[air whooshing]
[camera shutters]
[ethereal music]
[vocalist harmonizing]
[eerie music tenses]
- [Bear Grylls] The history of humanity
is a history of humans seeking.
You can go to theology,
you can go to philosophy.
But if you want to understand
the actual journey,
you have to see things in
their geographical settings.
You have to look at where they fall
in the chronology of time.
You have to explore archeology,
the remains, the historical clues
because it's all connected.
[vocalist harmonizing]
[ethereal music intensifies]
[ethereal music slows]
Understanding history is
understanding ourselves.
And every now and then, a
groundbreaking discovery comes
and shakes that understanding's
very foundation.
This story starts in a little region
in Northern Israel, Megiddo.
[intercom speaking indistinctly]
[Commander Lavy speaking
in foreign language]
[Commander Lavy speaking in
foreign language continues]
- [Bear Grylls] The Megiddo Prison
is the largest in northern Israel
and holds the country's
most dangerous inmates.
In the early 2000s,
the prison was running
out of space so rapidly,
the prisoners were placed in tents.
Looking for a long-term solution,
the prison made plans
to expand the facility.
Everywhere you step in Israel,
you're treading on the
pages of ancient history.
Beneath your feet, layers of
time whisper stories of faith,
conflict, and resilience.
Every rock, every ruin
carries the weight of civilizations
that shaped our world.
Because of the vast number
of archeological sites,
anytime construction begins,
archeologists are required
to survey the site
to assure no historical ruins
will be disturbed or impacted
under new construction.
In the Megiddo prison courtyard,
some ruins of a Jewish village
dating back to early Roman times
had already been discovered
back in the 1940s.
So in 2004, a routine
excavation was conducted
to ensure there was nothing else.
[Yotam Tepper speaking
in foreign language]
[Yotam Tepper speaking in
foreign language continues]
[mysterious lilting music]
[Yotam Tepper speaking
in foreign language]
[rousing string music]
[Mark Avrahami speaking
in foreign language]
[Mark Avrahami speaking in
foreign language continues]
- [Bear Grylls] Experts date
the Megiddo Mosaic Prayer Hall
to 230 CE.
This structure played a key
role in the Roman village
as a public Christian
prayer and worship space
during a pivotal time period
when Christianity was not recognized
as a sanctioned religion.
It's the first of its
kind to be found ever
in recorded history.
Since its discovery in 2004,
the mosaic has been
locked inside the center
of the Megiddo prison.
In early 2024, it was
decided that the mosaic
would finally be
re-excavated and preserved.
[dog barking]
[sirens blaring]
In April 2024, the
Israeli prison authority
gave our film crew unprecedented access
to document the re-excavation process.
[gentle folk music]
[Mark Avrahami speaking
in foreign language]
[Mark Avrahami speaking in
foreign language continues]
[Yotam Tepper speaking
in foreign language]
[Mark Avrahami speaking
in foreign language]
[Mark Avrahami speaking in
foreign language continues]
[Mark Avrahami speaking in
foreign language continues]
[Yotam Tepper speaking
in foreign language]
[Yotam Tepper speaking in
foreign language continues]
[Yotam Tepper speaking in
foreign language continues]
[Mark Avrahami speaking
in foreign language]
[Mark Avrahami speaking in
foreign language continues]
- [Scientist] So this is a aerial scan,
this is actually a point cloud data.
- [Jonathan Henry] Wow. Oh my gosh.
- Yeah. So this is kind of
that new tech that's really-
- That is incredible.
- Really helping shape
how you can experience these things.
- I am Jonathan Henry.
I'm currently a lecturer
at Princeton University.
I teach ancient religion.
- My name is Tom Wright or
N.T. Wright in the long form.
- Yisca Harani.
I'm an independent scholar, educator,
and an interface activist.
- So many people think that a
mosaic floor, it's just rocks.
It's not very interesting. Who cares?
But this, when you get under
the skin of what it means
is absolutely fascinating.
- We know from historic documents
the Christian community
living under persecution
looked for places where it could gather,
whether it's in the catacombs,
the burial chambers of the martyrs,
whether it was in the homes of believers.
But this is important
because it describes a
uniquely established place
that was designed for
the Christian assembly
to come and worship.
- So this is extremely huge.
