Biblical Archaeology From the Ground Down: Jerusalem Through the Ages

Welcome to our episode of Biblical Archaeology from the Ground Down, presented by Bible Interact and hosted by Dr. George Sparks. Join us as we explore the fascinating world of the Bible from leading experts in the field of archaeology. Well, welcome everybody. I am so excited today to have Professor Jodi Magnus on my program. That's right, we finally got Professor Jodi Magnus. She's going to talk about her new book, Jerusalem, well, is Through the Ages. Now, it also has an extended title, From the Beginnings to the Crusade, but when is the beginning? So I found this little slide where it said 3000 BCE. Is that a good time to start? More or less, yeah. Okay, and the rest of it is Through the Crusaders. So I'm going to, at this time, read your bio. It's on my cell phone. It looks like I'm going to have to drop the background screen because it's interfering a little bit, but does that bother you to see yourself? No, it's okay. So Professor Jodi Magnus, I rehearsed this, I just want to let you know. I got up early to rehearse, and if it's not complete, it's this that we got to do something about your book, because if I did all your bio, then we'd have like five minutes left. So Professor Jodi Magnus is an archaeologist, Orientalist, and scholar of religion. She serves as the Kinan, is that how you want to pronounce it? Kinan? Distinguished Professor of Teaching Excellence in Early Judaism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She previously taught at Tufts University. Her academics, she had her BA, is Archaeology and History from Hebrew University Jerusalem in 1977, her PhD, Classical Archaeology from the University of Pennsylvania in 1989. She has participated in 20 different excavations in Israel and in Greece, has been on, or a guest, on the National Geographic Channel, The Stories of God with Morgan Friedman, a documentary television series exploring religious beliefs across cultures around the world. Honor and award the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellow of 2019. Author and publications, these are your books, The Archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls, Asadov, From the Jewish Revolt to Modern Myth. This is an interesting title here, Stone and Dung, Oil and Spit, Jewish Daily Life in the Times of Jesus. The Archaeology of Early Islam Settlements in Palestine, that would be interesting, the times that we're in right now. The Archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls is actually the winner of 2003 Biblical Archaeology Society's Award for Best Popular Book in Archaeology and Outstanding Academic Book of 2003 by Choice Magazine. That's very cool. Okay, debating Qumran, collected essays on its archaeology, Jerusalem ceramics, chronology, between 2800 CE Common Era. Now the book that we're going to talk about today, Jerusalem Through the Ages, From its Beginnings to Crusades. So welcome to the program, Professor Jody Magnus. Thank you for having me. Well, now before we get started, somebody pilfered your book, I had your book right here, somebody pilfered your book real quick, and I'm going to drop this screen, just give me a second. There we go. And as you can see, I found the book, we found the guilty party right behind me. You have a mummy reading it. Well, he saw Oppenheimer, you know, I'm from New Mexico, so he saw the movie Oppenheimer, and all of a sudden he got this epiphany that he wants to update himself, you know, from like 3,000 years ago, and he chose your book as a good reference, especially Jerusalem. But at this time, mummy, I'm going to need the book back. I really appreciate it. Thank you very much. Now, go have a rest, if you would, please. Okay, well, welcome to the program, Professor Jody Magnus, author of the book Jerusalem Through the Ages. Thank you for being here. Yeah, thank you. Well, I thought that'd be novelty a little bit. Yeah, that is different. Okay, well, I'm going to, we talked about, or you asked me to send you some questions, and I think of all the places you excavated, and all the sites somebody in archaeology, a professional like yourself, could actually write about. Why Jerusalem? I think the audience would say, well, why Jerusalem? Why did you write about that particular city? Right, and I actually addressed that in the preface to the book. It wasn't my idea. It was a very persistent editor at Oxford University Press, Stephan Branca, who literally hounded me for years, asking me to write a book about Jerusalem. And I dodged him for a long time, because it's very hard to write a book about Jerusalem. It's such a huge topic. There's always new discoveries that are modifying our understanding. And so, I really wasn't all that eager to do it, but he persisted. And eventually, he wore me down, and I agreed to do it. So, that's kind of how it came about. Well, I'm glad he talked you into it, because of reading the book, I really enjoyed it. And for the listening audience, subscribers and the listening audience, I do recommend the book. It's got a lot of really cool information, and stuff that I thought I understood, it actually broke it down a little bit better. So, I go, oh, I kind of, I didn't understand it correctly. In certain parts, not your book. But I think sometimes in our minds, we get things fixed. It's kind of like watching the teacher do a math problem on the board, and you say, I got it. But when you go home, you don't have it. But the answer is in the back of the book, anyway. Okay, if you don't mind, do you just want me to go through the questions, like chronologically, if you want to stop and discuss a certain element, that's fine. The next question was, what is the oldest