Jerusalem Jones

Along the western shore of the Dead Sea, amid the vast and unforgiving wilderness of Judea, we find a precipitous plateau, isolated by millions of years of erosion that turned it into an impregnable fortress. The Hebrew word for “fortress” is Masada, by which it is still called to this day. Its greatest claim to fame derives from events that transpired at the end of the Great Revolt against Rome, when for three brave years (70-73 C.E.), the freedom fighters on this ancient Gibraltar managed to hold off 10,000 Roman troops armed with every contemporary siege weapon. The story is immortal, the remains incredible!

Let's have a look at some things you might not know about how archaeology weighs in on the historical Jesus, whose real name in Hebrew was Yeshua… Just think. If Indiana Jones could search for the Holy Grail, what do you suppose we can come up with? From Bethlehem to Nazareth to Jerusalem, we've got it all covered…

When we consider the archaeological sites across Israel today, none are more impressive than the remains of ancient structures built by King Herod the Great. With the aid of his Roman allies, Herod conquered the land of Israel, including Jerusalem, and established himself as king in the year 37 B.C.E. Herod has been described as a manic depressive, paranoid schizophrenic, with aggressive tendencies. In his manic state he built some of the grandest structures on earth in his day. What can we learn by digging them up?

During the early 1950s the riddle of the Dead Sea Scrolls takes a new turn. Father Roland de Vaux, under the supervision of the Jordanian government, organizes a major excavation of the slumbering ruins at the site of Khirbet Qumran. It takes him six grueling years to excavate the ruins; and what he finds is nothing less than astounding. As the diggers meticulously remove the rubble from the site, an entire ancient settlement begins to appear…

Long ago, pieces of leather, inscribed by learned sages, were rolled into scrolls, to be read and studied only by a select few. For reasons still unknown to us, they were hidden in mountainous desert caves. Then, on a fateful day in 1947, when an Arab lad was searching for his lost goat, he stumbled upon what was to become the most important archaeological find of the twentieth century – ancient parchments, depicting the life and hopes of an unknown Judean sect. It's time we get acquainted with the Dead Sea Scrolls!

It's time to shine a spotlight on one of the most important sites in all of biblical archaeology. It's the Galilean city of Beit Shean, long abandoned but now an archaeological jewel. This ancient and classical Hellenistic city long ago fell into a deep slumber, which only the spade of the archaeologists has in the last century awakened once more. There is no single site that spans so many centuries and so many cultures, weighing in so profoundly on what we know about the land of Israel in ancient times. And we cannot but feel that Best Shean still has stories to tell…

What if anything do we know about the pivotal time after Israel's great kings, David and Solomon? What of the dynasties of kings in both the north and the south of the ancient land of Israel? How much of their stories is betrayed by the testimony of the silent stones being uncovered by the spade of the archaeologists? From the ancient tunnel beneath Jerusalem, where water still flows, to the mysterious cylinder of the Persian emperor Cyrus, there's much to explore as we dig up “The Two kingdoms”!

The first thing that comes to mind whenever the name Solomon is heard (aside from all his reputed wisdom) is his great temple, which adorned the center of ancient Jerusalem. Some have said that if David represents Jerusalem's heart, Solomon represents its soul. As with David, the natural place to look for archaeological evidence of Solomon is Jerusalem's ancient Temple Mount. Yet, religious restrictions have made digging in the most promising areas effectively off limits. Modern geopolitics is ever in the mix, as the archaeological plot thickens!

Israel's first great king, David, is the focus of modern conflict between competing scholarly camps in the ever changing field of biblical archaeology. Believe it or not, a good number of archaeologists doubt his very existence. If he did exist, they argue, he was probably little more than a local chieftain dwelling in a tent somewhere, and the tales about him are no more reliable than those about King Arthur and his famous Round Table. But this is more than just a debate among ivory tower academics. It has real life consequences for the Middle East today!

If we don't have firm evidence for the biblical patriarchs, or for Israelites in Egypt, or for an exodus, or for a conquest under Joshua, what are we left with when it comes to the biblical Judges? Some say nothing at all. Others point to circumstantial evidence, gleaned from archaeology. Throw into the mix the inevitable bias and cultural baggage and the debate becomes very volatile indeed. Will a new generation of archaeologists, spade in hand, discover, once and for all, what really went down so long ago? Find out, right here, right now!

There's more archaeology being undertaken in Israel and its territories today than in any other location on earth. And yet, the origins of biblical Israel are as murky as ever. Where did the Israelites come from? And when did the Israelites as a people come into existence? Can the biblical record be read as historical, when it declared that they came from Egypt in a mass exodus? Did they drift in from some other location, perhaps as pastoral nomads? What's the skinny on the origins of Israel? Find out, right here, right now!

Can archaeologists with spade in hand verify the biblical version of the conquest of the land of Canaan by the great ancient Israelites commander, Joshua? That at least was the goal of many of the pioneers of biblical archaeology. After thousands of years it looks like the battle for Jericho isn't over yet.

Anyone who visits Egypt is likely to come face to face with perhaps the greatest pharaoh who ever lived, Ramses II. Was this the pharaoh of the Israelite exodus? When exactly did the Israelites leave Egypt, and were they ever in Egypt to begin with? These are the questions on which serious archaeology is asked to comment. Of course the archaeology of Egypt has yielded a rich treasure-trove of artifacts. But where is the evidence of Israelites having lived in Egypt for some four centuries, as the Bible relates, prior to their exodus, and where is the evidence for Moses?

Can the science of archaeology confirm the earliest stories of the Bible? Can we prove that Abraham existed? What about Moses? Were Israelites ever Egypt at all? These are just a few of the questions addressed in Episode One of this new series on biblical archaeology. Let's have a look at the “founders” of biblical archaeology, going back to the nineteenth century, and recognize how these “diggers in the dirt” changed forever the way we approach “holy writ.”