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2,000 years ago, in a remote part of the Roman Empire, someone was

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born who would change the history of the world. Jesus.

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He was seen from the very beginning as this extremely radical revolutionary

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figure that was going to bring more change than they had seen since the time of the prophets.

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After a life of wandering through the hills and villages of Galilee and Judaea,

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preaching and healing, Jesus was betrayed, arrested and brutally put to death.

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Jesus's death on the Cross was

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hugely difficult for the early Christians.

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It was extremely embarrassing to say that they were followers of a leader who had been crucified.

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But in the years after his crucifixion,

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Jesus's story was written down by his followers to explain his

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extraordinary life and death. These four Gospels would

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later form a major part of the Christian Bible and enable his

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message to be spread all over the world.

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It's just extraordinary to come here now and see these crowds, who come

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from all over the world, still being drawn by the power of that

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moment that would change everything.

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This is a very exciting find.

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We have people who are still so sceptical

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that they claim there's no Nazareth in the first century.

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But for hundreds of years, scholars have been trying to look behind the Jesus of the Gospels,

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the divine Christ of faith, to uncover the historical figure,

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a Mediterranean Jew who lived and died as a man

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and, according to his followers, was resurrected from the dead.

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This is absolutely mind blowing.

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I mean, they knew what we call the laws of nature just as much as we do.

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They knew that dead people stay dead.

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In this series, using the very latest archaeological, historical and theological research,

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nine of the world's leading Biblical experts will re-examine the Gospel accounts of Jesus's life

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to uncover the true meaning behind the 2,000 year-old story of Jesus.

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This is a story too improbable not to be true

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because it's not what you'd make up if you're starting a new world religion.

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Right in the heart of one of Britain's largest cites is a library

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that contains the oldest known piece of the Christian New Testament anywhere in the world.

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When you study the New Testament you've got dozens, and in fact hundreds, of manuscripts

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from the first three or four or five centuries,

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including some of these tiny fragments

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that go really back very close, within 60 or so years,

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of when the documents were originally written.

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And no other texts from the ancient world have any documentation remotely like that.

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So we're on much more solid ground with the New Testament than any other book from antiquity.

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This fragment of papyrus is believed to have been written

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within just 100 years of Jesus's death.

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It contains a few lines describing Jesus's encounter with the Roman

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Governor in Jerusalem as he is condemned to death on a cross.

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'The manuscript itself happens to be part of the 18th Chapter of John's Gospel and where we see Jesus talking

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'to Pontius Pilate, this is the representative of the Kingdom of God

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'confronting the representative of the Kingdom of the World.

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'And what are they going to talk about? Well, what do you think? Kingdom, power and truth.

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'And he says to Jesus, "So, are you some kind of a king?" And Jesus says, "Well, you call me a king,"

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'he says, "but this is why I was born and this is what I came into the world for,

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'"that I might bear witness to the truth." And then Pilate

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'says his famous answer, "What is truth?"'

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Ever since that question first appeared

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in the Christian Bible, scholars have searched for an answer to help them understand the story of Jesus

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contained in the Gospels.

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The Christian Bible as we know it today is made up of the 39 books of the Old Testament,

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Hebrew scriptures written

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between 2,000 and 3,000 years ago, and the 27 books of the New Testament.

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At its heart are the four Gospels

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of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John,

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the narrative stories

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of the life of Jesus, first written down in the century after Jesus's death.

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'I think what we can say

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'is not necessarily we've got these early manuscripts, therefore it must all be true, but we've got these'

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early manuscripts which point back like a set of signposts from different roads all

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leading to the same city and, because the manuscripts are slightly

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different here and there, we can see that these traditions have diverged,

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but they've diverged from a common source and we can go back very close

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to that common source and say again

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and again this is actually what John or Paul or whoever wrote.

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It's wonderfully sharp, hard evidence of that, by comparison

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with all the other texts that we know from the ancient world.

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Most biblical scholars today agree that the best way to understand the Gospels,

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and particularly what they say about Jesus, is to try

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and understand the life and times in which they were composed, the outlook of the people for whom they

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were first written and the world in which those stories took place.

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In this series we want to uncover the original meaning of the story of Jesus, to investigate

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the Gospel accounts of his life, not through the eyes of a 21st century reader, but through those of the

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people for whom those stories were first written almost 2,000 years ago.

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"In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God

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"to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph

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"of the house of David.

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"And the virgin's name was Mary."

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The Jewish first century world into which Jesus was born, and

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when the accounts of his life were first compiled,

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was far more religious than today and full of expectation as to a coming Messiah, someone

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who would liberate the people from all their troubles.

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The stories about Jesus's birth were full of suggestions

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that he was that saviour.

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There's a lot of dispute over the historicity of the infancy stories, how much one can one can say there's

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historical truth in them and how much not. Some people are more optimistic

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and some people are more sceptical and a lot of it comes down to

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people's presuppositions about whether miraculous things can happen.

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Dr Simon Gathercole is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Cambridge

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and an expert in the study of the New Testament.

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He believes the writers of the Gospels wanted to tell their readers who they believed Jesus really was,

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and that right from the start of his life he was destined to change the course of history.

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The message of the Gospels of course is that this particular Jesus Christ is the Son of

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God who went on to die and rise again and bring salvation to the world

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So this isn't mere history, it's not less than history, but it is history with a message.

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At the time the Gospels were first compiled in the 1st century, what we

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would call modern Israel and Palestine was a part of the Roman Empire.

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This meant that for Jews, their Holy Land was under Pagan rule.

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And in Caesar's Empire, the Emperors were thought of as gods who could do no wrong.

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For the Gospel writers, the extraordinary story of

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Jesus's birth, life and death was a direct challenge to that world.

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For them, Jesus was the true God, not Caesar.

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The Gospels of Matthew and Luke were probably both written in the sort of 70s,

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80s AD perhaps, and those times were significant because Emperors at that time in the Roman Empire had just

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started being called sons of God.

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And so when we read in Matthew's Gospel and Luke's Gospel both the

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infancy narratives call Jesus the Son of God,

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those with their sensitive political antennae up

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would perhaps be struck by the fact that Jesus is the true son of God

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and so perhaps a challenger to the Emperor.

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Modern sceptics often point to the differences

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in the four Gospel accounts of Jesus's life as evidence of their falsehood.

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Many biblical scholars see these differences as simply alternative points of focus, a

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way of telling the same core story, but from a different point of view.

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Our traditional infancy narrative is actually a conflation of

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the two separate accounts in Matthew's Gospel and Luke's Gospel.

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And they contain some similar incidents and some different incidents.

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'So in Matthew's Gospel,

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'Joseph is perhaps the leading figure.

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'It's Joseph who receives the message from the Angel.

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'On the other hand, when we come to Luke's Gospel, Joseph is scarcely mentioned at all.