written record of Jerusalem? Yeah, so our earliest references to Jerusalem are from the Bronze Age, which basically would correspond with the Canaanite period, the period of the Old Testament when the Canaanites lived in the country. And specifically, the earliest references are in Egyptian sources called the execration texts, which date to the Middle Bronze Age. So, we're talking basically 19th and 18th centuries BC. And these are, they're kind of interesting. These are texts that were written on figurines and other objects that were curses. And then the object was broken sort of to, you know, affect the spell, so to speak. But Jerusalem is mentioned in some of those texts, and it's mentioned with the name Rushalimum, that's more or less how it would be pronounced. And also, there are rulers in Jerusalem who are mentioned in connection with those texts. So, that would be the earliest. We also have, from a few centuries later in Egypt, what are called the Elamarna letters that date to the 14th century BC. And Jerusalem is also mentioned in them, and the slight variation on the name Urusalim. So, we do have very early records of Jerusalem. I have to say that archaeologically, we have evidence of people living in Jerusalem long before that, even. But those are the earliest, you know, references that we have written down to Jerusalem. Now, I will be adding pictures and inserting, so they're going to actually see what you're talking about when we send the execration text. It's kind of like a voodoo doll. You put little elements on it, and then you break it. And then that's supposed to start the act of curse, saying, we really don't like that. Was Jerusalem ever called by any other name? Well, so, you know, again, this name Jerusalem goes back, apparently, to the beginnings in some form, right? But there are periods when it was called by other names. And one of the parade examples, which you probably don't want to go this far in your, you know, really talking about this, but one of the examples is in the Roman period, after 70, when the Roman emperor Hadrian rebuilds Jerusalem as a pagan Roman city and calls it Aelia Capitolina. And that name actually survived for a while in different forms. Into the early Islamic period, one of the names for Jerusalem was still Ilia. And, you know, in the Islamic period, Jerusalem was and is still called by different names. So, for example, Al-Quds, the Holy, right? So, that's sort of the Arabic cognate of Hakadushah, right? The Holy Al-Quds. So, there are periods and there still are times when Jerusalem has been called by other names. You said at one time, you know, the middle Bronze Age, it was earlier inhabited by Canaanites. Well, yeah, I mean, so the Bronze Age is the period when the Canaanite, when the population that the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, describes the population as being Canaanites, right? And the land is Canaan. When David eventually, at the end of that period, conquers the city, the Hebrew Bible describes the population as being Jebusites. Now, we don't know whether the Jebusites were Canaanites or are they a different population, unrelated to Canaanites. And so, we don't really know who exactly the population was, they were pre-Israelite Jebusites, whoever they were, maybe other kinds of other peoples who were in the area. But basically, the period is the period of the Canaanites in the country. Yes, okay, that's clarification, folks. I was kind of setting up for this next one, because the element of, I'm just going to say Adonai being worshipped in Jerusalem. Before that, what would be the other deities that would be in that location? Right, well, the name Jerusalem originally apparently refers to the chief deity of the city. So, this was very common in antiquity to name a city in honor, or a town, in honor of the chief deity, the patron deity. Even though the peoples who inhabited these ancient cities and towns worshipped many different gods and goddesses, often the city was named in honor of the chief one. And the best example that I can give of that would be the city of Athens, which of course is named in honor of the goddess Athena. Now, the people of Athens worshipped many different gods and goddesses, but Athena was their special patron deity, and so the city was named in her honor. So, the city of Jerusalem was named in honor of its chief deity, again, apparently, and this is a pre-Israelite, obviously, and that would be the god Shalem. And it's thought, so the name originally, Yerushalayim, it didn't mean city of peace like people think it means, it was originally foundation of the god Shalem. And Shalem is thought to have been the god of the twilight, or the setting sun, or the dusk, or something like that, maybe worshipped on the rocky outcrop that later becomes the Temple Mount. What other gods and goddesses the people of Jerusalem worshipped in that period, we have no idea, but presumably they worshipped, you know, the same kinds of gods and goddesses that other ancient peoples worshipped, meaning probably gods and goddesses associated with the sun, and the moon, and the rain, and storms, and you know, all of that sort of stuff. But we don't, I mean, we just don't know. I would also point out that, you know, this habit or custom of naming a settlement or a town in honor of the chief deity, we see that in other settlements and towns nearby. For example, Beit Shemesh literally means the Temple or the House of the Sun, meaning the sun god. So, that town was named in honor of the sun god. Uricho, Jericho, Uriah was in honor of the moon god, right? So, this is not unusual when we see it also in Jerusalem. Thanks for bringing that out, because I think a lot of people are not aware of