Focus on Israel

Laurie Cardoza-Moore: Hello and welcome to Focus on Israel. I'm standing in front of the archaeological excavation site of the Second Temple. On today's show, we're going to look at the archaeological evidence that proves the Jewish people have right to this land.

Hello and thank you for tuning in to Focus on Israel. I'm Laurie Cardoza-Moore, President of Proclaiming Justice to the Nations, a non-profit organization dedicated to educating Christians about their biblical responsibility to the Jewish people. Many Christians do not realize that the word explicitly tells us to stand with our Jewish brethren and defend the land God calls His.

Last week, we began our teachings on the evidence for the Jewish state. We started with the biblical evidence as I had a chance to travel to Israel and interview two leading rabbis who reside and teach in Jerusalem, Rabbi Abraham Greenbaum and Rabbi Yeshayahu Hollander. Today, we look at the exciting world of archaeology.

Okay, so it wasn't so very exciting until Indiana Jones came along, but now we have a much deeper appreciation for digging in the dirt and rocks. We'll see that there is plenty of hard evidence in the rocks and ruins throughout Israel that show a Jewish presence there for over 3,000 years.

Probably one of the greatest testaments to the Jewish people inhabiting the land God calls His are the many artifacts and ruins that have been discovered from the Golan Heights down to the Negev. Archaeology provides a valuable link between Israel's past and present. Thousands of sites have been excavated throughout the country, providing an opportunity to study its history and shedding light on the culture, society, and daily life of its inhabitants throughout the centuries.

Jewish history begins with the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob some 4,000 years ago. Many archaeological finds prove a long connection of the Jewish people with the land of Israel, and many prove the biblical narrative as well. I've had the great joy and honor to travel to the Holy Land several times to see the evidence myself.

Recently, I had the pleasure of traveling to the Golan Heights and exploring archaeological discoveries there with Dr. Hagai Amitzur of Hebrew University. I was amazed at the number of finds that included ruins from Jewish villages and synagogues, some over 3,000 years old. Israel gained control of the Golan Heights in the Six-Day War, and much of the world now sides with Syria in calling Israel occupiers of this piece of real estate.

For many years, the Syrians used this high ground to launch missile, artillery, and sniper attacks against the Jewish people below. Israel legally gained and holds the rights to their land per international law, as we'll later focus on in our series concerning the political rights over this land. Needless to say, from the archaeological evidence, we'll see how the Jewish people inhabited this area long before anyone of Arab descent.

Dr. Hagai Amitzur: There are hundreds, maybe thousands of findings that prove that point, starting from synagogues, burial sites, inscriptions in Hebrew. Mainly, if you go to the historical evidence and documentation, you can compare them with what we find in the surface and the area itself. Just go to Jerusalem. You can see Temple Mount with the Western Wall over there with all the evidence we have from the Mishna, from the rabbinic literature on one hand, and from Josephus, the Roman historian who describes and gives us an exact detail of what we have over there.

And things are being found: the Siloam Pool, the streets that go over there, the City of David, lots of things that were found all around the country. These are all the remains of Jewish villages that were excavated and found here in the Golan Heights. Each and every village has its own synagogue. They didn't have money from the government, from the Roman Empire, from the Byzantine Empire, or whatever. It means that each and every village collected the money only from its own people. And they were so devoted to building these synagogues that they were willing to give them.

We estimate that the cost of building a synagogue in those days was something worth, similar to today, something like two and a half million dollars. Just imagine to yourself, each and every village, farmers, not very rich, how many years did it take to build a synagogue? Something between 40 to 80 years because they were building it slowly and gradually. But that means that those who started to build the synagogue knew almost for sure that they would not be able to use it. If you were 30 when they started to build it, you'd be 80 or 100 when they finished. You built it for your children, for your grandchildren.

Katzrin, for example, is one of the examples of a Jewish village that was found and excavated in the Golan. In the Golan, until 1968, no one knew almost nothing about it because the Syrians were not interested in any scientific research. Since 1968, lots of research has been done. Tens of Jewish villages were found and excavated. About 40 synagogues were found and excavated.

One of the nicest and biggest of them is Katzrin, that was really turned into a museum that you can visit. You can walk in the street and the alleys of this village. You can go into the house and see the reconstructed house, see how the roof looked, how the windows, how the chairs and the tables and the rooms and everything over there. And in the center of a Jewish village, of course, stands the synagogue, which rises approximately something like 16-17 meters high, very decorated, very ornamental, very centered in the center because this was the center of the Jewish life in those days.