It's the most significant
biblical discovery
of the 21st century.
And there is hunger.
Millions of people hunger
for these historical discoveries
in these ancient writings.
- This church in in Legio,
I think what's cool about it
is it comes at this transitional moment.
Before Constantine,
you still have large potential
for this ethos of Jesus
and these memories of Jesus
to be just unfettered in many places.
- [Yisca Harani] The fact
that this is a meeting point
between Judea and the Galilee.
Now, these are two regions
that are world known
because of the New Testament.
And here in between these
two very dramatic regions,
we find the transition of a society
and the transition is
from the Roman pagan world
to Christianity.
Something begins to grow
and that is the story
of the Roman world accepting Christianity.
And from there on, it's
gonna go all over the world.
- With the Megiddo Mosaic,
you have geography that
is coming into play,
you have politics and political regions
and political divisions
that have a lot to contribute
to what's going on.
We have international politics,
language that's important.
It all comes clashing
in and blending together
in its own beautiful mosaic form
in the valley that Megiddo is located in.
- For me as a historian,
I wanna say let's go back
and see what we actually
know about the Greek world,
about the Roman world,
about the Jewish world,
and how they converged.
- [Jonathan Henry] Megiddo
was an ancient city,
it's just a really
important defensive position
over top of this very fertile
valley, the Jezreel Valley,
which is really what
you're trying to protect.
There was a lot of
agricultural significance to it
and it was very necessary for
the prosperity of the people.
And so this was a great position
for defending all of your people
and all of their
agriculture up in that area.
We're talking formative human
history with old Megiddo,
the beginnings of civilization.
- [Dr. Parker] Because of the mountains,
you have very few places that
people can cross east to west.
And so when you find one of those places,
which is the Jezreel Valley
connecting to the Harod Valley,
and you have a place that is wide and open
and a place that has a lot of water
and has plenty of agriculture and food
and it is almost a flat
terrain, you're just begging
for people to go east
west through that valley.
So a place like Megiddo
is on this really crucial
crossing point of the roads.
So it is a powerhouse city.
And the geography tells us that,
but then we can look at
the archeological record.
In Tel Megiddo we have 26
layers of civilizations
living all on the same spot
because the same spot was
always the crucial spot
to try to hold onto throughout time.
- [Bear Grylls] Infamous
for its bloody past,
Tel Megiddo lies less than
a mile north of the mosaic.
From the beginning of recorded history,
this site has seen more warfare
than any other in the region.
Many have translated
Megiddo as Armageddon,
a word steeped in both ancient literature
and enduring mystery.
Some believe this is a literal
place foretold as the setting
for the ultimate battle of the apocalypse.
- There are many differing opinions
about what it means and what will be.
There were many battles
that took place right there.
You see Joshua and you see
the children of Israel,
they come after the Megiddo
king in the Book of Joshua.
But many do believe
that there will be one final battle there.
You go to Revelation Chapter 16,
Armageddon, the battle
where good defeats evil
at the end of the age.
- [Jonathan Henry] Even if
a person has no interest
in discussing that aspect of it,
there's still that strong
historical background
in which this place was just known
as a b*ttlefield throughout
history up to the Roman Empire.
So when the Romans get there,
they didn't wanna set up shop
up on the top of the mountain
where the other fortifications had been,
they just looked at it and said,
"Look at those big long fields
and look at these mountains here
and we could put a big camp right there."
And the camp they put down was huge.
[otherworldly music]
The remarkable work of Yotam
Tepper back in the early 200s
led to the discovery of
this site that before,
nobody had any idea was there.
Legio is a fantastic discovery.
Legio VI Ferrata was there.
Legio just means legion.
It's what the Romans called
their different legions.
[Yotam Tepper speaking
in foreign language]
- [Bear Grylls] Legio can be found
half a mile north of the mosaic.
Of the entire Eastern Roman Empire,
it is the very first military headquarters
found from that time.
It is yet another once in
a generation discovery.
- [Jonathan Henry] Everybody
wants to talk about Armageddon
as a word, as a theology problem
or something to figure out and crack.
And then the archeologist
goes in there and goes, "Wow,
actually what we're finding is
also historical significance
that was completely
overlooked, completely lost."
We lost an entire legion
and Yotam Tepper managed to
get enough literary clues
and then also doggedly pursued this.