that. Oh, we could say Bethel, House of Elohim. Exactly. Yeah, so we could go on and on with that. That's right. I forgot about Beit Shemesh, because that's where, that was Samson. Right, yeah, yeah. That's his background. It's very typical, yeah. Yeah, so he's really close to the House of the Rising Sun. Very cool. Let's see, you've kind of mentioned this a little bit in your book, and has the, I'm just going to say location, has the location of the Palace of King David really been found? Now, I'm just saying location. Right. That depends on who you ask. I know, but I've seen that in your book, it was a little clever. No, no, I know. The Acropolis. So, most ancient towns and cities had an Acropolis in the sense of a natural high point that physically dominated the town or the city where the most important religious and political institutions were located. So, everybody's familiar with the Acropolis in Athens, but most ancient cities had an Acropolis. The Temple Mount was the Acropolis of Jerusalem from the time of King Solomon on. But where was the Acropolis of Jerusalem before the time of Solomon? Because Solomon expanded the city to include the Temple Mount, but before that, the Temple Mount wasn't part of the city. And so, the natural high point, the natural Acropolis of the southeastern hill, what comes to be known as the City of David, before the time of Solomon was at its northern end, which is sort of an area of the crest of the hill above the Gikon Spring. The Gikon Spring is a spring that comes out at the foot of the eastern slope of the southeastern hill. And so, it would be natural to expect that that natural high point overlooking the spring and natural high point within the southeastern hill at its northern end, that that would have been the Acropolis of the original settlement in the time of the Canaanites slash Jebusites, right? And then it's taken over by David. And indeed, there is a huge building, a monumental building that has been excavated in that spot. And this building has been claimed by the excavator, Eilat Mazar, to be the Palace of David. Now, whether or not it is, in fact, the Palace of David, again, as I say, depends on who you ask. The problem is with the dating of it, who built it, right? And it's very hard to date because there's a lot of problems with dating these very early remains in Jerusalem because of later overbuilding, because of the continued reuse and repair of many of these monumental buildings. In the case of this particular building, the connections between the floors and the walls are, for the most part, cut by later activity, and that makes it hard to date the walls. There's a whole bunch of problems. The pottery itself has broad ranges, so dating, you know, you're dating using pottery or even radiocarbon dating. These things give ranges. They don't give precise dates. So whether or not that monumental building was actually built by David as his palace depends on who you ask. Again, Eilat Mazar claimed that it was. I mean, I personally think that it fits the profile of what you would expect to find in that spot, but it's quite likely, in my opinion, that it actually was built before the time of David and then, you know, by the Jebusites or whoever this earlier population was. And then when David takes over the city, conquers the city, he takes that over and it becomes his palace, his citadel. So, the question is who built it, right? Did David build it, or was it part of the city that existed when David conquered the city? Or, and some archaeologists argue this, is it later in date? Was it built after the time of David? And this is all relevant because it goes to understanding what Jerusalem looked like in the time of David and whether the way the biblical writers present Jerusalem and the kingdom of David, whether that is consistent with what we see in the archaeological record. Because the sort of impression that you get from reading the biblical account is that, you know, David's kingdom was this big kingdom and he was, you know, a big, you know, he's a king and you would expect monumental buildings to be built by him in his capital city. And there's a real problem sort of trying to correlate that with what we actually have in the archaeology. Archaeology doesn't really bear that out all that much. So, the question is, well, is it a problem with the way that we're dating things? Is it that a lot of these earlier remains were obliterated by later overbuilding? Or did the biblical writers exaggerate when they presented their picture of David and his kingdom, right? So, these are some of the issues that I cover in the book, right? Trying to explain why all of this is so uncertain and why there's so much debate about it. And that's why people need to buy your book because, you know, I'm raising the questions, but I don't want to be what they call a spoiler alert, a spoiler alert. And, you know, thanks for answering that because earlier on, not to get off subject, I had a guest speaker and it was a professor and he was talking about the palace of David. And then we had comments. And in all fairness to the people that comment, once said, well, you found the palace of David. Would you find Solomon's first because he was the wealthiest man in the world and is supposed to be? And I stopped and I thought about the question. And I said, that's a good question. So I went back to the professor. I said, this is a question. I actually think I didn't answer it, but I just told him, I said, that's a fair question to ask. You know, if you found this 100% or 90 or whatever, shouldn't you have also found this according to the biblical narrative, which should have been much larger maybe because he also had a building for his, uh, his, uh, wife