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'The attention is all on Mary and on Mary's family.'

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"The book of the genealogy

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"of Jesus Christ, the son of David,

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"the son of Abraham. Abraham was the father of Isaac,

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"and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers."

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Jesus's family history was very important to his followers.

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Both Gospel writers provide us with a detailed genealogy

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dating back hundreds of years, but rather than being a literal

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guide to Jesus's ancestors, they contain a message as to who

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they believed Jesus really was, the long-awaited Jewish Messiah.

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First of all, amongst several peoples,

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genealogies per se are important. It's part of your past,

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you should know where you've come from, as well as where you're headed to.

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The whole idea that the son of a simple carpenter

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from Nazareth... But if you say he is a descendant of David, then it's

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different, because there had been the tradition that the Messiah

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would be a descendant of the royal house of David.

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So the genealogy there is very, very pertinent.

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David is the crucial kingly figure in the Old Testament, the model of an ideal king.

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The first divinely approved King of Israel. And so he becomes

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the template that the New Testament authors draw on when they want to describe Jesus as an ideal king.

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Jesus is the second David, if you like, the son of David.

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Matthew's Gospel is arranged in three blocks of 14 ancestors, and this number 14 is probably

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significant because numerically, it can refer

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to the name David.

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The Hebrew letters...

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Four plus six plus four makes 14.

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And so Matthew's genealogy shouts to us that Jesus is David, David, David, the son of David.

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Luke's Gospel is rather different in having a genealogy which goes back not to David, but actually to Adam.

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And so Luke is perhaps using his genealogy to present the fact

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that Jesus is not a narrowly Jewish Messiah...

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He is a Jewish Messiah, but he's not one who is only for Israel,

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but he's someone who has come for all the descendants of Adam.

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So Luke has a more universal outlook in his genealogy.

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"And the angel said to her,

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"Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have

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"found favour with God. And behold,

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"you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call him Jesus."

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The miraculous conception in Matthew's Gospel and in Luke's Gospel is vital

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to the drama. First, that it is an action that comes about purely by

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'divine intervention, it does not come about by the natural human means.

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'And so salvation is said to be entirely of God.

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'On the other hand though, it is a real conception and so he is a real human being.

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'And so we see the two sides of Jesus's identity, that he is truly man but also divine.

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'As the line in Matthew's Gospel puts it, that he's "Emmanuel", which in Hebrew means "God with us."

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'He's truly God, but he's also truly with us.'

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When the early Christians read these infancy narratives in Matthew's Gospel and Luke's Gospel,

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they probably took them literally and probably assumed that these

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things did really happen to Jesus.

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But they certainly wouldn't stop there.

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'They wouldn't think of that as the primary point,

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'they would think of these accounts

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'as telling them how

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'Jesus was God's son. So we see the fulfilment of prophecy all the way through these infancy narratives.'

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Genealogies as well. And these things tell us,

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told the early Christians, that Jesus didn't just come out of a clear blue sky,

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but he was planned by God to have come at this particular time.

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"And you, o Bethlehem in

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"the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah.

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"For from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people, Israel."

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Geography is important here, because Bethlehem is a crucial town in the Old Testament.

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It's a small town and politically and economically insignificant,

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but it's famous by association with David.

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David's father, Jesse, was called Jesse of Bethlehem and so David may have been born there.

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He certainly came from there and lived his early life there. And crucially as well, he was also

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anointed as King there. Then we have, developing out of that, a prophecy that

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a ruler will come out of Bethlehem who will shepherd Israel.

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And this is the prophecy that Matthew picks up on, the prophecy of Micah, which Jesus is then said to fulfil.

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Over the centuries, historians and scientists have debated the Star of

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Bethlehem and have tried to come up with a rational explanation.

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A comet or a planet, or even a previously unknown supernova.

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But none has proved totally convincing.

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Many scholars now believe the star is more of a symbolic device, a

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biblical metaphor that would have had particular meaning to 1st-century Jews.

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The Star which leads the Magoi, the three wise men so-called, to Jesus, is significant as an

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indicator, another indicator of Jesus's supernatural identity, Jesus's heavenly nature.

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And it alludes I think most particularly to a prophecy in the

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Old Testament in the book of Numbers where we're told that a star will come out of Jacob.

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The prophecy of Balaam in the Book of Numbers...

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"A Star has arisen from heaven."

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But is The Messiah the anointed King?

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of course, the anointed King is a kind of Star, or the son of a Star.

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All these metaphors are very pertinent metaphors and it's very natural they were being used.

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This star also connects up with something in Luke's Gospel where we're told in quite similar terms

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that Jesus is like a light, he's the day spring, the day star that comes

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from on high and this again is a fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy, this time from the book of Isaiah,

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in which the light from on high will come and shine on those in darkness.

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"And behold, the star that they had seen when it rose went before them

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"until it came to rest over the place where the child was."

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The incident with the so-called three wise men is a fascinating one and it's

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one which has been particularly embroidered and romanticised in later Christian history.

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So we don't even know from Matthew's Gospel whether there were three of them, they certainly weren't

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'three kings, they're not described particularly as wise men, they're described as "Magoi" and "Magoi"

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'in Greek are really astronomers or astrologers, people who use the stars for perhaps magical purposes.

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'The shepherds also appear on the scene

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'in Luke's Gospel and in some ways the point of the shepherds is that'

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the message of Jesus is not just for the elites and priests and the nobles,

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but also for very ordinary shepherds.

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According to one of the Gospels, as soon as he was born, Jesus was in danger.

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Not only was he portrayed as a potential challenger to the

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Roman Emperor, but closer to home, he was also depicted as a rival to the King of the Jews - Herod.

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"Now when they had departed, behold an angel of the Lord

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"appeared to Joseph in a dream and said,

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"Rise take the child and his mother,

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"and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell

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"you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him."

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Of all the characters in the birth stories, King Herod is one of the

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few for whom we have alternative contemporary historical sources.

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We know that he existed at the time of Jesus' birth, that he

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was the King of Judaea, a client kingdom within the Roman Empire.

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Today, the ruins of his winter palace, Herodion,

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still overlook the town of Bethlehem.

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'In the last decade of his life Herod was an old man.

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'So there were a lot of people around waiting for him to die.

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'So that last decade of his life is filled

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'according to Josephus with lots of suspicion on both sides and lots of conspiracies'

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real or imagined, and accordingly lots of people getting killed

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by the old King who was afraid

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of conspiracies around him.

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In that context you have to understand the Gospel story which talks about Herod being afraid of

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yet another competitor coming along for the crown of the Jewish kingdom.

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According to the Gospel stories, Herod was so incensed by Jesus as

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a possible rival to his throne that he ordered his troops to massacre

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all the male babies in Bethlehem.

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'I think the story as you have it is probably something with no claim to historical truth as having happened,

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'but rather reflecting an antipathy to Herod which

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'in this case takes the form of, well let's compare him to Pharaoh.'

