be well i don't think so i don't think that he established a big great empire stretching you know to the freighters and so on did it stretch anywhere did he get to tel aviv where did it stretch well there's the king david street in tel aviv this if that means anything did it get that far no i don't think so why the portrait of king david that we've come to know from the bible the guy who is a warrior the guy who is a poet why that portrait and when you look at it you've reached a totally different conclusion when you look at the archaeological evidence i see him as as as as a founder of a dynasty in the way the dynasties at that time were well established you know they have never been established by being nice to your neighbor and they're coming and knocking on the door and asking him would you mind you know going away and i will take your throne you think that happened no okay fine the bible says that he walked around with 200 foreskins yes exactly gangsters kind of you know people bad people i mean gangsters going around they're a tough guy mercenaries exactly tough guys and then he takes jerusalem and establishes his seat over there that's what the bible tells me and i have no reason to go against each other well there's archaeologists who say yeah it never happened i don't know i don't think i dug around the city of david there's nothing there there is something there there's something there there's no monumental city there in the 10th century bc but there's definitely a village a big village a village a village a medium-sized village it was not this small it wasn't the smallest city no it was the city it was in the city it was not fortified there was no monumental architecture there this is a far cry from what the the portrait of the bible is it is it is it is david was just a small time thug leading a pack of hooligans why is his name mentioned more than any other in the bible times were certainly tougher and leaders had to rule with a sword but there's something about finkelstein's theory that doesn't sit right with me frankie watching music videos in my hotel room i fall asleep thinking that if professor finkelstein hasn't found archaeological evidence for the biblical david maybe he's simply digging in the wrong place [Applause] david that's not a race you simply may be digging in the wrong place work professor finkelstein's david may just be a gang leader but the bible describes his reign as the golden age of israel a time where wealth and tribute poured in from all his conquered territories and as his empire expanded david formed israel's first centralized government archaeologists like professor finkelstein say there's little evidence of such a large organized state but i want a second opinion and i know just the man to turn to professor baruch halperin who just happens to have written a book about king david we have your colleague who you know finky finkelstein as he's known to those who like him are you agreeing with finky there was no big king named david no we have a we have a disagreement i i i believe he was a big king he would say to you i think he would say he would stop you short and say you're imagining on david that didn't exist anybody who's as big as you say he is would have much more of an administration where where's your david my david conquers israel very late in his reign in my view probably in the last 10 years and that doesn't allow much time for monumental construction but in the next generation under solomon we do have big cities that are integrated into a central state that is capable of of monumental construction uh incredible fortification has a lot of wealth his achievement is the unification of israel and the creation of us of a stable form of government over a territory that previously was totally fragmented and ultimately he creates ethnicity yes necessarily being israelite or later judahite jewish um that stuff all comes from from david ultimately you you say no to finkelstein i always say another thing big david little david the debate hinges on finding monumental archaeology professor finkelstein says there's none professor halperin says there's some or maybe it was just a different kind of empire and we're all searching for the wrong clues i turned to professor aaron mayer for one more opinion if you look at the uh the current debate you know the continuation of debate i think the the two sides are sort of reaching closer to a sort of meeting point and i think in the end they're going to meet somewhere in the middle i don't understand the debate no i mean once you find the framework of the history you have no reason to doubt a story is innocent until proven guilty you could say that if in fact david and solomon had a major kingdom why aren't we finding inscriptions from the time of david and psalm how do we explain that when the context of the story of solomon having an empire which would be comparable to constantine the great i mean it's hard to understand it the question is how much do you read into this do you turn david into a small petty ruler of a couple of families or do you turn him into the ruler of a large area uh a charismatic we've seen even in modern times you can rule all of afghanistan without having i agree and you think that's possible i think again but you have to shift what you want to see and how you're looking for david and if you're looking for david and solomon and you expect to find the arch of constantine you're not going to find it and if you ask me this is my opinion they were sort of they were charismatic bedouin chiefs it's an interesting theory but the bible portrays david as much bigger than a small charismatic chieftain we know that other ancient empires celebrated their glory by constructing monumental buildings the romans had the arch of constantine and the colosseum the greeks the acropolis and the egyptians had their pyramids it was very common for such powers to record their achievements in writing leaving archaeologists with the remains of inscribed stones tablets and stele remnants like these surely exist for david i'm going to find them [Music] the bible describes david as a fearless warrior a man of great strength and courage he's also known for his more sensitive side when david wasn't out smiting philistines he relaxed by playing some music and writing some of the bible's most beautiful poetry according to tradition david wrote 150 biblical songs the songs were written as psalms or chants and are used in both jewish and christian liturgy the lord is my shepherd i shall not want he maketh me lie down in green pastures he leadeth me beside still waters as i wandered through the streets of jerusalem i stumbled across the museum of psalms i definitely have to check this place out the book of psalms all set to mystical paintings here's a mystic i can see before please come in and i will show you what's going on here you see can you believe it are these your paintings painting is prayer exactly very good moses burger is an artist and a mystic and he takes his inspiration from the psalms of david look this is like a kind of jewish sistine chapel david was an artist wasn't he absolutely he was a boy and he wrote 150 psalms and david would david was singing this to almighty lord i love that he just sent me up there we interview a lot of archaeologists and stuff like that and it seems to me often to some of these guys the the bible it's a it's something to be dug up it's dead for you it's not archaeology for you it's alive listen it's very simple is the almighty alive or not for me it's alive 3000 years later and people are still inspired by his poetry but like everything david there's always a skeptic was he a good singer i have no idea what kind of a secret david was but we have this tradition of him as a poet all the psalms are attributed to him actually it's a debate whether they're attributed to david or whether they're sung for david the superscription is li david to david you don't think you don't think he wrote them no i honestly don't think he wrote a single song although we'll never know if david actually wrote any of the psalms we can at least turn to archaeology to help us gauge the size of his empire so my next stop is the biblical hudsor where professor amnon