given to him from the Pharaoh, you know, and all that. And that's a good question. I had to be honest. I said, you know, that's a very good question. I appreciate that you answered it. I mean, you, that you asked it and I honestly don't have an answer for you other than what we could be looking at is the location rather than individual structures at this time. That's the best I could do. Thank you for answering that. Well, yeah, but that's a question about Solomon's palace, which of course Solomon then builds himself a new palace. Again, David would have apparently taken over the existing palace and use that. So, but Solomon, you know, reportedly built the first temple and a palace for himself on the temple Mount. So the temple would have been on top of the temple Mount, the palace, Solomon's palace would have been on the South side of that to the South of that. Well, we can't, you know, we don't have any archaeological remains that we can excavate on the temple Mount. So, you know, in this case it's just because that area can't be excavated, right? We don't, we don't have anything. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That gets me out of a mess. That's what I'll tell him. Okay. Uh, let's see. Has there been any inscriptions or seals found in any excavations in Jerusalem that validate known individuals in the scriptural narrative? Of course that's listed in your book too, but. Yeah. I'll just give you a couple of examples. So first of all, just, just to clarify, you know, that's one of the things people always want to know. Do we have inscriptions or whatever that refer to people who are, who are mentioned in the Bible? And that's true, not just for the Hebrew Bible, but also obviously the Old Testament, the New Testament. Um, and so the answer is yes and no. I mean, most of the time it's no. And the reason why most of the time it's no is because although we do have, we do have a lot of inscriptions or sealings or whatever from Jerusalem that have names on them from all different periods. Um, most of the time, the names are, are very common names. And, you know, in, in, in that world, people didn't have a first name, last name, like we have today. They were known as so-and-so, the son of, or daughter of so-and-so. Uh, it's the same thing like you find in, still in, uh, in a lot of, um, Arab countries, right? That's still the way that it works. Um, to give an infamous example, Osama bin Laden, bin, son of, Osama son of Laden, right? So, um, so the problem is, is that, that in all of these periods, both the period of the Old Testament and the New Testament, there was a relatively small number of names that were most common among the population. And that's still kind of true today, I mean, if you think about it. So, it'd be like if you found, uh, an inscription that said, Jim, son of Bob. So, is the Jim, son of Bob mentioned in this inscription, the Jim, son of Bob mentioned in that biblical passage? Well, who knows? Because it's such a common name, right? That, the constellation of names is so common that, uh, most of the time we can't say, you know, even, even close to being able to be sure that, that it's the same individual. But there are a small number of cases where, where the names are unusual enough, or they have a descriptor associated with them that enable us to say, well, this is almost certainly the same individual. So, as an example, there's a ceiling that was found in the City of David excavations in the 1970s by Yuval Shiloh, uh, which dates to around the year 600 AD. So, it's just before Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BC. It was found actually in a destruction level of 586, um, in a house where there apparently had been an archive of, of scrolls stored. Um, the house burned down, and the documents had been sealed by little lumps of raw clay called mulai, or, or seals, clay seals, and, uh, ceilings. And, and the ceilings, the mulai, had been fired in, in the fire, and they were, they were impressed with the names of the person who, who made the impression into the clay, who sealed the document. Uh, and one of those, uh, so there was a whole bunch of them, there are over 50 of them in this particular group, but one of them has such an unusual name on it that it's, we, there, there's a really high correspondence here. So, the name is Gamariyahu son of Shaphan. Gamariyahu son of Shaphan is a very unusual name. And interestingly, there's a Gamariyahu, not Gamariyahu, but Gamariyahu son of Shaphan mentioned in the book of Jeremiah as a scribe who was active in the court of the king of Judah shortly before 586 BC. And a scribe is exactly the sort of person who would be sealing documents. So, here we have a case where we can't say with a certainty, but the correspondence is so strong that we can say that there's a high degree of probability that this is the very same individual mentioned in the book of Jeremiah. Now, another example is from a later period, from the time of Jesus actually, um, are ossuaries. So, we have ossuaries, which are little boxes, stone boxes to contain bones, human bones, that are found in tombs in the time of Jesus in rock-cut tombs in Jerusalem. And in, I think it was in 1980, there was a, um, tomb that was excavated to the south of the old city that yielded a couple of ossuaries that were inscribed with the name Joseph son of Caiaphas. And Caiaphas is an unusual name again. And the tomb and the ossuaries date to the 1st century AD. And so here we have, again, a correspondence, the date fits, the name is unusual. Uh, these sorts of rock-cut tombs typically did belong to wealthy families, including the priests who were the elites. So it suggests, again, not everybody accepts this, but there's