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And just as Pharaoh presided over the persecution of Jewish boys at the time when a redeemer of the

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Jews was born according to the book of Exodus, namely Moses, so too if a new Moses is going to come along,

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he better have his Pharaoh who tries to kill him as well.

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So it became very convenient to focus on Herod as Jesus's opposite number.

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And if one is very, very good then the other has to be very, very bad, that is the way these things work.

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Egypt is ,of course, in New Testament times the old enemy of the nation of Israel.

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Israel had been captive in Egypt for hundreds of years.

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They'd been slaves there, they'd been oppressed there.

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So for Joseph to take Mary and Jesus there

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means that things had got really desperate in the land of Israel under the murderous rule of King Herod.

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But it's also a response to prophecy because in the book of Hosea there is a prophecy which

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is picked up by Matthew's Gospel

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about God's son coming out of Egypt.

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So again Jesus is depicted, as in this case,

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unwittingly fulfilling prophecy.

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I think the purpose of the Gospels is to tell the readers and the believers about the

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life and death and resurrection of a redeeming figure and one of the things that you are entitled

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to expect in ancient stories about such heroes is something miraculous about their birth.

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So whether it's a miraculous

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salvation from a very great threat as you have in Matthew or whether

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it's being born as the result of an extraordinary prophecy as you have in Luke, one way or the other

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the point of the infancy stories is to ensure that from the very first

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moment, this redeeming figure has been underwritten by God.

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After Jesus's birth, the Gospels are almost completely silent about what happened next.

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We are told that his family returned to Nazareth

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but there is only one story about his childhood in Galilee.

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It has led to a lot of wild speculation as to what Jesus was doing during those years...

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how he might have travelled all over the Middle East and Egypt

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and even as far as India and Tibet to study with Eastern mystics.

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There is one area of biblical research that can take our knowledge of the

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past beyond the written sources and help to explain Jesus's lost years

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and the world in which he grew up.

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I think there is a gap in terms of the narration about Jesus's life

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really because it didn't serve the interests of the Gospel writers.

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They were trying to write something else so they don't

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mind putting in miraculous birth in at least two of them.

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And Luke doesn't mind putting in the story about Jesus being around 12 to show he's precocious.

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John starts off with creation

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so then they are trying to get us to the ministry apparently.

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So they just simply jump ahead to the ministry.

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So we are left to surmise that he grew up more or less like everyone else in Galilee.

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Now what archaeology does for us is show us what that might look like.

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Professor James Strange is one of the world's leading biblical archaeologists.

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For the last 30 years he has been excavating one of Galilee's most

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important 1st century cities, Sepphoris.

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Professor Strange believes that because Jesus's home village

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of Nazareth was just two hours' walk away, he could very possibly

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have visited and worked here.

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Well, here we are on the main road of Sepphoris and people would be streaming in from behind me towards

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Tiberius, they would have been coming from Nazareth, from ancient Garis, from other places.

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'They're coming here to buy, to sell, to look for a physician, whatever it is they need.

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'They come in, sometimes because they're curious, but sometimes they're looking for work,'

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so this, this is going to be an ideal place to do exactly that.

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"Is not this the carpenter's son?

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"Is not his mother called Mary?"

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Hidden away in the Gospels, in a description of Jesus as

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he begins his ministry in Galilee, is a single verse that provides a few clues as to Jesus' early life.

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Traditionally Jesus has been described as a "carpenter",

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but a more accurate translation of the original Greek word "tekton"

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would be a "general builder".

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Jesus and his father and presumably his brothers then, as a tekton,

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means a family that is understood to be working with their hands

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and they have all the skills and knowledge they have to have to work with wood and to work with stone.

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So this is fundamental to living here.

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That makes Jesus and his family ideal for such a

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place as this when it's undergoing construction for the first time.

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During Jesus's childhood, Sepphoris was undergoing a major building boom

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under the local King, Herod Antipas.

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For Jesus and his brothers, this would have been an ideal place to have looked for work.

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Well, five, six kilometres away is ancient Nazareth itself,

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where Jesus lives with his father and his brothers and sisters and mother,

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so it's not at all out of reason that he would be here with his father as the eldest, looking for work.

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So I think of this as an ideal place to contextualise Jesus as a

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jobbing builder who builds projects for anything from houses

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or as small as an ox yoke all the way up to working on frameworks

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and doing stone-cutting for large buildings.

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We can see the 1st century cut stones reflected everywhere we look.

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"Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon?

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"And are not his sisters here with us?"

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The Gospel accounts appear to suggest that Jesus had an extended blood family.

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In fact, in the 1st century Jewish world in which he lived,

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not having any brothers or sisters would have been very unusual.

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But over the centuries, the idea of Jesus having

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a close family has posed a problem for some Christian denominations.

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We understand from scripture that Jesus came from an extended family.

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It was not simply Joseph, Mary and Jesus living in the household,

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but there were siblings, at least four more brothers whose names we

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know and at least two more sisters and maybe more, unfortunately we don't know their names.

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According to Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians, Jesus's mother,

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Mary, was a perpetual virgin, and that after giving birth to him she had no further children.

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So they believe his brothers and sisters are not blood relations of Jesus.

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'The traditional explanation for the brothers of Jesus, for example, in the Greek Orthodox church and

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'the Roman Catholic church has been that Joseph was a widower and he had children from his first marriage who

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'became the step brothers of Jesus and that would put Jesus as the only child of Mary.

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'In the Protestant tradition they see these children

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'as being the biological children of Joseph and Mary born after Jesus.

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'So in whatever way you want to explain it though,'

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we understand that Jesus doesn't grow up as an only child.

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When Jesus was growing up, Nazareth was just a small village

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of less than 500 people but today it is a huge city in modern Israel.

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No remains of the ancient village had ever been found

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until two years ago, when an extraordinary find was uncovered near the centre of the city.

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Well, around 2009, some builders were trying to build something here and when they drove the foundations down

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they discovered something they thought would be of interest to archaeologists.

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So that's exactly what they did.

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They called in the archaeologists so that they could check this and when

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they went down far enough they found they were in a 1st century house.

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This is a very exciting find. We have people who are still so

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sceptical that they claim there is no Nazareth in the first century.

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So it's a wonderful confirmation that we were not mistaken. There really is a 1st century Nazareth.

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According to the archaeologists it was a very simple building,

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single storey, made of mud and stone with two rooms and a courtyard.

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They also found clay and chalk vessels that were known to be

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used by Galilean Jews at that time, an indication that the house was lived in by a devout Jewish family.

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'By looking at the Gospel of Luke, for example, we can see that Jesus

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'was born into a Jewish family that was religiously observant.

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'They were pious people, they prayed, they went on pilgrimage to Jerusalem and it was their custom.'