bentor is head of the expedition the bible specifically speaks of david's son solomon collecting money to build the walls around hatzor megiddo and gezer archaeologists are finding that these three cities have something in common these fortified gates could this be the monumental architecture everyone's looking for so this is this is the gate this is solomon's gate this is it i would say this is the 10th century gate attributed to solomon okay you must understand that this you're looking at foundations these are the foundations these were actually another five meters another six meters tall there were gates there were doors which were made out of wood giant wooden doors yes we know exactly what these gates look like so you have six chambers you have three on each side and the tower here and the tower there the idea is to keep the enemy as long as possible within the killing zone making it difficult for the enemy to if they break through they would they should be wrapped in yeah is the bible history or is the bible mentioned how much of it is you say a lot i think quite a lot okay what does the archaeologist say that's a matter of interpretation what does it say quite a lot when it says that salomon built khashog megiddo in gesel and you have three exactly similar gates at hatson megiddo and gaza in my mind this is one part of the goods you know what they say in british common law if it waddles like a duck and quacks like a duck it's a duck that's what i think the gates at hatzor offer proof of monumental construction look at this place just look at it proof that solomon had the wealth and the power one would expect from a great empire and it's safe to say that the affluence began with his father david time for me to track down some more evidence i'm on my way to the israel museum in jerusalem to inspect an ancient inscription on a stone tablet this stellai offers the best evidence yet to attest to the size and significance of david and his empire did david exist some people said no the bible who cares must be mythology but you can't argue with archaeology finally proof positive what looks like hard archaeological proof not only of david but of the house of david a dynasty he couldn't have been quite a little bedouin shepherd king he must have had something professor biran found it at tel don in northern israel it's an inscription a moabite inscription a king bragging of defeating one of the descendants of david so in the course of bragging of defeating a descendant of david he says i defeated the descendant of the house of david this is the only archaeological inscription attesting to the dynasty of david i feel pretty good about my investigation we found proof of monumental buildings in a bonafide inscription attesting to david's dynasty there's only one thing i've got to check up on the whole foreskin story aaron mayer has found some objects that may shed some light on the mystery [Music] professor aaron mayer just called to tell me about his recent discovery that may solve the philistine foreskin mystery why did david bring those philistine foreskins to saul's daughter as a gift there must be some kind of symbolic meaning you want to see something nice you've been holding out on me the penis wow actually they're much more impressive than okay you want to hold them i'll i'll i'll hold them but i just want to know this you said to me you measured them because that's what archaeologists do and that they were much smaller than usual now i was expecting you know that i might need a magnifying glass when i confronted this thing and i don't know which part of the town you come from but i mean they're they're i would say nice-sized yeah why why did you say they were so tiny this is not goliath's penis [Laughter] what does this tell us i really seriously believe i think this is probably um some object that had some ritual meaning based on your archaeology you think the philistines were kind of they had a cult or related to um the fallacy yes exactly yeah and also you're saying when when when david showed what a worry he was by cutting may have been more than just cutting off their virility it may have been also cutting off something which is of ritual significance to them i mean he was making a religious statement or you know a religious god is more powerful than maybe they got it where it hurts they well i for one think professor mayer may be on to something if you want to put the fear of god into your enemies hearts castration is certainly a good way to do it and if you worship a phallic deity even more so the only thing i'm still unsure about is the size of david's realm size does not matter the fact that there is a dynasty that there are kings who call themselves descendants of david show that he was of significance regardless of the size of his uh of his kingdom that's all that i say david did not reign from the euphrates down to egypt okay that's the bible glorification of course there is an entire there is glorification of the past he did not rain from there to there so what he was not important is it a matter of size everybody agrees i don't have an argument with this no everybody agrees everybody agrees that i thought everybody doesn't agree with anything well you thought wrong okay david casts an enormous presence in the bible and in the world so significant is david that christians believe that jesus is his direct descendant and jews believe the messiah will come from his life one thing we know for sure david remains one of the greatest heroes of all time his legend his poetry and his life work endure when it comes to david size doesn't matter [Music] i'm going on an adventure so there's only one way to figure it all out unzip the archaeology make it naked [Music] [Music] some names are puzzles revealing more than the obvious take jezebel ahab did this is how her name was spelt outside of the bible it means virgin of bob baal was a pagan god the bible didn't like pagan gods and it didn't like jezebel so the biblical writers added one letter to her name now it means [ __ ] of baba [Music] so [Music] jezebel a name handed down in infamy she was queen of israel and one of the bible's wickedest women so here are our questions one was jezebel really so bad two who were her people the so-called phoenicians and three does a tiny mysterious piece of ivory hold the key to jezebel's legend is it an image matching the biblical description of jezebel's cold-blooded preparation for death she painted her face and looked out a window they threw her down and her blood was sprayed on the wall that's jezebel's end but let's start at the beginning this is jezebel's biblical tale ahab married jezebel ahab king of ezra jezebel phoenician princess and pagan priestess [Applause] phoenicia bordered israel but they were very different lands the israelites worshiped one god the phoenicians preferred a pantheon of pagan idols so when ahab married this pagan queen she became a threat to the one god of israel jezebel brought pagan worship into israel and who would answer that threat jezebel's mortal enemy the prophet elijah [Music] but what's in a name actually everything you need to figure out why these two couldn't get along jezebel and elijah fought one of the bible's greatest battles a fiery fight for israel's soul finally jezebel meets a ghastly ant thrown from a window and eaten by dogs that's what the bible says but first things first we start our search for jezebel here on the mediterranean seashore in northern israel who was jezebel who are her people right there see there where the tents are right there next to that b these people don't even know it they're sitting around they're bathing they don't understand that right over there they're unearthing the biblical city of door [Music] three thousand years ago door was a great port at diggs leg door we learned that the phoenicians were expert architects in its heyday door had some of the biggest buildings in the mediterranean if you're looking for uh for jezebel my best guess is uh i'm standing on her wall or a wall of her period this is this is jezebel's wall that's the best candidate i have so far for jezebel professor charon directs the dig here at door he's uncovered pottery from greece italy and even north