In Katzrin, for example, we are talking about a village from what we call in Jewish history the Talmudic period, or the Byzantine period in general history, which is something from the fourth to the eighth century CE. Of course, the question arises, how do we know this is a synagogue? Well, one of the ways to identify that is a synagogue is the direction of the building, pointing and directed towards Jerusalem. And of course, Jewish symbols that were found over there.

Maybe the most interesting symbol that we find in these villages to prove the fact that this had to do with Jewish origin is the Menorah. The seven-candle Menorah, which was taken from the Temple to Rome. We know that from Titus's Arch, from the monumental arch in Rome. This was one of the major Jewish symbols that we find in Jewish villages and Jewish synagogues from the time.

The answer to the question of how we know this is a Jewish village has to do with a couple of archaeological findings that were found over there. One is a cemetery with tombstones, with inscriptions, all of them in Hebrew, with Hebrew writing, some of them presented in the archaeological museum in Katzrin.

Gamla, as described by Josephus, is eastern to the Sea of Galilee in what today is called the Golan Heights. In antiquity, this was part of the Galilee, and there was no difference and there was no border between the Galilee and what today is being called the Golan Heights. Therefore, in archaeology, we find exactly the same synagogues, the same population, the same culture that we find on both sides.

Like we find in the Galilee hundreds of Jewish villages, we find in the Golan Heights tens of these Jewish villages with remains of synagogues and with Hebrew inscriptions, with tombstones, with lots of evidence that matches the documentation, the written documentation we have from historical writings of the time.

Gamla was the capital city of the Golan during the Second Temple period. It was the biggest city. It was built as a Jewish city by Alexander Jannaeus in the beginning of the first century BCE. It was the capital city and it is well known from the rabbinic literature and from the historical literature as well, like Josephus, for example.

Because this was the most fortified city and the biggest city in the Golan, this turned out to be a refuge for all the refugees from the other villages when the Romans came to attack. Eventually, Gamla fell in the hands and was destroyed. Gamla is something very, very special because it was never built again.

Laurie Cardoza-Moore: We see that like today, the synagogue has always been the center of Jewish life throughout the centuries. The archaeological evidence that Dr. Amitzur presented substantiates the Jewish claim and rights to not only the pre-1967 armistice lines, but to the Golan Heights as well. Dr. Amitzur is a man who is passionate for his people and his land. He knows that the Jewish people belong in their homeland and on the Golan Heights.

Also during my visit, I recently was able to travel to Jerusalem to see the City of David. The City of David is the original hilltop upon which King David dedicated ancient Jerusalem as his capital 3,000 years ago. Deep under the dirt and rock, the City of David has revealed some of the most exciting archaeological finds of the ancient world.

After the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel gained control of the city of Jerusalem for the first time in over 1,500 years. It was certainly a monumental event for the Jewish people all over the world as the capital city and very center of Judaism itself opened to them. The archaeological exploration of the City of David began soon after that and continues to this day.

It has fired the imagination of many scholars from different nations and backgrounds who came to excavate in Jerusalem. The remains of an impressive structure of the Monarchy period, founded on bedrock and built of very large rectangular stones, was discovered above the Gihon Spring in the Kidron Valley. It is believed to be part of the fortifications built at the end of the First Temple period, around the eighth to seventh century BCE.

It was built by King Manasseh, King of Judah, to defend the entrance to the Gihon Spring as written about in 2 Chronicles 33:14 where it says, "Now after this he built a wall without the City of David, on the west side of Gihon, in the valley, even to the entering in at the fish gate, and compassed about Ophel, and raised it up a very great height, and put captains of war in all the fenced cities of Judah."

The massive destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians is apparent both in the layers of charred remains and in the thick layer of rubble from collapsed buildings found on the eastern slope of the City of David. This hard archaeological evidence sheds light on the biblical description of the destruction of Jerusalem in 587 BC.

The City of David was resettled by the Jews exiled to Babylon who returned during the Persian period around the sixth century BC. Very recently inside the City of David was discovered the Bullae house, named for a collection of almost 50 clay sealings or Bullae with Hebrew lettering. They bear dozens of Hebrew personal names, two of them belonging to persons named in the Bible.

The Bullae uncovered in the City of David are one of the most important discoveries ever made in Jerusalem. During my visit to Jerusalem, I had a unique opportunity to talk with Doron Spielman, the Senior Director at the City of David excavation site. He explained the significance of the recently discovered Bullae. He also discussed the importance of this ancient site and how it proves the connection of the Jewish people to this land for over 3,000 years.

Doron Spielman: So here we are standing in the City of David, outside the walls of the Old City. But in fact, this little hill outside the walls of the Old City is Jerusalem from the Bible. We're standing at the footsteps of the Temple Mount. The Temple built by Solomon, the Second Temple built by Herod, just stands above our city, and we can imagine the people going from the city north as they prayed to God in the Temple.

The location I'm standing on now is especially important. This excavation behind us, which crews until recently have been cleaning, uncovered something absolutely outstanding. When we want to know what is the connection of the Jewish people to Jerusalem, how do we prove that connection in writing? Few people can go back 2,600 years and find names in the same language that they speak today, but here, in fact, we did.

Digging in this palace, which is known as the Palace of a gentleman named Ahiel because we found his name in the palace, inside one of the lower rooms, we opened up an area underneath the ground and saw 51 little clay seals staring up at us. We began to look at the names. They were all written in Hebrew. We ran and grabbed our Bibles and flipped through the pages, and in fact, three of those names appear in the Bible itself, the most stunning of which is Gemaryahu the son of Shafan. If we open up the Book of Jeremiah to Chapter 36, where the prophet is prophesying and warning the people of the destruction of the Temple, Gemaryahu the son of Shafan is his scribe and is recording every single word.

This site, in terms of looking around and understanding why I, why we belong in this land, we need look no further. At the top of this location lies a palace which many believe to be the Palace of King David. Inside the floor of that palace, two additional seals were found from the Book of Jeremiah, which appear in Chapter 37 and Chapter 38. The first name was Jehucal the son of Shelemiah, and the second is Gedaliahu the son of Pashur. Both of these people are placed side by side in the Bible as ministers of the king who went out to try to kill the prophet Jeremiah, who was preaching surrender. And as we go through this palace, we find them sitting there staring up at us from the ground and put the biblical narrative, the Jewish people living in Israel today, together, in fact.

When we want to understand where's the proof of the Jewish people in this land going back 2,000 years, 630 years before Islam was even invented, here I hold a coin in my hand which I carry with me every day. This coin says on it, it was minted by Rome 27 times, it says "Judaea Capta." Jews or Judah is captured. This coin is the Roman Judaea Capta coin in which Rome says the Jews were captured. It shows the picture of a Jewish woman standing under a palm tree with the Roman armor just beyond her.

And then this Jewish coin, which was found in the City of David, says Year Three. It's written in Hebrew. For the freedom of Zion. This goes back 2,000 years. These were found in the entire area going up to the Temple Mount. The Jewish coin, which was a response to this, is the small, humble, modest coin I'm holding in my hand. On this side, it says Year Three of the Jewish fight against the Romans for the freedom of Zion.

2,000 years ago, my people, the Jewish people, we had already been living in this land for 1,100 years. This had been our home for over a millennium. And when Rome came and exiled us from this land, our final cry was "we want the freedom of Zion." Today, when we come back to this land, we're simply picking up this exact same journey and beginning from where we left off. We're back in Zion, the Jewish people are back home.

And in fact, if we want to understand how we are indigenous people, who are the indigenous people? 2,000 years, my ancestors were forced out of their homes by the Romans, and today here we are back. And this is the proof that I carry with me every day, lest I should forget that my ancestors just a short time ago were fighting for what I'm fighting for.

Just a few months ago, in fact of January of 2011, I got a call from our workers at the site. They had been digging the underground water channel built by King Herod, which goes underneath the original road which went up to the Temple itself. Digging day after day, axe after axe, I got a call on a Thursday night saying, "Listen, Doron, tomorrow morning, first thing you have to visit the site."

My colleagues and I went into the tunnel on Friday morning, early in the morning, and they showed us that all of a sudden, after six years, the top part of the tunnel was open. They swung their axe the day before and it went into open air. We got on our hands and knees and we crawled through that tunnel, hundreds and hundreds of feet underneath the ground until we had no idea where we were, until we found a shaft of light coming into this tunnel.

It was like something out of a movie. We looked up and through the light, we could see the broken arch known as Robinson's Arch, which was the original entrance to the Temple itself. In that room, we looked around with flashlights and we saw inscribed on the ceiling a date: Second of July, 1875. In 1875, some explorer looking for the Ark of the Covenant entered this room from the top next to the Temple. We have no record who he was. We come over a hundred years later, coming from up underneath the ground and reach the exact same room. What we have is the original walkway to the Temple itself. The Temple's alive. We can feel it. We can feel it as we walk through. As you're crawling, you're crawling over pots and pottery and coins left there by Jews 2,000 years ago. They are the last people in. The doors were shut to this tunnel, and today we come back through and we reopen.

Laurie Cardoza-Moore: As the nations of the world look to divide up Jerusalem, here's archaeological proof that the Jewish people were here more than 3,000 years ago. Not far from the City of David stands the Western Wall, also called the Wailing Wall, considered the most holy site in Jerusalem and the land of Israel. From the times of King Solomon to the return from the Babylonian exile and the Hasmonean period, the Temple Mount in Jerusalem was a relatively small platform built on top of Mount Moriah.