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They circumcised him on the eighth day, they announced his name, they

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'paid the redemption price of a new born son and so the picture we get

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'of Jesus's family is a family that is deeply embedded in its Jewish identity and its Jewish tradition.'

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Well, religion in the first century is not a separate category, it suffuses your life, you know.

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The modern idea of religion as being some aspect of your life is very, very modern or post modern for some.

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So in the first century it is a sort of a given.

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You know there is a God in the universe that God has made all that there is.

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'Jesus brought a message that he learned in his own childhood.

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'His classroom was the streets of a Jewish town and he watched shepherds

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'with their sheep and goats, he watched farmers in the field as they spread grain, he watched fathers

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'with their children and he thought about these things that he observed.

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'They became the images that he would later use in his parables

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'so that when he launched his public ministry

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'and he spoke to everyday people on the street -

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'tax collectors, sinners, women he could speak to them about God in language that they understood.'

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Well, the lost years of Jesus from 12 to 30,

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I think he's a fully fledged member of his family and of his village.

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We would expect him to then, as a first born son, to be married,

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but he's not.

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We would also expect him to, if something has happened to Joseph, for example, since Joseph

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disappears in the narrative, if he was killed in an accident or just died of an infection,

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then it falls upon Jesus to stay home and take care of his mother. He didn't do that.

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'We would not expect him to have detailed knowledge of Jewish

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'traditions, temple traditions and scriptures themselves.'

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But he apparently does

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and so we're confounded each time we make this prediction about Jesus.

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We're very good about predicting what we would find if we dig in an environment like Sepphoris,

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we're much less successful in predicting what Jesus would turn out to be.

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Most biblical scholars consider Mark to be the earliest Gospel

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probably written about 40 years after Jesus's death.

402
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And it begins not with the story of Jesus's birth or his early life,

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but with the account of one of the most enigmatic and misunderstood people in the New Testament.

404
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A person who had a profound influence on both Jesus and Christianity -

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00:32:06,010 --> 00:32:07,530
John the Baptist.

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Dr Joan Taylor is an expert on John the Baptist

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and believes the later Church downplayed his real significance in Jesus' life story.

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'The whole story of Jesus,

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'the whole story of the Kingdom of God,

410
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'the beginning of Christianity, begins at this point here at the Jordan River.

411
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'It's just extraordinary to come here now and see these crowds, these tourists

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'who've come from all over the world, still being drawn by the power of that moment,'

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that moment when Jesus came to John the Baptist and something happened that would change everything.

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"In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptised by John in the Jordan.

415
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"And when he came up out of the water,

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"immediately he saw the heavens being torn open

417
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"and the Spirit descending on him like a dove.

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"And a voice came from heaven,

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"You are my beloved Son, with you I am well pleased."

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Now, all the other Gospel writers wanted to re-write that story.

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It just sounded so much, it just sounds so much like John is the top

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guy and Jesus is this man who is in need of repentance

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and comes to John looking for a new life.

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That's kind of what John was calling people to experience.

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So they made him safe. Matthew makes him safe in

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that John the Baptist says to Jesus, "I should be baptising you.

427
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'"Why do you come to me?"

428
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'Luke has the baptism in that Jesus is baptised with everybody else,

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'but then he has Jesus experiencing his vision after he's baptised,

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'so he detaches it from John.

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'And then in the fourth Gospel, the Gospel of John, John is all the

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'time pointing to Jesus and saying you know, "Behold the Lamb of God. Go after him."'

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According to other contemporary 1st century sources,

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John the Baptist was a major religious leader,

435
00:34:41,650 --> 00:34:44,210
but today in mainstream Christianity

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he is seen as the forerunner.

437
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His importance is only that he was the prophet

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who prepared the way for Jesus.

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John the Baptist as you know is the last one among the Prophets of the Old Testament

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and he's the first person

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mentioned in the New Testament.

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Practically the Gospel of Luke

443
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starts off with the birth of John the Baptist...

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Mm hm.

445
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because John the Baptist is a type of watershed between the Old Testament and the New Testament.

446
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He is known as the forerunner of Jesus Christ.

447
00:35:18,050 --> 00:35:21,490
But John is really inferior to Jesus in that account, isn't he?

448
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He's related, but he's down there.

449
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Jesus is the man.

450
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Well John, in John's Gospel, in St John's Gospel, you know, we have these words of John the Baptist.

451
00:35:30,450 --> 00:35:33,490
"He should become greater and I have to become lesser."

452
00:35:35,490 --> 00:35:41,490
A lot of what was known about John the Baptist in the first century has been lost

453
00:35:41,490 --> 00:35:48,450
because it was not convenient for Christianity to remember too much.

454
00:35:48,450 --> 00:35:56,130
There are little clues here and there about what John was really up to, but in a way we have to bracket out

455
00:35:56,130 --> 00:36:02,650
what scholars call the apologetic texts, which make John safe, which

456
00:36:02,650 --> 00:36:09,170
give him a meaning that is very secondary to Jesus's meaning.

457
00:36:11,290 --> 00:36:16,490
Archaeologist Dr Shimon Gibson has spent a life time investigating the

458
00:36:16,490 --> 00:36:20,130
many biblical locations connected with John the Baptist.

459
00:36:20,130 --> 00:36:25,690
He is convinced he has now identified a new site never before filmed.

460
00:36:28,890 --> 00:36:31,330
"John was also baptizing at Aenon near Salim

461
00:36:31,330 --> 00:36:34,290
"because water was plentiful there

462
00:36:34,290 --> 00:36:38,170
"and people were coming and being baptized.

463
00:36:38,170 --> 00:36:44,370
We're on top of Tel Shalem, which is identified as

464
00:36:44,370 --> 00:36:46,850
Salim, and you can look all the way round you.

465
00:36:46,850 --> 00:36:50,290
That's towards the north towards Bet She'an.

466
00:36:50,290 --> 00:36:53,410
We have the Trans Jordanian Mountains over there.

467
00:36:53,410 --> 00:36:58,810
And then at the foot of this Tel, we have a very large spring complex.

468
00:36:58,810 --> 00:37:02,530
It's one of 13 or so, sort of springs in the vicinity

469
00:37:02,530 --> 00:37:05,210
and this one is identified as Aenon.

470
00:37:05,210 --> 00:37:08,810
Look, I've even got a map here. Let me just show you.

471
00:37:08,810 --> 00:37:11,090
Here you can see we're standing here.

472
00:37:11,090 --> 00:37:14,090
- Right.
- And look at all these blue spots.

473
00:37:14,090 --> 00:37:15,810
They all represent sources of water.

474
00:37:15,810 --> 00:37:19,450
Well, I can see the blue spots. They're absolutely everywhere all around us.

475
00:37:19,450 --> 00:37:23,090
The site is part of an old Israeli army fort that dates back to the

476
00:37:23,090 --> 00:37:29,690
late 1960s when Israel was still at war with its neighbour Jordan.