Yotam did something that like, you know,
the legendary archeologists
of the past were doing.
If you admire any archeologist,
he's right there with them.
- [Bear Grylls] In the spring of 2024,
the Israel Antiquities Authority
developed a plan to exhibit the mosaic
at the Museum of the
Bible In Washington D.C.
An unveiling ceremony of the mosaic
was held for the museum delegates.
- [Bear Grylls] With the
plan now set in place,
the greatest challenge still lies ahead,
to safely and securely cut the mosaic
out of the prison grounds
to bring the experience of the Holy Lands
to the rest of the world.
[dogs barking]
[intercom speaking indistinctly]
[dogs barking in the distance]
[workers praying]
[workers praying continues]
[vocalist harmonizing]
[discordant music]
[rousing folk music]
[air whooshing]
[vocalists harmonizing]
- [Bear Grylls] Here in the heart
of the old city of Jerusalem,
arguably the most sacred
city on the planet,
you'll find the origins of
humanity's deepest beliefs
and fiercest conflicts.
[voices chanting]
[haunting music]
Inside these walls lie the roots
that shaped our civilizations,
a legacy that is echoed throughout time.
[rousing lilting music]
[rousing music intensifies]
[tense rousing music continues]
[rousing music swells]
[rousing music slows]
[gentle ethereal music]
- [Bear Grylls] While
Israel is an ancient place,
it is also developing rapidly.
Located in Jerusalem, the
heart of the Holy Land,
the Israel Antiquities Authority
presides over all of Israel's
archeological discoveries.
[gentle lilting music]
They steward some of
history's greatest treasures
and use cutting edge technology
to understand and preserve them.
[Eli speaking in foreign language]
[Eli speaking in foreign
language continues]
[lilting music intensifies]
[lilting music slows]
- [Visitor] Shalom, shalom
Hello, hello.
- Okay, so hi. Welcome to the Metals Lab.
This is really where all metal
artifacts, including coins,
end up after excavations.
We treat about a thousand
and or more objects a year
and between 3,000 to 5,000 coins a year
that archeologists and researchers
can study and discover
as much as they can.
- [Visitor] And the objects from-
- Is that from-
- Megiddo-
- It is from Megiddo,
that is it?
- That's it.
- Can I take a photo?
- [Joe Uziel] I think one
of the important things
to take away from this
find, the Megiddo church is,
archeology is gonna continue
to make very, very, very
significant discoveries
which are going to
affect the greater world.
And this can be the Megiddo Mosaic,
this can be the street in Jerusalem,
which is currently being uncovered
by the Israel Antiquities Authority,
or this can be more fragments
of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
[low enigmatic music]
- This is the most important laboratory.
This is what "Times Magazine"
defined as the most important
archeological finding
of modern era, and we are the guardians,
the Dead Sea Scroll.
- [Bear Grylls] The Dead Sea Scrolls
are the most significant discovery
of ancient biblical and
historical texts ever found.
Widely regarded as the
single greatest artifact
for understanding the ancient world,
they stand as a powerful confirmation
of the accuracy of biblical literature.
What's even more fascinating,
the bulk of these discoveries
occurred between 1947
and the 1950s.
A reminder that so much
of our past remains buried
and is waiting to be uncovered.
- The Dead Sea Scrolls
are a group of documents
discovered in the Judean Desert,
which span 1,800 years of human activity.
Most definitely the most prominent group
are the documents which
were found in the caves
surrounding the site of Qumran.
The Qumran Caves yielded scrolls
dating from roughly the third century BCE
all the way up into the first century CE.
Within this collection of scrolls,
we also have the earliest copies
of the biblical text known to date.
[enigmatic music tenses]
Just on this one table
with about eight examples
of a huge collection of
over 1,000 manuscripts,
we have the oldest document that we have
written in Paleo-Hebrew,
we have one of the later
documents written in Arabic.
We have the biblical books
of Psalms and Genesis,
the first book in the
Hebrew Bible, Isaiah,
and then shift into this
additional biblical book
that is also found within this
entire corpus of literature.
We can only display a
scroll for three months
because we're minimizing
its exposure to light.