a strong probability that this is a tomb, the family tomb of the very same high priest who presided over the trial of Jesus. So, uh, so we do have these cases where we'll have these correspondences, but again, they're, they're relatively rare compared to the number of inscriptions that we have. And, and even when we have these very strong correspondences, you can never say with 100% certainty that it's, you know, absolutely the very same individual. Well, you know, that, that makes sense. Um, let's see. And thank you for that. Has there been any architecture, architect, excavated from the time of the biblical narrative, biblical kings, such as Solomon, Hezekiah, Israel, Nehemiah, Herod. So they're looking at, you know, like architectures, stone arches from any of these time periods, you'd think of maybe stones being identified by the boss around the stone or anything like that. Well, generally, I mean, it is true that sometimes, especially in monumental architecture, you might have distinctive treatments of stones that are characteristic of a certain period. But typically in archeology, when we date things, we don't date on the basis of the way stones look, but rather on the basis of associated artifacts that give a date. So for example, if we're excavating a building, we're going to look for datable artifacts, pottery, coins, you know, whatever, stuff that could be radiocarbon dated, found in association with the construction and use of that building. So material from the foundation trenches, right under the building, material from the floors of the building. Um, and so that's usually how we're going to date. And as I, as I said before, Jerusalem's particularly tricky, especially in the earliest periods because of the overbuilding and the reuse of monumental buildings over extended periods of time and their, and their repairs. It's particularly tricky for the time of David and Solomon. Uh, and I have long discussion of that. There's a big debate among archeologists and scholars about how big was Jerusalem in the time of David and Solomon. Does it in fact match what we read about in the biblical accounts? When we get to the second temple period, that is the time of Jesus, it gets, it gets easier. Uh, the remains are not only better preserved, but they're, they're more monumental. Obviously the Temple Mount, the whole area around the Temple Mount, uh, we have, you know, associated with Herod and, and construction continued by the way, after Herod's death, because it was a huge building project. We have plenty of other buildings from Jerusalem, uh, in the time of, of Herod and, and the, the years after his death leading up to the first revolt. That actually is the longest chapter in the book by far is, as I'm sure you noticed, the chapter on Herodian Jerusalem, right? Uh, which includes the time of Jesus. So the, the short answer is yes, we do. Um, but exactly what we have depends on the period and depends on, you know, again, uh, sometimes which scholars or which archeologists you ask. Uh, Hezekiah, I know you had Hezekiah in your list. We obviously have a water system that's thought to be associated with Hezekiah, Hezekiah's Tunnel, but, uh, not all, not all archeologists even agree that that necessarily was, was, uh, done by Hezekiah. So a lot of, a lot of disagreements among, among archeologists. Yeah. How about the Broad Walls? Well, yeah, actually even there, but, but I think it's safe to say that I, I think it's safe to say that a majority of archeologists would still date so-called Hezekiah's Tunnel to the time of Hezekiah and the Broad Wall as well. But, um, you know, part of the problem is, is that, is that archeology, people think because archeology is a science, which it is, that it just gives you hard facts and there's no such thing. Science actually doesn't give, no science gives you hard facts, gives you data and the data have to be interpreted. And in the case of archeology, so we have different interpretations. We also have, uh, you know, in, in the case of archeology, for example, these broad ranges that are given by, uh, our, our methods of dating, like, you know, pottery or, or, uh, or radiocarbon dating or whatever. So all of this means that, that the interpretation, interpretations can differ depending on how you look at the data. And that's true of all sciences, I have to say. There's no such thing as a, as a, you have, you have, it's all about asking the right questions. As archeology isn't equipped to answer every question and it's not equipped to answer all, all kinds of questions. It's equipped to answer certain types of questions, but not others. And then it's a matter of how you interpret the data to answer those questions. I think for the, the general population that's interested in this type of topic, especially if you could say in the, in the Christian environment, if you would, in this case, we tend to look for the sensationalism and, uh, and, and that seems to flow through the churches and it goes through, you know, in such a way that it's really not circumspect very well. So yeah, it takes a lot of critique and time, uh, besides just finding us, we could just say this last go around, and I'm just going to throw this out there. This last, the last couple of years was the lead curse tablet thing. Yeah. Well, that's it. Okay. Done. I hope that's it. Okay. Uh, the next question, has the tomb of King David, this is, has the tomb of King David been excavated? You know, here we go. If we make a tour to Jerusalem, you know, we're going to go to the upper room and right below it is King David's tomb. So there he goes a lot. That's a really weird one, actually. And I do, I do discuss that in the book too. Um, you know, the Hebrew Bible tells us that David was buried in the city of David, the southeastern hill, and the area where you're talking about now, that's, you know, said to be the location of David's tomb is not on that hill. It's on the hill to the west, which is the southwestern hill, the southern part of it, which is now called Mount Zion. So that's the result of a later tradition that kind of moved, that said, you know, moved the location of the tomb. So the tomb didn't actually move. What happened is that people began to talk about the tomb being in that spot instead of where it originally would have been. And the short answer actually is, no, we don't know. We don't have the remains that have ever been identified of the tomb of David in Jerusalem. So that site that you're referring to is not, it's a later tradition and it's not where the tomb of David would have been located. And for our listening audience, I think when academics and scholars talk, and we sometimes use the word couching. We don't want to hurt people's feelings. It depends on what kind of environment they're lecturing at. You'll hear words like scholars suggest, but that doesn't mean everybody agrees. And also does not mean factual 100%. So when Professor Magnus says the word traditional, I understand that's what it means, traditional. And the emphasis should not be on the location as that's David and that's the upper room, but the emphasis is on traditional, how it's being represented. Thank you very much. But just to clarify, when I asked you the question, kind of set you up a little bit. To actually bring that about, to say like, hey, this is tradition. This is archeology. If you want to know more, buy the book. What was Jerusalem like during the Byzantine time period? Well, yeah, this is, I mean, this is a period that is my period of expertise. I had to cover a lot of periods that are not my expertise in this book, but that happens to be, in fact, my dissertation was on that period, although the pottery of that period, and I usually don't bore people with that. But I mean, the Byzantine period is really interesting. So it's basically, we're referring to the period now when Christianity was the legal and official religion of the Roman Empire. So the Roman Empire had become a Christian empire, beginning with Constantine, going up to the Muslim conquest in the 7th century. And one of the things that happens as a result of the legalization of Christianity is that Jerusalem just explodes in population. And the reason is that under, in the previous period, under the Romans, pre-Christian Romans, Jerusalem had been an unimportant, insignificant, basically town. It was a colony, but town. But it had no special significance for non-Christian Romans. But with the legalization of Christianity, pilgrims, clergy, royalty began to pour into the city. You begin to get rich people, including members of the imperial family sponsoring building constructions all over the city. And the city just literally explodes in size. It probably reaches, I mean, the period is when Jerusalem was at its greatest extent before, let's say, the latter part of the 20th century was the Herodian period, right, the time of Jesus, when it was the capital of the kingdom of Herod, and the Byzantine period. And you can hardly put a spade into the ground in Jerusalem without coming across Byzantine remains. They're all over the place. And I mean, so there's just, the city was filled with monastic establishments, with churches, with hostels for pilgrims. There's a lot of tombs located to the north of the city that have yielded very interesting remains that I talk about. So it's really one of the, I think, I mean, it's really one of the most interesting periods in Jerusalem's history, and also one that I think most people who are not specialists are less familiar with, right? So traditionally, most of the attention is focused on the time of David and Solomon and Jesus, but to a lesser extent on the Byzantine period. So that also is a very robust chapter, and there's a lot of little, you know, curious tidbits in it about the information we have about the various people who lived in Jerusalem in that time. We have a lot of information about them. Now, what was interesting to me is how are, I'm just going to say, doctrines of Christianity, I'm not going to even use the word, I'll just say doctrines, because someone turned into doctrines. In the Byzantine period, in your book, the Temple Mount, unfortunately, was a dump, right? And the emphasis was on the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Interesting, because now, in Christianity, it's the Temple Mount, not necessarily the church, because they have eschatologies, how it's supposed to roll around, not supposed to come about, there's got to be a temple. I'm sure you're familiar with that. Yeah. This is what is interesting to me, is when I look at archaeology and what it says about the past, says something to me also about the doctrines of Christianity at that time, how they've changed to our current time. Because obviously, if the Temple Mount was important during the Byzantine time period, and they had the same doctrines of how things should turn about in times, if you will, the left behind, they should have built a temple there or a church or a basilica or something and cleaned it up. So obviously, their thoughts about the Temple Mount back then aren't the same as it is currently today. Is that fair? Right. Well, I think actually that's true, but I think that also reflects, and here we're now sort of moving outside my particular field of expertise as an archaeologist, but I think that what you're describing reflects changes among Christians over time, and specifically different types of Christianity or