477
00:37:29,690 --> 00:37:31,250
No excavations have taken place here.

478
00:37:31,250 --> 00:37:34,330
It's a site that hardly anybody comes to

479
00:37:34,330 --> 00:37:38,650
and indeed, probably this is the first time that it's being filmed.

480
00:37:38,650 --> 00:37:42,730
And what was surprising for me, on the slope over there,

481
00:37:42,730 --> 00:37:45,650
I came across pottery, which dates from that period.

482
00:37:48,850 --> 00:37:51,410
According to the Gospels, John the Baptist preached a

483
00:37:51,410 --> 00:37:54,450
baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins,

484
00:37:54,450 --> 00:37:59,330
which for 1st Century Jews was a revolutionary concept.

485
00:37:59,330 --> 00:38:04,090
Jews did immerse in water, but for reasons of ritual purity.

486
00:38:04,090 --> 00:38:07,890
For John, baptism meant something very different.

487
00:38:13,010 --> 00:38:18,210
It's interesting to notice that it's not only about the ritual value of purity,

488
00:38:18,210 --> 00:38:23,890
but also at least in the case of John the Baptist, about atonement.

489
00:38:23,890 --> 00:38:31,010
If you want to be atoned, if you want to be answered by God, acceptance, I would say,

490
00:38:31,010 --> 00:38:33,490
you have first to clean your

491
00:38:33,490 --> 00:38:38,010
'heart to bring you into a new,

492
00:38:38,010 --> 00:38:40,930
'a new status in front of God, I would say.'

493
00:38:40,930 --> 00:38:45,170
'So that's why in the Gospels of Luke and Matthew he challenges people

494
00:38:45,170 --> 00:38:47,610
'who come to him and he says,

495
00:38:47,610 --> 00:38:53,650
'"You brood of vipers. Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?"

496
00:38:53,650 --> 00:38:56,850
'It's a very kind of provocative statement.'

497
00:38:56,850 --> 00:39:01,730
'And the Jordan River is a great river for that.'

498
00:39:01,730 --> 00:39:07,290
The River Jordan had a huge symbolic importance for 1st century Jews.

499
00:39:08,810 --> 00:39:12,730
According to the Old Testament, it was here where their ancestors

500
00:39:12,730 --> 00:39:17,090
led by Joshua had first crossed into the Promised Land.

501
00:39:18,610 --> 00:39:22,330
And you know, all those parallels work very well.

502
00:39:22,330 --> 00:39:25,290
You imagine oneself enter into the land.

503
00:39:25,290 --> 00:39:29,890
You imagine oneself enters into new identity.

504
00:39:29,890 --> 00:39:33,410
- You imagine oneself enter into new self perception and so on.
- Right.

505
00:39:33,410 --> 00:39:40,290
Joan Taylor is convinced that if you examine the Gospel accounts carefully,

506
00:39:40,290 --> 00:39:44,530
they reveal how close John and Jesus really were

507
00:39:44,530 --> 00:39:47,810
and that in fact Jesus may well have been part of John's movement.

508
00:39:47,810 --> 00:39:50,090
One of his disciples.

509
00:39:50,090 --> 00:39:54,290
'The other thing that I think is very important about

510
00:39:54,290 --> 00:40:02,210
'John the Baptist that tends to be downplayed in most of the traditions about him is that he was a teacher.

511
00:40:02,210 --> 00:40:09,690
'And that particular element of John is only really preserved in the Gospel of Luke.'

512
00:40:09,690 --> 00:40:14,610
'All the other gospels, all the other early Christian writers,

513
00:40:14,610 --> 00:40:18,570
'want to forget about that, because it's Jesus who is the real teacher.'

514
00:40:18,570 --> 00:40:22,450
For Joan Taylor, the original Greek of the New Testament reveals

515
00:40:22,450 --> 00:40:28,130
more clues as to the nature of the relationship between John and Jesus,

516
00:40:28,130 --> 00:40:32,010
and how John may even have been the originator of the Lord's Prayer.

517
00:40:35,890 --> 00:40:41,770
"Now, Jesus was praying in a certain place and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him,

518
00:40:41,770 --> 00:40:46,690
'Lord teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples.'"

519
00:40:47,930 --> 00:40:52,170
There are some interesting possibilities in terms of

520
00:40:52,170 --> 00:40:56,890
overlap between the teaching of Jesus and the teaching of John,

521
00:40:56,890 --> 00:41:01,410
and one of the most interesting places...

522
00:41:01,410 --> 00:41:07,090
is in connection with the Lukan Version of the Lord's Prayer.

523
00:41:07,090 --> 00:41:13,010
And that word, "just as", "kathos", is kind of striking

524
00:41:13,010 --> 00:41:17,890
because it's ambiguous whether or not Jesus replies and gives them

525
00:41:17,890 --> 00:41:25,170
a new prayer, you know, "As John taught his disciples to pray, I now give you a new prayer",

526
00:41:25,170 --> 00:41:31,970
or, in fact, identically the prayer John the Baptist taught his disciples.

527
00:41:31,970 --> 00:41:39,250
And it's just so peculiar that there is that ambiguity, given the tendency to minimise John.

528
00:41:40,970 --> 00:41:45,250
It's clear from all the other contemporary historical sources

529
00:41:45,250 --> 00:41:49,170
that John was an important religious figure in Galilee and Judaea in the 1st Century.

530
00:41:49,170 --> 00:41:55,210
So much so, that he became a threat to the local king - Herod Antipas.

531
00:41:57,210 --> 00:42:00,370
Remember that there are thousands of followers.

532
00:42:00,370 --> 00:42:03,210
I mean, he was really a force to contend with.

533
00:42:03,210 --> 00:42:06,370
He was the guy that Herod Antipas hated and feared.

534
00:42:06,370 --> 00:42:12,050
And it's the expansion of his strength, roughly about 28 CE,

535
00:42:12,050 --> 00:42:15,650
that really puts the fear into Herod Antipas, and that's it.

536
00:42:15,650 --> 00:42:17,930
He's got to get rid of him.

537
00:42:20,410 --> 00:42:23,890
The Gospels also contain the story of John's death.

538
00:42:23,890 --> 00:42:28,450
How he was thrown into prison by Herod Antipas after he had

539
00:42:28,450 --> 00:42:32,890
spoken out about Herod's marriage to his brother's former wife,

540
00:42:32,890 --> 00:42:36,330
and how, in order to placate his wife, Herod had John beheaded.

541
00:42:41,370 --> 00:42:47,570
For Joan Taylor, John is an absolutely crucial figure in the story of Jesus.

542
00:42:47,570 --> 00:42:52,330
The man who started him on his mission to change the world.