It will then be put into
our vault for five years
because although the
very, very dry climate
allowed these organic materials
to survive to this day,
they still underwent
several types of damage
including exposure to humidity,
salt from the Dead Sea,
worm holes which ate through
pieces of the fragments,
and an even bigger challenge I would say,
is making sure that documents and scrolls,
which survived for hundreds
and thousands of years,
continue to survive
for hundreds and thousands
of years forward.
This area at the bottom,
which is darkened due to the
exposure of the parchment
to moisture and the text
is hidden beneath it,
that text is brought
out and you'll see that
in the multi-spectral imaging
system that we have next door
in which using the infrared light,
the dark parchment disappears
and the carbon ink is brought out
and can be read very clearly.
This is basically taking us
into the next stage of
research on the scrolls.
Through consultation
with different experts
of different fields, a
technology that was developed
for NASA was implemented
and a multi-spectral
imaging unit was built.
[exhilarating music]
The purpose of the
multi-spectral imaging unit
was to provide objective,
steady images of the scrolls
under different wavelengths
and different exposures,
which each wavelength and exposure
brings out a different feature
in the fragment being documented.
- It's not only documenting
color image of the collection,
it also gives us an analysis
of the chemical and mineral
the substances that are
involved in the artifact.
For me it's fascinating.
So the camera gives us a
lot of links to history
that we cannot see with our eyes.
We can see things
that are not supposed
to be legible anymore.
It teaches us a lot about the
context of the text itself,
but it also can teach us
thinking in a wider spectrum
that everything has place somewhere.
Even things that we
cannot see with our eyes,
it's still worth to experiment,
to try to understand,
and see what is missing
in our links with history.
- We are now involved in numerous projects
which use these images as the data set
for we call projects within
the digital humanities,
using computer tools to
take us to the next level
of research in the world
of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Each of these things is another
piece, sort of another block
to reconstructing our
connection with the past
and how relevant that past is to us today.
And in that sense,
advances in the sciences
and the digital world will
continue to tell a story
because it's not just about
the new things that you're finding,
but things that were
found several years ago
and that we can now apply
new avenues of research
which could teach us more about them.
[poignant music]
- [Daniel Master] Tel Shimron
is a site on the northern side
of the Jezreel Valley.
When we look south, we look
right across the valley
and we see the site of Legio
and the site of Megiddo
every day as we come to work.
So one of the things that
we're doing at Tel Shimron
and you're doing with the
excavations at Megiddo
is that we're using technology
in order to reconstruct the
things that we're digging.
- Okay, level.
- [Daniel Master] One of
the first things we're using
that most archeologists in this region
are using all the time is photogrammetry.
We're using different
photographs from different angles
and using some off the
shelf computer programs,
we can reconstruct very accurate 3D models
using these different photographs
that we've taken from different angles.
And then using some of
our surveying equipment,
we can place those models
exactly where they appear on the globe
and have a wonderful record
of exactly what was there
before we started excavating
or before we remove anything.
The second thing we're doing
in order to record the
things that we're excavating
is to use something like LiDAR.
LiDAR, or laser line scanning,
use a laser that is
sent out from a machine
and we measure how long it takes
for the laser to come back.
And by measuring this, you
can figure out how far away
the thing is that it bounced off of.
And so using this, you
can get a full 3D picture
of the world around you.
[gentle enigmatic music]
- Once we combine and
use both technologies,
we can use a very accurate
data from the laser
with the high photorealism
from the photos.
So we get both accuracy and
visualization for this 3D model.
In the mosaic, we used
around 60 laser scans.
We took about 3,000 images.
In this project, the resolution
was the most important.
This is a visualization project.
They want to see each
and every detail in stone
and really small details
that you can't even see with your eyes.
A lot of insights come
from this kind of data.
In 100 years from now,
people can go back and
look at this mosaic.
It's an eternal documentation for it.
It will be like being there.
And we can share it globally,
not just for the people who live here.
[majestic music]
- [Bear Grylls] This
technology opens a door
to new research opportunities,
by giving archeologists around the world
a working of real-time
scaled model of the site.
And based on other evidence
from that time period,
the digital model becomes a foundation
for reconstructing a much
more accurate picture
of who these people were and
how they existed in the space.
[rousing string music]
- [Daniel Master] And this
is just one of the tools
in our toolkit in order to
carefully record the things
that are being excavated
and moved by archeologists.
