All language subtitles for What Was Daily Life Like In Biblical Times Living In The Time Of Jesus Parable.eng(transcribed).eng(transcribed)

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my name is art kislenko

i'm a historian

my specialty is the 20th century but

i've come here to jerusalem because i

want to find out what life was like in

the first century

look at this

a job that's still here after 2 000

years

money changer

in this famous scene from the gospels

jesus sees the money changers in the

temple

he overturns their tables

and drives them out of the temple

everybody's always been interested in

the commotion jesus caused

but i want to know what all these people

were doing at the temple that day

and what they all did for a living

what were their jobs like and what drove

the economy

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the hillsides around the city of

nazareth contain ruins that date back to

biblical times

they've helped archaeologists and

biblical scholars recreate what nazareth

would have looked like in jesus's time

james tabor a biblical scholar

specializing in the life of jesus

is here to show me just how real it is

but listen james and was nazareth really

like this i don't even think it could be

reproduced no matter what you did think

about

the crowdedness the smells

the cacophony of sounds the animals

animals walking around the dung in the

street i was thinking it must have stunk

it would have to we're going to go into

one of the houses here

notice as we step inside through the

door we're actually outside in this

courtyard area this workshop area right

90 of the life is outdoors even though

you're in the house with a bit of

shelter from the sun think of all of

these activities that go on in a village

uh particularly the manufacturing like

somebody's going to be making the

pottery somebody's going to be baking

the bread everybody does that to their

house

out of their house so it really gives

you a sense of that workshop atmosphere

and here's an example of the weaving

after shearing the sheep and washing the

wool

the weaver does what's called carting

the wool opening it up and separating

the fibers so they can work them on the

loom

that's been cleaned and worked on how

long does it take you to clean the wool

like uh two months three or four months

and

can i try that yes

so i'm holding it like this

and you roll it and spinning it yes and

move your fingers with it you don't need

to control your fingers with the

splinter yes that's it that's easy for

you

move your fingers that's it you're

working for it like that yes

okay i'll just let you do that so

everything's done here you dye the wool

here we dyeing the wall we're carving

the wall we're spilling here and after

that we take to the loom to make fabrics

but it's taking a long long long process

but there's another job they're doing in

this house that i want to see

because it's one of the most famous jobs

in the bible

carpentry

we've all been told that when jesus

wasn't over turning tables

he was making them

now some carpenter's tools haven't

changed in 2000 years

but some have

what's uh what's this tool for

a drill it's nothing like my drill how

do you use it

can i try it

that is really tricky

now i know where they invented power

tools yeah

this is hard is it common to have a a

small child in the workplace absolutely

judaism taught that uh if you don't

train your son in a profession you've

abandoned him basically we're in a

carpentry shop most famous job in the

world i mean is this how jesus would

have grown up

yeah i think that's the image people

have it's certainly in the movies and

the books we've been studying

uh the terms that are used and jesus is

called a carpenter in english but of

course it wasn't written in english

written in greek right but the word

actually is tecton which means it means

sort of artisan or a builder like a

stone mason which really doesn't fit

woodworking as much right so it could be

any kind of builder you notice there's

not a lot of wood in a home right but

more stone lots of stuff and most of the

examples when jesus taught he talks

about stone so often so it's jesus the

stone mason not jesus that really does

seem to be the best interpretation of

the original text i mean that's totally

different than everything else we've

ever been told before

yeah i think the

carpenter idea is romantic in a certain

way

a better image is getting up at three in

the morning and heading off

to cephas nearby for hard labor

uh at four or five in the morning coming

back near dark

stone was the most important building

material in biblical times

and easy to get from the rocky terrain

so jesus the stonemason may have worked

right here

two thousand years later

builders in israel and around the world

have hand-operated gantry cranes

and water-cooled sawing machines

the modern builders here still use the

local limestone

building techniques might have changed

but the ancient skills are alive

for some buildings

the shaping and cutting of stone

is still done by hand

so hot on the trail of the job that

jesus may have actually done

i'm heading off to the nearby town of

cepharus

because it's here only three miles but a

world away from the village where he

grew up that jesus may have gotten his

first taste of the occupying power of

rome

this is james strange a world-renowned

authority on biblical archaeology he's

been excavating cepherus for nearly 30

years so he'll know why stonemason's

nearby nazareth could have worked here

in jesus's time all the houses and

buildings that you see over here to the

left that's nazareth right there that's

right this is the economic center so

everybody from 18 miles around can come

into this city and buy and sell all the

villagers all the little hamlets

independent farmsteads whatever they are

but also this city is in a major trade

route that extends all the way to italy

and all the way to egypt so it's a trade

hub yeah very much so would jesus have

come here when herod the great dies this

city revolts

and the romans respond by destroying it

then here the great's son herod antipas

inherits this city so he gives orders

that be rebuilt

so thousands of workmen have to come in

here someone has to cut the millions of

stones that are in this mosaic floor

jesus very well could have come and

worked here jesus his father his

brothers could all have been here that's

incredible in jesus time the roman

empire ruled over judea

pagan roman life with its many gods and

liberal ideas

was very different from how the jewish

people lived and how they prayed to one

god so the young jesus lived right at

the intersection of traditional jewish

culture and the urban life of the

occupying romans

he wasn't raised to live as the romans

did

but he may have built their houses

huge houses

here's what remains of one of them i

mean look at our feet i think it's the

biggest threshold in the state of israel

it's the most finely cut so i'm thinking

a bureaucrat some kind of bureaucrat in

fact i would guess we're looking at a

magistrate

right

we come into the opulence that's right

his office i presume there was a pool

right over here that's a pool that's a

pool there was another pool over here so

we had two roman pools inside this

building this

is astonishingly big and roman even the

administrators would be local people in

the higher realm

so they get co-opted into the into the

occupying that's right right that's

right

so the romans didn't just occupy

they influenced many of the jewish

people

many of them were hellenized or

romanized

absorbing greek and roman culture

right here in the busy city of cepherus

so what was it like here

it's the main road it's absolutely

teeming with life people going

everywhere

they're buying they're selling

they're manufacturing there'll be a

laundry you can go in there this will be

selling spices and it'll be very

aromatic it must have really smelled oh

yeah you bet it did think about a fresh

fish shop

and you're walking right by it you know

with all this fish and the sun's been on

a little while and then also there are

two drains underneath us on either side

of the street actually

and all kinds of sewage is running

through there

so we're smelling fish we're smelling

sewage we're smelling cinnamon we're

smelling perfume

we're smelling people depending on the

prevailing winds for example you could

be coming in from tiberius and you could

actually smell this city before you saw

it the ancients speak of that now i

wanted to ask you though you know i'm

always fascinated by these little things

so you know what are the people wearing

and what are they how do they keep clean

in a place like this well if they're

wearing white like they're a

high-ranking person then it has to be

washed in urine

that's the roman technology so it stinks

it stinks it's noisy

it's energetic there's a lot of things

going on so it's the fifth avenue of the

ancient it's something like that a fifth

avenue in a major city right in the

ancient world

the gospels tell us that when commerce

threatened to take over the life of the

temple jesus cracked the whip

and the seeds for that rage could have

been sown here at cepherus where jesus

was likely getting his hands dirty while

trying to keep his soul clean

jesus's job leads him to where the work

is

and his ideas and philosophy begin to

develop with huge consequences

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this is how every day began

in first century villages

with women

making bread before dawn

in the time of the bible the men went

out early to work in the fields

but the women were up first making a

meal for them to take along

when it came to biblical jobs women

literally kept the home fires burning

if you didn't want to use sticks to

create friction and heat and if you

didn't have a flint to create a spark

you kept the fire going at all times to

heat your home and cook your meals

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food historian tova dickstein is an

expert in the foods of ancient israel

she's helping me to prepare your basic

year one meal

i can't wait to see how it tastes

is it healthy i mean yeah this is very

healthy why because it's a complete

nutrition

this is wall wheat right wall with

lentil it's a complete protein it's like

meat

ah right yeah so the wheat and the

lentils together make up your protein

protein and here you have calcium they

pick up the fig because they knew i

don't know how they know it but you get

the calcium from the figs so these are

the basic basic food groups exactly so

simple that's the beauty of it yeah if

we were living in biblical times would

this be all we'd ever eat no this is the

very basic ingredients but people had

more like vegetables garden vegetables

food olive

now this smells

amazing it really does and i'm not

saying that because

i helped to make it

so he used the bread as a as a scoop

we would have had bread every meal in

biblical times right yeah but it was the

staple food every meal there there were

people that this was the main dish

bread was between 50 and 70 percent of

the meal really yeah 70

of every meal

almost every meal

which is probably why the gospel of

matthew contains a phrase that many of

us know

give us this day our daily bread

this is far better than i thought it

would be this is absolutely delicious

this diet provided all the nutrition you

would need for a hard day of work in the

fields

many of the jobs here were connected to

the land

on the day the gospels tell us jesus

overturned the money changers table

some of the people in the temple were

likely farmers

they would have come here to bring their

first crops as an offering of thanks

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with your life dependent on your crops

and animals

you figure everyone would try and get

along

but the bible tells us that adam and eve

had two sons

cain was a farmer

and abel was a shepherd

and we know how that turned out

ronit mayoz is an expert in ancient

israeli studies

and she can tell us what agricultural

jobs around here were like a farmer of

course would look at the shepherd is

something very very low but i think the

shepherd would look at the farmer as

being a prisoner because he's tied to

his land so do you mean that farmers and

and shepherds would compete are not

friends especially if you have those

goats

beyond their use as food

in biblical times goats were also used

for temple sacrifices

these money changers that jesus will

confront

are converting foreign currency

and one of the reasons pilgrims needed

the local currency

is so that they could buy animals to

sacrifice in the temple

but before they meet their fate as lunch

or sacrifice

goats have their own ideas

if she wants uh to eat from a tree she

will climb or as much as she can and she

will take the leaves she will also take

out the roots something that the sheep

cannot do

so for a farmer she's really she's a

destroyer

maybe that's why the farmer came and the

shepherd abel didn't get along

abel's livestock really got kane's goat

and the sheep were useful not just for

food but for making clothes

but first you had to catch them

would you like to leave this vlog

would you like to do that sure let's

give it a try okay

let's go

i think you forgot one

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oh yes did you see that

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champion shepherd

is it terrible that i'm thinking lamb

kebabs right about now

for the biblical farmer the most

important task was growing enough food

for his family

animals provided crucial help plowing

the fields and growing staple foods

no wonder the bible mentions animals so

often

they were life and lifeline

your mule your car whatever animal you

had is really your friend she knows you

the most important thing in my world she

is yeah yes

because everything depends on her yes

but in the bible isn't there a reference

to plowing a straight line jesus says to

his followers

if you follow me do it like you were

plowing in the field just go straight

after me don't look right don't look to

the left

and that's not easily done all right yes

now the left one

yikes

i think she's more interested in eating

than in ploughing start going you know

it's a lot easier to say that than to do

that

yeah

wrong deal

yeah very good yeah

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that's it

yeah

yeah

look look look i'm doing it

from morning to night i'd be out here

tonight you'd be plowing now it's really

a lot of work i'm sweating now but you

know that god said to adam that with the

sweat of your brow

you will get bred out of the land yeah

there we go that's a girl

biblical farmers developed a terracing

system still in use here

they cut large shelves out of the

hillside to prevent the soil from

washing away

here they grew barley and wheat and

anxiously hoped they'd chosen the right

amount of seeds to eat and to sow

so that's the actual barley just the

ceilings yeah it's very important that

they get settled now on the ground and

that they grow and they get roots so

what's the worst thing that could happen

as a farmer in biblical times no rain

the worst nothing gross this is going to

be bread

so if there is no bread there is no life

here

from the time of the bible right up to

today

for the jewish people unless you've

broken bread you haven't had a meal

in the holy temple beyond the courtyard

where the sacrifices were held

was the sanctuary

and the only food allowed him there

was bread

but to grow the grains needed for your

bread you needed water

being a biblical farmer meant looking to

the skies and praying there would be

enough rain

one of the toughest jobs was hauling

water

and guess who did that

actually you are now doing a typical

woman's job you know this is a woman's

work very hard work of course very

important one of the hardest will be

given either to the women or to slaves

we're university professors

by the way you know that it was very

hard job but this is also the place of

encounters women found their spouses

really yes the most important encounters

happened by a whale or a sister so this

is like all the important marriages this

is the first century hangout this is the

internet facebook of course that's a

matchmaking place here

at the well

chance encounters led to many important

biblical marriages

moses and zappora

jacob and rachel

isaac and rebecca

now this place is not as well suited to

matchmaking but it's just as important

for collecting water

ancient engineers designed this wooden

treadmill connected to a ring of clay

pots called a sakia

now how it works

is that you walk or run on this part of

the wheel

and if you're doing it right the wheel

spins

and those jugs up on top

scoop up water from this pond

and then drop them into that sluice at

the top

and then the sluice runs into a trough

behind me

where people would pick up the water for

farming and

drinking and so on

but you got to keep going on this

because the momentum

really drops off quickly

so these are the jobs that would have

surrounded jesus when he was growing up

but many of his followers the disciples

held a different profession one we

haven't seen so far

i want to find out why so many of them

were in this profession

and i want to try and do this job

i'm in israel learning about jobs in the

time of jesus

and there's a pretty important job you

can't miss if you read the new testament

because at least four of the disciples

of jesus were fishermen

so i've come north to the sea of galilee

to find out why

this is heim weitzman

a second generation fisherman who grew

up right here on the shores of the

galilee we're going to fish where the

disciples fished and maybe find out the

connection between this job and jesus's

earliest followers

time we got to get a cover for your boat

a little roof one splash guard

that's a hat

i love that

now i'm a fisherman yes looks good

so how did the disciples know where to

find the fish

like heim they knew the waters around

here and they used their instincts

it didn't always work but they had jesus

and the gospels tell us he miraculously

knew where to find the fish

we have sonar

we're fishing for tilapia which has been

swimming in these waters since before

the time of the disciples

now they call it st peter's fish named

after

guess who

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very good

my first fish isn't it

look at that

this is bigger but mine's tougher how

many fish do we norm do you catch every

day it's one 100 kilo 100 kilo 100 kilo

yeah in one one net

one nit yeah

well i caught slightly less than that

and i'm gonna cook them up biblical

style

this is varied gross who manages dex

restaurant here in the galilee she's

gonna show me how it's done me and ata

will be happy to teach you great oh yeah

all right

you take the fish

you stick it through it

i believe that's the technical term

okay

great job better than others you see the

teacher became the pupil

this is a special type of oregano it's

called

like that

yeah this is hot hot thing and if you

want to check if the fish is ready yeah

you take the stick of the oregano okay

and you try to you know this is my

ancient fish thermometer yeah if it goes

through it's ready

hi jim

hello there are you how are you all

right look at that i'm impressed ah wait

a second a

little biblical uh garnish here for you

a little biblical garnish

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well very nice indeed while jim enjoys

my expertly caught and brilliantly

cooked saint peter's fish i ask him

about the biblical fishing business

first of all you fish with nets that's

that's what's economical if you're

trying to do something commercial and

then when you fish with nets in the

ancient world you fish at night because

the fish can't see the nets at night in

order to keep your clothes from being

ruined by them wash and bring your nets

and so on you usually fish naked

the tv viewers will be glad that i i i

didn't try that experiment but uh that's

a little too much

these people i mean fishing in ancient

times around here the are they are they

poor not at all this is the most stable

industry for this area

according to the writings of the first

century eyewitness josephus the galilee

had a thriving economy with a salting

factory to preserve fish for export

and with some of the catch they made

fish sauce which was called garum

i'm meeting biblical food historian

susan weingarten to learn how to do this

fragrant job

we're going to cut these fish up put

them into the pot together with salt the

guts of the fish have enzymes in them

the enzymes will break down the flesh of

the fish the salt will prevent it from

producing all sorts of harmful bacteria

and we leave it around for three months

any kind of fish right any kind of fish

everything goes in always a bit of salt

in the middle now what was garum used

for the top quality garum was used as a

condiment as a flavoring because rather

you use soy sauce nowadays the lower

quality ones was the sort of thing that

you dip your bread into perhaps

and at the bottom there's a sludge which

they used to eat the sludge would

contain the bones

which don't get digested by the enzymes

and it's these bones that we find

archaeologically

and we can identify that this was the

place where they made garum whose job

would this have been other than mine now

the video was right

they will be made in factories we've

found the remains of garum factories all

around the mediterranean so this would

have been a commodity a commodity that

was traded widely over the mediterranean

king herod

ported garum from spain spanish garam

was the best

they've even found garum in masada would

this have been considered to be a a good

job as a garam maker or a person working

in the garam factory i i guess not but

the person that made all his money out

of the out of owning the factory i can't

imagine this was a glamorous job

i can't imagine this either

so how long has this garam been sitting

this garam's been sitting here for a

month and a half in this one for a bit

over two months

beautiful yeah let's have a go

look you can see the fish the way

they're all decaying this is absolutely

revolting it wouldn't smell nearly so

bad at the end of the process this has

to rank as maybe one of the worst

jobs i would ever have to do we didn't

make you eat it did we no and and i'm

really grateful that you didn't

so there were lots of fish in the sea

the sea of galilee which could be sold

salted and made into fish sauce for

export

this was a good business

and in the nearby fishing village of

bethsaida

where many of the disciples came from

there's more evidence of how profitable

the job fishing could be

betsaida is right on a major

international trade route

the via mars

you've heard of the road to damascus

well

it starts down in egypt

and goes right through here

this is the site of bethsaida

it's a major city

in jesus lifetime the image in my head

of poor fishermen gets dispelled in

betsy where archaeologists have

discovered evidence of a middle-class

lifestyle how do you know these were

houses of the fishery

well because

um

weights from for fishing nets have been

found here

um

they have actually found

the bones of fish here

this is the courtyard of the house of

the fisherman

and this is the wine cellar it's a wine

cellar and this is what we need to find

out if they're wealthy or not

because all the houses look the same on

the outside it's what's on the inside it

tells us

their level of wealth they found tall

jars of the type that are used for wine

if they're collecting wine and going to

a lot of trouble to corbel this over

and to make a cool place then they're

they're trying to preserve a collection

of wine pretty wide

yeah

yeah

you can store quite a lot didn't you

yeah so you don't express your wealth by

decorating the house on the outside

you accumulate things on the inside that

indicate your wealth what would this

tell you about the life of fishermen

around here well it tells us that they

can accumulate a lot of capital

that they're really rather well off the

disciples they weren't poor they're

fishermen they might be fishermen

contractors you know they might have a

lot of boats out there and they might be

doing very well and they were better off

than other trades people basically

some of them lived here yeah some of

them actually lived here came from

bedside

peter and andrew particularly

right in this neck of the woods isn't it

yeah we could be looking at their houses

and not knowing it

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you know it makes sense that the

disciples would have had well-paying

jobs because the jesus movement is a

rebellion a revolution and that takes

cash as well as belief

we're seeing a transition between the

old testament and the new

and jobs are one of the key differences

in the south the farmers and shepherds

of the bible are at the mercy of the

rain and the seasons

but in the north the new testament

stories are all about fishing a year

round and stable business

all right we've seen the nice guys in

the nature who isn't happy to meet a

farmer or a fisherman

they provide food

but there were guys who did another kind

of job in jesus time

and everyone hated them

no one was happy to see them show up

and yet it's a job that one of jesus's

own disciples did

in the first century the roman empire

ruled over judea

but not only were the people colonized

they had to pay taxes to rome

and what did the romans do with all the

money

some of it went in to build places like

this

i'm here in the ancient city of betcheon

and all i can say is wow this place is

incredible it is beautiful it's massive

and i'm thinking that at its height it

must have been incredibly opulent

everybody has that reaction their mouths

just drop open they think you know am i

in rome or greece and here we are in

jewish roman palestine

this area has been inhabited for over 9

000 years

and no wonder

two rivers converge here in the lush

jordan valley making for a plentiful

water supply as well as rich soil

and its location also has strategic

importance

as the road north from jerusalem

intersects here with the coast road from

lebanon

so i gotta ask i mean how on earth would

you pay for something like this well the

simple word is texas and the romans

insists that conquered territories pay

their own way as well as pay for this

sort of massive building what kind of

taxes are we talking about there are

individual taxes per head

and their property taxes their cuts into

a certain percentage of produce we think

it might be anywhere from 30 to 50

for the poor it had to be truly

oppressive it wasn't graduated so if it

was 30

of a smaller amount i mean

you could barely get enough to eat

[Music]

so when it comes to first century jobs

ruling over another country and

collecting taxes from them is certainly

one of the most profitable

so if it's an oppressive tax regime i

mean is this like 1776 where you have

the taxation without representation

actually i think three times we have

record that herod antipas who rule

galilee he reduced the taxes

and the only reason he would do that is

uh the people were finally saying isn't

enough is enough right and

the final revolt was even over taxes so

what happens if if you can't pay is

there any sort of tax break

i think it's almost like tightening

screws the

client ruler herod is watching to see

how much pressure you can put on

in addition to all this splendor which

may not have interested the local

workers who were paying for it the

romans also used tax money to build

roads and aqueducts which did interest

the locals

so there were mixed feelings towards the

roman conquerors

and towards tax collectors

not the most popular job then or now

but one of the disciples of jesus was a

tax collector levi

who was also called matthew

with jesus so opposed to roman

oppression why did he have someone like

this in his entourage the gospels tell

us that jesus is looking everywhere for

sinners to repent and i guess that

includes tax collectors

now we know how the irs reacts if you

don't pay your taxes but what was it

like in biblical

times so what happens if there's a

drought or a famine and you can't pay

your taxes there's no mercy you could go

to jail you could lose your land

you know maybe you own a family plot of

land and all of a sudden uh

it's uh given over to some rich

landowner were people killed for this

was there execution for not paying your

taxes we do have examples of 2 000

people being crucified

up and down the road here in galilee for

not paying their taxes because they

joined an anti-tax revolution imagine

seeing crosses up and down

a roman road yeah i'd start paying my

taxes at that point that's exactly right

beyond your basic greed

the romans also found that taxing

everything and everybody dovetailed

nicely with that other pillar of empire

building

trade

trade routes allowed them to tax goods

at every stage of the journey

and it was merchants

another important job in the time of the

bible

who had to deal with both taxes and

trade

getting your wares to the big cities

sometimes involved a great deal of

travel especially for certain goods that

the city absolutely could not do without

for instance in jerusalem

they had to have frankincense

without it there could be no temple

worship why not what is frankincense

anyway and where does it come from

i've come to the negev desert to trace

the frankincense trail

and learn more about the men who

couldn't do their jobs without it the

priests

the same men who clashed with jesus

[Music]

from this famous scene in the new

testament where jesus overturns the

money changers table

i've been learning about the jobs all

these people did in biblical times

and how their professions could have

brought them all to the holy temple in

jerusalem

on that day

there was another very important job

practiced by those who were already at

the temple

the priest

priests were the link between the people

and their god performing animal

sacrifices and burning a special incense

called frankincense as an offering

frankincense begins as a tree resin from

southern arabia but to get it to

jerusalem it used to have to go through

this

i'm in the negev desert

taking the same route the merchants and

camel drivers took

[Music]

and i'm here to meet eunice aburbaia and

has heard of camels

this is my camel okay what's his uh

what's his name uh

shyla

okay

the java camel driver hasn't changed

much in 2000 years

the most important thing is to look

after your animal because we're a long

way from anything

they're incredible animals smarter than

the vehicles that replace them

and unlike cars and trucks they can go

over almost any terrain

cover up my big head

well thank you very much

[Music]

foreign

veterans always feed their guests

and if we were ancient merchants we

would certainly need to be fortified for

the journey

taking frankincense through the desert

to jerusalem

that is delicious

now i'm ready for my first camel ride

okay

okay oh i'm on a candle

that's great

and now what do i do how do i uh you

know i should have read the manual

before i uh i bought the camera okay

there's no instructions for this

all right

whoa

that's the big head

whoa

that is something else

this is the only way to haul cargo in

the desert

these guys are the 18 wheelers of the

middle east

out here i can imagine that in the first

century there would have been hundreds

of camels and caravans stretched out

across the horizon

hauling goods from thousands of miles

away towards jerusalem

and there were jobs along the way too

since camels shed their owners made

money from their hair which was used to

make clothing

remember spinning the yarn back in

nazareth

imagine doing it while on the road to

jerusalem

out here you make use of everything you

can

and you paid a toll or tribute to rome

and territories he passed through

no wonder frankincense was so expensive

by the time it got here to jerusalem

it had been taxed to the hill

[Music]

i'm in the sook for a marketplace here

in old jerusalem

a lot of things have changed over time

but you can still get goods here that

were sold during biblical times

this

is frankincense

[Music]

we know it best as one of the gifts that

was brought to baby jesus by the three

wise men

how much is this this is 100 gram 12

12 shekels for one for one yeah for one

yes can i smell that yeah sure sakura

it's very beautiful frankincense that's

beautiful

it's good for smell good for memory good

for all anything because that many

people before 2050 years ago he has put

all of this in his home so 2000 years

ago yeah this was used so everyone

everyone

some people believe frankincense to be

an effective anti-inflammatory and

current medical studies are testing

other benefits

but the ancients knew that burning

frankincense was an offering they had to

make to god

it's still burned in churches today

and 2000 years ago pilgrims coming to

jerusalem and entering the temple would

have inhaled its sweet fragrance

three times a year the jewish people

came to the temple from all over the

world for the major festivals

i'm in old jerusalem

and this is the western wall

it's the only above-ground structure

that's left of the temple that the

romans destroyed

the temple mount is the holiest place in

judaism

and the western wall is its only

physical remnant

just up here on temple mount the very

first temple was built about a thousand

years before jesus was born

people come here 365 days a year 24

hours a day to pray in this square

many of them write prayers on small

scripts and place them in the wall

others kiss the wall

the pilgrims brought animal sacrifices

to the temple but they didn't bring a

goat or a dove with them halfway around

the world

so the first thing they had to do was

convert their currency so that they

could buy animals to sacrifice

so what about this job money changer did

jesus really object to it

after all without it pilgrims couldn't

buy and offer their sacrifices

it wasn't the job it was where the job

was located

inside the temple

this crowded city of pilgrims attracted

merchants of every kind

it was a good place for business

but jesus didn't want the temple turned

into a business and some say the priests

were allowing it to happen

[Music]

i want to find out more about this job

which was unlike any other

an answer to a boss unlike any other

in the pressure cooker of jerusalem how

did these priests balance

religion commerce

rome

and the first century rebel

in the time of the bible jerusalem was

as busy as it is today

times a year pilgrims came from all

around to offer sacrifices in the temple

that used to be beyond this wall

jerusalem's pilgrims were great for

local jobs then and now

[Applause]

there were food vendors there were

hostile owners and there were merchants

of every kind

but unlike today there were thousands of

priests who served in the temple

these priests were in the temple to

represent the people before their god

and nothing could interfere with them

performing their holy functions

the most important functions were

performed by the high priest

but under roman occupation there was

plenty of interference with this job

and rome made sure that the man it

wanted was

appointed his duty was to god

but pleasing rome allowed him to fulfill

that duty

so he and the other priests had a

delicate tightrope to walk

shimon gibson is a world-renowned

biblical archaeologist who directs

excavations in israel

he can bring us closer to the lives of

these men

for whom ritual purity was the key to

being able to do their job

so here you can see one of the gates uh

which led into

uh the temple area this is the place

where all the pilgrims who had been

purified in a salon pool and including

the priests who would come from the

upper city would enter into the temple

so everybody comes right through here

exactly and it must have been a pretty

chaotic scene if you've got all these

people coming in fairly chaotic but you

had a very very strict administration

and

had uh the the temple administrators

they would make sure that only those who

had been

purified in the pools were allowed into

the temple

everyone had to immerse in a special

pool called a mikvah before entering the

holy temple

its purpose was not for physical

cleanliness

but for ritual purity

there were large mikvahs for the

pilgrims like this one the pool of

siloam

mentioned in the new testament and

recently discovered near where the

temple stood and the water was on

different levels so

um whenever the pool was at a lower

level then you'd descend the steps if

the water was at a higher level then you

could so remain uh closer so this went

continually down all the way down to the

bottom and the steps were on all four

sides which is quite nice so you gotta

imagine almost like a theater with all

these people sitting around uh and uh

they've all come here in order to purify

themselves before going up to the temple

it was critical that priests become pure

before entering the temple

one became impure by coming into contact

with death

for instance being in the presence of a

dead body

and life's potential was sacred so both

the presence of semen that had not

conceived as well as menstrual fluid

required a trip to the mikvah

the priests believed that if they were

impure when they entered the temple

everything they were trying to

accomplish in the prayers for their

people would fail

there were and still are strict rules

about what kind of water could be used

in a ritual bath

it couldn't be brought in by unnatural

means

it had to be rain water or from a spring

or river

since nothing was more important than

this ritual purity some of the priests

had their own private mikvahs

shimon gibson is digging in what is

believed to have been a priestly quarter

of ancient jerusalem

and he has discovered what is believed

to be a priestly house

so we're gonna go down here

we're actually gonna descend through

time because we're at the level of the

ottoman period greater bridges yes which

is uh

mid 16th century and we're gonna go all

the way down to

two thousand years to the levels from

the first century from the time of jesus

so we're gonna descend the elevator

of time

how do you know that there are priestly

houses as opposed to somebody else's

house well we have historical sources we

also have um archaeological findings

excavations revealed a house uh with an

inscription

indicating that this was a house which

belonged to the priestly family i mean

these were the neighbors of king herod

the great and subsequently of the the

roman governors of jerusalem because the

roman governor was situated just up

slope from where we are jerusalem was a

very wealthy city

being the focus of pilgrims three times

a year those who lived in jerusalem were

able to sell their goods to them were

able to rent out their houses so you

don't have a lower class in jerusalem

you have the middle class

those who are better off and those who

are less better off and the aristocracy

and the priesthood people also think of

jesus coming to

jerusalem and then uh moving in and

around the in between the houses of the

poor but there were no poor people the

jews of the time that's fascinating i

never thought that so there's a lot of

animal bones here and uh you can see

them sort of scattered around here you

can see a red bone oh look look there's

a coin you see that green it's corroded

that's why it's got that green sort of

skin to it that's really cool

and what's nice is it's caught between

these two stones so it'll give us some

information about when this wall was

constructed check it out you were

actually trusting me well since you're

here on the site you've got to dig it

out the one thing you don't do is rub

the surface because it's corroded and so

it can actually peel

away almost like an onion

and and with it it can take the image

which is on the the

the koi itself on the metal this is the

loose change just like you find loose

change all over the place modern at

least james you know same in in

antiquity i have to give it up yes you

have to it's

so there we go

and that is my uh my first ever

archaeological fight your fingers have

touched history

that's beautiful it really is

it's exciting there's always a first

time isn't it touching history

is quite a change from teaching it

but there's more to see as we descend

further into history

shimon is using geophysical mapping

technology to see what hasn't yet been

excavated

and he discovers something incredible at

the lowest level of this house and lo

and behold

in this area we found this hidden

chamber

with its ceiling still intact well

fantastic

it's really amazing

you're in the cellar of the priestly

house and it's here that you have this

mikva which is this ritual pool

if you came in from the marketplace you

might have brushed shoulders with a lapa

which had made you impure

so if you're entering into the house the

first thing you did was you went to

purify yourself

finding a mikvah in the home of a priest

tells us just how crucial ritual purity

was

it wasn't only in the temple they needed

to be pure everywhere they went in the

city of god

when jesus overturned the tables of the

money changers

these priests would have felt that he

was overturning their world

the delicate balance they had achieved

between their god and the

romans

and here in his house

we can touch this man's life

this vanished job

temple priest

this is extraordinary

[Music]

doing their jobs and finding out about

their everyday lives

i've learned a lot about all the people

who would have converged on the temple

on a fateful day in the first century

[Music]

[Music]

my name is aaron koslanko

my day job is teaching history but now i

want to live it so i've come here to

israel to find out what life was like at

the time of the bible

modern concoctions

ancient ingredients

makes me wonder what people at the time

knew about sickness and medicine

the gospels report that people with a

variety of ailments and diseases came to

ritual baths such as this one the pool

of siloam in jerusalem

the most famous was a blind man who had

asked jesus for help

jesus mixes his saliva with the earth

and puts it on the blind man's eyes

telling him to immerse in the pool of

siloam the blind man does and then

miraculously he can see

it's an inspiring story but i'm also

interested in the other stories we see

in this scene

look at all these sick people

why have they all come here

and which of them will get better

when you got sick in the first century

what did you do about it

[Music]

today when we get sick most of us go to

doctors but what did they do in biblical

times

to find out i meet dr lior rosenberg he

collects ancient medical instruments and

can tell me about what they knew in the

first century

are these actually first century these

are actually first century or even maybe

older these are roman instruments many

of them are found here dr rosenberg has

ancient probes

lancets

scalpels

this is going to get ugly isn't it yes

yeah can i pick these up yeah sure but

it's quite sharp well it's good thing i

have a doctor with me isn't it

uh okay so this would be so this is what

we call the the scalpel or the blade the

modern blade okay

and this is a roman blade

they look almost identical also the size

are very similar and if you had a

problem that couldn't be fixed with

these cutting and sewing tools there

were objects in the shape of whatever

problem you had to remind god what you

needed help with

surgery was not really practice at that

time we became doctors

i mean physician only in the 18th 19th

century

before that we were barbers

yeah plain old barbers yes

and carpenters and other tradesmen

whoever had sharp tools

given this approach to surgery it's

understandable why you might pin your

hopes on a miracle worker like jesus

rather than go under the knife now these

are leeches obviously

can i can i sure okay they would use

this to bloodlet same principle

the same principle exactly

and in modern time they're also used for

bloodletting in microsurgery

so so ancient times ancient ways have

made a comeback

exactly unfortunately they're about to

make a comeback on me

oh

come on

other than hurt what is this gonna do

for me it's supposed to

extract the bad blood out of your body

and bring it to the surface and allow

the

good blood to remain

once that bad blood comes to the surface

the leeches can suck it out of me

great

is that a special leech tube yes

what do you want it no no this is where

do i want it how about on you

he's smelling me isn't it yeah now with

this sleech tube i really can aim where

i put it

no you just feel it that's why do i feel

like i'm in a science fiction movie all

of a sudden because you are

do you feel any pain he's stabbing me

yeah he's having lunch yeah what kind of

ailments would they have used this for

er they use it for anything and in all

parts of the body

they were using glitches on the forehead

really on the nose

inside the nose the nostrils they even

were using on the lips going down

obviously on the chest on the back on

the hands on the fingers to treat

hemorrhoids witches

yes let's skip that one right

some patients found out the hard way

that excessive bloodletting wasn't

always a help

but using cups and heat to bring what

people call bad blood to the surface is

still done today

instead of glass in biblical times they

would have used clay cups or animal

horns

and for some ailments they also used a

variety of herbs because the climate

hasn't changed that much around here in

2000 years many of those herbs are still

growing today

i'm heading north with sharon kotzer

who's an expert in herbal medicine

because i want to find out how they used

herbs to keep healthy in the time of

jesus

beautiful yes this is amazing place it's

exactly i guess how it used to be two

thousand years ago nothing really

changed here really so this is exactly

like it would have been in the bible i

think so

with this beautiful nettle it's

something this is amazing color but they

used to take it and used to uh actually

to whip the skin with it all right

they used to do it because in cases of

kind of inflammatory disease of the of

the joints kind of arthritis arthritis

okay right well i've got arthritis i

think i'll give that a try the blood

supply decrease and lots of toxins

accumulate and when you do this

you actually stimulate the nerve ending

and the blood supply to the area

so they had a variety of methods to

stimulate the blood supply

if your problem was in a joint where

cups weren't an option you could use

this herb

and it's a kind of counter irritant it's

bring a kind of new blood supply to the

area it's cleaned the affected joint it

was used this method for thousands of

years by people i'm definitely taking

some of this home

i wonder if i can get it by customs

this is a kind of of ramnes this is

quite a strong a laxative rammels ramnes

this is from the sage family it's called

balota bolota belota they used for lung

problems for lung disease

it's also a kind of mental relaxant

sharon shows me some of the herbs that

they would chew in biblical times

willow bark for headaches pistachio leaf

or bad breath and a mallow plant for

ulcers

marshmallow yeah it's marshmallowy

taste it see what you think let me eat

everything yeah just eat it it's very

slimy yeah yeah very slim it creates

protecting kind of flair over inflamed

mucous membranes

okay for example a mouse ulcers outside

of the stomach right any other

inflammatory condition also on the skin

on burns it's a protect ensues probably

one of the main edible plants of the

bible type it's like you've got nature's

medicine chest all over the place

absolutely that's what we have

and today healing ingredients from

biblical times are combined in tasty

concoctions

i've come to jerusalem's mahani yehuda

market to meet a third generation healer

named uzieli

because i want to see how he uses

biblical fruits for

help hi welcome nice to meet you welcome

thank you very much nice to be here this

is a pomegranate mentioned in the bible

as one of the fruits the israelites

missed when they were wandering in the

wilderness

i love pomegranate eat it

it's cholesterol blood pressure

this is the new medicine in the market

now

this is an edtrog it's an ancestor of

today's lemons and limes

biblical jews planted them and uzieli

uses every part

the juice for the stomach

that's fantastic

and the skin in a spray for everything

else

massage your face now

go on as deep as i can like that yeah

keep it younger no wrinkles i'm more

beautiful more beautiful

you want me to stick this up yes yes

do it like this

like this

one drop

one drop jeez

[Music]

you don't need medicine anymore i have

arthritis in my hands yes

so ancient times what would i get they

use the ginger ginger big stuff the

ginger will get inside and also if you

have a problem at the back you squeeze

it

the ginger juice

yeah so what else they they have olives

back then two thousand years ago

pomegranates you know figs yeah yeah

figs dates almonds

fantastic and you use the same stuff all

the time yes

and it's not only biblical food uzi

ellie also makes use of biblical animals

this is a hair of goats black goats

in the desert we took the hair of the

goats

and we make it together and what does it

do it doesn't there's no medicine so if

you have migraine

you're just circling around your head a

little bit pain yeah hey so you will not

forget me and the penguin go away

now take your hand

press a little bit gently around your

head yeah that itches that's scratchy

yeah and then

duh okay

i don't have any hair up there to

protect me maybe we'll grow up okay

that's what i need i need some hair

tonic

so in biblical times there were some

conditions you could treat but blindness

wasn't one of them

so once word got out that jesus cured

the blind man people with all kinds of

incurable conditions likely came to the

pool of siloam hoping he could help them

too

in addition to this body of water where

people sought healing there was a much

larger one and people still go there for

its healing waters today

it's the lowest point on earth

the dead sea

it's 10 times saltier than the oceans

which is what makes you float

you literally can't sink

but people don't just come here for that

how do you like the most it feels weird

i don't really like it drying i like

putting it on but now i'm kinda

but it's supposed to be good for your

skin so yeah i need them i was kind of

hoping it grew hair too

[Laughter]

to find out why they come from all over

the world i meet dr marco harari who

treats patients here

so dr hari exactly why do people come

here to your clinic

we are using the air

but also the earth

and the sun

the air because we have more oxygen here

about six percent more than any place in

the world

the earth because we are using the black

mud

and the salt from the dead sea

and the sun because our sun is filtrated

here and can allow a longer time to

exposure to sun for many patients so

it's very unique uh weather conditions

it is exactly a very unique condition

but it is not a new one it's not new we

have some references from 2000 years ago

so they did know

in biblical times

to come here for their for their skin

helmet cue for the skin diseases

rheumatologic diseases and lung diseases

i have arthritis so if i came here uh

and used the the mud in particular i

would get better surely surely we have

some data showing that people are

improving for three six months after

simple applications

of black mud

you know this is the way to meet girls

it really is not married girls

what exactly is the science behind this

how do you prove that people are being

treated so well here we understand that

the combination of souls of the dead sea

and ultra violet b uvb of this area is

an unique

combination for improving skin diseases

but not only skin diseases black mud for

example

can be used for many rheumatic

conditions for joint diseases from

musculoskeletal diseases we know that

people are in a good remission after

treatment of the dead sea for at least

eight to nine months

something that is pretty

good for any kind of other treatment so

it is fantastic to see that without

drugs without medicine we can reach at

least the same

result than with medications

after being in the dead sea i feel very

alive

to treat my arthritis i'd have to do

three weeks of floating appointments

which would be fine with me

so far i've found out what they did know

about health in the time of the bible

now i want to find out what they didn't

know

in this famous scene from the gospels

jesus miraculously gives sight to the

blind man at the pool of siloam in

jerusalem

[Music]

today you hear people saying they're

praying for a miracle after they've

already tried everything else

but in biblical times prayer was the

first thing you did

even today some people pray when they

get sick and some studies have shown it

may work

the most famous scientific study showing

that prayer has a positive influence on

healing was a double blind study done in

san francisco in 1982. those coronary

patients who were prayed for were in

less need of ventilators and antibiotics

some dispute these studies

but i want to find out more about the

connection between prayer and health

so i'm meeting with rabbi ken sparrow

this book the torah contains some of the

prayers the jews offer to god

the torah also contains the commandments

for how to live

so ken are there commandments with some

of the commandments dealing with things

like like your physical health your

public health absolutely and it's

interesting that many of the laws of

ritual purity have shown to have side

benefits that have been very beneficial

in terms of hygiene and personal health

although they're not

given for that reason yeah i wanted to

ask you about the the ritual purity i

don't what exactly does that mean well

the ritual purity again even though

mikva's a ritual bath and baptism comes

from it it's a side benefit that you're

clean but the purpose of ritual bath was

not to clean yourself physically but to

unclog yourself spiritually

at the time belief in spiritual purity

was a belief in health but on the

physical side cleanliness being next to

godliness didn't always pan out in these

ritual baths these mikvahs because of

what people at the time didn't know

about infection and germs

i'm on my way south to qumran

to see how this played out

near the dead sea in the judean desert

is the first century home of the essenes

the jewish sect who rode many of the

dead sea scrolls

among the oldest biblical texts ever

discovered

found in these caves in 1947 after being

hidden for two thousand years

the dead sea scrolls reveal to us a

pre-christian group of jews who believed

in the teacher of righteousness like

jesus

and who were readying themselves for the

final apocalypse

since the end of days could happen at

any moment they kept themselves pure

and purity touched on

everything including going to the

bathroom

but there was no bathroom out here

i'm with biblical scholar james tabor

because it was his team who discovered

exactly where the essenes put their

latrines

we're on our way there now

to see how their rituals of purity

affected their health

and one of the things

about the scrolls besides religion and

mysticism

is ritual purity bodily things blood sex

death

and the toilets

are precisely located outside the living

area at least 1500 cubits that's

probably 700 yards or so okay

and hidden away from the camp it's quite

the climb

especially in an emergency

so here we are exactly where the essenes

went when they had to go

how did they do it

so we've got you in a white essene tunic

and a belt

and then you always have a

spade or a it's actually mentioned in

the text it's issued to you when you

join the group and it's not for

gardening it is for the latrines so you

need to

dig a shallow hole how big is this hole

you have to be able to cover it so that

could vary from day to day right and is

this actually in the squirrels this is

in the scrolls how far down

not how far down not that just that you

dig a pit now squat over it

the dignity lift your robe okay robes up

and let me know when you're finished

how did you know that it was right here

or right there we actually took a

trowel like that and we took samples all

over dozens and dozens of samples all

through here all through here

and then we did soil tests on them

and we found intestinal parasites really

whip worms round worms tapeworms

eggs

and so we begin to think now wait a

minute

uh they're wearing sandals this is like

a toxic waste dump they're actually

getting it on their feet walking back

and the worst thing in the world you

could do is then go in a pool of water

but that's exactly what they did

after doing their thing 700 yards

outside the camp

the essenes would immerse in the waters

of this mikvah before re-entering the

community

washing is good for hygiene

but the essenes didn't know about

sharing germs

that's bad for hygiene

you went outside the camp you're coming

back in

before you enter the camp you have to

clean yourself from our point of view

you're introducing

these microorganisms we talked about

that have infected the soil right these

uh parasites intestinal parasites so i i

bring them down from the bringing them

down they're gonna get all in your eyes

your mouth your nose any cuts they're on

your feet

and they would be unaware of this from a

sanitation standpoint

everything's unclear i'm a time bomb

basically i walk right into the

community and spread yeah the high cost

of holiness

a people not prepared to pay that high

cost were the romans who were occupying

the land of israel at the time

they brought aqueducts

sewers and improved sanitation to the

holy land which helped control the

spread of disease

i've come to see the archaeological

evidence in the jordan valley at betsyan

now these are toilets

isn't this incredible this is amazing

this is the best example

in the holy land of roman indoor toilets

we should give it a try i gotta give it

a sec i'm not gonna coax you at all i'm

just gonna see if you do any better than

my students i'm guessing if i sit on the

one it could be a little messy so uh

only

so i'll raise the toga raise the toga

okay and then like this

all right this is good that's why i did

a phd in history this is uh this is

exactly yeah i gotta i gotta ask you

this looks fairly sophisticated so let

me join you all right you don't mind not

at all would you want me right next to

you maybe a little bit

i think give me some privacy i think

this works better like this but there

was no privacy you were right next to

your neighbors quite a few of them

you've got the forum and the agura and

all the marketplace civic events even

the theater crowd getting out

so okay does everybody come here that's

the uh kind of surprise this is unisex

so uh you're kidding it's open

and everybody comes i guess the togas

help a bit it's a different view of the

body it's not victorian or puritan in

any way how does a system like this

actually work well there's water down

below us flowing continually for the

waste

so in the first century jews were more

concerned about privacy and less aware

of infection

the romans were less concerned about

privacy and perhaps more aware of

infection

the jewish people focused on spiritual

health as the underlying basis for

physical health

jesus's healings were also connected

with his teachings but in a time when

great miracles of healing were believed

to have taken place

it was also a time when a simple cut on

the hand could kill you

i'm in israel

learning all about what people in the

time of the bible did

when they got sick

in this scene from the gospels jesus

cures the blind man at the pool of

siloam

other sikh people hoped he could cure

them too

at the time certain ailments could be

treated

but just like today the simplest things

could kill you

instead of a speeding car back then it

could just be a sharp tool

right in the modern city of nazareth is

this recreation of what it would have

looked like when jesus grew up here

i'm with biblical scholar james tabor

and we're going to see how everyday

tools could kill you

in the first century this is how they

prepared wool before using it to make

clothing the fibers had to be separated

and for that they had a nice sharp tool

i could see how you would uh easily cut

yourself or impale yourself pretty

quickly and get an infection yeah and

then of course what do you do

if she cut her finger

and there's no tetanus shot and then it

swells up

and then you're gonna get an amputated

hand or you're gonna you know so see

there she just did it now she'll die

so with no knowledge of conditions such

as tetanus how did people at the time

deal with these unexplained deaths

this is mayor baralon who teaches jewish

history

i want to find out how common early

death was in biblical times

life expectancy was

very low i mean

for men about 31 years of age and women

28 years of it it's an average it's

statistics but it tells you a lot it

tells you for example

if you calculate the population

that people in antiquity all of them

suffered from laws of their beloved ones

it seems that in in biblical times they

had a much

more familiarity with that the greater

awareness of death and acceptance is

that true definitely because they saw

death

in rates much higher than as modern

people for example all women gave bear

to let's say about six children six kids

about about

but until

the age of 18 20

less than three survived so infant

mortality was 50 or more which tells you

that each and every person

lost his children or lost his brother

sister

before jesus could grow up to become the

miracle worker we read about he had to

survive the greatest miracle of all

birth

when it came to both hygiene and

survival in the time of the bible your

first challenge was your biggest

i'm on my way to bethlehem to see the

spot where the most famous birth in

history took place

it's believed that jesus was born here

and to mark the spot the church of the

nativity was built

many think the low door was made to

force people to bow their heads before

god but it was really made to keep

horses out

this place is extraordinary

now i'm headed for what many people

think is the very spot where jesus was

born

it's a start

with glass a bluish glass in the center

it looks beautiful now but it might have

been a little messier at the time

so what would the birth of jesus have

been like

in the time of the bible and sometimes

today

the only experts at the scene were

midwives

they were mentioned both in the bible

and in the talmud the book of rabbinic

law

how did they approach childbirth

i've come to the negev desert to meet a

90 year old bedouin midwife

named naifa

it's an honor to meet you

thank you for having me uh naifa can you

show me

how you would have delivered a baby how

when the baby comes out what happens

[Music]

to

[Music]

they take the blood of the baby and put

it on the baby on the baby it's against

evil ayah so it's against the evil lie

so while delivery hasn't changed some

rituals around it have the evil eye was

caused by the jealousy of others and the

baby had to be protected from it and if

there were problems during the delivery

they would blow the shofar

this ram's horn

in this case used as a biblical 9-1-1

to get the attention of the healing

powers above

can i try yeah of course

[Music]

in ancient days they also used

incantation bowls which were believed to

protect the house or tent

many of them were to help childbirth

they had images of and spells against

lilith a demon said to prey upon babies

i want to find out more about these

rituals for protection so i'm on my way

to an antiquity shop in the old city of

jerusalem to meet archaeologist robert

deutsch

hi robert

hi alan how are you very nice to meet

you welcome welcome it's a beautiful

store as well as i'm always coming over

here to see some new stuff

i mean old stuff old stuff this

incantation bowl robert is holding is a

1500 year old spell to ward off evil

written in the language spoken in the

time of jesus aramaic you can hold it

you sure yeah you trust me well enough

it's uh an incarnation ball with spells

against evil against illness i can't

believe it's in such good shape man

if the words incantation spells and evil

make you think of magic you're dead

right

at the time people believed in it

everybody would have had one of these

pools in their house

everybody needs a boat

otherwise

the house is in danger you deposit it

in the corner of a house and

protects the house against the evil

you would bury one of these bowls upside

down underneath your house to trap evil

spirits

like ancient feng shui

this is the medicine in those days and

if i get better then obviously it's the

yes so people back then believed that a

a demon or evil spirit was in you that's

what made you sick that was the cause of

illness so we try to surround ourselves

with the good spirits yes we need those

uh tools

in order to fight them for example

this item here

this is a bird

it's made of

ceramic how old is this it's about 2000

bc that's amazing though it's 4 000

years old yes but it's not only a bird

she knows to sing

you know how no

it is a rattle

it's cool this is

to scare the even spirits

and you have to have it otherwise you

will be that's great sick well i always

carry my lucky coin and a lucky stone

that i've had for like 20 years

so it's the same for the same thing

so robert tell me about the evil eye

well

the evil eye is a bad spirit and you

must have an amulet against it

we're walking through the old city and

everywhere you see these hands called

these are amulets people place on their

houses for protection and against the

evil eye

this is the hand you're talking about

right this is the hamster yes that's a

hand it's a look like a hand with five

fingers which another big hump arabic

hamscites5 those are new 19th century

20th century

considering how many of these hamzas are

sold

people still believe in the power of

objects to protect their homes and keep

bad spirits away

for some the hand symbolizes the hand of

god

but what if putting one of these on your

house doesn't work and your health is in

jeopardy

well there are still those who practice

magical rituals from biblical times

[Music]

were there really miracle workers at the

time of jesus

and what did you do if even they

couldn't help you

some people turned to magic

but since the population was jewish

i need to find out how jews viewed magic

so i'm asking rabbi ken spiro

are there mitzvot about things like

magic because people on the margins i

mean people in desperate situations tend

to turn to those things that's right

there's actually a lot of discussion and

even laws about about this stuff most of

it is negative most of it is associated

thousands of years ago with idolatry and

paganism so 2000 years ago i want to

engage in some magic that would depend

who you go to see about it generally

speaking the magic stuff is frowned upon

um but if you had a big rabbi and he

says you know i have access to a certain

remedy or a cure that's a tradition

that's been passed down to me that you

know you know most people don't know

about it um and you could you're welcome

to do this fine but it has to come from

recognition that everything comes from a

higher power that's who you are in

effect so you are yeah exactly exactly

okay

so in ancient times people would seek

out rabbis with these magical secrets

but it still goes on today

i'm on my way to see rabbi heim fuchs

because he studied the ancient texts and

learned the magical rituals that were

believed to bring people back to health

as we've seen there was a widespread

belief in the power of the evil eye to

bring harm

it was caused by the jealousy of others

and if you hadn't protected yourself

from it now you had to remove it through

rituals such as the one rabbi fuchs is

about to perform on me

he's adding molten lead to water and he

tells me the result is an eye shape

uh-oh

this

is a shape

of a of an eye

usually when we pour

lead inside of a water it should be like

this okay where does this come from

you tell me

this says that you have

someone that

bugs you a little bit with an evil so

somebody has has put an evil eye on me

yeah just a little bit you don't have

lots

you mean a little bit

so they only hate me slightly they

jealous of you they're jealous of me now

how do i how do i ward off this evil eye

then this is what you do you're gonna do

it for me

i'm glad to see my evil eye melting away

there that gives me some comfort

okay

you heard this one yikes

i'm getting a little nervous with hot

lead over my head

but you can see you heard this explosion

this this tells us that the evil eye

just got out we won we won and you can

see it nothing here

wow

well that was close

was the evil eye really removed from me

or is this just superstition

in the time of the bible as today

there's no shortage of beliefs around

healing

charismatic healers and people who seek

them out

but not all charismatic healers were

rabbis then or now

why are large numbers of people drawn to

these mysterious healers to try and find

out

i'm on my way to see oren zarif

a very busy healer around here

if i'm not mistaken or you don't have

any medical training physiology or

biology or anything so i'd like to ask

uh oran how does he diagnose

[Music]

and now i give you a lot of energy all

the body apparently by the

subconsciousness i want you two minutes

close your eyes okay close

[Music]

it's very good now i give you a lot of

energy all the bodies slowly tell you

it's better

a

and they don't need explanations for

their belief

you can't explain what it is and i don't

want to know what it is i don't know why

the voice i want to feel better clearly

oren is giving these people something

but is it real or fiction

in the story at the pool of siloam was

it psychosomatic

after all a blind man is said to have

regained his sight

and it turns out that the pool of salome

is not just a place in a story

archaeologists have now found the actual

pool

and it's right near where the holy

temple stood

in 2005 the public works department of

the city of jerusalem was digging here

to put in a new sewer line

what was also uncovered was a line to

the past

the pool of siloam

i'm with archaeologist shimon gibson and

we're heading to the exact place

mentioned in the gospels

so this is the pool of salome

where according to

the gospel of john

the blind man was cured by jesus so what

you have is um jesus he comes to

jerusalem when he arrives in the temple

era he's only one of many voices

uh many opinions but the only place

where he really has audience is in those

pools so this is where he performs his

miracles and they're a captive audience

as well right the lappers those with

disfigurements disabled people of one

sort or another people who have

different kinds of scaly skin or ashes

so we're actually standing here on the

steps so jesus himself probably walked

down you have a landing here and then

you have another flight of steps another

landing so the landings were used for

the placing of beds

so they're in firm

those who are invalid uh will be able to

get into the pool as well so now that

we're in the actual place what exactly

did jesus do here

he's able to sort of conduct healing

activities

signs and wonders

and miracles in those days

something which was

unusual

and that is somebody who did not profess

to be a doctor as such but was able to

cure people that was miraculous nice you

see so um i i think that jesus was very

special and he had a very deep

connection to an understanding of how to

help people who had disabilities of all

sorts and i think he he was a person who

had an understanding of medical matters

without the medical training

so was jesus a first century doctor

let's see if he fits the bill

i'm going to ask archaeologist gabby

barkai

we've come to an ancient place that

gabby discovered

it's where you ended up if you couldn't

find any kind of doctor or miracle

worker

or when life had run its course in the

usual way

it's what remains of an ancient burial

site dated to seven centuries before

jesus

when you died back then they would put

you on these very slabs with your head

nice and comfy and these headrests

you had nothing else to do but wait for

your flesh to fall off

a year or so later when you were nothing

but bones they would put you in here

with the bones of your ancestors and

some of your worldly belongings

gabby found human bones here as well as

ivory gold and something much more

precious

we had two silver scrolls which include

verses from

the bible from the book of deuteronomy

and the book of uh numbers and these are

the earliest biblical verses ever

discovered they predate the dead sea

scrolls by four centuries

this is one of the scrolls that gabby

found it's an amulet meant to be worn on

the body with the name of god written on

it for protection against harm

and the verse from the book of numbers

written on this four-inch scroll is the

priestly benediction which is still said

in synagogues and churches today

it's a blessing of god's protection a

formula for health

and you excavated all of this you're the

man received yes that's astonishing so

what does that tell you about the people

who who built this and who were buried

here they believed that the dead

continued to live in another sphere

unlike later on

where they believed in resurrection they

believed in this time that they do not

need a resurrection because they are

alive and that was something like sleep

so gabby i've been reading and hearing

an awful lot about

healing powers and medicine at the time

of the bible and especially about jesus

and his healing powers would what do you

think about all that in one of the texts

of the dead sea scrolls we have a

description of the messiah as a healer

so it was a popular belief at that time

that if somebody is a messiah he needs

to be a healer as well they can cure you

of everything he can cure you of all

your uh physical and mental problems

healing was either with the word of god

or with a charismatic figure

of the healer

it was via touch if he was charismatic

enough the psychosomatic

influence of his blessing could heal you

and we have some cases of different

melodies identified in excavations and

they were cured

we have from the fourth millennium bc

and on drilling a hole in the skull to

and free the pressures within the skull

was well known to these people so for

instance in some cases the brain surgery

even succeeded we have growth of the

bone after the operation do you think

there's any plausibility to the the pool

of siloam the miracle at the pool of

salomon listen i wasn't there

but i can tell you that it is possible

we have

many cases

of healing

which were regarded as miracles

in antiquity but actually behind them is

some basic knowledge of

medicine

but if jesus was a kind of doctor he

also seems to have done referrals

in the gospel of luke 10 lepers called

out to jesus for help and he tells them

to show yourselves to the priests

they do and they are healed

what did the priests know about curing

leprosy well it turns out it may not

have been leprosy but a different

disease called saras

that's been mistranslated as leprosy

so what is saras and why did the priests

deal with it according to the bible some

physical ailments were a result of

spiritual problems

and to identify saras you needed the

right specialist

two thousand years ago do i consider

this what to be a medical problem or

that's the priest's primary job was to

tell you this is a medical problem this

is a metaphysical problem how would you

know the difference because the priest

was trained that's one of the that's one

of the specialties of the priesthood was

to identify this soros as it's called

they would have to come to your house

and be able to diagnose it no wonder the

bible talks so much about leprosy

it's referring to more than one disease

but it's now been proven that at the

time they did have what we now know as

leprosy

we know this because shimon gibson

discovered the oldest leper ever found

in israel

don't let the flowers fool you

in biblical times when your life was

going down the tubes this was one of the

places you ended up so this is hell

valley

so it's a place with a lot of uh blood

and gore and guts you know

in fact uh this is the field of blood

you know kodama where judas uh

after you betrayed jesus then came and

uh hung himself on the tree or garrett

himself oh this is the spot yes

so i'm in the place where the gospels

tell us the man who betrayed jesus died

it's also where the oldest leper ever

found in the holy land was discovered

i'm with archaeologist shimon gibson the

man who found him

he was wrapped in a shroud in here

so this is the tomb

it's amazing isn't it yeah

i'm going to find out what shimon's

amazing discovery here tells us about

disease in the first century

i was really amazed when i saw in one of

the recesses

a shroud from 2000 years ago it's the

only shroud that we have in jerusalem uh

from the time of jesus and this was

found in this tomb

so you see this is where we found the

shrouds in this uh recess wow

uh very big in this one yes

it's the length of a human being

and um

when we came in all we could see where

was this little black stuff which is on

the floor of this uh recess but when i

look i went into the barrel recess i

could see that uh you had all sorts of

fragments of textiles and right at the

end i could see this pile of stuff which

turned out to be human hair and

fragments of her skull

yes but the question is why was this

person not wearing turret and

put into an archery or his bones were

collected with his other family members

in biblical times after they left your

corpse for a year or so so that your

flesh could fall off you always receive

secondary burial

in jesus's time your family came back

and put you into bone boxes ossuaries

but the man shimon found did not get a

secondary burial

why didn't his family return for him

not only that but you see that there's

this plaster you see the edges of the

plaster all the way around so the door

uh was placed here at some point and uh

he had been almost a little locked away

and sealed into the is it so there's a

bit of a mystery here did you suspect

that when you first saw the the hair and

the fragments at the back that this was

i had an anthropologist with me and she

looked at one of the bones and said hmm

signs of pathology so we did some

medical examinations uh on

the the skeletal remains and we did dna

research and you know

winging all out the specialists in the

field it turned out that this shrouded

man died of leprosy

until this man was found historians

believe that in the bible leprosy

referred to any number of skin

conditions

and there was no proof that any of them

were leprosy

but shimon gibson's finding here

confirmed that in jesus's time leprosy

did exist

when it came to death however

the family members would have been uh

afraid so they just would have uh put

him in and close the door sealed him up

and sat and this probably put something

on outside say do not open you know and

that was that

so not only does this tomb tell us that

leprosy existed in the time of jesus it

tells us about people's fears

his family didn't even want to touch his

bones after he died for fear of catching

the disease

they seemed to have known that diseases

can be contagious an idea that didn't

catch on until 12 centuries later

depending on the luck of the draw some

would say the will of god

some diseases led you to a dead end and

no doctor miracle worker or magical

healer could help it's easy to believe

that people in the past only had

untrained healers and were missing out

on the benefits of modern medicine

but is it possible that in our embrace

of modern procedures some of us overlook

the value of more traditional healing

methods

i'm on my way to meet a man who may have

some answers for that

he doesn't depend on magic miracles or

medicine and he must be doing something

right because he's 106 years old

it's very nice to meet you sir thank you

for meeting with me

thank you now i i was told that you're

106 years old is that right yes and

[Music]

now i was told that in your whole life

that you have never ever been to a

doctor is that right

no no no

no

no

but have you yourself ever been sick in

your whole life

so how do you maintain your health

[Music]

i wanted to ask you about the the evil

eye do you know a lot about this about

these kind of symbols and you've been

rubbish and you're right

and i never

know my valley what do you think about

the use of amulets and and magic

i construed

you don't practice any sort of uh

you know uh special rituals or something

to keep yourself well

honey

no made

[Music]

was great

just like those who flocked to the pool

of siloam

for many people the physical and the

spiritual are connected

we're searching for more than health

when the blind man received his sight

maybe what he received was insight

today we have more scientific answers

but we still have medical questions

and fears

i think it was the same in the first

century then as now people believed they

had places to turn

to get better

[Music]

my name is aaron kuslanko i teach 20th

century history but i've come here to

jerusalem to find out what life was like

in the first century

there's plenty of security today all

over this city

but that's nothing new

two thousand years ago temple guards and

soldiers converged in jerusalem's garden

of gethsemane to arrest jesus setting in

motion the most famous trial of all time

but i want to know who all these people

are what laws govern their lives and

what brought them all together on this

fateful night

because here we're not only seeing the

arrest of jesus

we're seeing what happens when two

societies collide

at the time the roman empire was

occupying judea

so in the first century how did the

romans keep the peace among people who

had totally different beliefs about law

and order

[Music]

i'm in what many believe is the garden

of gethsemane the exact place where

jesus was arrested it's hard to know

exactly what happened that night

but we know that a crowd of soldiers

arrived to arrest jesus

and they wanted it done quickly and

quietly

i'm going to explore with a modern

arrest specialist how he would have

conducted the operation

near calron is a former commando with

israeli special forces you know imagine

that this is the scene of jesus's arrest

and you're running the operation for the

romans how many guys what kind of

techniques you would have to have some

some regiments outside maybe not very

visible standing by for crowd control

and then the small force

the snatch and grab force that's

probably built of the informant so

someone that he knows someone that he

respects and has no pro and trust

exactly so a guy like judas guy like

judas is is a perfect informant in a way

that he describes the routine he

rescribes the area of the operation

right and you do it at night right for

maximum opportunity tonight of course

right yeah wait till they're you know

tired and

the night of the op

which is coming in getting everyone

ready getting you know getting into

positions they might need a sign and i

think that's why maybe he kissed him

comes in and kisses him that's a sign

this is our man and then they grab him

and if something does go wrong i mean if

somebody fights back or they're on to

them then it's it becomes immediately a

noisy op that means the the whole

contingency has to come in secure the

area and and and ready to fend off maybe

crowds maybe the disciples inside that

are getting crazy if you see that

there's going to be trouble maybe take

him

out

bring him out here and then secure him

okay and then all the others

surround us we're waiting for the

contingency to come in

and then we'll take him out and leave as

fast as we can according to the gospel

jesus goes quietly across that valley

he spent a long night awaiting his fate

the simmering tension of roman

occupation of the jewish people had

boiled over

but the imposition of roman law affected

everyone's life here in the first

century

the romans divided their soldiers into

legions which were groups of six

thousand men

they had 30 legions but they were

scattered throughout the empire

there were only about 500 roman soldiers

regularly stationed in jerusalem

and the local population was estimated

at 60 000 jews

so how did they rule

i'm on my way to jordan to find out

because there in a well-preserved

ancient city the roman army has been

reconstructed

this is the ancient city of jairosh and

it is magnificent

here at the main gates you get a real

sense of empire the power and the might

of the romans i'm meeting stellan lind

who runs a historical reenactment of

roman gladiators and charioteers they

would have had their informers to find

the guys who made the most trouble and

they would arrest them and they would

torture them and put them in jail and in

the worst case of course have them

execute we have this image of the romans

as being so effective so powerful i mean

what makes them so effective what made

them this you know ideal fighting force

when they attacked they

attacked line after line of the line

they were nine lines deep and so one

line came forward and fought for about

eight minutes they went back

and had their wounds tended to and then

the next line came and then the next

line came so it was really killing

machine you know pretty formidable enemy

to fight

i think it's time i tried my hand at

being a formidable enemy but first i

need to learn about my weapons here you

have the gladius the sword ladies having

given the name to the word gladiator by

the way a short stabbing sword you stab

with it you don't fight like that you

stab it's very short it is very short

because they calculated that for the

stabbing technique that they had in

fighting that was the best length of the

sword they calculated the romans were

very very smart in engineering and into

the minutest detail and it's very light

as well

this is the peelum the throwing javelin

and let's look at the tip here you know

it's a little bit like a bullet point

here and the width of the steel here is

just so that it bends when it has

penetrated the enemy

right there yeah

the idea with bending of course is that

it makes it impossible for the enemy to

use it and throw it back at you that's a

one-time

it's a one-time spear it looks exactly

it really is light again

exactly they are well equipped and they

knew that they were much better equipped

and the enemy also knew that which was

of course a very very important

psychological fact scare the enemy scare

the enemy absolutely

well i'm ready to get suited up to scare

the enemy

[Music]

how long does it take you to dress here

[Music]

the roman army developed many ingenious

uses for its shields

they weren't only used for protection

they'd hit you with them

and they'd use them in formations such

as this for group protection

and look at this deadly formation

i wouldn't want to find myself facing

that

so the romans ruled by intimidation

but what are they doing here

what do they want

i'm on my way to jerusalem to ask

professor of history joshua schwartz

the romans are interested basically in

peace and quiet and that people should

pay their taxes when they're supposed to

if jews had problems with one another or

if they had problems with their neighbor

then there was a jewish court system

there was a jewish legal system and the

last thing in the world that they would

do would be to turn to a roman official

at the suggestions from that roman

official so it sounds like as long as

things weren't let's say political in

orientation that the romans sort of live

and let live and let let jewish courts

deal with jewish issues the romans when

they interfered normally they asked you

whether you were guilty or innocent and

if you said innocent they tortured you

until you said guilty and at that point

they usually put you to death did the

romans really have a sophisticated

understanding of jewish legal systems

the romans had

almost no understanding of what jewish

life was and what jewish legal life was

one of the mistakes that the romans made

was that they considered this neck of

the woods to be the same as everybody

else but the fact is that the jews are

not in that sense like everybody else

religious issues as far as the jews were

concerned made them very very different

this difference was the torah the first

five books of the bible which govern

every aspect of jewish life

it's because of a law in the torah that

jesus and his disciples are in jerusalem

on that fateful night

it was a religious holiday passover a

time when the torah commands jews to

come to jerusalem

in judaism religion everyday life and

politics all overlap

because the torah doesn't differentiate

between them

i'm meeting with rabbi ken spiro who's

showing me the torah

its contents have not changed in over 3

000 years

i want to find out how jewish law works

so the torah scroll is the law yes it's

it's called the written law

so these are the commandments the

commandments are in here all the 613

commandments are expressed in the text

itself and the 613 are the the mitzvah

those are called the mitzvot yes that is

the tarot people assume you know ten

commandments but they're actually six

hundred and thirty that's a lot more and

there's a lot of

a lot of details let's say that uh i i

steal a goat

because there are specifics

there's a whole discussion here about

if a person steals property

if i steal a goat there's a law which

states that not only do i have to return

or replace it i have to give an

additional goat as a fine

in an agricultural society where your

animals were extremely important the

point of this law would be to discourage

stealing

the torah's laws cover everything

they cover what jews can eat

and cannot eat

there's a commandment to rest on the

sabbath and it even tells them how to

take eggs from a bird's nest

first you must shoe the mother away so

she won't have to see her children taken

from her

there's even a law about writing the law

all taurus must be written by hand

the torah is revered by jews who have

lived by its laws even when as in the

case of jesus it brought them into

conflict with the occupying power of

rome

jesus often quoted the law he was

fulfilling torah obligations on this

night

before he was arrested he and the

disciples ate what is called the last

supper which was the passover meal

commemorating the exodus out of

egypt torah commands every jew to have a

passover meal and part of that meal had

to be some meat from a lamb sacrificed

in the temple

the romans must have found all this very

strange but as long as the taxes were

paid they allowed the life of the temple

and its laws to continue

behind me you can see the western wall

the temple that used to be on the other

side of that wall was the most important

place in the jewish world before the

romans destroyed it in the year 70. but

the temple wasn't only the spiritual

center of jewish life

it was the place where the highest

jewish court the sanhedrin would convene

i'm with archaeologist and historian

shimon gibson and we're heading

underground to see the place where the

san hadrin may have met

so this is a labyrinth of uh tunnels and

arches and passages

ground level in the first century has

been buried by two millennia of building

but excavations have revealed buildings

that were near the temple and not

destroyed

i want to find out what effect roman

occupation had on the powers of the

sanhedrin and look at this amazing room

it's great isn't it science this is

beautiful it's very well preserved it

dates of a century uh based on the

sources it might even be where uh the

sanhedrin sometimes uh convenes so the

high court this one

i wanted to ask you about the the

connection between the san hundren and

the and the high priests did the romans

appoint the high priest the high priest

was actually appointed by their

priesthood but of course uh on occasion

the romans would intervene they would

manipulate things behind the scenes to

make sure that they got the candidate

that they were acquired how far could

they intervene clearly they had a lot of

clout in the first century and at times

were able to really to push things the

romans were putting pressure on the high

priest

and we can see that pressure playing out

around the arrest of jesus

the men arresting jesus are the temple

guards who report to the high priest and

these roman soldiers are watching to

make sure the situation doesn't get out

of hand in the first century conflicting

laws put the pressure on everyone

whether you were a merchant or a messiah

i'm in jerusalem

in the garden of gethsemane i'm walking

in the actual place where many people

believe 2 000 years ago jesus was

arrested

i'm finding out how the roman occupation

of ancient israel helped create the

tensions which led to this arrest

it also led to conflicts for everyone

else

jesus was arrested at passover which

celebrates freedom from slavery in egypt

but under roman occupation jews were

slaves to taxation

before the romans came jews had taxation

mandated by the torah

the law of gleaning for example was a

safety net for the poor to try to make

sure no one went hungry

i'm meeting joseph gitler who founded

lekket israel an organization of

volunteers who keep alive the law of

gleaning

you know gleaning is a biblical

imperative

which farmers

were required

to apportion

a certain part of their fields

for the needy so what we're doing today

is a i would call it a modern take

on a biblical law

and we're working with farmers

throughout israel

who

allow us to come into their fields

and uh glean

fruits and vegetables to distribute it

to unfortunately needy people throughout

the state joseph how exactly did did the

law apply to 2000 years ago farmers were

required

to allow poor people to uh come in

and actually

pick the fields say a portion meaning

set aside a chunk of your land yeah

generally did you know how much it was

there generally it was about ten percent

of your field had to be left for the

poor the gleaming law helped keep the

poor from going hungry but because of

roman taxation it also put more pressure

on farmers who had less product to sell

the most famous gleaner in history was

an ancestor of jesus

her name was ruth

not far from here near bethlehem

she gleaned in the fields of a man named

boaz they fell in love they had a child

and about 40 generations later was jesus

gleaning is a positive commandment one

of the thou shalt i also want to find

out about the thou shalt not so i've

come to jerusalem's mahani yehuda market

to meet rabbi yamatov glaser

young tough we're in a we're in a market

and i'm thinking are there

must be lots of commandments that that

apply around here right i mean for for

example our uh the prices of things is

that uh

you know is is that ruled by

commandments as well

yeah for sure um

the idea in general is

as you know monotheists is that it's not

just that there's one god it's that god

is one

he's indivisible and this is all going

on ultimately this entire world is like

a figment of god's imagination a giant

video game to see if you and i will

treat each other with oneness

i.e win win so if i'm doing business

with you and the shook i'm buying i'm

buying some produce or something so that

yeah there's price issues for example he

can't overcharge me but is that is that

that's actually in the commandment

that's actually a commandment the

commandment is basically don't steal

and in this case it's also the

commandment because you're really

stealing in a way if you're taking his

money above the market but there's a

separate commandment besides stealing

and that is not to afflict financially

that's over don't take advantage of

people financially so he can't rip me

off

but if i steal one of these crates

did i just did i just break the

commandment uh

well you know there is that old thou

shall not steal one

but isn't this just really a list of uh

you know don't do this don't do that

don't it sounds kind of like that

there's nothing arbitrary you'll notice

the don'ts

are always kind of centered around where

people are most selfish which is two

parts of the body okay survival and

reproduction which we share with the

animal kingdom wherever it's animal

instinct stuff so you'll notice a lot of

negative commandments

don't do this don't do that don't do

that

so that your animal hasn't taken over

the soul i get it so it's about that

balance you're achieving that balance so

like the sabbath there's a lot of don't

do's

the commandment to keep the sabbath may

explain why jesus was arrested on what

scholars believe was a thursday

he couldn't be arrested the next day

because jewish courts could not meet on

the sabbath which begins at sundown on

friday

but what is the reason behind this day

of rest

the sabbath is a biggie because it's one

of the most fundamental principles in

judaism that uh god created the world

and observing the sabbath as a way that

the jewish people individually and

collectively throughout history have

basically one day a week

bore witness to what is the most fun

this most fundamental of concepts two

thousand years ago how was the the

shabbat observed you could stoke your

stove up prior to the sabbath but once

it went cold it was out you could light

your lamps but once they burned out that

was it you know but more or less it was

the same thing certainly negrarian

society this is a huge innovation we

stop working and the world works without

us because god runs the world ultimately

and we should be using one day a week to

focus on that and to grow spiritually

and just get out of the rat race

it's friday today and much as they did

in the first century religious jews are

preparing for the sabbath

honoring the fourth commandment remember

the sabbath and keep it holy jews

followed their laws and the romans

imposed theirs keeping a close eye on

these people who took time off from work

for their sabbath

to the roman way of thinking this could

be trouble giving the jews too much time

to think about who is now running their

land

i want to learn more about how the laws

of the sabbath were followed then and

now so i'm headed to the home of

shashana and rabbi yitzhak goldstein

the sabbath is always welcomed with a

meal and i'm here to help out

we're going to make our challahs now

we're going to make a dough

this is like bread right

special prayer official six cups of

lukewarm water olive oil sugar

hey you're good one one of the laws

governing shabbat is that all meals

eaten on this holy day from sunset

friday to sunset saturday must be made

before the sun goes down on friday night

and there are 39 specified activities

that one cannot do once the sun goes

down every friday

i always thought this was only because

one didn't work on the sabbath but

there's more to it than that

it's the work of creation the whole day

is you want a symbol like god god says i

rest on a saturday i didn't create on

saturday okay be like me don't do work

of creation

so to do work to pick up a chair i'm

allowed okay so i can't draw a picture

exactly okay and we know we're going to

run the problems and prevent like if you

go into a kitchen you open the

refrigerator you go and we unscrew the

light light bulb that when you open the

refrigerator you don't create that light

have you ever missed a sabbath dinner no

never god forbid let's say for some

reason the normal schedule can't

unfollow you still have to have a must

you must have a chat with me

those look fantastic okay put them right

there

i like that look at that

all the romans cared about was that the

jews stayed orderly and paid their taxes

but they knew the jews would not

compromise on their sacred laws which

had to be followed

but if they weren't followed

what were the punishments

i'm in israel

learning all about law and order and

crime and punishment

in the time of the bible

in this famous scene from the gospels

jesus gets caught between two systems of

law and order the jewish authorities and

the roman occupiers who eventually pass

sentence

under jewish law there was also capital

punishment but the romans took away the

right of the jewish court to carry it

out

many of the jewish laws called for the

penalty of flogging if they were broken

why this form of punishment

we know that after his arrest and before

his crucifixion jesus was flogged on the

orders of the roman governor pontius

pilate

so flogging was both a roman and a

jewish punishment

but what were the differences

i know i'm gonna regret this but i'm on

my way to experience of first century

jewish flogging

today prisons serve as both deterrent

and punishment but they weren't so

common around here two thousand years

ago

punishments such as flogging were meant

to keep people in line

i'm meeting rabbi batsri because he

knows flogging

he's even had this flogging device made

based on the texts

okay rabbi this looks uh mean

i want to see it in action can you give

me a good demonstration

[Music]

okay

well i wanted to know what life was like

in the first century so here goes

it's hard not to be serious when you're

getting whipped on television

i do not get paid enough for this and

never in my wildest dreams imagined that

i would be in jerusalem being flogged in

a synagogue by rabbis never never

occurred

so first century jewish flogging had

remorse and repentance as its goal it

had certain humane elements but try

telling that to my back

the doctor made sure you could take it

and only 39 lashes with this donkey or

ox whip were allowed

roman flogging was a little different

it's believed that the whip used on

jesus had metal ends to tear the flesh

and rome had no law limiting the amount

of lashes not to mention the distinct

absence of a doctor

rome utilized flogging to prolong

suffering before crucifixion

but why was this form of capital

punishment utilized

i'm meeting new testament expert helen

bond to find out

how

usual or commonplace was the idea of

crucifixion under roman law

was fairly common and the romans were

pretty good at crucifying people i mean

certainly after major wars and

insurrections there were crosses lining

the road for for a long way what would

have a very sobering effect on the

populace right to see that kind of uh

that kind of obvious act of

roman power that's right it is designed

to be visual it's designed to be as

humiliating and shameful as possible

with crucifixions you know they always

keep their loincloth on but of course

that the person was actually naked it

was deeply humiliating it took a long

time for the person to die and they

would have put a copy of the charge up

above the cross so that everybody could

see you know this is what this guy's

done and if you do the same you'll get

the same kind of penalty

the threat of crucifixion seems like the

ultimate law and order deterrent but it

was carried out quite a bit

rome squeezed the populace with heavy

taxes backing up the threat with the

ultimate punishment

just like today people in biblical times

had mixed feelings about paying lots of

taxes

it depended where the money was going

and if you could tell where the money

was going

when king herod ruled here and did his

massive building projects like expanding

the temple in jerusalem jews could see

where their tax money was going

king herod was jewish but he was

appointed by rome

over two thousand years ago he built

that wall

herod taxed the population heavily but

he balanced the interests of both

cultures

he died around the time jesus was born

and the period of direct roman rule by

governors such as pontius pilate began

the delicate balance was over

i'm heading south from jerusalem to

herodium

one of the fortresses built by king

herod

and where he is buried

herod built these fortresses because he

knew the delicate balance between jewish

and roman law wouldn't last

and that revolution would come

an incredible fortress herodium is built

into a hill it's invisible from the road

and has its own water system in case it

came under siege

from here the roman appointed king of

the jews punish people in the name of

rome

rome was not only imposing its law and

order on the local jewish population

it also had problems with its own

governors

who operated far away from the center of

power

to learn more i'm meeting with alex

jacobson he's written about the

political system of the roman empire

one of the main problems was that beyond

what you had to pay caesar you had to

pay the local officials being a governor

in a faraway province was a way to get

rich for many people they would just

extort and uh take money

sell judicial decisions and simply you

know

use riots as pretext for widespread uh

confiscation robbery and such themselves

it's corruption it's corruption out of

sight out of mind if you're in a remote

province that's their retirement plan

that was certainly yeah that was very

often the case so the central government

was interested in preventing excessive

oppression and excessive extortion and

understanding that these were the things

that would drive people to rebellion

so even if they cooperated with rome the

jewish people were still being fleeced

by local roman corruption

and i've heard that when it came to

punishment the romans were very creative

what other kind of punishments did the

romans imposed

well crucifixion was the worst of course

they would

being decapitated was much easier

sometimes for people who were thrown to

lions and you know all kinds of gruesome

things

so this is what law order is like in the

holy land in the first century

but how did jews react to the imposition

of roman law

there was a range of reactions from

acceptance

to deadly rebellion

under roman occupation of first century

israel the way it was supposed to work

was that internal jewish law would deal

with jewish issues and rome would only

intervene when there was a threat to

peace quiet the collection of taxes but

it wasn't so simple because of the holy

temple that used to be behind that wall

the western wall

the high priest was responsible for

maintaining order in the temple but rome

exerted plenty of influence on him

the high priest's cooperation with rome

led to gray areas of jurisdiction which

affected both the daily life of the

temple and the fate of jesus

but whose law did jesus break

some say he committed heresy which as

religious law was a jewish matter

some say it was insurrection or sedition

which rome considered its turf

but if jesus called himself the messiah

that was a gray area

was it religious or did it affect the

peace and quiet

by gathering followers and saying the

kingdom of god was at hand

jesus was someone who got everyone's

attention

the romans didn't want anyone talking

about any other kingdom than theirs

and anything that threatened the fragile

peace worried the priests who needed the

romans to leave the temple alone so they

could keep fulfilling their holy

functions

so the high priest had a good reason to

cooperate with his roman occupiers

the priestly class he belonged to was

called the sadducees

they were only one among many jewish

sects and i'm going to find out about

the others and their reactions to roman

law and order

there's all kinds of different groups

within 1st century judaism and all with

very different ideas of what it means to

be jewish so you have um the sadducees

who are mainly linked with the temple

they're the aristocratic priests

then you have the pharisees and these

are ones who who are very keen to keep

the law very strictly

though debated some scholars believe

jesus himself was a pharisee then there

were the essenes

this jewish sect believed in the coming

of the kingdom of god

and they wrote about it here in qumran

by the dead sea

and what are some of the oldest

documents ever found

the dead sea scrolls

i'm with author and biblical expert

james tabor to find out more about this

jewish sect and to see the actual place

where they hid their scrolls from the

romans you've heard of pharisees and

sadducees right in the bible

the essenes aren't mentioned but they're

a radical

apocalyptic group

they're waiting for god to destroy the

romans

and this is where the squirrels were

actually found

take a look it's amazing wow

that's a pretty tight fit james do

people go in here well believe it or not

very few people go in here it's not a

tourist spot but you're allowed to go

and you should go in take a look get an

idea okay the question is can i actually

fit yeah can you fit are you as thin as

an essence they must have been pretty

nimble and pretty uh pretty tough i'm

thinking yeah the gazelle goat comes to

mind because it is really rocky and it

is dirty

among the contents of the dead sea

scrolls were passages from the bible

the essenes who lived here in seclusion

believed their interpretation of jewish

law was the correct one to live simply

and spiritually away from others who

they believed did not live according to

the law they also wrote about war

describing a battle between the sons of

light and the sons of darkness

among jesus's disciples there may have

been essenes as well as radicals

belonging to other jewish sects who

would end up fighting this war

in greek the disciple simon zelotti's

last name means zealot

the zealots believe that god alone is

the ruler of israel and that the romans

must be expelled some say simon was a

member of this nationalist group and

among the zealots were a sect which

utilized extreme tactics they were

called the sacari named after the short

roman dagger the sika that they hid in

the folds of their robes

they attacked their enemies without

warning

then blended back into the crowd

the gospels tell us that when jesus is

arrested his disciple peter pulls out a

knife and cuts off the ear of one of the

temple guards

we don't know that peter was a sakhari

but he was handy with a knife

some scholars say judas iscariot was

also a member of this group

and his name means judas the sikari

maybe judas thought jesus wasn't

revolutionary enough

the war of the zealots against the

romans culminated right here

at the holy temple in jerusalem

with the jews barricaded inside

and as these people are loxing encased

in in jerusalem with with the romans

outside the romans come into jerusalem

they burn down um the the outer parts of

jerusalem and the temple itself is burnt

to the ground

and that was a terrible terrible moment

for for jews in the first century and

and still for for jews it's a terrible

thing that happened because

there are all kinds of different ways of

being jewish in the first century but

the thing that holds everybody together

is the jewish law and the temple and

when the temple goes

nobody can understand it you know how do

you explain that how did god let the

temple be destroyed

these stones were part of the temple

wall destroyed by the romans

so today you can still see the evidence

of that biblical clash between two

systems of law and order

according to the gospels jesus foresaw

the destruction of the temple

ironically the sequence of events that

followed his arrest may have been

partially responsible for the actions

that culminated

right here

so how did the trial and sentencing of

jesus take place on that fateful

passover and if you were an average

citizen in those times

what message were you being given by the

whole process

well this is where it all happened

on passover jewish pilgrims from all

over the middle east and beyond would

have come right here

they would have walked up these actual

steps to the temple

so what was it really like in the first

century here

i'm gonna meet with helen bond and

she'll set the scene

jews from all over the place are

converging

in into what's really quite a small city

it's a huge pilgrimage people have

journeyed long ways they've they've come

here with their families they've given

up work for a week two weeks possibly

even more and there would have been a

huge festival atmosphere

celebrating celebrating coming out of

egypt liberation

during festivals such as passover

pilgrims to jerusalem swelled the local

population to hundreds of thousands

from a law and order perspective if i if

i were a roman

am i nervous about these kind of

gatherings very i think passover was

probably roman's worst nightmare

pontius pilate and the 3 000 roman

soldiers stationed with him at caesarea

also made the trip just in case there

was trouble it's national liberation

from bondage but the difficulty is that

here they are in jerusalem and they just

need to look up on top of the temple and

they'd see roman soldiers stationed

there

must have struck them as being a huge

irony

one of the reasons why the governor

comes to jerusalem specifically at the

passover is because it's such a security

nightmare um the jewish author josephus

says that nearly all the the riots that

we know about happened at passover

really so this is sort of a known time

for riots rebellions

but the soldiers are vastly outnumbered

by the pilgrims

so what's the roman strategy

they're fine for a fairly small scale

uprising but there's always going to be

a need to sort of nip things in the buds

you know to make sure that

that any kind of riot doesn't escalate

because once it escalates then it's it's

too big for the roman governor to cope

with and he's got to contact his

superiors and that all looks bad on him

because his his main duty in the

province is to maintain law and order

where do you cross the line if you're a

jew to bring the romans in i think as

soon as somebody starts attracting large

numbers of people it's just that

uncertainty as to what's going to happen

romans never liked congregations of

people they were always slightly

disturbed by that

if people are stopping doing their work

and they're gathering and there's any

potential for a riot then that's when

the the romans start to take a notice of

what's happening so kicking over the the

money changers table is that a violation

of roman law it was a sign that this was

a troublemaker um and particularly when

he did that with a following this is a

man who you need to watch

and he's doing something provocative and

he might go somewhere else and do

something broader scale than that you

know so nip this in the budget exactly

sort of approach to it and that's where

where pilate comes in well according to

the gospels it's the chief priests who

who make the decision that they want to

have him arrested and they're going to

pass him over to the roman governor

because the chief priests also had to

make sure that

law and order was maintained

so the temple guards arrest jesus and

take him to the home of the high priest

caiaphas

shimon gibson and i are now overlooking

the valley jesus crossed when he was

taken from the garden of gethsemane

this church of saint peter was built

next to a house dated to the first

century

and we're heading there now

so here we're going to step back uh 2

000 years to the first century and we're

going to enter into a house

that exists at the time of jesus and uh

is in the general vicinity of

the traditional house of caiaphas step

inside

i'll take off my hat there as a response

so this is the real deal i mean this is

this is a house from the time of jesus

christ exactly i mean here you're inside

the internal courtyard you have this

depression in which they would uh place

the the charcoal and be able to have a

little uh fire going it fits in very

well with the story of peter who is uh

following jesus and so who's been taken

away by

the soldiers and is brought to the house

of caiaphas and he comes in to the

courtyard and he sees the the soldiers

who are warming their hands uh

at the fire so this really sort of

serves a good purpose of illustrating uh

the point of that story

so when they bring jesus here where

where do they put them he's here

overnight so he was probably placed into

one of the world cup chambers which

existed beneath the structure this was a

common practice at that time this is a

subterranean chamber beneath this house

from the first century so it's likely

that it would have been in a place such

as this but more likely in a sort of

dark uh cavity such as this one over

here ah right you see it's really quite

dark in here and uh so that it would

have just tossed him back exactly they

would have got rid of him kept him in

there until he was led away for his

trial

jesus is brought before the high priests

for questioning but they soon hand him

over to pontius pilate who serves as

judge and jury

so what was the church

a couple of the gospels suggest that

blasphemy was the charge and certainly

acting or doing anything against the

temple could have been seen as

blasphemous because it's such a holy

place

another couple of the gospels suggest

that it was simply the charge of leading

people astray or being a false prophet

and those are very broad charges that

could be interpreted in a number of

different ways but probably they didn't

really need a specific charge anyway

because they're intending passing him

over to pilots clearly they would have

to give pilot a list of the things that

jesus had done so were there any other

sort of considerations the pilot would

have pilot would probably have

have spent very little time on the case

i think he would have simply heard from

the chief priests what jesus had been

doing

maybe interviewed him himself very

briefly just got some sort of measure of

the man and also get an idea of whether

he had to get rid of the followers as

well or whether just getting rid of

jesus

was going to be enough and i think he

would have sent him for crucifixion with

barely a second thought it was nothing

like trials today and the sentence was

carried out the next morning

unlike the stealthy arrest once the

suspect was in custody and the sentence

carried out the punishment was meant to

be seen by everyone

whatever crime jesus was charged with

when he was arrested the eventual charge

nailed to his cross was king of the jews

suggesting he referred to himself this

way which rome would see as treason

since it appointed kings around here

before jesus was born rome had given the

title king of the jews to herod

shimon and i have now arrived at where

herod's palace was located

it was right behind these walls

the palace was later used by pontius

pilate when he was in jerusalem

so are we in the place where pilate

tried and sentenced jesus well he's a

led away in the early hours of uh the

friday morning and brought to the seat

of pontius pilate it was situated

archaeologically speaking behind these

walls

and in front of this wall uh these

remains were uncovered and uh there was

a gate here and it must have been a

grand spectacle these walls are massive

and you can imagine the assembly of

people here

based on the archaeological finds here

shimon has made this drawing of what it

would have looked like in the time of

jesus

so here you can see uh the rocky

protuberance in that area and that's

situated over there which is actually

referred to in the gospel of john as

gabata which is an uh hebrew word

meaning rocky outcrop and then on the

the right you had an area of pavement

and this is referred to also in the

gospel of john as the lithostratus which

means in greek stone pavement these two

topographical features are referred to

in the gospel of john

so it's it's probable that this is where

jesus was brought out right here before

the public yes

i think this is the place of the trial

so jesus is imprisoned in the barracks

he is led out

into this area here into this area of

the of a courtyard the crowds are able

to observe uh proceedings and for pilate

the message is i'm in charge and here's

what happens if you defy roman law he

wants to make a point he wants to say to

those crowds look i'm going to be

crucifying this guy i don't want any

more problems during the passover uh

period and you'll see the cross uh next

to the road leading out of jerusalem and

you'll know you'll remember you'll

remember that i do not want any more uh

uh disturbances within the city and this

is roman law and order plain and simple

and that's how the romans uh conducted

their business

if you lived here at the time and heard

what happened to jesus you would have

received a pretty strong message about

law order and the consequences of

opposing rome

jesus is the one we've heard about but

in the land of israel under roman

occupation thousands of jews were

crucified by the empire which wanted to

subdue the citizens into paying a

punishing amount of tax

so what was daily life like for the jews

after the crucifixion of jesus and the

destruction of the temple

hundreds of thousands had been either

killed or enslaved but there were still

some members of the zealots and sakhari

alive

they were living here

at masada

herod had fortified this place to fight

potential rebels but the jewish rebels

defeated the small roman garrison

stationed here

the jews took over masada

but in the year 73 the romans returned

with 6 000 soldiers

and set up camp to fight the 960 jewish

rebels

the last ones left

to defend the jewish law

i'm with guy stiebel

who is excavated here at masada

and we're walking through what used to

be the roman camp

this is the best preserved

roman siege system in the entire roman

empire

and if you want an example for the long

hand of the law of the roman law

they went all the way to the middle of

the desert and just imagine that on both

sides you'll have tents you have eight

games all around masada

and this was a statement see us we're

here and it's a sort of a propaganda

we're coming to get you exactly

but masada is not only the place where a

battle occurred it's a place where

people lived because all communities

rich people

poor people fled to masada

so we have clusters of rooms it's like

you can seize different communities i

can identify the areas where women for

example sat and weave

we found a bakery we can see lists of

various provisions where the food was

stored who brought the water so we can

speak about life at masada yes this will

come at the end of the day but i think

the strongest thing that you can see

here is people fought to live

so how did the 960 jewish rebels fight

back

they had the high ground and could drop

huge stones on the romans

what you see is actually genuine rolling

stones i mean they're my favorite uh

type of weapon if you wish this was a

jewish answer for the roman superiority

using the artillery they just roughly

shaped huge stone you can try and move

one are these the original ones yeah you

can try to move one and see

you need a hand here's a trick here no

no no no trick look how heavy they are

oh man that's heavy

but the romans were building a ramp and

a siege tower and constructing a

battering ram to break down the wall

that separated them from the jewish

zealots

it was four decades after the death of

jesus and the exact same time of year

the festival of passover

the idea was to bring the siege tower on

top of which they have a battering rum

and these are the most important 15

meters that's all the entire operation

was for for this place so guys this must

have been a a frightening thing to see

this giant tower coming up this ramp two

thousand years ago on the eve of

passover it was nightmare the noise the

smoke the shouts the crowd

they knew that once they managed to

bring these things up

they're doomed once the tower was up and

they managed to breach the wall

then they discovered the jews built

another world secondary wall made of

soil and beams against which the

battering drum is not effective

but you can use torches with fire

when the night came it went up in flames

what are their options they're

surrounded right are we going to die as

free people

or by the sword of the romans they

summon all the men and what happened is

that they decide to commit suicide there

are women and children here

according to josephus a lottery was made

means they draw lots ten men were chosen

to go through the people and to do the

act and then commit suicide

[Music]

just imagine the romans are breaking

into this side

dead silence

that silence and uh what we hear is that

they shout and suddenly two women and

five kids come out of one of the water

systems that scattered around the site

and they told the story about the

occurrences of that night

before the rebels died here at masada

they lived according to jewish laws as

long as they could

the last vestiges of uprising were over

it wasn't peace

but it was quiet

when it came to law and order in first

century judea on one side there was

roman power and on the other there were

the jews with their traditions their

laws

one side never had a chance

that side turned out to be the romans

their empire their power did not last

but the jewish group whose leader was

arrested in gethsemane ended up becoming

the biggest religion in the world

with one of its spiritual centers in

rome

as for the rest of the jewish people

their culture is still here

the temple had been destroyed but it

wasn't the only center of jewish life

the torah

the law was

and still is