different groups of Christians, right? So, in this very early phase, we're in such an early period here that it's even pre-Catholic versus, I mean, there's no Protestants, of course, but I mean, you know, it's just like, we're even pre-Catholic versus Orthodox Christianity, right? It's a very early period, so the kinds of things that you're describing haven't quite developed yet. But the idea was that the Temple Mount was left lying in ruins because Christians saw that, and to be clear, the Temple was not destroyed by the Christians, right? It had been destroyed by the Romans in 70. But the Christian, the Byzantine Christian population of Jerusalem, you know, beginning in the fourth century, left the Temple Mount lying in ruins and used it as a garbage dump precisely because they saw that as a visual fulfillment of Jesus's prophecy that the Temple would be destroyed, and as a visual sort of statement of Christianity's victory over Judaism. And for those Christians, and even for many Christians today, the focal point had then shifted from the Temple Mount to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which for them becomes the center, and many of the traditions associated with the Temple Mount previously were transferred by those Christians to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. So in a sense, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which is a very short distance away, actually, from the Temple Mount, but that becomes for Christians the focal point as opposed to the Temple Mount. And the reason why I ask that question, I know it could be a little bit touchy, but sometimes things roll around, as you said, the thoughts are different, and that was, let me say everybody, this was from, in your book, page 345. The Byzantine period, Temple Mount was used as a garbage dump. Now you think, what? Well, because of Jesus's prediction in Mark chapter 13, verse 1 through 4, it shifted from the Temple Mount to the Holy Sepulchre. There it is right in our book. So there you go, folks. I can just see them thinking like, what? And then all of a sudden, ah, that makes sense. Right. It's interesting. Yeah. It is interesting. I thought it's like, what is that George up to? But it's interesting because this is in your book, all right? And you think it's going to be strict archaeology, but it has, you know, if you pay attention, there'll be several little explanations why things are, at that time, developing. Fair enough? Okay, here we go, next question. What was Jerusalem like during the Crusader period? Yeah, you know, I was forced by my editor to go out of my comfort zone and include the Crusades, which is a little beyond my period of expertise, but I'm glad he insisted because it was a really interesting period to deal with. And so, I think the big takeaway, well, there will be a couple of big takeaways for readers about the Crusades. So one of the things that I think everybody will be struck by is how bloody the Crusader conquest of Jerusalem was. I mean, it was an absolute massacre of the inhabitants, merciless, just horrible, horrible episode. It was a real episode of what we would call today, I mean, it's ethnic cleansing, basically. The previous population was just slaughtered and anybody who was not Christian was banished from the city. So, I mean, the city really was ethnically cleansed. So, I think that that's one of the things that people might be struck by. But the other thing is that a lot of the appearance of the old city today is Crusader. The Crusaders, even though they didn't rule for all that long, I mean, it's, you know, something like around very roughly a century or so. So, in Jerusalem's long history, that's not that long, but their construction left a really lasting mark on the appearance of the city. So, a lot of the old city today, for example, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was rebuilt, and much of what you see today in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is actually Crusader. But the overall appearance of the city looks very kind of medieval, because it is. And you get these things like these medieval covered markets that are covered with these sorts of vaults that you find in, you know, medieval architecture in Europe. So, I think those will be some of the takeaways. And then you get some interesting characters wandering through Jerusalem and sponsoring construction, a very interesting queen, Queen Melisande, for example. So, yeah, so I think that people will be interested in reading about the Crusades. My editor insisted on me including it because he said, the book will sell more copies of Crusades is in the title. And so it was like, yes, people are interested in learning more about the Crusades. And certainly that is an important episode in Jerusalem's history. That kind of reminds me, you just, Crusades and the way you're, you know what came to my mind just like a flash? Monty Python. Oh, yeah. Life of Brian. Right. All right, well, okay, enough of that there. Is there evidence for the location of the temple, you could say from Solomon to Herod, and where the Ark of the Covenant was placed? The short answer is no. I mean, we don't have, we don't have any. So, first of all, with regard to the Ark of the Covenant, no, I mean, apparently David placed it somewhere on the Temple Mount, this, you know, rocky outcrop to the north of the southeastern hill. We don't have any archaeological remains, physical remains of any of the temples, either Solomon's Temple, the First Temple, or the pre-Herodian Second Temple, or the Herodian Second Temple. So, we don't have actual physical remains of any of those buildings, but we do have remains that were around them, right? So, for example, the whole Temple Mount today pretty much is Herodian, we just don't have the actual temple building that originally stood there. So, I think most everybody who tries to understand where the temple building would have been located would locate it in some sort of relationship to that rocky outcrop, the foundation stone that today is enshrined within the Dome of the Rock, the Muslim monument on the Temple Mount. But exactly where the building stood in relation to that rocky outcrop, we don't know for sure. Many scholars, and I think I would agree with this point of view, would place that rocky outcrop perhaps in the Holy of Holies or somewhere inside the temple building. I think it's natural because it's a natural high point, and you would want to put the temple on the highest point. Some would place that rocky outcrop in the area of the altar in front of the temple. There are all sorts of different suggestions, and I cover some of them in the book. So, I mean, very, very roughly, I think it's reasonable to say that the temple buildings, the First and Second Temples, stood roughly in the same area where the Dome of the Rock is located today. But exactly where, and where in relationship also to that foundation stone, that rocky outcrop, we just can't say for sure. Paul The last one, this is the last question. Is there anything else that you would like to say and mention about your book that we haven't been through that you would like to say to the audience? I just hope people will read it and enjoy it. What can I say? I mean, you know, it's a big book. As you know, it's over 600 pages. So, it's not like you're probably going to sit down and read it at one go, right? But it's packed with all sorts of interesting information, and I've tried to make it as easy as possible for people even who are non-specialists to sort of follow and understand, even though sometimes it's complex, right? The problems are complex, the water systems are complex, the relationship of things. But I've tried to explain it in a way that I hope all readers will be able to understand and appreciate. I mean, you know, Jerusalem, there's a lot of people, there are a lot of stakeholders in Jerusalem, right? People who have a stake in the city. And my hope is that people will read the book and come away educated about, you know, why the city is so important, how it's come to be a place that is so contested. Just to let people know that it's just not, it's got a lot of, what do you call it, breakouts. Yeah. And it shows you what she's talking about, if not in a picture, black and white, in a drawing, but also, there you go. There you go. That's the last, I got to do the color last, right? Then we get black and white, but color pictures are in here too. So folks, it isn't just a lot of writing. And then you got to imagine what she's talking about. She gives a lot of illustrations, which was a clarification for me on some things, because a lot of books, they just, they just talk about it. And they kind of assume that you might know, but a lot of us don't. I don't make that assumption. Our assumptions are wrong. But understand, I read the book. I really enjoyed it. And it gives a lot of breakouts, color pictures, black and whites, and drawings to help the reader understand the content. Very well done. After this program, you're going to be surprised that the book sells it's going to make the Harry Potter series, just like, who is that guy? Okay. So professor Jodi Magnus, Jerusalem through the ages, everybody that's out there. Let's go, let's buy one. All right. And it's good for your home and your church, your synagogue. You know, it's about archeology. It doesn't have anything about theology or any really thing like that. That's going to, that's going to be damaging. If you want to think to somebody's faith that it's not in there. Matter of fact, look what she did when I was talking about the Temple of Bound being a garbage dump and everybody's thinking like, Oh no. And it turns around that you answered the question. That's because they believe that it was a prophecy fulfilled. All right. Fair enough. Professor Magnus, thank you so much for your time. This has been so exciting for me. I was up early preparing, pacing, hoping like chasing Murphy's Law away, you know? So thank you very much for your time. Thank you for having me. You were just in Jerusalem and then came back. I was, I got back last week. Yes, that's right. So somebody that goes to Jerusalem in the middle of the heat of things, I don't know if I could do that. Sometimes I went to Jerusalem and things happen, but I never went when things were occurring. I was in Jerusalem when the Yom Kippur War broke out in 1973. And I was really young then too. So anyway, it was, it was fairly quiet in Jerusalem except for the protests, the demonstrations, but I mean, otherwise it was, it was pretty quiet there. Yeah. Well, thanks for much for, for sharing your time and explaining your book to the listening audience. Hope you have a great day. Thank you. And hopefully you'll come back on our program sometime and talk about your archaeological endeavors. That'd be great to hear. Okay. If I'm looking over this way, because you're on this side of the screen, so I'm not looking away. And I got to realize that's what I'm doing because you're over, and then I got a screen above you. So this way you're like this big. What can I say? I'm old and my vision's going. So actually, you know, my wife told me, she goes, you know, you're reading these books so late at night. She says, turn the light off. So I had to buy a book in Braille. So anyway, you have a good day. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you for having me. Take care. My treat. Thank you very much.