One of the things that you know
from trying to understand the world today
is how hard it is to get good information,
how hard it is to know
what's true and what's false.
And on the excavation, we
face that problem even more.
Excavating is a way to fill
in missing pieces of the past.
And why that past is
important to each one of us
is less relevant than
filling in the missing pieces
for all of us together so
that we can all see the past
in as rich a way as possible.
- We're dealing with
little pieces of the past,
little broken shards
that tell us this story
that we're trying to figure out together.
When you see the conclusion
of the archeologist,
it looks to you simple
because it's been done.
The details of the chronology,
what year exactly is this.
It's all hard, but they're really trying
to honestly show something about the past
and it takes all of our perspectives
and all of our hard work
to try to tell that story of the past
as carefully and honestly
and reliably as possible
to understand the history
of this land as it happens.
[birds chirping]
- [Bear Grylls] In addition
to using technology
to understand these sites,
experts go back to the remains
and search for relics that
give historical clues.
In the case of the Megiddo Mosaic,
coins were found that revealed more
about the people who built it.
- This is the IAA Coin Department.
About 600,000 coins, 200,000
excavation coins, 340 hoards.
Coins come from a certain
context. They give a story.
The earliest coin found in
the Tel Megiddo excavations
is a coin that was minted
in the city of Ashkelon.
And what I see is a stamp of
the legion that was in Legio.
So what happened many times
is that there wasn't enough money.
When there weren't enough
coins, what people used to do,
especially when these Roman legions came,
is to re-stamp, to reissue
the coin, an old coin.
The coin sort of symbolized the transition
of the settlement from a pagan settlement
into the Christian period,
how the populations changed
also their religion.
Coins are historical
documents, they tell a story,
especially when they're found
in a historical, archeological context.
I think that's the most
powerful part of the coin.
You can really feel the Roman camp,
the soldiers, you know, using money.
And you know, 50% of the coins
that basically circulated
were used by soldiers.
That's an interesting fact.
We found this early
Christian place of worship
near a Roman camp and
that's not by coincidence
because there were two
populations in the Roman empire
that really were
attracted to Christianity.
One was women and the
other one was soldiers.
So I think that's sort of a connection.
There's a organic connection
between soldiers and the
start of Christianity.
And of course, this important venue.
- [Yisca Harani] The
fact that a military man,
which we usually associate
with being very practical, pragmatic,
people who are less than spiritual
and there is somebody who cares so much
to take from his own salary
and to say, "For God, I do that."
- [Dr. Parker] Gaianus,
centurion, our brother,
gave the payment of his own
expense as an act of generosity.
When we look at the physical context,
this is a very large
collection of Roman soldiers
who are put in the Jezreel Valley
to be guarding the interests of Rome.
And so someone of such status
gives money for not
just a little structure,
not just a dedication,
but to an entire building
and to the building of
this incredibly detailed
mosaic floor, this is no small thing.
He is tying his name, his
reputation, and his status
to this building that is very public
and in the middle of the community.
- [N.T. Wright] We know
in the New Testament
there were centurions in the Middle East
who built synagogues for the
local Jewish communities.
This wasn't a totally unusual thing to do.
Somebody who's stationed there,
who has learned to like these people
and actually wants to do his bit
and wants to keep the Roman
peace, such as it was,
it's not an unusual thing to
do from that point of view,
but it says that here is a Roman official
who is not frightened to
be known, to be associated
with this extraordinary
subversive movement.
And then the fact that
there are high ranking
or well off women who are contributing.
- [Dr. Parker] The inscription
that is on the western side
says, "The God-loving
Akeptous has offered the table
to God Jesus Christ as a memorial."
- [Bear Grylls] The centerpiece
of the mosaic is the table,
also known as an altar,
dedicated by a woman named Akeptous.
- And one of the earliest
rituals ever developed
by people who believed in Jesus
was commemoration of
Jesus' life and death.
Basically, his instruction to remember
and you see the word "remember"
even in these mosaics.
- [Dr. Parker] The eastern side says,
"Remember Primilla, Cyriaca, Dorothea,
and moreover also Chreste."
- [Yisca Harani] In the Roman
world, women were marginalized
and their role was pretty
much to make the men eat,
enjoy, and have security
in their family life.
