Sifting The Evidence: The World of the Bible (Parts 1 and 2) | Dr. Chris Sinkinson

[Music] climbing up into one of these caves near the shoreline of the dead sea you can see how these caves were perfect places to hide these manuscripts it's dry it's salty and so these manuscripts could be hidden away here for 2000 years we're walking along the ancient canaanite dry tunnel which gave them access to the water even back during the time of abraham this is the route the israelites would have taken from the wilderness across the river jordan past the fortified city of jericho and then on into the promised land here is how we know that we're in an authentic site for burial at the time of jesus what we're looking at here are called cooking [Music] have you ever visited an ancient ruin or held an ancient object and wonder what stories it could tell you well here we are in jerusalem looking across the kidron valley and this city speaks so much to us from the ancient world and that's the world of the bible the world where biblical events took place and at a time in history where there's so much skepticism so much doubt about whether the bible speaks of history or mere myth and legend we have archaeology archaeology is not so much about proving the bible what archaeology does is it demonstrates to us that what we read in the bible fits with what we know of the ancient world the bible is illumined by archaeology sometimes our reading of the bible is challenged by archaeology [Music] so come with me on a journey here in the ancient near east to listen to what archaeology is telling us and to help us understand that biblical story [Music] there is something about going to israel that makes me feel at home i think that it is the the connection to a biblical history jerome called it the fifth gospel and it is like the fifth gospel it brings our lives our reading of the bible i've spent most of my life interested in the land of the bible and whether it's taking students out to visit the holy land or being involved in archaeological digs i'm always astonished at how much more is being found that casts light on the world of the bible and in this program i want to invite you to come on a journey with me as we explore that land and see what archaeology can tell us [Music] we're at a tell and this is an archaeological excavation i've been involved in for a number of years and that word tell it's an arabic word that simply means a hill or a mound or a ruin and that tells us something because what we have here is not a natural hill it's an artificial ruin a remain that has layer upon layer of city and civilization spanning the centuries so for archaeologists these form something of a time capsule that as you dig down through the layers you are digging down through history [Music] [Music] jerusalem the holy city loved by jews and christians and muslims and yet also the scene of so much conquest and destruction the babylonians the assyrians the romans they've all brought destruction to this city leaving us layer upon layer of history as the city has been rebuilt over time and that leaves us four thousand years of history to discover as we sweep on down from the temple mount we're looking across what seems to be the modern city of jerusalem but it is actually the city of david this goes back to the period of the jebusites and then king david and the earliest period old testament israelite settlement in jerusalem we make our way deep underground to the most unlikely place for a defining moment in the history of jerusalem some 3000 years ago the israelite king david conquered the small ancient canaanite hilltop city of jebus and here he unified the tribes of israel by establishing a capital city we're walking along the ancient canaanite dry tunnel which gave them access to the water it was always key to know that you could access the water and so it's tunnels like these that exist all under these ancient cities and this would have given them access even back during the time of abraham melchizedek and it shows this continuous occupation of the city of salem jebus jerusalem all down through the centuries now the jebusites when they were sealed up against king david they thought they were safe they had a secret access to the water in the 19th century charles warren discovered this shaft and he made a connection to the biblical account of how king david captured the city of the jebusites it was through the water shaft that his men crept into the city and what an incredible feat that must have been to climb up this shaft in order to have a secret entry into the ancient city of jebus deep down beneath the city of david we come to this pool which was carved out 3800 years ago so we're talking about the canaanite period well here we are at the city of david excavations every year i come back it changes as archaeologists continue to remove the layers of history an eliot matzah who excavated here has given good reason to date this enormous step stone structure to the 10th century bc and believes that it would be explained as part of the foundations for a monumental building the 10th century the time of king david monumental building work she identifies this as the foundations to the palace of king david many other artifacts have been found which are associated with biblical characters and events of the old testament world a number of these bulla clay impressions have been found here bearing the names of two characters that we meet in a single verse of the bible jeremiah chapter 38 and verse one the names of gadalia and yukal both discovered at the right period in terms of the archaeological record and both appearing in the biblical text the view here of the model of jerusalem is if we are standing on the mount of olives looking at not only the city of jerusalem but the temple mount as it would have been and this would be the herodian temple second temple period to its left is the treasury the royal stowa and to the right hand side look at the impressive antonia fortress built in honour of mark anthony this allowed the romans to look over the temple mount to watch what the jews were doing when they went about their worship we're looking at the western wall with the golden dome standing behind on the site of the temple mount now of course what you're looking at by the western wall is not actually part of the temple wall it's part of the retaining wall of the temple mount on which the temple once stood what you're really looking at is the peak of mount moriah which would be marked by the golden dome this is where abraham brought isaac and then many years later after king david had taken the city of jerusalem this would become the location that king solomon would create as a location for the temple now that first temple would stand until 586 bc when the babylonians came and destroyed the temple but when the jews returned they would build a smaller temple now that temple would be significantly enlarged by king herod shortly before the birth of jesus and essentially the temple mount structure would be extended and expanded to include other buildings that would stand until 70 a.d when this time the romans destroyed the temple after that there was a brief period with a roman temple standing here and then the arrival of islam in the 7th century a.d muslims would build the golden dome that you see behind me and the al-aqsa mosque alongside and those continue to function as holy sites for the muslim people so here we are we're standing on the side of the temple mount it's a politically quite sensitive place because of course it's also very important for the muslim people and this is the golden dome marking the shrine which almost certainly is the site of the holy of holies this would be the location where the temple would have once stood now all around us is evidence of the herodian extension because of the political sensitivities surrounding the temple mount no archaeological work has been done on the mount itself but back in 2004 archaeologist gabriel barkai started the temple mount sifting project this was in response to thousands of tons of rubble being dumped in the kidron valley as a result of building work carried out by the authority that runs the temple mount itself we went to speak to him to find out more first of all the temple mount occupies about one third of the old city of jerusalem it is the largest religious compound of the ancient world it is besides that the soul heart and spirit of the jewish people the temple mount is the archaeological site number one in this country nevertheless after 150 years of excavations continuous excavations in jerusalem we didn't have even a one single potsherd published from the temple mount jerusalem is one of the most excavated places upon earth and the temple mount is a black hole we didn't have any information that is because in jerusalem archaeology and politics go hand in hand in 1999 a major atrocity took place the islamic trust the walk began to dig into the subground of the temple mount bulldoze has appeared upon the temple mount where even a toothbrush is too large a tool to carry out excavations a site which was never ever dug before so they removed from southeastern corner of the temple mount approximately 9 000 tons of earth and dumped into the nearby kidron valley we started the project in 2004 we have among the finds lots of objects which cover a span of uh about 15 000 years from hunters gatherers in the epipolitic period up till modern times approximately somewhere between 15 and 20 of the dateable material is of first temple period we have large quantities of iron age pottery including much pottery of the 10th century bc we have evidence