543
00:42:52,330 --> 00:42:58,610
Jesus experienced something absolutely profound here at the Jordan River,

544
00:42:58,610 --> 00:43:03,450
and he also felt that this was a momentous beginning himself.

545
00:43:03,450 --> 00:43:07,690
It's a visionary experience, and it's inner.

546
00:43:07,690 --> 00:43:12,730
It's something that he himself experiences,

547
00:43:12,730 --> 00:43:17,770
and then the only way anyone would have known about it is if he had told them,

548
00:43:17,770 --> 00:43:20,690
"This is what happened to me." And it validated him.

549
00:43:20,690 --> 00:43:24,090
He was now Son of God,

550
00:43:24,090 --> 00:43:26,530
and he was also given the power of prophecy.

551
00:43:26,530 --> 00:43:29,330
The Holy Spirit is the prophetic spirit,

552
00:43:29,330 --> 00:43:34,130
so he has the authority now to preach his own mission.

553
00:43:36,610 --> 00:43:42,250
In the Gospel accounts, it was only after John the Baptist's execution by Herod Antipas

554
00:43:42,250 --> 00:43:45,610
that Jesus began his own ministry.

555
00:43:45,610 --> 00:43:49,490
He started wandering the villages and towns of Galilee,

556
00:43:49,490 --> 00:43:50,770
preaching his message to the people.

557
00:43:50,770 --> 00:43:56,370
He also gathered around him a group of followers - his disciples.

558
00:43:56,370 --> 00:44:00,690
He recruited them from among the ordinary people of Galilee -

559
00:44:00,690 --> 00:44:05,410
fishermen, farmers, workers, even tax collectors.

560
00:44:05,410 --> 00:44:07,450
Some were also women.

561
00:44:07,450 --> 00:44:14,570
Jesus also performed a series of acts that form one of the most contentious aspects of his life -

562
00:44:14,570 --> 00:44:18,090
a set of miraculous deeds that are still hotly debated today.

563
00:44:19,850 --> 00:44:24,010
Were these miracles actual historical events,

564
00:44:24,010 --> 00:44:25,850
or just symbolic figurative acts?

565
00:44:25,850 --> 00:44:31,650
Any modern person in a scientific world is, is going to ask,

566
00:44:31,650 --> 00:44:34,850
you know, are these miracles legit?

567
00:44:34,850 --> 00:44:39,410
Or are they rather really a case of early Christian myth making,

568
00:44:39,410 --> 00:44:43,650
that early Christians admired and revered Jesus so much that eventually the stories

569
00:44:43,650 --> 00:44:48,050
about Jesus became magnified and he became this worker of great deeds.

570
00:44:49,570 --> 00:44:53,130
Well, your opinion on the question of whether miracles did happen or not

571
00:44:53,130 --> 00:44:56,010
is really a religious question.

572
00:44:56,010 --> 00:44:59,290
Either you believe that such things are possible or you say, "No, we know better.

573
00:44:59,290 --> 00:45:02,810
"These aren't the kind of things that happen", and you discredit them.

574
00:45:02,810 --> 00:45:07,250
Dr Greg Carey is an expert in the early followers of Jesus.

575
00:45:07,250 --> 00:45:11,650
He believes Jesus' miracles have a sound basis in historical fact

576
00:45:11,650 --> 00:45:17,290
because he is convinced they were widely believed by the people at that time.

577
00:45:17,290 --> 00:45:22,770
For the Bible, a miracle is something dramatically unusual that happens.

578
00:45:22,770 --> 00:45:26,370
So unusual and maybe beneficial or revelatory

579
00:45:26,370 --> 00:45:31,730
that people would interpret it as an act of the gods, some sort of divine intervention.

580
00:45:31,730 --> 00:45:35,930
The New Testament uses a couple of different words for miracle.

581
00:45:35,930 --> 00:45:42,450
It uses "dunamis", which simply means a powerful deed, a mighty accomplishment of some sort.

582
00:45:42,450 --> 00:45:48,250
And "semion", which indicates a sign, something that reveals something about Jesus' nature.

583
00:45:48,250 --> 00:45:51,890
On the one hand, they're a benefit for people,

584
00:45:51,890 --> 00:45:57,370
especially the healing miracles, but even occasionally, a nature miracle - such as turning water into wine.

585
00:45:57,370 --> 00:46:02,730
But the other dimension of the miracles is that they reveal something about Jesus.

586
00:46:18,690 --> 00:46:22,050
We are on a hill...

587
00:46:22,050 --> 00:46:25,370
with the ruins, the ruins of an ancient site.

588
00:46:25,370 --> 00:46:29,050
It's called by the Arabs, Khirbet Kana.

589
00:46:29,050 --> 00:46:33,290
And that's a very similar name to Cana,

590
00:46:33,290 --> 00:46:37,450
Cana from the New Testament, the place of the miracle of...

591
00:46:37,450 --> 00:46:40,010
transferring the water to wine.

592
00:46:40,010 --> 00:46:43,890
And that's why it was identified by some scholars

593
00:46:43,890 --> 00:46:46,650
as the place of the miracle.

594
00:46:49,050 --> 00:46:54,890
According to the Gospel account of this famous miracle, a large wedding party was suddenly disrupted by

595
00:46:54,890 --> 00:47:00,730
the wine running out, and Jesus was asked by his mother to intervene.

596
00:47:01,570 --> 00:47:04,170
People gathered from the nearby villages.

597
00:47:04,170 --> 00:47:11,650
Nazareth is just three miles away, four miles away from here as the crow flies, and people gathered

598
00:47:11,650 --> 00:47:16,930
from villages, this is why you have to do it for a few days, because people are coming from far away,

599
00:47:16,930 --> 00:47:20,930
and what reflects from the story

600
00:47:20,930 --> 00:47:23,610
in the Bible is a simple life.

601
00:47:23,610 --> 00:47:26,890
So suddenly, the wine was finished.

602
00:47:26,890 --> 00:47:33,050
The key part of the story occurred when Jesus told the servants to fill six stone jars with water

603
00:47:33,050 --> 00:47:37,610
and then to draw some out and take it to the Master of the Feast.

604
00:47:38,650 --> 00:47:42,290
"When the Master of the Feast tasted the water now become wine,

605
00:47:42,290 --> 00:47:45,770
"and did not know where it came from,

606
00:47:45,770 --> 00:47:48,130
"though the servants who had drawn the water knew."

607
00:47:49,610 --> 00:47:52,170
The Gospel of John, though, concludes the story not just

608
00:47:52,170 --> 00:47:56,250
by saying, "Oh, everyone says this is an amazing miracle",

609
00:47:56,250 --> 00:48:03,650
but by saying this was the first of Jesus' signs and the Gospel of John is trying to say that

610
00:48:03,650 --> 00:48:11,250
Jesus has the power to bring vitality and abundance, that living water will flow within them, because of Jesus.