- [Dr. Parker] The way
that this inscription ends
with the "and moreover also Chreste"
seems to set her apart
from the previous list
and the previous women.
This particular name Chreste
might be a sl*ve name
and potentially could refer
to Chreste being a woman
who was once a sl*ve but
is now a freed woman.
For one of them to have a name
that could be a sl*ve name,
possibly suggesting that
she's been a freed sl*ve,
means that there is some
equalizing of status
that is going on in this community.
And this is one of the
things I'm so fascinated by.
Why on earth are there so
many women who are listed,
especially when you have a
centurion who is also there,
and what role do these women play?
One of them is giving money for the table,
which is probably the place
where they're having the Lord's supper,
but why is she the one who
is given this designation
of contributing the money for that
and providing the blessing for the table?
- It reminds me of Mary
Magdalene of course,
and the other women that are
mentioned in the Gospel of Luke
that pay for Jesus' ministry.
- Interestingly, Christianity
was much more favorable
to women in the ancient
world than Paganism was.
And so some of the earlier
converts among upper class Romans
were among upper class women.
In the ancient world, women
were somebody's property.
They didn't have independence.
Ancient Roman men, if they'd
had enough children already,
if another girl was born, they
would just throw them away,
quite literally leave
them out for the wolves
or the gypsies or whoever to take.
We now shudder at that,
but we shudder because
we have been influenced
by the valuation of human life
that the early Christians modeled.
By the end of the second century,
there was an increase in Christian women
and quite often the Christian women
would then marry Pagans and convert them
or at least bring up their
children as Christians.
So it's a quite extraordinary story
which goes against what
we might have thought
if we come with the
assumption, as many do,
that Christianity is bad for women.
It certainly wasn't in
the early centuries.
- So women in general
were marginalized and yet,
we can tell from so
many other inscriptions
in churches around the country,
they were pushing I would say
the carriage of spirituality.
- Right from the start in Paul's letters,
we can see women taking
leading roles in the church.
In John Chapter 20,
Jesus is first recognized
by Mary Magdalene of all people.
And Jesus says to Mary,
"Go and tell my brothers
I'm ascending to my Father
and your Father to my God."
That is the beginning
of the proclamation of
the Christian gospel.
Paul's greatest letter
written to the Roman church,
he entrusts to a
businesswoman from Corinth
who's on her way on a
business trip to Rome.
The valuation of women was much higher,
which this is not what feminist rhetoric
has been trying to tell us.
- [Yisca Harani] This is a new message,
where women are so much
involved in the prayer,
they're involved in discussing theology.
I think it's very natural
that women are more drawn to
spirituality, but at that age,
they get the green light to be there
instead of ousting them out and
saying, "Go and fix the food
because we're coming out of
the prayer house in one hour,"
they are there.
- [Jonathan Henry] There's
a human dimension of this
and so every one of us at the
higher level of scholarship,
this is really ultimately
what we're trying to do,
is gain sympathy with people in the past
and understand in an empathetic way
what were they going through
that made them make that bad
decision or that good decision.
- [Yisca Harani] For me, the
three inscriptions are amazing
for specifically the people
that are mentioned there.
- So the idea of a building
like this turning up,
it's very exciting as a sign
of what archeology can produce,
but also as a sign of this
is this diverse community
which is establishing itself
to the point of making a very
attractive worship space.
And presumably it isn't the only one.
Who knows what the archeologists
have yet to discover.
- [Bear Grylls] While the mosaic describes
a unique group of people,
it also depicts a symbol
of a cultural revolution.
- In the ancient world,
names were important,
but symbols were also important.
And as far as we can tell
for the early Christians,
something about having a
symbol rather than a name
meant it could be cross-cultural.
[Yotam Tepper speaking
in foreign language]
[Yotam Tepper speaking in
foreign language continues]
- [N.T. Wright] Of course, the
Greek word for fish, ichthys,
the letters spell out "Jesus
Christ son of God savior."
So it was a wonderful secret sign
but which also hooked up
with the stories about Jesus
multiplying the loaves and the fishes.
- [Jonathan Henry] By the
time you get to Legio,
the fish would be probably
the most recognizable symbol.
Very simple symbol, but just
not common for anything else.
- From early on, the fish became
a very easy to draw symbol,
but which actually had a power,
the power of the name of Jesus,
but then the power of the belief
that he is the son of
God, he is the savior,
which then was able to
translate, as symbols can,
into other cultures.
- [Jonathan Henry] This
one abbreviated phrase
in the mosaics, it has a
line running across it,
that's an early example of
what they call nomina sacra.
And those nomina sacra
are used to abbreviate not just any word,
they're used to abbreviate
important words.
Words like God, words like
Jesus, and words like Christ.
The abbreviation itself, God Jesus Christ,
that's in this mosaic, those are not words
that we're accustomed to
seeing together in that order.
You don't even see it
in the New Testament.
Now obviously, Christians today
confess ever since the Nicene Creed,
Jesus Christ is not just Lord but he's God
and all kinds of language
to go around that,
that was not necessarily how
people talked before that.
- Was Jesus God?
People have been arguing
about this for 2,024 years,
so it's nothing new.
You have people that believe that Jesus
is an offshoot from the Egyptian gods.
You have people that say
there's no historical findings
that promote Jesus is God.
- And this is sort of the early picture
of what you see for the
rest of church history.
They went to town on working
out these kinds of problems.
Said Jesus Christ is God
or Jesus Christ is divine.
Not the God, but maybe in some way, yeah.
And this is where heretics
and Orthodox people
are fighting for it for time immemorial.
- Most groups at the time were
separated from each other.
They could take all options
and views about Jesus.
Here is just the first example to show us
that a mixed community with
Romans is choosing this path.
It's a huge deal.
- It starts in a lot of
ways with this desire
to tell your people what is the
significance of all of this.
The terms are significant
because now looking back through time,
we go, we don't have words in this order,
in this kind of a statement
that's a slam dunk,
Nicene Creed kind of a statement
a hundred years before the Nicene Creed
had come to that conclusion.
- I believe it was a strong
proclamation from them,
to say that the God Jesus Christ.
But what does that mean for us today?
You have people still
asking the same question:
Who is he?
Who would've ever thought a Jewish rabbi
from 2,000 years ago would
get this much reaction?
[gentle elusive music]
- The early church I
think does reflect Jesus
to a very large degree
in ways that are better than
we find anywhere in writing,
by the way that they died
and the way that they
lived with their neighbors
and the way that they
just made up their mind
they were gonna socially cohere
and get together and
make something new work.
- Though we today look back
and we call it a religion,
it certainly wouldn't have
been seen as a religion
in its own time.
Ancient religions had temples,
they offered sacrifices,
people went and consulted oracles.
The early Christians did
none of those things.
It's hard to say why
people became Christians
in the second and third
centuries particularly
when the Romans were doing
their best to stamp it out.
But one of the crucial things
is that in the world of Greece
and Rome, they had many gods
and these were all powerful
rulers in the heavenly places.
But nobody ever said
that Zeus or Aphrodite
or Neptune loved you.
Now the early Christians went
around talking about a god
who made the world and who loves you.
This is a totally new conception.
And the early Christians backed that up
by establishing communities
which were communities of
what we can only call love.
- It was a different kind of movement.
It had a completely different way
of understanding your
neighbor, your community,
than anything Rome had to offer.
- In our heritage with our
Jewish brothers and sisters,
that religious obligation
of caring for the poor
was also present.
In the books of the Old Testament,
there are many admonitions
that they too had an obligation
to care for the stranger,
for the immigrant,
this obligation for social
justice and social outreach.
- The early Christians said
things like Jesus is Lord
in a world where the person
who was called Lord was Caesar.
- People who rise to the
top and become so powerful
that they seem superhuman.
It's easy to build up a politician
or a leader to that extent
where when they reach
the top of that pinnacle
and they can tell a legion to
go and another legion to go,
they seem like a God.
- But when Jesus is called Lord and God,
this is in your face to Caesar.
It looks as if this is a
politically subversive group.
It was an entire movement,
which you might as well
call a political movement
or a philosophical movement.
- [Jonathan Henry] The Roman Empire
was very concerned about stability.
They did not like new religious
movements of any sort.
You look at some of the letters
that the leaders were
writing to each other
and they were first asking,
"Is this going to be a problem
or not, this new movement?"
- Pliny writes to Trajan in the
early second century to say,
"What do I do about these Christians?"