for the temple mount being very impressive hub of official and religious activity from the 10th century bc and on so we were walking on the temple mount and now we can see the debris from the temple mount and this was considered garbage but of course it's not garbage at all among all the stones and the fragments there is pottery there are coins there's bone there is evidence of the occupation of the temple mount over the centuries and so from this apparent rubbish we have an enormous amount of data information that shows us about the presence of the israelites in and around jerusalem and the temple on the temple mount down in the kidron valley you see the olive trees and the terracing which it marks the ancient farming here and then on the hillside this is the eastern wall of the temple mount enclosure the golden gate that you can see behind me this is actually from the muslim period it's bricked up by tradition as a way of preventing the entry of messiah but we know that a layer below lies a golden gate from the earlier period from the period of jesus and even before and that was very much open and it allowed access into the temple area well here we are at the base of the eastern wall of the temple mount and as you can see so many different kinds of stones it's such a patchwork now in fact we're standing at quite a significant point in the 19th century charles warren identified this as a scene it's a join uh the stones on the left hand side of this join are herodian second temple period herodian from just before the time of the birth of jesus on the right hand side the stones are hasmonean now that's early that's second century bc you'll hear debate sometimes about the location of the temple was it here was it further down the valley was it elsewhere you know we can be pretty sure of the location the temple because archaeologists have been able to explore and survey in pretty meticulous detail the locations of these stones and that's what gives rise to the confidence we can have when we talk about the location of the temple and the temple mount structure this section of the western wall where jews come to pray and the reason that this site is so important is by tradition jews won't actually go and stand on the temple mount itself but this section of the western wall is as close as you can get to where the temple of solomon and the herodian second temple would have once stood now that also means this is one of the most hotly contested areas in the entire world on the temple mount itself because of the religious sensitivities surrounding it [Music] in terms of our understanding the ancient world we have so much material that's in this uniform script and i'd love to know a little bit more about what cuneiform is and how it can be read it was really invented for a language we call sumerian which is not related to any other known language in the world and the babylonians who were also living in babylonia alongside the sumerians adapted it for their language which is a semitic language related to hebrew and arabic about five thousand years ago or a little more really for the purpose of tax collecting and so they began to make notes in babylonia on tablets of clay the word cuneiform simply means wedge shape and it's the name that was applied to babylonian writing as these scribes wrote faster and faster the original pictures disintegrated into a series of strokes so we have hundreds of thousands of these cuneiform tablets now alan i know that you made a very important discovery yourself at the british museum and that's what we call the atrahasis epic can you tell us about how this was found i was working in the museum and looking for a particular type of tablet and i came to a cupboard which had odds and ends in it and two unusually large tablets so i looked at these and realized straight away that they were texts of literature and these two tablets are part of the epic of atrahasis which tells of the creation of mankind and the great flood were written about 1635 bc according to the current chronology they were copied from older tablets because in one place the scribe has written broken meaning this exemplar was damaged how long before that it was written we don't know the poem is very interesting because in many ways it parallels the narrative in genesis pull down your house build a boat put your family and animals on it and the great flood came all mankind was turned to clay the poem says except for those in this boat there are some differences the main difference is that atrahasis is a polytheistic story and the hebrew narrative has only one god a lot of people say well the hebrew narrative is copied from the babylonian i think the differences are such that it's more likely they go back to a common ancestor [Music] the city you can see behind me is jericho this is the route the israelites would have taken from the wilderness across the river jordan past the fortified city of jericho and then on into the promised land jericho this is the oldest continuously occupied city in the entire world there's evidence that goes back 10 thousand years of men and women living in this place and of course during that period we come to the time of the exodus and when the israelites entered the land the bible says this was a fortified town it was an obstacle to their entry into the promised land the archaeological record has been subject to a great deal of dispute over the decades original excavations did reveal the fallen walls of a fortified town which did seem to fit with what we read in the bible later excavations particularly under kathleen kenyon suggested that that was already a ruin at the time of the exodus now the debate continues there has been more recent evidence to suggest that actually this city was occupied around 1400 bc which would be about the time the bible suggests that the exodus and the conquest took place however other archaeologists will date the exodus a little later around 1200 bc in which case it seems that the evidence for the destroyed city that we read about in the bible is yet to be found it's a good example of how archaeology is subject to interpretation and debate and discussion sometimes we've just got to say wait and see [Music] here at tel hatsore we're at the largest of the archaeological sites in the holy land excavations here have been able to reveal many different periods associated with biblical history in fact we read in the bible that jabin the king of hatsor was the head of the tribes in this area among the canaanite people and that's clearly in evidence in the archaeology this was the primary city the chief city and that will help us because as we look at the archaeological evidence we can see what that meant when the israelites arrived here and when they had to confront the canaanite peoples living in this land we're standing among the canaanite temples and the palace of the king of hatsor before the time of the israelite conquest and when archaeologists excavated here they made an astonishing discovery that connects to biblical history here in the palace of the king of hatsor archaeologists found an enormous layer of ash a destruction level and that included these stones that had been cracked and it's estimated that the crack stone like this would take temperatures of around 2 300 degrees fahrenheit had saw had been destroyed in an enormous fiery conflagration and the issue is who destroyed hatsor and to answer that question we can ask the archaeologists now who did it this is a very very difficult question but because nobody left an a an inscription i king so it's all destroyed like so many other kings did so the only way you can do it that's what i think is by way of elimination number one are the egyptians the days of ramsay is the second now ramses the second left hundreds of documents if he would have destroyed hatsor he would have said something he he destroyed this place and that place in another place not a word about her soul you can always claim that this document was not preserved okay but egyptologists tell us that he was not in the region during this period he wasn't here babylon is too far away he tights were in decline couldn't have done it the philistines who were in the region they were not interested in land they were interested in the coast and they are very prominent in their pottery every student can tell you immediately this is a philistine butcher among the millions of poachers that we found at frazol there is not one philistine portrait so who is left who is left the only ones who have a tradition that they or their forefathers have done it did it only so i think the early israelites whatever you would like to call them protest allies early israelites until proven beyond any reasonable doubt that they didn't do it they did [Music] here at the site of tel dan archaeologists have found the earliest complete mudbrick archway found anywhere in the ancient near east it's a beautiful construction and we know it was functioning in the 18th century bc now that brings us back to the time of abraham and the patriarchs abraham would have come this way and we can imagine that if abraham stopped at this town he would have entered through this stairway and through the monumental archway into the ancient city that that time wasn't called dan but would have been known as laish the reason why the archway has been preserved so well is because of the fill inside archaeologists are busy trying to restore the beauty of this monumental archway as they do say they may find a way of removing some of this fill and when they do we'll be seeing an archway from that period of the patriarchs who knows what is yet waiting to