africa proving why jezebel's people are so famous for their trading and seafaring jezebel is famous for her sultry ways oh great like you found like slinky uh lingerie how do you know that it's jezebel well no we found just the boring uh potsherds this is a fragment of a cooking pot oh so what does this tell you this is a cooking place you saw it picked up right here by professor charon as we speak now when jezebel went shopping for cooking pots i doubt she she went so when she had she had somebody shop for cooking pots she probably shopped for uh finer things but yeah she she sent out her maid and she said could you please pick up i'm short on iron age 2a cookie pot bring some over bring some over and that's how you know that this right she probably wouldn't have found anything else in the market so it would have all been because she was living in iron age so this dig has taught archaeologists a lot about phoenicia's trading empire jezebel wasn't just a religious threat her people the phoenicians were a commercial threat because they were the most advanced sailors of the time three thousand years ago they sailed from the coast of israel to spain connecting east to west the amazing thing is that they did it during the dark ages [Music] no much darker than that a dark ages of biblical proportions it happened around 3 200 years ago around 1200 there's this huge worldwide or at least mediterranean-wide catastrophe we don't know what really happened do we don't know what really happened no one knows what caused the biblical dark ages theories ranged from plagues to barbarian invasion whatever it was it was serious enough to knock the reigning empires out of the picture all the big empires all the big empires uh basically collapse and new players enter the scene two of the new nations on the block were the israelites and the phoenicians from the start they competed for land and power here a door we're digging up clues to that power three thousand years later but what are we gonna find [Music] archaeology is made up of bits of pottery but we're lucky with the phoenicians they left us something interesting the phoenicians settled across the mediterranean as far as north africa here in today's tunisia we find part of the reason for jezebel's bad image here the phoenicians sacrificed their own children [Music] [Music] [Music] the phoenicians set up colonies as far as north africa founding the famous city of carthage in today's tunisia carthage later grew powerful enough to challenge rome itself but here in tunisia we uncover part of the reason why jezebel's clan has such a bad image on these altars jezebel's people sacrificed their own children [Music] gabi barkai is an archaeologist at bar ilan university in tel aviv the very fundamental and basic thing of phoenician cult is human sacrifice human sacrifice existed among the phoenicians to quite a late period of time we have toffet structures where children and babies were sacrificed in different centers of definitions [Music] venetian altar where children were sacrificed to the god baal [Music] but is the story true professor gilboa says no she says these ghastly tales are part of a slander campaign against jezebel's people the phoenicians great navy and trading power made them a threat not just to the israelites but to the greeks and romans as well so they made up a few nasty rumors actually all our sources telling us about finnish and child sacrifices are greek and roman which didn't really like the phoenicians so you think they're just giving them a bad name uh basically yes and we don't really have uh till now any real but in tunis in carthage the big question is whether those children's were buried alive or dead that's the big question that no one really has an answer because if they were buried after death then you know it's not child sex so we don't know so we don't really know did the greeks and israelites make up these tales of child sacrifice slander against powerful phoenician rivals professor barkai doesn't think so not only does he think the phoenicians sacrifice their own children but he says the israelites followed this bad example look the human sacrifice existed let us not cover our eyes and assume it did not exist it existed it was part of the practices of people surrounding the israelites and sometimes it penetrated among the israelites as well in jerusalem in the late 8th and 7th centuries bc certain fractions of the civilization in jerusalem they practiced uh human sacrifices in this valley they slaughtered children the whole story of the binding of isaac is an attempt to find to fight that phenomenon is the tale of abraham and isaac a general warning to the israelites abraham bound isaac to sacrifice him to god but god said no a cautionary tale don't act like the phoenicians don't sacrifice your children the phoenicians didn't just influence the israelites with violence there was also sex [Music] so this is it these are celtic objects and this one dates from the time of jezebel that's right right and it's ivory complete with pubic hairs and a necklace so otherwise completely naked so we've got here something that you know reflects a fertility uh cult yeah these idols were foreign to israelites the israelites weren't supposed to worship fertility goddesses but these are the idols that the queen of israel jezebel would have worshipped so jezebel was into that kind of stuff yep and ahab married her and he didn't mind obviously not you find these things very similar figurines in israel and in judah so apparently the prophets may not have been very happy about it but uh this these types of cults were going on all the time and they were heavily so nation influenced and you assumed they they thought that having these things at home maybe under your bed or over your bed would help with fertility uh probably or improve your sex life who knows because of fertility they probably didn't separate that from i mean it's connected to life giving life so they're projected to life to giving life and it's connected to uh religion again you're looking at it from modern judeo-christian uh morality uh point of view which was completely foreign to them phoenicians influenced the israelites king ahab's marriage to jezebel personified this as queen of israel jezebel was a unique threat most threats came from outside they were military egyptians attacking with chariots but phoenicians threatened from inside into marriage a blending of faiths the prophets didn't like this what could they do jezebel held the power [Music] the conflict is about to go electric [Music] jezebel held the power power to bring pagan priests and altars into the israelite kingdom the prophet elijah resented jezebel's power over king ahab dear i think we ought to put a pagan altar over the window it would make it more dramatic don't you think a pagan altar would be effective the definition's influence went way beyond israel in fact we're still feeling it today there's a few good things the phoenicians did for you they gave us the word bible it comes from the phoenician city of biblus they also taught the greeks the alphabet and the phoenicians perfected glassmaking glass pottery they've been digging a door for 20 years but are there many phoenician treasures left to find can i try my hand at finding a treasure a venetian treasure sure am i doing a good job this is the excitement of archaeology folks what i hit something listen it looks like a sculpture a phoenician sculpture of jezebel keep hitting it it's just a rock [Music] this is tedious you know it's like hard in the movies they just like they find it instantly oh don't give up so let me get this straight i found something here and enough of it to be able to determine what the entire vessel is ladies and gentlemen naked archaeology in action this is actually a nice piece look at it isn't that beautiful i can't believe you really came here for just a few seconds and found these beautiful things yeah it's a handle and it's intact i hope you'll come back sometime bring your good luck with you i'm good to go good to go that's nice eh simba's treasure look at that hey [Music] could my treasure actually help fill in some of the phoenician story my treasure was quickly analyzed and it turns