611
00:48:11,250 --> 00:48:17,330
And that alludes to Biblical prophecies that wine would flow down the hills of Israel like water.

612
00:48:17,330 --> 00:48:21,130
There's a suggestion that Jesus is the one who brings life.

613
00:48:21,130 --> 00:48:24,090
That's a part of this miracle.

614
00:48:24,090 --> 00:48:27,770
At the site of Khirbet Kana, archaeologists have found

615
00:48:27,770 --> 00:48:32,210
a cave that they believe was used by early Christian pilgrims, who wanted

616
00:48:32,210 --> 00:48:36,530
to re-enact the famous miracle of turning water into wine

617
00:48:36,530 --> 00:48:41,090
and somehow share in its life-giving benefits.

618
00:48:41,090 --> 00:48:49,090
This was probably the beginning of the natural cave, but then, when Christians identified this place,

619
00:48:49,090 --> 00:48:55,650
they took this cave and changed it, transferred it into a sacred place.

620
00:48:55,650 --> 00:48:59,650
What they did here is only some kind of

621
00:48:59,650 --> 00:49:03,370
demonstration of the miracle itself, or to bring people in to see

622
00:49:03,370 --> 00:49:08,650
the exact place where the miracle really happened.

623
00:49:08,650 --> 00:49:12,770
So they would've re-enacted, in some sort of ritual way, the miracle, you think?

624
00:49:12,770 --> 00:49:14,450
I assume so.

625
00:49:14,450 --> 00:49:20,330
This is a great example of what pilgrims are doing when they're coming to a holy site.

626
00:49:21,850 --> 00:49:24,690
The miracle stories are an essential part of

627
00:49:24,690 --> 00:49:29,730
how the Gospels present Jesus and how early Christians understood Jesus.

628
00:49:29,730 --> 00:49:35,010
It's the case in the modern world that many people like to think of Jesus as a great moral teacher.

629
00:49:35,010 --> 00:49:39,210
But for the early Christians, it was just as important

630
00:49:39,210 --> 00:49:42,490
that Jesus could bring wholeness and wellness to people.

631
00:49:42,490 --> 00:49:46,650
The healings, for example, don't simply restore people to health,

632
00:49:46,650 --> 00:49:49,970
but they also restore people to their full place in society.

633
00:49:49,970 --> 00:49:55,850
They're no longer marginalised by their disability or by their uncleanness.

634
00:49:55,850 --> 00:50:01,010
The second reason these stories are essential, though, is that they're all revelatory.

635
00:50:01,010 --> 00:50:04,610
He's the bringer of life and the bringer of vitality.

636
00:50:04,610 --> 00:50:08,450
But the miracles often are interpreted in terms of stories

637
00:50:08,450 --> 00:50:15,530
from Israel's past, or interpreted in terms of the great deeds that God has performed with Israel.

638
00:50:15,530 --> 00:50:20,570
This theme of abundance occurred throughout Jesus' miracles.

639
00:50:20,570 --> 00:50:26,930
The Gospels record two instances where he intervened to create miraculous catches of fish.

640
00:50:26,930 --> 00:50:32,050
The first occurred early in his ministry, when Jesus was calling his first disciples.

641
00:50:33,930 --> 00:50:39,650
He told some fishermen that if they went out into the deep water and cast their nets, they would land

642
00:50:39,650 --> 00:50:45,290
a huge catch of fish, so much so that it would fill their boats.

643
00:50:47,010 --> 00:50:51,610
The catch of fish is interesting, because this is people's livelihood.

644
00:50:51,610 --> 00:50:57,770
It's a story that suggests not only that Peter, and then James and John, will be followers of Jesus,

645
00:50:57,770 --> 00:51:01,730
but also that their work will be effective and abundant in its success.

646
00:51:01,730 --> 00:51:09,490
Greg Carey believes that because of a modern cynicism about miracles, many historians have downplayed

647
00:51:09,490 --> 00:51:12,290
their importance in Jesus' life story.

648
00:51:14,530 --> 00:51:19,210
It used to be that scholars would rationalise the miracle stories of Jesus.

649
00:51:19,210 --> 00:51:22,490
For example, one scholar famously suggested that, that the story

650
00:51:22,490 --> 00:51:25,850
of Jesus walking on water involved an illusion

651
00:51:25,850 --> 00:51:32,010
that Jesus was actually walking in a very shallow place and the disciples just thought he was walking on water.

652
00:51:32,010 --> 00:51:35,090
And I think the reason that scholars interpreted miracles

653
00:51:35,090 --> 00:51:40,050
that way, of course, being modern people, rationalistic, being of a scientific age,

654
00:51:40,050 --> 00:51:44,290
is that they tended to regard ancient people as superstitious or naive.

655
00:51:44,290 --> 00:51:48,730
But the reality is the ancient people were suspicious of miracle stories themselves

656
00:51:48,730 --> 00:51:52,530
and they knew when something truly unusual was happening.

657
00:51:52,530 --> 00:51:57,010
So, chances are that what we really have with the stories of Jesus

658
00:51:57,010 --> 00:52:02,450
is that, in his own time and place, he did have a reputation as a miracle worker.

659
00:52:02,450 --> 00:52:08,530
Miracles and miracle-makers were a regular part of life for 1st century Jews.

660
00:52:08,530 --> 00:52:13,130
The Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible, is full of miraculous deeds that

661
00:52:13,130 --> 00:52:16,810
people would've been very familiar with during Jesus' lifetime.

662
00:52:16,810 --> 00:52:22,130
Every revolution in religion has to look like a natural continuity.

663
00:52:22,130 --> 00:52:27,930
That's the way to do it, so that's why it was very important to present

664
00:52:27,930 --> 00:52:30,330
Jesus as one of the prophets,

665
00:52:30,330 --> 00:52:33,810
and if you look at the stories of Moses for instance,

666
00:52:33,810 --> 00:52:35,930
Moses crosses the Sea of Reeds.

667
00:52:35,930 --> 00:52:37,890
Of course, Jesus doesn't have to

668
00:52:37,890 --> 00:52:42,650
split the waters, he can walk upon the water, that's one example.

669
00:52:42,650 --> 00:52:47,050
You have also stories about bringing people back to life.

670
00:52:47,050 --> 00:52:52,810
Elijah does it, Elisha does it, so Jesus will do the same thing.

671
00:52:52,810 --> 00:52:54,930
There are contemporary accounts from Jewish sources

672
00:52:54,930 --> 00:53:00,730
of rabbis who wandered the land performing miraculous deeds.

673
00:53:00,730 --> 00:53:04,850
One of the most famous was called Honi the Circle Drawer.

674
00:53:04,850 --> 00:53:09,290
His grave is still a shrine for Orthodox Jews today.