be discovered this magnificent gateway is part of the site of tel dan now we read in the bible that when israel divided up the land in the book of joshua they settled the land according to tribal allotments and the danites they were supposed to be living down on the mediterranean coast in the the coastal plain but we know the philistines were there and they threatened the israelites so the danites they moved north and they conquered this town that had been known as the city of laish and this became the northernmost town of the israelites this city gate it occupies a large area and is a fantastic illustration of what a city gate meant in the old testament world we read how the city gate was used for the king to give judgment for commerce and trade in 1993 archaeologists excavating here at the city gate to tel dan made an important discovery as part of the rubble the the fill that the builders had used in the ancient world with broken sections of an ancient inscription and this inscription turned out to give direct reference to a king of israel and the house of david this would be the earliest direct reference to king david from outside of the bible again david could no longer be dismissed as a character of mythology he was a real historical figure and what really happened is that the tribes of israel were agrarian communities they live in small villages and in the time of david and old world we have a kingdom which means people move to live in cities and you have a new social organization we can excavate the social uh change over time and indeed archaeology shows that in the 12 and 11 centuries bc we have small villages about 400 small villages were found in the hill country in the in the mountains of hebron jerusalem and in samaria and what's happened later we have 45 cities and the big question is when fortified cities appeared for the first time incredible careful we found a fortified city which is a carbon dating by oxford university to the early 10th century bc so we have the time of king david executive so we have a fortified city in judah from the time of king david and this has nothing to do with the biblical text the city is there the fortification the inscription the public construction everything is there and the dating coming not from the biblical text but coming from oxford university and this really changed the picture people cannot overlook the results of rebecca excavations we found one inscription 2008 and it was published in 2009 later we found another inscription so we have two inscriptions from hebrew our hebrew cafe ostrich on the large inscription with 70 letters you can see the letters but to understand world and sentences is almost impossible given that archaeology involves probabilities can you give us a sense of what you think that inscription may be referring to it's very hard to know but there are two key words which are really amazing one of them is chauffet which means judge and another word is mele which means king and the time of david is a transition from the judges to kings and in this ostrich we have both we have a judge and we have king and this is amazing the second inscription that we discovered is not less important it was incised on a jar before firing and it says the name is this name was never found before it's not written in any biblical text and it was not it didn't appear on any inscription before so a new name for ancient near east but the name ishbal which means men of baal is quite important we have five people with this name in the biblical text all of them from the time of david so this name was not used later in the 9th century or 8th century or the 7th it's really a name typical to the 10th century bc and if it says if this name is preserved in the biblical text it means that the biblical text has historical memories from the 10th century bc the time of david they already started to have a kingdom if you really look in the archaeological discoveries you see that it was a small kingdom in jerusalem and maybe a day walk around jerusalem and the big question from my point of view was when the kingdom of jerusalem the kingdom of david or the house of david occupied lagrish because the rich was the second most important city in judah and we went to lagrish and we excavated in lagrish and indeed we found a new fortifications which were not known before and radiocarbon dating again from oxford university show us that this city was built in the later part of the 10th century bc so rebecca in the time of david is early 10th century bc and lagrish was occupied only 70 or 80 years later and why it seems so important because in the biblical text we know that lahris was fortified by rehebr is the son of solomon and the grandson of david and if you take the biblical chronology it was about 80 years after david and indeed that's also what radocarbon painting shows that early 10th century and late 10th century [Music] so we have evidence for the existence of king david but what about king solomon given his unified kingdom the building works the wealth where is the actual evidence for the existence of this king well here at hatzor we see this magnificent gateway and this is identified as solomonic architecture it's interesting in one kings chapter 9 verse 15 we read that solomon built up the fortified cities of megiddo hatsor and gaza now these gateways are identified as solomonic but in more recent years there's been quite some debate in archaeology can we really identify these as 10th century or do they belong to a later period if they can be dated to the 10th century it gives us clear evidence for a unified kingdom at this period with the wealth and the administrative resources to have this kind of building work done the unique gates six chambered two large towers a lot of wealth and planning went into gateways like this well to find out whether these are truly 10th century let's go and talk to the excavators involved in the discovery of telhatsu i was there when the gate was excavated writes report volume two page three you can read it that the date of the gate is the 10th century and it is decided on the point on based on stratigraphy and pottery typology this is why ahroni agreed by adin dated the gate to the 10th century then came yadin and said since we have exactly similar gates megiddo and gesell and in the book of kings when it sums up the building activities of king solomon it says that si king salomon build hatzo megiddo and gazer here again we have an illustration of the biblical text the same king built the three cities according to the same plan now number one i have to say and this is what we know many many years later because this was proposed by yadin some 50 years ago uh now we know that also i said every every dog has four legs but not every animal with four legs is a dog so every building with such a plan is not necessarily of the 10th century of the days of solomon because we have similar buildings in the 9th century and similar buildings in the 8th century but these three are the dogs with four legs because they are all of the 10th century [Music] excavations here at megiddo have revealed over 20 different cities one on top of the other stretching right down through the corridors are history you see here at megiddo we have a commanding position overlooking the jezreel valley and this is the the via marist the way of the sea all the ancient empires came this way in this part of the world we're at a joining point between europe and asia and africa everyone wanted to be able to command this route and megiddo gave them that position so for archaeologists this has been seen as the cradle of archaeology this is where archaeology could develop its skills in understanding strata how one layer upon another gives us an insight into the events that took place here early excavations at the site of megiddo identified a number of features that seemed to fit with the period of the united monarchy and king solomon the gateways were understood to be solomonic they're stabling which could have been used for horses if there were a chariot detachment located here in fact there was a seal found here belonging to jeroboam's servant all of this indicating that though archaeology will continue to dispute the exact dating nonetheless it fits with these biblical periods of history [Music] we're standing at the base of one of four massive towers that were part of a fortified gateway and this has been identified as the entrance to the capital city of the people of gesher the gashrites were not israelites but they were allies on the border now we know and we could be precise about the dates that when the assyrian king tigalath palisa came this way he destroyed this city after a massive siege in 732 bc and having taken the city he deliberately destroyed the towers in fact they poured oil over these towers when they burned them down we've even got the clinker the remains from that period of destruction king david married the daughter of the king of gesher but this wouldn't have been the gateway that king david knew this would have been built a hundred years after the time of david now we've been looking for the gateway from the period of david and the united monarchy the problem was generally you would imagine that a new gateway would be built on top of the remains of an older one and if the davidic period gateway were under this one we'd never find it but test probes show that there's no gateway under this particular section of the tell so excavations last year just a little further alongside this gate and a little lower down have now discovered a gateway with associated remains that demonstrate it was in operation during the time of king david so we can look forward in years ahead to exposing more and more of the location of the city of gesher as it was at the time of david [Music] we're here at the high place of dan during the time of king solomon there was a united monarchy after solomon the kingdom divided in two there was rehoboam who continued in the kingdom of judah but jeroboam became king of a northern kingdom and he had a problem how would he stop the israelites from going back to jerusalem in judea to worship god well as a response to that problem in one kings chapter 12 we read that he built alternative worship centers one in bethel one in dan and here at dan archaeologists have found from the 9th century bc the high place the altar that was constructed by jeroboam you can see behind me the metal structure is a reconstruction on the basis of the floor plan and one of the broken horns from the corner of the altar the size and scale of this worship place there's also a temple sanctuary an alternative to jerusalem and all of this speaks of that time of the beginning of a divided monarchy we have inscriptions especially from the kings of assyria both on clay tablets and on stone monuments that they erected which sometimes refer to military campaigns against israel let's turn to the black obelisk of shamanism iii it was found during the excavations of henry loud at a place now called nimrod which is about 25 miles south of nineveh on the tigris river which was an assyrian capital city and they had found the palace of king chalmenissa and he decorated the palace with carvings on stone slabs and outside one of the entrances he'd set up this stone monument we call it a steely with inscriptions and carvings on all four sides and one panel shows the ambassador of jehu king of israel bowing in front of shalman is paying tribute and the assyrian inscription above says this is the tribute of jehu from israel from the omri line [Music] we're here at the southern end of the temple mount and the excavations you can see behind me they reveal to us something of the iron age period of ancient israel's history long before the time of king herod an astonishing find was made here in 2015 when ali matzah discovered over 30 bula now bulla are the clay impressions left behind by a seal that would be stamped into the clay bearing an impression which would have the name of a person from that period of history now in that collection of over 30 bulla one was found bearing the name of king hezekiah it's from the ripe period of history the inscription read belonging to king hezekiah son of a has king of judah now that was an astonishing discovery but some time later elliot massa discovered another intriguing find also in that collection of bula about three feet away from the location of king hezekiah's bula was another personality from that period of history it bore the name of isaiah and three hebrew letters that could be reconstructed as the hebrew word for prophet ali matzah believes this is a strong possibility that we are looking at the impression of isaiah the prophet the adviser the prophet who encouraged and counseled king hezekiah during the time of the assyrian siege a recent article published has pointed out that we now have over 53 different personalities from the old testament world that have been confirmed by archaeology and these are part of that number we read the story of king sanekareb's invasion of the land of israel in the bible around 701 bc he would besiege the city of jerusalem and king hezekiah and what we have illustrated here is from the assyrian perspective their war machine this is at lakish south west of jerusalem we can see here the siege ramps the assyrians had laid here is the assyrian army including slingstone throwers and archers and stormtroopers and we can see here the massive siege engines that they use to deliver these blows with their battering rams against the walls of this judah height city while the city falls and these jews are taken captive but we know that king senecarab went on to besiege the city of jerusalem where he had king hezekiah caged like a bird now we read in the biblical text of king senecarab's failure to capture the city of jerusalem in many respects this relief shows the same point sennecrib certainly managed to capture lakesh but he never took jerusalem there is first of all in the entire bible a theological agenda if the israelites are okay with god god helps them if they sin against god god punish them that that's it a theological issue a theological agenda but if we peel it off there are a lot of and this is a question of debate how many are there but there are a lot of historical nuclei embedded in the text can give you some examples if you want we do know that in 701 king synagogue came and conquered judea and he destroyed that many cities you've just seen the relief of his uh destruction uh at the city of lake okay we know he destroyed he since he says so and the bible says so and archaeology says so we have no reason to doubt that this event took place 701 bc one city which he could not destroy is jerusalem how do we know because archaeology tells us so because the bible tells us so and because he himself tells us so he says hezekiah king of jerusalem i kept like a bird in a cage he was besieged but he could not now why did this happen why such a mighty king could not take jerusalem the bible tells us because king hezekiah repented and he prayed to god and he asked for forgiveness so god intervened and the assyrians lifted the siege thus the assyrian king tells us the same that he did not destroy the city because the israelites the king no the reason is different the king was away from home so there are all kinds of disruptions and his throne is endangered so he has to run back to his city and indeed he ran back after a while he was decapitated and somebody else took the so what is the historical nucleus in the bible of this story king sinakireb came to judea conquered such and such cities and he did not destroy jerusalem that's the historical nucleus the interpretation that's already the agenda a religious person by the way would tell you of course it's god who did that the king of assyria will have to run back you understand what i'm saying but basically speaking this is the event the historical nucleus and the interpretation we're at the entrance to the hezekiah tunnel and noise you can hear this is the gihon spring the gihon it means rushing and it's this rushing flow of water that was brought into the city by hezekiah's tunnelers 701 bc the assyrian army of late siege to the city and hezekiah had commissioned his builders to excavate from one end and the other end or under the bedrock to create this tunnel over 500 meters long that would bring water from the spring into the pool of siloam within the city walls it protected their water source and to this day we can walk on this journey all the way through to the pool of salon here is a replica of the inscription that was found inside hezekiah's tunnel right below us 20 meters below is the very point where hezekiah's tunnelers met when they tunneled from either end to create the hezekiah tunnel water system and about 10 meters from the exit this inscription was found it was actually only found back in the 19th century but in this archaic hebrew script we have the record from the builders point of view of the work they did back in 701 bc it describes how they tunneled from either end of the bedrock and as they met in the middle when their pickaxes met the water broke through and the rushing gihon spring could flow into the pool of salon in 1979 one of the most crucial finds revealing ancient biblical texts was made by the archaeologist gabriel barkai we excavated next to saint andrews presbyterian church of scotland in jerusalem burial caves which date to the time of judah king josiah from the seventh century bc time of prophet jeremiah in one of the chambers we found a repository that repository is the only one in jerusalem which was found intact among the fines from the repository we had two rolled up tiny scrolls made of silver pure silver by the way 99 silver the labs of israel museum managed to unroll them and when they called me in i was surprised to see that they are densely covered with ancient hebrew characters they emplacement of the objects within the deposits in the repository uh shows that they came with the pottery which is the earliest found inside the repository dating them to the seventh century bc more than that uh the paleography the shape of the characters by comparison to other well-dated uh inscriptions uh tends to the same same date the first visit to the lab of the israel museum i was able to read the first word yud haiv which is unpronounceable name of the lord that divine name appeared there uh three times and three times repetition brings us to the priestly benediction in the book of numbers chapter 6 verses 24 to 26 the lord bless thee and the and keep thee etc uh which is included in jewish christian prayers until this very day second one had also another version of the priestly benediction this time a shortened version and in the 1990s with more modern techniques which and then those which existed in the 80s we took them out from the museum and we rechecked them we re-cleaned them re-photographed them restarted them in that new checking we had another biblical verse this time uh almost similar to what we find in the book of deuteronomy chapter 7 the great god who keeps his covenant to his lovers and the followers of his commandments chapter 7 in the book of deuteronomy these are the earliest biblical verses ever found in the world they predate the very famous dead sea scrolls by centuries [Music] we're looking south across the wilderness towards the dead sea and that means the lowest point on earth now in this micro climate where there's very little moisture very little rainfall this is a perfect environment in which archaeological remains can be preserved over the centuries and in the 20th century there was one of the most important archaeological discoveries of them all the dead sea scrolls climbing up into one of these caves near the shoreline of the dead sea you can see how these caves were perfect places to hide these manuscripts it's dry it's salty and so these manuscripts could be hidden away here for 2 000 years in 1947 two bedouin shepherd boys made the archaeological discovery of the 20th century what they had found were priceless biblical manuscripts from 2000 years ago here at k4 was found the largest collection of these texts and they include copies of nearly every book of the old testament commentaries on the old testament handbooks and rules for living for the people who lived here they stored them away in these caves for safe keeping to hide them from the romans who came to destroy this place in ad-68 the great isaiah scroll the largest single scroll that was found here provides us with an even older copy of the book of isaiah possibly as early as 200 bc the significance of these scrolls for our understanding of the old testament is enormous it allows us to say that the copying tradition of the jewish people has been faithful to the text as originally given that we can compare the old testament we read today with the old testament from before the time of jesus and the copying tradition is good the dead sea scroll manuscripts tell us an enormous amount about our old testament text but who copied these texts it's generally thought that a community a religious community living out here in the desert were those responsible for copying these old testament manuscripts but they lived at the time of jesus and a laughter so the essene people will tell us an enormous amount about the first century world and the time of jesus in our next program we'll explore something of that new testament background and we'll discover the enormous amount of light that archaeology is casting on the very times in which jesus lived [Music] so what have we learned from archaeology archaeology is not so much about proving the bible and as we've seen there are disputes in the world of archaeology now what archaeology does is it helps us to understand that what we read in the bible fits with what we know of the ancient world whether that's its people its places its events archaeology illuminates our reading of scripture and also archaeology can at times challenge our reading of the bible but whatever else it does we can be sure that archaeology is demonstrating there are firm foundations for our faith [Music] this is the sea of galilee where so many of the events and the teachings of jesus took place but are those stories just myth and fairy tale and legend or are they real historical events the gospels themselves record many details about particular people particular places and the activities that happened in this land and that means we're able to test them we can compare what we read in the gospels matthew martin luke and john with what we see in the land so come with me and let's take a look at some of the archaeology and see how well we can demonstrate the authenticity of eyewitness material that we can find in the new testament [Music] so [Music] this is the sea of galilee where so many of the events and the teachings of jesus took place but are those stories just myth and fairy tale and legend or are they real historical events the gospels themselves record many details about particular people particular places and the activities that happened in this land and that means we're able to test them we can compare what we read in the gospels matthew martin luke and john with what we see in the land archaeology is not so much about proving the bible what archaeology does is it demonstrates to us that what we read in the bible fits with what we know of the ancient world the bible is illumined by archaeology sometimes our reading of the bible is challenged by archaeology [Music] so come with me and let's take a look at some of the archaeology and see how well we can demonstrate the authenticity of eyewitness material that we can find in the new testament [Music] uh well here we are deep underground in jerusalem and this is one of the ancient systems of stored water back in the period of the romans and so you can see how this massive cavity would have filled with water and provided water for jerusalem all through the summer period you can still see the plaster on the wall so it's fragmenting in places and coming away but this is again durable engineering from the ancient world and a demonstration that jerusalem as a city is layer upon layer upon layer and we can go right down through those layers to discover these remains these echoes of the ancient past [Music] [Applause] [Music] wherever the romans went they would shape the land around them and leave their impression for us to discover whether it's hadrian's wall in the north of england or the coliseum of rome or here at caesarea on the mediterranean shore king herod would begin the development of this incredible aqueduct would bring fresh water from mount carmel all the way down to this city by the sea now as we explore the holy land we can see location after location where the romans having come to occupy this land would build magnificent constructions like this and that all means that we can see the impression that was left on the new testament world the world of jesus [Music] here we are what looks like a mountain at least from the distance and we can see jerusalem and bethlehem on the hills beyond but it's not actually a mountain what we're standing on here is a man-made structure great king herod built this he reigned from 37 bc to 4 bc and he built this as a palace but also as a fortress this is where he was able to survey across the landscape around bethlehem but he was protected because it was built like a fortress with its towers and with its walls because herod was a frightened man we call him great king herod but actually what we know from the bible edison was great not just in building works and we see many of those building works that monumental architecture to this day in the land of israel but we also know him as great in cruelty we hear about from various records including josephus some of the evil and cruel things he did he would murder family members he would murder not only enemies but even his own leaders and generals and that fits with what we know in the gospels we read in the gospel of matthew of his attempt to slaughter the children in bethlehem when he heard of this child born to be king king herod is another of those great characters of the new testament that we know a great deal about from outside of the gospels and what we find fits well with what we read in the bible from this position on the herodian you can see the commanding view and this is where king herod back in 40 bc won a significant battle against the parthians and that's one of the reasons that having fled to rome when he returned here as an appointed king by the romans he chose this location to build this particular palace fortress but this wouldn't be the only fortress that he built macares and modern day jordan masada not far from the dead sea and of course in jerusalem too king herod built these palaces partly as ways of protecting and hiding and securing himself because he had so many enemies here at herodian we discovered just how dangerous archaeology can be ehead nexo was excavating here and part of his life's work was to try to find the tomb of king herod and then in 2007 he exposed these monumental ruins alongside a tomb and the broken fragments of a beautiful sarcophagus that have been restored and pieced back together and they have revealed to us the final resting place of king herod sadly archaeology can also be dangerous work and netzer himself excavating here just a few years later was involved in an archaeological accident and was killed during a fall that tells us something about the commitment involved in archaeology as we seek to unearth these ancient stories here at herodian there was another great find after the death of king herod this location was used by others who would seek to govern this area of judea and that would include pontius pilate excavations here in 1968 1969 discovered what didn't seem to be a very important little bronze signet ring but only a couple of years ago was announced that after cleaning this bore a greek inscription pilato meaning that it had belonged to pontius pilate probably worn by one of his civil administrators so this is another remarkable example of how archaeology provides direct confirmation for a personality that we read about in the gospels [Music] here at caesarea we see the mediterranean sea encroaching on what had once been a palace but then became the headquarters for a roman governor and in 1961 archaeologists made an astonishing discovery of a stone in secondary use as a step and we can go and take a look at inscription that connects us directly to a character from the new testament and here we have a replica of the inscription that was found and we can see very clearly the name of pontius pilate who is prefect of judea it's interesting that we read he was prefect of judea later roman historians would describe pilate as a procurator the gospels describe him as a governor now the greek word governor is much closer to the word prefect and that tells us the new testament writers really did have knowledge of what pilate was doing at the time this is authentic material from the time of jesus [Music] in this ancient landscape you can almost hear the biblical stories come to life this is the wilderness where jesus would spend 40 days and 40 nights being tempted this is the area where david would hide and take refuge now the bible calls this the desert the wilderness geologists know it as a pocket desert and it's genuinely a very arid and barren landscape that actually can mean that traces of human activity can be sparse difficult for the archaeological record and yet in and among the hills there are some absolute riches of archaeological discovery and they too cast light on the whole period of biblical history [Music] the site you can see behind me is qumran and archaeologists have been excavating here for many years and they've located a site that may well originally have been settled in the 8th century bc it could be one of the cities mentioned in joshua chapter 15. but at the time of the dead sea scrolls there was a community living here what archaeologists have found have included a scriptorium a place where manuscripts were being copied they found pottery manufacture as well as refectory and ritual baths and so on now the question is what is the relationship between this site and the dead sea scrolls themselves the leading contender is a group of people called the essenes so what do we know of the essenes well thanks to the dead sea scrolls we know a great deal we know that this community had rejected much of the worship in the jerusalem temple they saw it as corrupt and from these scrolls we discover many of their beliefs their theology of philosophy they had strong eschatological expectations of a final conflict a separation between the children of light and the children of darkness strong messianic views of a coming messiah now despite some fringe theories the dead sea scrolls don't provide us with direct reference to jesus reference to a teacher of righteousness is almost certainly a leader of the qumran community but what the dead sea scrolls do tell us is something of the thought world the expectations the ideas that were in the air at the time of jesus and it's into this world that jesus came and jesus preached [Music] [Applause] [Music] from the dry arid deserts of the south up here on mount arbel we look in the north of the land across the beautiful sea of galilee and here of course so much of the ministry of jesus took place we can see capernaum beside our corazon these are the places where the fishing boats would go to and fro and this is the place where so much of the ministry and the teaching of jesus took place and the archaeology around this northern shore of the sea of galilee is bringing to light again so much of the world of the time of jesus looking across the sea of galilee from here it seems such a peaceful place and when we read the gospels in our imagination we often think of this as a place of great tranquility but we know the galilee has always been very busy with fishing and industry and commerce tax collecting at capernaum an important trade route here and so when jesus taught the crowds he taught people facing real pressures and real problems in other words he taught people like us to really understand the world of jesus we are quite dependent on the new testament so we've come to cambridge and a tyndale house where we can discuss with one of the foremost historians and scholars of the new testament dr peter williams the reliability of the gospels what level of literacy was there in the first century and in terms of passing this material on were they more reliant on oral traditions what i would say is that everyone has access to writing in terms of they see it around it's on the coinage on the architecture so it's not surprising if people have some passive ability to take things in but that doesn't have to be the main way that uh teaching by jesus gets passed on with rabbis often things were oral but that doesn't mean all wrong and unreliable or oral and super memory which sometimes people go those two routes because actually jesus chooses 12 disciples and their main job is to learn everything he says he repeats himself so each of the four gospels records jesus sometimes repeating things they can hear him give the same or a similar talk on multiple occasions they also then get to talk over it afterwards in their lesson with the rabbi you can hear them sometimes discussing the meaning of a saying of jesus as they walk along what does this thing mean about rising from the dead and so actually that's part of the whole way that the disciples receive things and so it means it's not that we're asking them to memorize everything on the spot um nor does the tradition only have to come through one person it actually comes through multiple people because they've been taught for three years do the four gospels demonstrate that they rely on eyewitness evidence well to start all the earliest manuscripts have the names matthew mark luke and john on and matthew and john are of the 12 disciples and mark and luke wouldn't really be well known if it weren't for the gospels so there's no motive for someone to stick the name mark and luke on those gospels unless it's actually by them luke is said to travel with paul in the book of acts he will say we did this and you can actually track some of his travels with paul mark is said to be getting his information from peter who's a disciple yeah when you just open up the gospels and you look at almost any page you could start asking yourself the question what knowledge do the writers display and clearly they display local knowledge knowledge of the place where jesus was so just when they mentioned towns when they name geographical features and talk about where the land goes up and down and traveling times they get all that right they know jerusalem they they know water bodies they also know local customs when they reference whether they get it right when they reference coinage they get it right local weights and measures dry measures liquid measures you can see those sorts of things they know the local religious debates whose who the social stratification the right sort of names for people and that's happening across all four gospels it's a striking feature so what are the earliest known manuscripts of the new testament we have manuscripts going back to the second century for the new testament and people debate which precisely are the earliest ones there are two of john's gospel one in oxford one in manchester which are amongst the earliest and they are partial manuscripts so they just have part of the gospel but it's a bit like auditing uh where you go in and you you check certain bits the bits that we have fragments of stack up with what we find for the rest and then uh we have more extensive manuscripts from the third century and complete manuscripts from the fourth for the new testament [Music] [Music] archaeologists have been excavating here at capernaum since the 1960s and you can see in this typical black basalt stone the streets and the houses of the town where jesus walked now as an important location this had a synagogue it had a roman garrison here with centurion we're not far from the coastline of galilee and also a trade route this was a an important place for the roman empire the large church structure you can see on stilts behind me that marks perhaps one of the most significant locations that's been found in capernaum matthew 9 verse 1 we read that jesus made his home here in capernaum now an archaeologist excavated here at capernaum they made this discovery of a room of a house that was being treated as special from the middle of the 1st century a.d this particular room was expanded it was made into a small church perhaps the earliest church in christian history and then eventually it became this more octagonal structure with a dome perhaps a little like the dome on the rock that we can see in jerusalem now this byzantine church structure was here for a reason why is it that going back to the middle of the first century a.d one particular house in capernaum was being venerated as special well that tradition suggests there's good reason to think this was the home of peter in capernaum this is where jesus made his home base in the galilee jesus taught and ministered in the synagogue at capernaum and this beautiful white limestone synagogue stands at the position where we know the synagogue had been built by the roman centurion who is based here with his garrison but this is about 4th century 5th century it's a later byzantine synagogue and this beautiful white limestone not quite the same as the black basalt that we know capernaum was built from so how do we know that there was a synagogue here at the time of jesus how do we know where jesus taught well actually we can take a look down the side of the synagogue and see the evidence but we can see here very clearly that it's built on top of foundations that don't quite align the black bass out stone is the foundation of an earlier synagogue that would have been here at the time of jesus jesus worked many miracles here he taught here he healed the man who had a shriveled hand we know he healed the servant of the roman centurion who helped pay for the building of this synagogue the galilee is volcanic and that's why this kind of stone is the local stone that could be used for building work we've just visited the first century town of capernaum and now as we're down the lakeside not far from capernaum itself we have to ask that question what is it that draws all these crowds to visit this town from all over the world for decades people have come for most of them it won't be the archaeological ruins now what draws people is the magnetic personality of jesus that continues thousands of years on to have such a draw for men and women you know there is something significant about the teachings of jesus about the miracles he worked about the things that he said that connect to you and me all these years later so for all the interest in the archaeology we can't lose sight of the intriguing man of galilee who's made such an impact on the world [Music] we're overlooking magdala this is by tradition the hometown of mary magdalene and in 2009 archaeologists began to excavate what we now know is the first century town of magdala we have the synagogue with a beautiful image of the menorah inscribed on stone along with evidence for ritual bars fishing industry and commerce the town of magdala was destroyed by the romans in a.d 67 during the great jewish revolt the jewish historian josephus described its downfall when the romans mounted a naval attack to get around magdala's strong defensive walls and many of its fishing vessels were sunk during the battle jesus said i will make you fishers of men and many of the disciples of jesus were fishermen by trade we think of peter and james and john not hard to imagine them plying their trade here on the northern shore of the sea of galilee it's also not surprising that there's a great deal of archaeological evidence for that fishing trade in fact not far from here at kibbutz two brothers found in 1986 a boat that's been dated to the first century buried in the mud after it had been excavated and preserved very carefully with chemicals it was possible to understand the shipbuilding industry of the time of jesus and have a very good idea of the kind of boat that jesus would have sailed on at that time i think this is an interesting detail when the jewish tax collectors came to jesus and the disciples to collect the half shekel tax which every jewish man was expected to pay for the upkeep of the temple each year they came to peter and he said well we don't have any money and he went to jesus and jesus said go and catch a fish and in the mouth as a fish was a coin which was sufficient for the tax for peter and his master and that would have been a one shekel coin now the authorities in the temple in jerusalem required this tax to be paid in the silver coins minted in the city of tyre and this is such a one with an eagle on this side and greek writing telling us that it comes from tyre and telling us that it was made in the year 18 on the other side is the head of the god of tyre the god melkhart these coins were made of very high quality silver so when the authorities in the temple melted them down they had a better result there you see the gospel narrative reflects the situation accurately the coin was enough for both of them there was once a storm on this lake we read about it in the gospel of mark and jesus in mark chapter 4 verse 39 he rebuked the storm he said be quiet be still and we read that immediately it was calm and the waves were still now i love archaeology and i love the fact that we can find evidence what we believe but i know there are some things that go beyond the evidence you can't prove that a miracle like this happened but that's where faith comes in archaeology provides us with good reason to trust this eyewitness material but by faith we believe in its significance you know the disciples when they saw that miracle in mark chapter 4 verse 41 they said who is this that even the wind and the waves obey him well you know i want to follow jesus with my life because i've discovered that he is who he claimed to be the son of god [Music] blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven with these words jesus began the most famous sermon in history somewhere in this region the sermon on the mount has gone on to impact lives and societies for centuries archaeology can help demonstrate so much of the reliability of the bible but it can't prove that jesus spoke these words the proof is found in the changed lives the transformed people you know when i hear those words i think of what impact that's had on my life in the lives of friends that i've known and when i look back through history i see how the words of jesus have challenged societies and kings and emperors jesus has had an impact that has demonstrated his reality in john chapter 13 verse 35 he said by this all men will know that you are my disciples that you love one another and it's that transforming word of jesus that for me proves that he is who he said he is [Music] well here we are in beit shawn or roman civilis and if you look behind me across the colonnaded street to the green hill rising up this is an archaeologist paradise in that green hill it's an ancient tel there's actually the remains of 15 consecutive cities from the ancient world now that means this is a place that's seen warfare and destruction we actually find in this particular tell remains that go back to the canine period and then to a period of very significant egyptian control over the region but then a significant destruction level from about 1150 bc and the philistines came to occupy beit shaan it was later that king david took this city and it became part of the israelite kingdom but then the assyrians destroyed the city in 732 bc and so it was that the story went on but you know if we look out from this tell we can actually see the remains of the new testament period from the hellenistic and then the romans this city was rebuilt as sidopolis so the remains around us are hellenistic and roman now this city was originally hellenistic and then was redeveloped when pompeii captured this area for the romans and in 63 bc it became part of the roman province of judea it's an important region in the gospels we read about jesus entering into this region but he never comes into this city there are nine other cities making up the decapolis a loose confederation of ten cities in total the other nine are all on the far shore of the river jordan but here we are in citopolis now why didn't jesus come to this city he passed by but this would have been a pagan roman city this is a city that would have been distinct from the jewish religious culture of jesus it casts a great deal of light on the contrast we have here between the jews and the gentiles up close together but divided so you can see how this is an archaeologist paradise with layer upon layer of ancient city in fact even beyond the time of the new testament this became a byzantine city and it was only destroyed in 749 a.d by a massive earthquake in this region you can see the broken pillars as a result and then of course this city was abandoned to be lost it seems to history until archaeologists got involved [Music] [Applause] [Music] well we're here at the southern wall of the temple mount and archaeological excavations have revealed the staircase from the time of king herod which would have given access and exit from the temple itself now you may have felt it was a little awkward when i was walking down the steps and the reason for that is because this is a demonstration of herodian crowd control and from the period of king herod they knew how to control crowds thousands would have worshipped here at the temple and in order to gain access or to leave the temple as thousands would have been coming and going these steps are deliberately designed one wide and one shallow so that it would slow down the movement prevent a a rush a mass panic and injuries that could follow now this is one of the few places where we can definitely say jesus would have walked you see the particularly eroded steps these are from the time of jesus and we know that jesus worshipped at the temple here so we can actually walk on steps where jesus walked here at the southern end of the temple mount partly obscured by later building work is half a section of what was once a double gateway which coupled to the triple gateway further down on the southern wall of the temple mount gave access and exit from the temple mount itself we can be sure that jesus would have passed through this this doorway this is part of the important way in which we know that the jews at the time of jesus after a ritual bath in the mikvehs down below would have then gained access onto the temple mount structure itself and come into the very presence in the courtyards of the temple this is one of the jewish mikvahs a ritual bathing pool which was used for purification and there's a division in the stairway so that you could walk down on one side and then walk back out the other side and this would make you richly pure then for entering into the environs of the temple now on the day of pentecost we read about 2 000 people being baptized in acts chapter 2 and sometimes people wonder how on earth could you have baptized by a merchant 2 000 people well we know because of the mikvehs that there was plenty of water and capacity here for thousands to be baptized in a single day and that was the origins of what we think of as baptism in the christian church so you're looking at a street here at the southwest corner of the temple mount with what would have been shops on the left-hand side a great archway that extended out from robbins arch down to the left hand side of the street and then these tumbled down stones that you see these are the stones as they fell as a result of the roman legion that titus used to demolish the temple and the temple mount structure it would have been an enormous job but it was so important to the romans to attempt to erase the memory of the jewish presence in this city back in 1968 the street level was much higher than it is today what you're looking at is a result of decades of archaeological work that has brought us back down to the lair that exposes the street from the time of jesus this is herodian and that means we have evidence now archaeologically for where the temple stood at the time of jesus and for many of the events we read about in the gospels and if there's one bit of clinching evidence so we can see right by my side it's this stone this is a replica of a stone that originally was part of the top of the south west corner of the temple mount and it has an inscription an inscription from this second temple period that tells us this is the trumpeting stone there is a little niche where one person could have stood and because of the inscription we know that this is where they held the shephard the horn that gave them a call to worship as they blew the horn and invited the jewish people to worship their god here at the temple when i first visited this site it was actually deep under the earth a chance discovery in 2004 led archaeologist eli shukron to excavate what we now know is a mikvah a ritual washing pool from the time of jesus and this is identified with the pool of siloam it's enormous if it could be fully excavated it would be the size of two olympic swimming pools and we know it was in use at the time of jesus in fact in john chapter 9 we read a very interesting story where a man was born blind was healed miraculously by jesus he put mud on the man's eyes and told him to go and wash at the pool of siloam when the man did so he could see that miraculous healing took place here at this very pool this recently excavated herodian street is actually a connecting road that would have led from the pool of salon up to the site of the temple and this is a tunnel for us but it would have been a street at the time of jesus so again we are walking a road that with some confidence we can say jesus would have walked and certainly at the time of jesus this would have been a pilgrim's trail a route to the temple we're looking over this ancient jewish cemetery here on the mount of olives still in use to this day it's estimated over 70 000 people are buried here but we know this is evidence of continuous jewish presence in this land there are graves here of relatively recent prime ministers and old testament prophets and it's considered that for three thousand years there have been burials in this region on the mount of olives here we are on the mount of olives with the temple mount in jerusalem behind us this is the place associated with anointment in fact the talmud the jewish all tradition calls this the hill of anointment because these olives were used for anointing the king and the high priest we read in 2 samuel 15 30 that david came to pray here among the olive trees and then famously jesus would often withdraw to this mount to pray and this is where he came on the night before his crucifixion and so for 2000 years christian pilgrims have come to this place again to pray and to remember him we're near the beginning of the via dolorosa the way of grief we can't say this is absolutely where jesus walked but this is a trail which has changed a little over time but marks various stations or points along the way as jesus carried his cross we moved from the place of his arrest and his trial all the way to the site that marks the location of golgotha and the place of the tomb where they laid the body of jesus now though we can't be absolutely sure of the route that jesus took and of course actually the steps jesus walked would have been somewhere below the level we're on now there is still good archaeological reason to think that many of these locations are certainly first century and they certainly reflect what we read in the gospels to the left of me part of this wall is rebuilt on top of foundations of what was the antonia fortress now beyond this wall is the temple mount and this fortress was built by the romans to overlook the temple mount so they could see what was going on and then as we follow the trail down we will arrive at the church of the holy sepulchre and there's good reason to think that when helena had this church built in the 4th century it was because of good local traditions that understood and remembered that this was the site of the crucifixion and of course the resurrection it's not often you get to walk on the roof of a church but here we are on the roof of the church of the holy sepulchre behind me the rotunda rises which covers the area which we mark the the tomb of jesus where they laid the body of jesus and the smaller dome by my side this marks the chapel of saint helena so we're closer to golgotha this is the church that's very confusing to visit a number of different denominations church groups share the building so there's lots of hustle and bustle but we need to look beyond some of the religious structure to see we're in a very ancient site here this is a church building dating back to the 4th century built by helena the mother of constantine and there is good reason to think we are an authentic site and you get more of a sense here of this being an abandoned roman stone quarry as an abandoned stone quarry this is exactly the kind of location we would expect outside of the city walls for the jewish people to use for burial and even when the romans overtook the city to be used for crucifixion execution so that we're looking at a church building helena built it here for a reason in the 4th century and when her roman legion excavated what had been buried in the debris she found a site that authentically fits with what we'd expect from the biblical record there's good reason to think this was indeed the site where jesus was executed and then a little further along in the quarry the tombs which would include the tomb where they laid the body of jesus you can see here that what we call the edicule or the little house and this small chapel it essentially was built over the location of a rock cup tomb from the first century when helena excavated this area this was thought to be the tomb where jesus had been buried now we can't tell it's been destroyed and rebuilt over many years it's experienced its own levels of destruction archaeologists did do some restoration work just a couple of years ago and it is very clear that inside that chapel there is definitely remains of a very early period tomb pre-dating this church of the holy sepulchre now we're not going to go inside the edicule but we can go and have a look at some tombs from the first century here is how we know that we're in an authentic site for burial at the time of jesus what we're looking at here are called cochin this is a kind of tomb burial so they buried in this area and what they would do is they would place their body out flats would decompose over a year or two and then place the bones in an ossuary a bone box which would be slotted into these niches which you can see in the walls so this was originally part of a whole area of tombs in this section of the abandoned roman stone quarry in acts chapter 2 we read that peter preached to the crowds on the day of pentecost and that would have been happening somewhere in the vicinity of these steps and peter preached on that day reminding the crowd that they knew where the body of david had been buried king david he says in verse 29 died was buried in his tomb is still here to this day however jesus peter says in verse 31 god would not let his body see decay it used to be said by skeptics that jesus having been a crucified man would not have been given a burial considered curse his body would have been thrown on the garbage and maybe burned to lime in 1968 archaeologists found a bone box in jerusalem from the first century which contained the skeletal remains of a crucified man johannan his skeletal remains showing how crucifixion was carried out included the very gruesome discovery of an iron nail through his heel which even had a piece of olive wood still attached to it from the cross on which he'd been crucified so we can be confident that crucified people were given proper burials when people loved them and took care of their remains jesus loved by many would have been given a proper burial but 40 days later peter could declare we don't know where the body is we know where the body of david is but not far from here the tomb where jesus had been laid was empty the bones were gone because jesus had risen from the dead [Music] we return to caesarea and it's artificial harbour one of the earliest in the entire world the romans built this from the time of king herod and they used the type of cement that would set underwater amazing building technology but we read in the bible that it is here that peter brought the gospel to cornelius in acts chapter 10. and in acts chapter 25 paul was under arrest here before he would set sail for rome and so ultimately it is from here that the gospel would go to the ends of the earth and we know having explored this holy land that many of the archaeological remains confirm that this gospel message was based on real history and therefore it's a real jesus who we speak of today whose message has spread to the ends of the earth [Music] you

Channel: Vision Video

Views: 4,500,405

Keywords: Christian Video, Christian Film, Christian Movie, Religious Movie, Film, Movie, Entertainment, Feature Film, Vision Video, biblical archaeology, bible documentary, bible archeology, bible history, jesus documentary

Id: lsQeZssBNbo

Length: 101min 40sec (6100 seconds)

Published: Sat May 07 2022