out to be incredibly rare the funnel you found up on the tail here are its uh brothers oh so this is this is very similar to what i found right almost identical to what you found we have fragments of others but these are the only these are the one you found you found the third complete one so far in 20 years of excavation that's pretty spectacular are you serious almost that's pretty good so in 20 years of excavation mine was only the third one of its of a kind of its kind in this site my discovery won't rewrite history but its rarity demonstrates that there was both common and elite pottery speaking of the elite jezebel didn't just bring fancy pottery into israel but also the worship of baal things got so bad that elijah finally took a stand it was a battle for the soul of the nation elijah versus jezebel a showdown with all the eastern fictions and now the story of a barbecue of biblical proportions elijah decides to take on in a kind of super bowl of prophecy 400 of prophets so what he does he challenges them all the people of israel are all around they go on top of mount carmel right down the coast he stands there he says okay here's the deal we'll build altars i'll put my bull on my altar you put your balls on your altars call on your god you throw fire from heaven if he's really god he should do it if not we'll see who the real god of israel the real god of the universe is imagine the scene all the israelites around the mountain these altars bulls on top those guys are jumping and they're screaming and they're yelling come on fire come on got a ball come on do your thing nothing this he starts taunting them elijah they try everything no fire then he says now watch this he raises his hands he calls on the god of israel bam fire consumes the ball all the people go we were making a big mistake not jezebel elijah and then he kills all the prophets of baal that really makes queen jezebel mad and she goes chasing after the prophet elijah elijah's bull went up in smoke he won the battle of the barbecue he defeated jezebel's pagan prophets jezebel flew into a rage vowing to kill elijah but elijah the prophet made a prophecy that jezebel would be eaten by dogs some ancestor of yours had a really great jezebel meal didn't he and when we come back queen jezebel's nasty end and the mystery of the ivory [Music] things have come to a head elijah and jezebel fought one of the bible's greatest battles elijah one jezebel swore to kill the prophet but i will stop you then elijah prophesized a nasty end for jezebel dogs will eat the flesh of jezebel and the carcass of jezebel shall be as dung upon the face of the field jezebel's final act went like this ahab dies in battle jezebel reigns briefly as queen mother but certainly i've been told that before the israelite soldiers rebel and set out to get rid of their pagan queen our combined armies have never been as strong and united as they are now our men have never been more anxious to fight jezebel sees her assassins coming she does something well peculiar something that would frame her image for all time she doesn't run hide fight negotiate instead she painted her face tied her hair and looked out a window this is one of the most outstanding examples of a biblical image matched by the archaeology that is uh an absolute icon it's it's it's a a central image that comes up over and over and over in the ancient near east it actually is the woman of the world at the window joanna stuckey professor of women's studies york university the phoenicians particularly were expert ivory carvers and we we have found i wouldn't say hundreds but innumerable beautiful small furniture appliques and furniture designs that have the woman at the window professor stuckey says our image of jezebel is vixen comes from her final moment that window there isn't any evidence at least that the way i read the bible of her being a sexual temptress until you get to the just before her death when she she dresses up and stands at the on the balcony at the window what is that all about well it she has been interpreted by many scholars especially in the 19th and early 20th century as a prostitute standing at the window looking for clients in my opinion she is not a prostitute now what she is doing at the window is i mean there are a number of explanations a queen displaying herself for the people to see her a priestess displaying herself for the people to see her a woman waiting for someone to come back the goddess waiting for the dying god to return i mean there's a whole possible series of reasons [Music] does this mean that we've got jezebel all wrong she wasn't a temptress after all you're saying it's not true they were just totally boring inside those pagan temples well they couldn't they could have been having orgies but they wouldn't have been prostitution and they wouldn't have been orgies in the same sense that we talk about them it wasn't true it's not true well it i'm not i don't know was like knitting i always imagined her being quite the white wild woman i bet she was with ahab that's one of the reasons he was keen on her i bet she was really good okay biblical narrative solves the mystery of the woman in the window framing jezebel as a pagan priestess her fall from that window demonstrates the defeat of the pagans the triumph of the god of israel over baal today the judeo-christian world is so monumental it's difficult to imagine how serious the pagan threat once was but in the beginning there was a woman powerful enough to threaten the very roots of the judeo-christian edifice such was jezebel [Music] [Music] i'm going on an adventure so there's only one way to figure it all out unzip the archaeology make it naked [Music] [Music] joshua fit the battle of jericho jericho jericho joshua fit the battle of jericho and the walls came tumbling down joshua fit the battle of jericho jericho jericho joshua fit the battle of jericho and the walls came with tumbling down joshua you know the tune but do you know the man did this great biblical general even exist here's the story and it starts with moses moses the bible says moses led the israelites out of egypt they wandered in the desert for 40 years moses died joshua took over moses is dead go now and cross the jordan river you will lead the people to take possession of the land i swore to their ancestors i would give them in a series of great battles he conquers canaan the land god promised the israelites what does that mean to you well without joshua there'd be no conquest and no conquest means no israel no israel no judaism no jesus no jesus no christianity you get the picture so who was this guy general saint villain myth we've got three clues to find our man one archaeology two literary sources three believe it or not the miracle first things first if you want to know joshua forget jericho the real story the real battle and the real archaeology is somewhere else we're going to one of the most amazing archaeological sites in the holy land to start our search for joshua [Music] we're going to hatsor that's h a 0 r or h a t 0 r as mentioned in the bible as one of the cities one of the main canaanite cities that was destroyed by joshua when he conquered canaan when he conquered this land now there's a big debate the biblical city of hazor emerges from the dust of antiquity as archaeologists uncover silent remains of its glory i got it look at this very old workers carefully chip away at crusts of time some of these ruins belong to the 18th century before christ [Music] it was joshua who conquered hazor capital of canaanite kingdoms canaanite inscriptions still remain on some of the stones hazor was lost won and lost again by the israelites who left remains of their everyday life intact after many centuries solomon rebuilt the town and today the biblical city of hazor is making history again the bible says joshua 11 10 and joshua at that time turned back and took hatsor and smote the king thereof with the sword for hatzor before time was the head of all those kingdoms was joshua real was he a mythical figure did he really conquer this land a lot of people say he's totally a mythical figure hatsor wasn't destroyed by joshua how do you figure it out well you dig at hudsor [Music] look at this place just look at it [Music] professor amnon bentor is our guide professor what do we do i'll tell you i'm already arguing with professor amnon vento and we haven't even started the interview and you've been here this is khatsur this is one of the biblical sites that's been excavated no no no it's not mentioned in the bible it is you just said it is one of the biblical sites no so what do you mean it is the biblical psyche it's the biblical side i'm sorry i stand i stand corrected it is and you'll tell us well okay what i'll tell you why no problem yeah uh there's no other side if you want conquest okay conquest yes joshua no joshua if you want to tackle conquest the conquest of canaan by the israelites it's hatzo this is the place now i don't say you have to agree about everything you don't have to agree about the conquest you don't have to agree but this is the place to have the argument this is it that's what you see in this argument okay so there's no other imagine more than 3 000 years ago a great palace pagan altars soldiers priests families children a king khatsur head of the canaanite kingdom in the galilee to conquer this land joshua needed to lop off that head as the bible says joshua's army reached khatsur and they smote all the souls that were therein with the edge of the sword utterly destroying them there was not any left to breathe and he burnt khatsura with fire the bible says joshua burnt this canaanite city but what's the evidence in ancient there was a wooden floor here yes there was i'll show it to you not this one i'll show it to you oh are we going yeah we're going you want to see wood come and show you you see the base this stuff the whole all the walls are lined by basalt slabs wow okay okay look at this basil can i take a piece come here come here you see the line of little stones yeah above it do you see the black line i see the black this is the burnt wood wow you see it i see it clearly that's it that's the burnt floor we're talking about a big fire a lot of wood a lot of olive oil because we have at least 20 huge pithoi pistol meaning jars huge gel each one of them more than 200 liters which are all burning because we have the lines of burnt oil still seen on the outer face of the jaws and we have what we don't have now fortunately very very strong winds the combination of strong winds oil and wood would create temperatures that are double the temperature of a normal fire a normal fire is 6 700 degrees centigrade we had a fire here that was at least 1300 degrees centigrade wow so it would kind of melt everything right if you will come and look at the mudbrick you see that the marbling melted it looks like lava look here yeah to be able to melt them like this you need more than 1300 degrees 1300 so this is just this is an unbelievable fire in which this palace perished okay but things don't get destroyed and by accident by accident no right somebody touched it somebody torched it yeah okay does this bit of melted mud brick authenticate the biblical story our first piece of evidence in the search for joshua [Music] dear kings of canaan please help me stop the israelites before they burn hazor and slaughter all our people sincerely yours king jabin of hazor [Music] you're holding in your hands evidence to the destruction of the palace of hazzo in the middle of the 13th century does this bit of melted mud brick prove joshua burned khadzor over 3000 years ago you dig at hatsor and you find the ash where and when the bible says it should be but did joshua do it not everyone thinks so [Music] i'm on my way to meet carl ehrlich professor of religious studies at york university we're trying to find joshua the man behind the myth but ehrlich thinks we might be looking for the wrong man he wanders is joshua actually the same guy as moses a sort of literary clone there is a character named joshua who we encounter in the hebrew bible a character who arguably is modeled on that of moses literally although some people perhaps would argue that the character of moses and the moses traditions are modeled on joshua it's one of these chicken or egg questions and part of the suspicion you have is their details are too similar moses leads the israelites across the reed sea where the waters part joshua leads the israelites across the jordan river where the waters part moses encounters god or an angel of god at the burning bush and is told to take off his sandals because the ground upon which he is standing is holy joshua encounters an angel of god outside jericho and is told to take off his sounds because the ground upon which he is standing is holy no i can see i'm a hockey fan i'm a hockey fan and i can see that in the future phds people get their phds on the following they'll they'll see that there were two these two legendary hockey figures one named bobby orr and another named wayne gretzky and they couldn't possibly be real people because they both grew up skating as little kids on ice rings in canada sometimes clearly sticks they both had you know they both they clearly are the same figment of somebody's imagination maybe there was some wayne green maybe there was some bobby orr but they couldn't both be hockey players who were the greatest somebody made them up and since we have no archaeology the actual skates they probably didn't exist somebody's going to have a phd in gret's ecology [Applause] moses and joshua the same person it's a literary theory here's the logic joshua needs authority so borrow some from moses and you do this by making their stories mirror each other archaeology can't prove it one way or the other oddly enough we are on more solid ground we find more archaeology when we turn our attention from men to gods the bible says joshua smote his enemies with the edge of the sword and what have we got here we've got canaanite gods one of them a god or a worshiper of gods with his head lopped off but this guy's head was taken right off by somebody with a very big sword who did that well they say they don't know if there was a joshua or not one thing that they do know is that the bible says that when joshua came through he burned it he destroyed it he went after the canaanite gods this is exactly the kind of stuff that joshua and the incoming israelites did not like they cut these things down they toppled them to the ground and guess what that's exactly how the archaeologists found them toppled to the ground in a destruction layer that was different than other cultures because polytheistic culture pagan culture was accepting of many gods but here you had a revolution according to the bible a revolution one god a god that didn't tolerate the worshipping of stones of standing stones and of gods and goddesses so we have plenty of evidence of gods but our man joshua is a shadowy figure the bible's full of his stories but most of his exploits wouldn't leave any evidence for us to find here's joshua's problem he's famous because he won battles and that means destroying things he didn't build things for us to find he knocked them over or burnt them or put them to the sword joshua 6 21 and they utterly destroyed all that was in the city both man and woman young and old and ox and sheep and asses with the edge of the sword other stories give us better clues as to whether or not our man existed the bible says joshua conquered 31 cities including catsur jericho jerusalem lajish and megiddo many of these places can still be found today professor finkelstein studied a number of them he says there's no way joshua conquered all 31 cities because 3 200 years ago some of these cities didn't exist when we come to joshua we see one that many of the sites mentioned in the book of joshua regarding the conquest of canaan in the supposedly in the 13th century bc had not at all existed at that time it didn't exist at the time of joshua i mean there was there is no eye at the site of i and there is no arad at the site of around 13th century speaking about 13th century if you take the list of conquered cities in joshua 12 and uh or in in the stories themselves when you compare the list you know to what we know today from archaeology you take you get two completely different stories completely the archaeology says one thing i mean most of them most of the places were not inhabited in the had not been inhabited in the late most range but is professor finkelstein looking in the right time consider this future archaeologists search for evidence of world war ii in 1945 no problem what if they get the date wrong and look in 1925 misjudged 20 years world war ii disappears if we want to find joshua we need to know where yeah where where and when to look difficult questions but here's an easy one how does a broken pot and the miniskirt help us to date joshua [Music] [Music] we're looking for joshua but how do we decide which year to find him in well we use a broken pot and a mini script i see this one of the most important means to assign a date is pottery typology pottery changes over time pottery changes rather quickly because it's it breaks because it's cheap to make so once it breaks you make a new one and fashion it's like fashion future archaeologists will be able to tell by models of cars by cars by cars buy dresses one year all the women go with show blessings another year they go with long dresses but then they go to the short dresses and then it confuses you no no no but but then you put it together with something else shorter the long dress with this type of cow you have to match it all up and once you get you get a starting point you go with it okay both professor bentor and professor finkelstein try to solve parts of joshua's puzzle with bits of broken pottery but reconstructing the past is a humpty dumpty task all the king's horses and all the king's men don't always agree on what goes when think about it we're trying to tell a story a tale of heroes villains battles and conquests but our clues are bits of smashed pottery 3000 year old smashed pottery and if that sounds tough how can we tackle joshua's miracles the book of joshua says walls fall when a trumpet sounds the sun stands still the river jordan parts but consider this question do some of the things we call miracles have natural explanations [Music] we've got these stories that that include aspects of the miraculous of the superhuman that the archaeological record cannot comment on one way or the other march all of your soldiers around the city once a day for six days have seven priests carry seven rams horn trumpets in front of the ark [Applause] how very unusual white on the seventh day blow the trumpets and the whole army must utter a war cry then the city walls will collapse and the men can charge straight in do you think he was a real person do you think he has conquered jericho uh probably not but you never know or if he conquered jericho it certainly wasn't the way it's depicted in the hebrew bible and uh why not you know we just experienced we just experienced this tsunami that killed a quarter of a million people okay walls of water came on people now it could be that if we didn't have you know all these news and photographs and everything that people later would say walls of water a quarter of a million people impossible no it must be mythological why do you assume that it didn't happen jericho was in an earthquake zone they marched around they tutored their horn an earthquake came you can argue about why did it come was it just a coincidence don't you see what you're doing in your attempt to preserve the literal text of the bible you have just added something that is not mentioned in the hebrew bible and this is here an earthquake all kinds of weird things happen around joshua's time according to the bible the sun stood still the the jordan river got blocked up that happens constantly it's been documented scientifically no that that the the river the jordan river gets blocked for days on end because of uh earthquake activity and because of of rocks falling into the things 1950s academic who said comets caused the biblical plagues scientists called him a crackpot since then scientists have come to accept that comets have caused catastrophes like wiping out dinosaurs so could other natural disasters be at play in joshua's tale [Music] is there any way we can explain some of joshua's miracles based on natural phenomena [Music] dr charles pellegrino is a scientist with a taste for disaster sodom and gomorrah pompeii atlantis the bible says when joshua conquered israel canaan the jordan river stopped flowing and he crossed over they came to jericho they blew their rams horns and the walls came tumbling down skeptics come and say this is mythology i don't even have to investigate it you come and say sorry it's it's geology yeah we know it's a tremendous earthquake zone a couple times a century there's a quake which also affects jericho even today and you get these landslides and for up to a day or two the river no longer flows because there's a artificial dam along the jordan valley and here you have an association with the tumbling of jericho's walls uh that the river stopped flowing let's sum up for a moment we've looked for joshua in miracles in literary theory in archaeology and it's time to return to where we started hatsor does professor bentor think joshua is the culprit the one who burned hatsor why can't it be that simple because you may have all kinds of alternative explanations such as such as x destroyed hotsor mr x x give me whoever egyptians assyrians and these are likes 500 years later say you see we did it it was my granddad because in order to be sure of what you are saying we need to find a sign here saying i joshua conquered herzog just like it says in the bible since i believe this is never going to happen it will be from now on a matter of common sense he said it will always be a matter of common sense what does your common sense tell you the egyptians never claimed that they destroyed hodzon the philistines never claim and they don't claim anything but the philistines were never here it was too inland and we never find any even one philistine portrait here at the canaanites which canaanite city was capable of destroying hudson so who is left but a conglomerate of people bedouins of various kinds if you wish who destroyed hazon and many many many years later they were called israelites it is an option logical but i cannot prove it did joshua lead those israelites most evidence speaks to joshua's role as conquering general righteous destroyer but evidence of his creation surrounds us from joshua came israel from israel judaism christianity and islam and so much of our world's culture you can argue myth or man but there's no denying joshua's legacy [Music] i'm going on an adventure so there's only one way to figure it all out unzip the archaeology make it naked [Music] [Music] saint helena one of the most influential women in history in the early 4th century she became a christian before it was the fashion her son followed his mama's lead and her son was none other than constantine the great emperor of rome soon christianity was the official religion of the roman empire in her 70s helena set out for the land of the bible single-handedly inventing the seniors tour of the christian holy sites she decided where the most important events in jesus's life happened she built churches marking the birthplace of jesus and john the baptist she found joseph's carpentry shop the crown of thorns and the crucifixion cross nails and all to this day every year millions of pilgrims follow in the footsteps of helena but was she a competent archaeologist or was she just making it up as she went along [Music] to find out i'm going to take a look at some of her best work starting with the church of the holy sepulchre in jerusalem the 1600 year old church a maze of chapels tombs and passages is the holiest site in christianity legend says helena built it she claimed it was the site of jesus crucifixion resurrection and tomb now marked by a church within a church helena said this was where jesus was buried and actually if you just walk by over here you see that there is some kind of structure this seems to be i don't know some kind of family tomb you can see the architecture there were tombs here and people were washed here people were buried here families mourned here there's a whole network here was this the tomb that the gospels identify as the place where jesus was laid to rest for three days before the gospel say that jesus was resurrected it was a tomb we can see that was a tomb but was this the tomb of jesus well according to helena it was and suddenly this tomb this modest family tomb turned into the church of the holy sepulchre over the archaeology you have layers of architecture layers of faith and an entire edifice of religion right here i asked father leslie hoppy a franciscan monk about helena's contribution to this holy site this church of the holy sepulchre what what's the meaning of this church for christendom well it houses the tomb of jesus christ plus it also houses the rock of uh golgotha where jesus is where jesus was crucified when you say it's the tomb of jesus that means you basically believe helena well the the tradition regarding the identification of this site as the place of jesus tomb was a tradition kept by the local christian community of jerusalem long before helen i came but when she shows up and says you know let's build a church here i mean that's hundreds of years after the fact right right what was her involvement here well that's the question is the church of the holy sepulchre really built over the tomb of jesus and if it was was it really helena who built it before i can answer this i need to know who was the sizzling senior the patron saint of divorcees treasure hunters and archaeologists i got the lowdown on helena from annette yoshiko read professor at mcmaster university well helena was um the mother of constantine she came from extremely humble origins an innkeeper or she may have been even a prostitute that she may have been madame running abroad yeah something to that effect innkeeper the old innkeeper [Music] i think inns in those days were a little bit different whatever she whatever she was she definitely came from very humble origins she married constantine's father who also came from humble urgents he was the son of a goat hurt so goatherd married the madame and together they they had an emperor yeah they're very common people around the time that constantine was 20 constantius spurned helena abandoned her got himself a trophy watch oh he got himself actually more than a trophy wife the person who he married in her place was the daughter of the augustus this main emperor at the time so he married very very far up constantine's father becomes emperor but not for long he dies in bed one year later leaving the crown to constantine at the time rome is pagan christians are being fed to the lions legend says that in 312 constantine is leading his army into battle when this happens he sees a cross in the sky and knows he must fight in the name of jesus he wins it appears his mother had the right idea within a century christianity will become the official religion of the empire it will strengthen and spread for the next thousand years unstoppable until the muslims gain control of jerusalem in the 12th century at that time the key to the holy sepulchre is taken from the christians and given to a muslim family for safekeeping for more than hundred years rajiv nuseba's ancestors have held the key to the church's only door i am the door keeper and the recorder of the church of the church before that my father now i am later maybe my son deep inside the holy sepulchre there's another less famous church saint helena's chapel where helen is said to have discovered the true cross it is just below the site of the crucifixion also known as calvary and this is under calvary this is the bottom of the hill you see the hill original hill the cross discovered right here the cross was discovered right here right here by constantine helene so this is called the church of the cross or the church of san helen because she found the cross where right here this is the place where she discovered the cause if helena was right she just achieved one of the greatest archaeological feats of all time but she didn't rest on her roman laurels next she builds in bethlehem in 306 a.d constantine becomes emperor of rome he makes his mother helena empress but she shocks rome by adopting a new illegal religion he has two choices he can feed her to the alliance and make christianity legal cut to 325 a.d christianity has become constantine's favorite pastime he builds saint peter's he heads up the first official christian council and he sends his mama on an all-expenses-paid trip to the holy land to build churches in his name i'm standing in front of the church of nativity in bethlehem this is the traditional place where jesus is supposed to have been born in a manger this is where helena came in 3 20 let me see here i happen to just have a candy tourist brochure 3.25 thank you very much she came here in 325 right nice to meet you what's your name my dog nidale are you a tour guide here yes so what's the story with this church what do you mean by the story you're looking at the church of nativity and and this is a traditional place where jesus was born right it's not traditional this is the place where all the nominations decide this is the place helena heads to bethlehem to build a church marking the very spot where jesus was born funnily enough there's already a shrine here a pagan temple christians believe the pagans built the temple to cover up the holy site others believe helena wanted to turn a pagan site into a christian one whatever the answer helena knocks down the pagan temple and builds a church for jesus she even identifies the specific place of the miracle birth that's the traditional place of jesus's birth right over there the star marks the spot this is where the virgin birth is supposed to have taken place there's a helena helena mosaic there dating back to the fourth century and if you notice the whole place has a shape of a cross there's two entrances this is the head where jesus is supposed to have been born and then it goes right down like that in the shape of a cross we'll let the faithful pass here let's get out of these good people's ways fifteen hundred years later away from the tourists the original mosaic floor of the church helena built is hidden under this trapdoor but that won't stop the naked archaeologist well look at this there's no mosaic here so i can go here this is supposedly the original mosaic so we're talking helena's time we're talking 1600 years old and you can see it's about three four feet under the present floor gorgeous mosaic isn't it beautiful okay in the fourth century helena is the answer to the christian's prayers just 15 years earlier they were forced to worship in secret now they have a church the size of heaven and money to burn this is just the beginning next helena embarks on a mission to mark all the holy places with churches she even finds the bones of the three magi the thorns from jesus's crown and the true cross what's her secret flexibility when archaeology fails she switches to miracles visions and torture so one of the interesting ways that helena before she became saint helena used to find out where the true cross was was to throw this learned jew a person such as myself into the swell and then after seven days in the well i wouldn't have lasted seven days he finally came up with a theory of where the true cross really was and then she let him climb whoa out of the well no wonder he confessed now i would have i would have pointed at any tree just to get out of that look at that ancient well deep miserable full of bacteria why did i go in there archaeological ballet torturing jews doesn't sound like very saintly behavior to me i asked annette reed to tell me more about helena's research techniques in some traditions she brings all of the jews in the city together finds the most learned of them and tortures them in order to find out where the place is because she knows that they there's memory there so this holy woman gathers the wise and tortures them to get information so that's one version of the story that's that's one form of archaeology which i'm glad she has been abandoned yes and another version of the legend um it's because of divine inspiration that she's able to tell where the various spots are divine inspiration is nicer than torture the stories go on to say that helena finds three crosses to find out which one belongs to jesus she needs a miracle the one that heals a sick woman she declares the true cross helena orders the church built holy sepulchre is born as for the cross she split it up one part was in jerusalem one part was in rome and one part was in constantinople she broke the true cross yes this was a very common thing to do with relics during this time it was a video like an archaeologist today wanting to give to different museums yes we'll see there you go i'm going to take this jar and break it each piece is as powerful as the whole in terms of being a witness and there's a part in jerusalem a part in rome and a pardon her son's new capital constantinople a triangle in terms of the most important places within what is becoming a christian roman empire right in jerusalem the relic of the true cross was kept in the church of the holy sepulchre over 1600 years later i'll get a chance to see it constantine the great emperor of rome in 325 he sent his mother to the holy land there she is said to have built many churches including the holy sepulchre in jerusalem it's here that helena reportedly found the true cross and where now sixteen hundred years later a sliver is still kept under lock and key father theopolis the greek orthodox patriarch has agreed to show it to me hi hi and uh so you have a piece of the true cross yeah that's right you're welcome right now give me a second oh wow there's some key yeah that's right it's very old it's little keys they don't make keys like this anymore well only for preservation and foreign [Music] here this little the central part the small part which is inserting the bigger one this is from the original cross of jesus christ are there any like miracles associated with the mirrors there are many many miracles and many personal stories about the holy cross we have the little service which is called the service for the sanctification of the water and once this water is blessed uh it never decays it doesn't evaporate doesn't evaporate doesn't decay and here also we have uh relics you mean bones there are bones but they're relics together with steam for instance here is right hand of mary magdalene the right hand of mary magdalene yeah that's right there is a hand in there isn't it yes there is there's metal like a metal glove around it yes but you can see the ball inside the i see the bone that's the bone that's the bone marrow look the hand here yeah yes inside there are bones yes a skeptic might point out that none of these sacred relics has been scientifically tested no carbon 14 dating no labs add to that there are enough slivers of the true cross to build a house and even father hoppy is suspicious what about the whole story of finding the cross well the the earliest story that associates helena with the finding of the cross comes from about 70 years after the event eusebius doesn't mention helena nor the cross it's only with a history written by jalesias in 390 that you have the association of helena with the find the cross at this church so do you think she has something to do with it or she just got kind of retroactive praise my own personal view is that i'm doubtful that helen had anything to do with the finding the cross here so who did find the true cross and what if anything did helena discover helena's influence is still felt around the world for example in toronto i met with father kutu at saint helen's roman catholic church to my amazement locked away in the most secret recesses of the church i discovered that here too there is a piece of the true cross could you tell me a little bit about this statue here that's saint helen and she became a christian at the age of 63 converted now i understand that in this church there are pieces of the cross so you actually have relics yeah we have one it is uh it's been here for a long time i don't know when it came in but i presume it is here since the church was started i could show you if you come in here sure you have it and this is the this is the safe that's the safe and uh you keep it locked yes always this is a real safe when you said safe i thought one of those little things i didn't know this is a joaquin something that you can do walls for fire oh and that's this piece you see that yeah so um so this is that sliver in the middle of the tiny tiny little silver right but the little sliver is in a shape of a cross with spots right there's two slivers that's right and that according to the church's tradition came from the actual cross that jesus was crucified on and that saint helena identified that's right are we allowed to open this yeah yeah oh oh i see and that's um so it's encased that's that's right around the center of the cross is it more symbolic for you or do you actually believe that this is a piece of the cross i just look at it it helps me to think of jesus i don't go no longer on the questions where it is the true cross it wasn't too cross i it's irrelevant to me it just helps me to focus once i'm focused in jesus life that's it whether or not helena discovered the true cross she has helped tens of millions of people focus on jesus she invented the idea of the christian pilgrimage at christmas the church of the nativity in bethlehem is packed with pilgrims at easter it's the holy sepulchre church in jerusalem christians believe these churches are here because helena said so archaeology can't tell us much about her but there is someone who can an ancient eyewitness helena's traveling companion to the holy land one time bishop the historian eusebius it's difficult to know from the early accounts how much of this she actually did the earliest account is in eusebius and he doesn't mention the true cross at all he has actually constantine and bishop macarius of jerusalem being responsible for the holy sepulchre is she involved with the holy sepulchre according to eusebius she isn't and one of the things that i find kind of striking is within eusebius's account is that he makes this offhand reference to helena wanting to pray in the places of importance to christ's life and wanting to walk in the footsteps of christ this focus on the physical places of jesus's life and trying to unearth them yeah i think it is and there have been some pilgrims that had gone before but they were all scholars they were curious for other reasons but after helena goes and and builds churches and then also makes this attempt to walk in the footsteps of christ they're just streams of pilgrims who come it's the basis for the whole way of thinking about the past that modern archaeology and the holy land is based on she's like actually the first kind of to create a bridge to the historical jesus yeah she actually she is in a lot of ways of this real concern to to be a christian is to walk on the footsteps of christ in a physical sense so how important is she to christianity well if you try to imagine what it was like in the in the 4th century for the empress to come to palestine and to kneel in christian churches that's a powerful statement so it it does lend the kind of the support of the imperial family to this new religion and if you compare the situation that the church faced at the beginning of the fourth century to the one it faced at the end of the fourth century it's night and day difference at beginning the fourth century the church was suffering persecution at the end of the fourth century pilgrims are coming from all over the empire and i think helena's contribution is very critical we may never know if helena found the actual gospel sites for most it's a matter of faith what we do know is that she practically invented the idea of christian holy sites and she helped make christianity the official religion of the roman empire [Music] so what became of helena she died in her son's arms in constantinople destined to become a christian relic in her own right in the 9th century her bones were moved to the abbey of odfillier in france where don perignon invented his famous bubbly beverage a popular pilgrim destination

Channel: Parable - Religious History Documentaries

Views: 213,001

Keywords: parable, parable channel, parable documentary, religious history, religious history documentary, bible documentary, bible documentary bbc, jesus documentary

Id: 8S7BF6HUOz4

Length: 117min 24sec (7044 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 27 2022