This was the site of the Temple. King Herod's greatest building project was to double the area of the Temple Mount by incorporating part of the hill to the northwest and by filling up parts of the surrounding valleys. Herod transformed the Second Temple into an edifice of splendor and surrounded the Temple Mount on its four sides with massive retaining walls. The Temple Mount, the buildings, and the Temple itself were completely destroyed by the Roman legions in 70 CE.

The lower part of the Temple Mount wall was preserved and its remains are still standing. The Western Wall of the Temple Mount inside today's Old City of Jerusalem is the longest section, best known of the remaining Herodian Temple Mount constructions, is the traditional Jewish prayer area of the Western Wall, the Wailing Wall, which has stood exposed above ground level for 2,000 years now.

When the Israeli forces won Jerusalem back in the Six-Day War, the wall symbolized the return of the Jewish people to their holy site, and it was a joyous day indeed for Jews everywhere. Today, we've only been able to scratch the surface. There are far too many archaeological sites and places in the Holy Land that attest to the Jewish presence for thousands of years to see in one show. Places like Masada, Beersheba, the Elah Valley, the city of Dan, and so many more. All I can say is you'll have to join us as we dig a little deeper on future programs.

That's our show for today, and I want you to know we appreciate hearing from you. Please send your comments and questions to comments@pjtn.org. I receive such encouraging notes and emails as well as great questions from all over, from both US viewers as well as many from other parts of the world. In the mailbag today, I received several emails and letters I'd like to share with you.

The first one comes from James. "Thank you for the literature. I think your organization is great. My heart goes out to all of you. What a better world this would be if everyone made a stand like your program. I love your Focus on Israel. Keep up the good work. Your program and associates will always be in my prayers. I will send more money in the near future. Soon I will have a computer so I can start receiving your emails. Until then, I would like to remain on your mailing list for any future info. Thank you and God bless each and every one of you, James."

The next one comes from Jenny. She says, "Hello PJTN. I really enjoy your informative program. Thanks for standing up for Israel and exposing the Islamic agenda. Please send me your video 'The Forgotten People.' God's grace to you, Jenny."

The next one is from Kim. She says, "I watched Laurie on Focus on Israel today. God is making me aware of so many things that I've not been taught in my Christian upbringing. It makes me so sad. I feel I am so far behind. Things I have learned concerning the Jewish people and nation just over the past year, and even more so over the last few months, it just breaks my heart. I have begged forgiveness. I feel we are in the last of the last days. So much to be done. Any information that you have that you can send, I would be grateful for it. I am looking forward to your broadcast and I will be watching for it. May our Father in heaven richly bless and keep this ministry, Kim."

Then we have another one from Patricia. "Please put my email address into your address book and notify me if you have an event in King County, Washington State, as that's my residence. I support your desire to defend Israel against the rising tide of anti-Semitism and want to help the cause in whatever humble way I can. I'm deeply concerned with the events in the Middle East and how it will affect Israel and the US too. I was also discouraged yesterday when I read that the constitutions in Iraq and Afghanistan that we've helped create do not protect non-Muslims against persecution and discrimination. How can I help stem the virulent tide against Judeo-Christian values?"

The last one I want to share with you comes from Rosemary in East Java. "It is such a blessing to be able to watch you on Focus on Israel, Laurie. I was recently very disappointed to receive a reply email from a friend whose opinion I usually value. It was very strong disagreement with what I had shared about my support of Israel and PJTN. I am really ignorant concerning my Hebrew roots, the feasts, etc., and need to learn more. However, there isn't anything to learn about supporting Israel. It's all in the Bible. I cannot understand a strong Christian's apparent lack of interest in my search, but I'm really grieved by her choice to stand with Palestine. Anyway, our Father knows, so I commit her to His awakening. May you continue to proclaim the truth and be blessed in your faithfulness. Be bold, be strong, for the Lord your God is with you, Rosemary."

Those are such wonderful letters that I wanted to share with you so that you could hear from others who are being impacted by this program and that you understand how critically important this Focus on Israel show is. I want to encourage you again to visit our website and support our effort. Sign up to receive action alerts and order our films to share with family and friends.

I want to thank you for watching our program today. Be sure to join us next week as we'll be focusing on the historical evidence for the state of Israel. So please, encourage your family and friends to tune in and check the PJTN website for the program schedule for Focus on Israel. God bless you and thank you for all you do on behalf of our Jewish brethren and all Israel. We'll see you next time on Focus on Israel.