675
00:53:09,290 --> 00:53:12,850
In this area, we never have enough rain,

676
00:53:12,850 --> 00:53:17,610
and year after year you have drought in this area

677
00:53:17,610 --> 00:53:22,690
and Honi was the guy who could force God, you know, to give us some rain.

678
00:53:22,690 --> 00:53:27,250
He drew a circle, stood within it and told God that he would never leave

679
00:53:27,250 --> 00:53:31,210
this circle until God let some rain fall.

680
00:53:31,210 --> 00:53:38,730
And indeed, God listened to him, because the relationship between Honi and God was like a relationship

681
00:53:38,730 --> 00:53:46,130
of a father, God the father and Honi the son, in a way quite similar to the relationship of Jesus and God.

682
00:53:47,330 --> 00:53:53,290
Like Honi, some of Jesus' most famous miracles involved his power over nature,

683
00:53:53,290 --> 00:53:56,930
something that would've been very familiar to 1st-century Jews,

684
00:53:56,930 --> 00:54:00,370
steeped in the traditions of the Old Testament.

685
00:54:00,370 --> 00:54:06,850
"And Jesus awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, 'Peace.

686
00:54:06,850 --> 00:54:12,610
'Be still.' And the wind ceased and there was a great calm."

687
00:54:12,610 --> 00:54:20,250
This is interesting as Psalm 107 says that when the storms come up and make people out on the sea afraid,

688
00:54:20,250 --> 00:54:26,250
God simply commands the waves to be peaceful and still. And they do.

689
00:54:26,250 --> 00:54:31,970
So when Jesus does this, in the Gospel of Mark, the disciples say, "What sort of man is this?

690
00:54:31,970 --> 00:54:33,850
"Even the wind and the sea obey him."

691
00:54:33,850 --> 00:54:37,970
But readers of the Hebrew Bible know the answer.

692
00:54:37,970 --> 00:54:42,730
This is the man who's doing the things that only the God of Israel can do.

693
00:54:43,690 --> 00:54:49,610
Jesus' reputation as a miracle-maker clearly grows through the Gospels.

694
00:54:49,610 --> 00:54:55,130
More than 35 of his miracles are detailed and they frequently drew huge crowds.

695
00:54:55,130 --> 00:54:58,130
But one of the most dramatic was performed to just three

696
00:54:58,130 --> 00:55:05,210
of his closest disciples, when he was transfigured, revealed, as the Son of God.

697
00:55:05,210 --> 00:55:09,490
"And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like

698
00:55:09,490 --> 00:55:13,130
"the sun, and his clothes became white as light.

699
00:55:13,130 --> 00:55:18,650
"And behold, there appeared to them, Moses and Elijah, talking with him."

700
00:55:20,410 --> 00:55:25,370
Greg Carey believes that for 1st-century Jews the transfiguration would've

701
00:55:25,370 --> 00:55:32,570
had another symbolic significance in aligning Jesus with some of the most famous Old Testament prophets.

702
00:55:32,570 --> 00:55:39,970
Moses, who represents the Torah, the law of Israel, and Elijah, one of the foremost of the prophets.

703
00:55:39,970 --> 00:55:46,490
Moses and Elijah have in common in the traditions of 1st-century Judaism that both of them escaped death,

704
00:55:46,490 --> 00:55:49,450
that both were taken up into Heaven rather than died.

705
00:55:49,450 --> 00:55:56,930
So that, in the transfiguration of Jesus, you have a story that not only is dramatic, but beyond that,

706
00:55:56,930 --> 00:56:01,090
connects Jesus with the traditions of Moses and Elijah

707
00:56:01,090 --> 00:56:04,970
and it also, in some ways, foreshadows that this Jesus,

708
00:56:04,970 --> 00:56:09,810
though he will die, he's just told his disciples that he would suffer death,

709
00:56:09,810 --> 00:56:11,690
that resurrection awaits.

710
00:56:13,010 --> 00:56:18,170
For 1st-century Jews, Jesus' miracles were not only believable,

711
00:56:18,170 --> 00:56:23,130
they were a crucial part of being a successful rabbi and religious leader.

712
00:56:24,650 --> 00:56:31,330
The way Jesus performs the miracles in the Gospel stories is interpreted as a sign that he is God's agent.

713
00:56:31,330 --> 00:56:35,330
He speaks on his own initiative and people respond and say,

714
00:56:35,330 --> 00:56:38,770
"What sort of man is this, who's able to make the sea calm?"

715
00:56:38,770 --> 00:56:42,130
What the Gospels are trying to communicate is that Jesus acts

716
00:56:42,130 --> 00:56:46,570
on his own initiative, that he is the agent of God's coming reign.

717
00:56:46,570 --> 00:56:50,530
There's a story that Matthew and Luke share, that John the Baptist

718
00:56:50,530 --> 00:56:55,770
sends disciples to Jesus and says, "Are you the one who's to come or should we be waiting for another?"

719
00:56:55,770 --> 00:56:57,850
And Jesus responds by telling them, "Well,

720
00:56:57,850 --> 00:57:02,210
"the lame are walking, the blind are having their sight restored."

721
00:57:02,210 --> 00:57:08,370
That's the answer to the question, that in the coming of Jesus, the reign of God is breaking into

722
00:57:08,370 --> 00:57:13,610
the world and it does so by bringing wholeness to people and communities.

723
00:57:17,090 --> 00:57:24,490
According to the Gospels, Jesus was now established as a rabbi who could perform miracles and exorcisms.

724
00:57:24,490 --> 00:57:28,290
After John the Baptist's death, he had formed his own small movement

725
00:57:28,290 --> 00:57:34,170
and been revealed to his closest disciples as the Son of God.

726
00:57:34,170 --> 00:57:39,690
So now he could begin to spread his new teachings among the peoples of Galilee and Judaea,

727
00:57:39,690 --> 00:57:46,330
a dangerous message that would soon bring him into direct conflict with the ruling powers.

728
00:57:46,330 --> 00:57:49,810
In the next part, we will see how the Gospel story of Jesus

729
00:57:49,810 --> 00:57:55,490
reached its climax, resulting in the founding event of Christianity -

730
00:57:55,490 --> 00:57:58,650
his death and resurrection.

731
00:57:59,570 --> 00:58:01,250
I'd call Jesus a revolutionary.

732
00:58:01,250 --> 00:58:05,850
He did what revolutionaries do, he challenged the structures of power.

733
00:58:05,850 --> 00:58:09,210
The Roman soldiers were professional killers and especially they were

734
00:58:09,210 --> 00:58:13,690
good at killing people who were rebel leaders, which is how they saw Jesus.

735
00:58:13,690 --> 00:58:18,330
This was torture and we refuse to take it seriously.

736
00:58:19,730 --> 00:58:22,410
He is what Dorothy Sears calls, "The man born to die."

737
00:58:42,730 --> 00:58:46,490
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

738
00:58:46,490 --> 00:58:49,570
E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk