Israel's Ancient Archaeological Discoveries | FULL EPISODE | Insights on TBN Israel

People have been living here for thousands and thousands of years and they leave these behind, waiting for us to come back and retrieve them thousands of years later. It's a benefit to try and touch these people in a way through the remains that they left here for us. The Land of Israel, we have so many sites. Almost every place that you start an excavation, you will find something. The more we dig, the more certain we become of the accuracy of these 2,000-year-old testaments. This validates it, and this validates it, and this validates it again and again and again. It tells us a story. It's part of the puzzle. It's part of the story. The way they lived, what they ate, what they grew, all of this is hidden in the ground. Archaeology is considered to be the fifth gospel. You can touch and see that whatever it says in the gospel is real. Every time they dig, every time they turn a rock over here in the Land of Israel, they find evidence that the Word of God is true. After the establishment of the State of Israel, Israel immediately went and started to invest resources in archaeology. And the huge turn was after 1967 that in Jerusalem, the Jewish people could dig in both sides, in East Jerusalem, West Jerusalem. Today, there's no doubt that the land of the Bible is the homeland of the Jewish people. Everywhere you set foot in this land, you're stepping on and through history. Thousands of years of layer upon layer upon layer of kings that have come and empires that have come and gone, prophets that have rose up and left. There's so much packed into this earth all around us in this place. And for me, it's a very empowering experience. Every time we unearth something in this land, we're connecting to the history and the heritage. And moreover, it connects us all the way back into God's original plan for this land. We are in the place that everything starts. You find a site and you find the stories. The exact thing that you're just talking about exists here, as you mentioned it in the text thousands of years ago. Truly amazing. You recently uncovered something that has been unknown for a very long time. Well, yes, it has been indeed a surprise. This has been hidden in front of everyone's eyes for decades. Nobody knew. If you ask the question, what is the history of this land? The answer is this. Exactly. Incredible. And no one knew it was here. Archaeology, it's important in all over the world. It's the proof that people was here before. They can prove who was here and who wasn't. I love it. Yossi, thank you for being with us. I want to start from the beginning and end, I guess, at the same time. Why is archaeology important? Why is it important generally and specifically in this country? In history and archaeology, you really can feel sometimes that you are part of this story. You can feel the story when you find the proofs. You're part of something bigger. Something beautiful. Some people look at the stories like they are mythology. When you visit a site like Tel Dan, five minutes driving from here, we find there an inscription that says Beit David, the house of David. If she's talking about the house of David... Then there was a house of David. There was a house of David. It's not Jewish mythology. There's more and more evidence that says these stories line up in this site, in this site, in 100 different sites across the land. The feeling is incredible. And you can connect the stories, all the points, all the data. You leave something for the future. For other people to understand, to visit. This is what I am doing today in the NPA. In Israel, the NPA, or National Parks Authority, often turns archaeological digs into public parks. But the governing body for all things archaeology is the Israel Antiquities Authority. They exist to regulate excavations and manage conservation. Anytime there's a new discovery, they're called to the scene to keep tabs and start digging. In Israel, we take archaeology incredibly seriously. So much so, in fact, that I can't tell you where we're going right now. We're about to meet with Joe Uziel, who is an archaeologist and a friend, who's going to open up the storehouses of the Israeli Antiquities Authority and show us a glimpse of all the incredible treasure that they have hidden away there. All of these hundreds of thousands of finds originated in excavations all across Israel. Anywhere that you want to build a road here, build a building, you start moving the dirt and there's a good chance that you'll find archaeological finds. And that's what we have here. And let me show you one such example. I'd like to put you in the mindset that you were living in Jerusalem 2,700 years ago and you were an important official and you had to send me a letter and you didn't want anyone to open it along the way. You would stamp that letter with your stamp on a little piece of clay. That's a boula and that stamp would have your name on it. We actually get to know the important officials living in Jerusalem 2,700 years ago. So you learn their names, you learn their practices. On this one, we have this really cool name. It's not your run-of-the-mill name, okay? It's Natan Melech. It's a very specific name. His title is Evet Amelech, the servant of the king. If we go back to the biblical text, we see that in Josiah's time there is an important official, Hasaris, the chamberlain, whose name is Natan Melech. But because of the uniqueness of the name and because of the position and because of the period, we can be pretty sure that we're talking about that same figure who's mentioned in 2 Kings who appears here on our archaeological finds in Jerusalem. There's a name on that little stamp that is the guy that's mentioned in the Bible thousands of years ago. We are relatively certain that it's the same official. Yes, it's the same person. Or an amazing coincidence. We're putting together textual records with the archaeological findings and creating the holistic picture and recreating Jerusalem's past. When you lift up all the evidence, you see this continuous line of names and things that sort of fit into the biblical story. And I think it's an incredible thing that in modern-day archaeology, thousands of years later, you're connecting the dots between what used to be just text and ideas and stories to actual physical artifact. In archaeology, it's very rare to be able to connect a specific person or place or story to a location. At the City of David, exactly that happened. A couple decades ago when this site was excavated, suddenly an entire city was revealed. A snapshot, a group of people, a place, a story in time was revealed overnight, and the entire city, dating all the way back to King David, was unearthed. When you think about it, it's almost impossible to connect, let's say, the story of Jesus speaking to the disciples in a place in Jerusalem. But here in this place, exactly that happened. All the evidence, all the findings, all the stones speak one thing, and that thing is, this is where that happened. We're on our way to meet Adi Erlich, who's a very well-known archaeologist. She has uncovered in Banias, which is way, way, way up north in Israel, an incredibly exciting discovery. This is one of the earliest churches ever found in the state of Israel, and it dates back all the way to the 4th century. So Adi, where are we? Why are we here today? We're at Banias, or the way it was called in the ancient sources, Panias or Panion, which is an ancient Roman site, and a cultic place to the god Pan. That's why it is called Panias. And recently I had the honor and the pleasure to excavate here and to find a new discovery. This is the regular site. I've been here many times before. Is it inside the same site? Yes, it's just here up the hill on the terrace, which we will get there soon. So you were telling me that up to just a few months ago, or less than, or a year ago or so, all of this was covered up. Most of it was covered up. Some of it was already excavated. For example, this beautiful niche wall, which you can see over here. So this was excavated some 20 years ago, but the rest was covered. But everything we're seeing here was underground. It was underground. People were walking above it without knowing. What are we in? What is this place? This place is actually an open courtyard for the God Pan. It's not surprising to find a Celtic place at this spot. More surprising is to find that this place was later replaced by a church. And this was really a big surprise, a very big surprise. You're standing in what was a doorway, basically? Exactly. So someone was crossing from one side into the other side. Yeah. If you pass through this doorway, there was this slab of stone with lines of crosses, which testify for pilgrims coming over. The whole thing is covered in it. The whole thing. If we would have found here just a church, so this could have been another community church for the people of Caesarea Philippi back then. But you're saying the evidence shows it wasn't a community church. It was a place of pilgrimage. Yeah. This is the site where, according to the New Testament, Jesus stands with Simon Peter and says, basically gives him the keys to the kingdom, to heaven, and the gates of hell, which is also a name of this place, won't be able to stop you. Yeah. When you dug here under a year ago, the evidence sort of speaks of this being a very feasible event. Very tangible, yeah. Yeah. If we look at the evidence, the best option is that this place commemorated the meeting of Jesus and Peter because the many rocks that are over here, you are my rock, and Peter, Petrus, of course, is a rock. And churches are normally oriented to the east. So what they have done, they made part of it, the part that is close to the cave, as a small chapel. And we have this slab of stone full of small crosses which testify to pilgrims coming over here and marking these crosses on this stone. All these pieces of evidence, they lead us to think that it's not just a normal, ordinary church that you come and pray in, but it was more for pilgrims. Jesus says, you are the rock, you describe this as here's the rock, and on you I will build my church, Ecclesia. Yeah. You've opened up a place that is in the heart of a very important site to Christian pilgrims. They get to see this. Israel's soil is filled with memories of the past for those who have the eyes to see. This can come in the form of bulot that bear the names of specific biblical characters or ancient stones that bring these characters to life. But the most immersive experience comes when archaeologists uncover locations and structures that remind us that we are a part of a greater story. Every place you look, there's history that goes thousands of years back. And I think for families in Israel and almost every park that they visit that's managed by you and your colleagues, they connect with history and they connect with the narrative of the Jewish people, they connect with the narrative of the land and the depth of history that this place carries. Archaeology is sometimes like a forensic lab. You collect the evidence, the whole world stops for a while and then you find yourself going back in time. It's just beautiful how it all connects and all it took was you unearthing something in the ground and finding it. It's a wonderful thing to be part of. Whenever a new discovery is made, it's the job of archaeologists to identify and authenticate the items. This can be a more complex process than you might imagine. And Professor Yuval Gorin at the Ben-Gurion University is an expert in it. Shalom, Yuval. Shalom, Mati. Welcome to the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Thank you. So, Yuval, let's start all the way from the beginning. Maybe you can start by explaining who you are and what you do. I'm a professor of archaeology. I always compare what we do to the forensic squad of the police. Like them, we arrive in a crime scene. For us, it's called a site. We collect evidence and we need to explain what actually happened there. So you work not in just general archaeology. What you do is help add data, help add a timeline, help add information to the artifacts found in the ground. Yes. Remember the bula, the ancient impression of a seal that we saw earlier? Once a bula is identified and authenticated by someone like Yuval, it can provide direct physical evidence for the people and stories we read about in the Bible. How long does it take between the time where you get a sample until the time you can actually give some kind of conclusion on what you found? Even within a few minutes. We can do the interpretation. Sometimes it takes days. Bulas are incredibly important archaeological discoveries and we find them all over Israel, sometimes in very unexpected places. Now we'll go to the lab. This is where the real work happens, huh? Yes, part of it. There used to be a Bedouin market in Beersheba. He sold all kinds of clothing and all that. An emeritus professor of this university worked one day in the Bedouin market and a dealer there showed him this bula and he bought it for 10 old shekels. He thought that because of the price, it must have been a replica until he showed it to another emeritus professor of this university who thought it might have been authentic and he advised him to give it to me for examination. Let me show you what it looks like under the microscope. If it had been found in proper excavations, it would have been found in the right layer which gives you the time and in the right locality which gives you the space because it was detached from both of these. We need to examine both time and space on this item. It's probably the oldest epigraphic bula that was found in this part of the world. You can identify the type of clay, the composition of the clay on which the seal was signed and this can tell us that we have a seal coming from Tel Megiddo and we have the name of a king who is the king of the kingdom of Israel. You say that in passing as if it's an obvious thing. Yes. But in that one sentence, you add in so many layers of information. It has writing. The writing fits the time. It has a name. The name fits the time. It has a picture. The picture fits the time. Now the mineral content, the clay looks like a clay from this place. It becomes almost impossible to completely discredit it because there's so much surrounding evidence to the artifact. Yes. It helps put everything in place geographically, the northern kingdom Israel, the time, the name of the king, the name of the people in that administration. Yes. I think what's unique about this story is that it exemplifies how sometimes these findings are found in a very roundabout way. So as usual in archaeology, sometimes the story of the discovery is not less interesting than the artifact itself. This is what's making our profession so fascinating. What you do is incredibly important for anyone who reads the Bible. The way that you're able to add deeper understanding and interpretation can completely negate or affirm historical theory. It carries a huge amount of significance. And I think that's why it's fascinating is because it just becomes deeper and stronger the more you go in. With us today we have Professor Dan Baat. He's a famous archaeologist. He's probably the most known archaeologist of Jerusalem. Professor Dan Baat with us. Shalom. Shalom, shalom. And welcome to our show. Thank you. Archaeology, Jerusalem, and the Bible. Well, it all goes together very well. You can add to it not only the Old Testament but also the New Testament. You can add to it thousands and thousands of pilgrims who came to Jerusalem and described it. Thousands and thousands of documents all through history. Jerusalem is a focal point in world history. There is no doubt about it. And for us, the Jewish people, it is definitely a focal point. You cannot imagine the Jewish people without Jerusalem and you cannot imagine Jerusalem without the Jewish people. The Bible is definitely the basis to our claims on the Holy Land as a whole, not only Jerusalem but as a whole. But archaeology, of course, proves itself. When you dig around the Temple Mount, you cannot dig in the Temple Mount itself but when you dig around the Temple Mount, you have, for example, all the Jewish inscriptions around it, all the Jewish coins. If you're going, you see the stone on which is described the point where the high priest was standing, blowing his trumpet to declare the coming of the Sabbath. It is endless. It is endless and endless. It's not a problem. We're talking about the Temple. Under the Temple, under the Western Wall, there are what we call the tunnels, the rabbi's tunnels. I excavated it. It's not the rabbi's. It is mine. We, as Israelis, we know that you had a lot to do with those tunnels. Yes, when I came into, when I was a district archaeologist of Jerusalem, which means in charge of all the archaeological activity in the city and around it, the tunnels is simply, we excavated the tunnel along the Western Wall of the Temple Mount. It is the greatest of all the holy shrines and temples in the classical world. Everybody who has seen pictures from Israel, always see people praying at the Western Wall. This occupies only one-ninth of the entire length of the wall. The question is, why did it become holy? The Holy of Holies was, of course, on the Temple Mount. On the very site of the Holy of Holies is sitting today the Dome of the Rock, this Muslim shrine with the golden dome. So by going along the tunnel and you come to a certain point, you are at the closest possible point to the place. And that's really why it become, after we have excavated and exposed it, people are trying to pray there and they believe that the prayer there will be superior to a praying in the traditional Western Wall. Which brings us to the next question. Does the scripture help you when you excavate, when you do your research? Yes and no. Why do I say yes and no? An archaeologist is not allowed, when he starts to dig somewhere, already to know what he's going to find. Now, I will not say that after we find and I know what I have found, I can attach it to the scriptures, for example, or any other historical documents. But this is only after you have excavated and you know what you have found. Which findings did you find that gives more authority to this book? I will tell you what. Many of the times when Jesus is described in Jerusalem, I can tell you exactly where did he go, what did he do, what everything, everything about it. I'll tell you more than that. So you see strong ties between what's written in the Bible and what you see on ground. Definitely. The problem is that the four Gospels and Acts are not describing almost geography. No, not the purpose also. Only one is a bit more, that's John. From his sayings, we are able to build the picture. I can say that I know where Jesus walked, what gate did he come through to Jerusalem. I can say when Paul is coming with two Greeks, which are, who are Gentile, onto the temple mountain, everybody's angry and they tell him, take them to their court in the temple. I can say where this court was. According to the book of Acts, yes. And so actually my, our knowledge, I say ours because I share it, of course, all the time. I like to share what I find and ask for opinions. It's very, very important. Beautiful. And as our professor Dan Batt was telling us, if you want to read into the fifth Gospel, which is the land itself, you have to come to Israel. Come, smell and touch. Thank you for joining us as we provide a spiritual insight of what God is doing in Israel and in the Middle East. If you want to learn more about what God is doing in Israel, make sure to visit us on our webpage and follow us on social media. Shalom and God bless you from Jerusalem.