Had there been a law on the statute books
saying this is what you
do, Pliny would've known it
'cause he was a good bureaucrat.
So it looks as though
persecution was sporadic
and it tends to be the case
that the Roman authorities
go after the leadership.
There's a sense, we can't
go and k*ll them all.
From time to time, we
will round some of them up
and make an example of them
and maybe that will discourage the rest.
But it has the exact opposite effect
because they see these people unafraid
to face suffering and death.
So that is actually part of the reason
why this movement spreads.
In a world of violence
and cynical brutality,
Christianity is showing
that there is a way through
and out the other side.
[low rousing music]
- [Jonathan Henry] As Christianity
spread around the world,
early Christians stressed
the importance of Christian set of values
that's uniform across the world,
a Christian sense of ethics and behaviors.
That view was really unique in comparison
with the other conflicting value system
found within the broad
reach of the Roman Empire.
The book of 1 Peter says things like,
"Make sure that if you're persecuted,
it's not because you're doing bad things."
When you're living under governance,
it's not gonna persecute you
just 'cause you say Jesus,
they're gonna persecute you
because you say Jesus and
you stole, don't steal.
And it seems like a no
brainer to people now
because character training
and virtues training
is everywhere now, but
back then it wasn't.
And so that really
changed people's behaviors
to get a sense of it
was cultural critique,
it was incisive and it was
sort of socially adept.
I don't think that was the be all end all
of Christian faith.
He wants people to stay safe.
And in that culture, this is
how you structure households.
But for our Christian
living in the third century,
I don't think our centurion
was putting himself in
a huge line of fire,
at least not when he put the mosaic in.
Because he could point
to a contemporary emperor
ruling at this time who had devotion
towards various kinds of
figures, including Jesus.
Emperor Severus and his
family was very amenable
and fond of many Christian aspects.
- They are actually in this
place, in the Jezreel Valley,
taking advantage of this tolerance
from the Roman Empire itself.
- [Jonathan Henry] Now,
was it always favorable?
I'm not so sure.
The same area, you have
another emperor down the line,
Diocletian, famous for
being the worst persecutor,
the most systematic persecutor.
- This structure where these Christians
are gathering together
in Megiddo dates to 230
and it is only 50 years later
when Diocletian becomes the Caesar
where we have the worst persecution
of the Christian community.
- Diocletian had become
actually afraid of the movement
and said we need to do something about it.
He was also having financial issues,
inflation was breaking out.
He was looking to shore up
any kind of loss anywhere.
- I mean, Diocletian, he was a genius
from a financial and
military reform perspective.
He really rebuilt the
structure of the empire.
But he made a wide attempt
to bring forth a revival
of the old gods.
And whenever people
didn't want to comply,
he started to persecute Christians
and it got extremely bloody.
Diocletian kills 17,000
Christians in 30 days,
the highest amount in recorded history.
More than Nero.
- So for this community in Megiddo,
we have such a small window of time,
they can make these loud
and dramatic statements
about the lordship of who Jesus is.
But as soon as Diocletian comes
and that persecution comes,
they cover their floor.
- So let's just imagine the centurion,
he lives a long and peaceful life
and maybe the next person
who inherited this room
is the one who had to cover
it over and abandon it
because of the Diocletian persecution.
- It's a possibility
this is the reason the mosaic
floor is so well preserved
is because the original
community valued it enough
to preserve it, to cover it.
Maybe thinking at some point
they'll be able to come back
and worship in this space again.
- This room probably was not in function
for a very long time,
but it does speak to the
persecutions that broke out.
And within another 15, 20, 25 years,
things had changed yet again,
because you go from
Diocletian not too many years
to Constantine, who was famous
for doing the exact
opposite of Diocletian,
he Christianizes.
He raises Christian bishops up
to places of importance in his own court.
- The empire was too big
for its boots at that time
and was about to split in two
really, the east and the west.
Constantine and his successors
tried to use formal Christianity
as a way of holding things together.
- He had an incalculable influence
on the evolution of the
church subsequent to him.
The whole royal organism
started to be all about building churches
and supporting this new
way of doing things,
new way of being a royal court.
[cryptic music]
[cryptic music continues]
So Constantine is building
gigantic buildings,
the like which churches are
still looking at and going,
"How did they do that?"
All these building and
construction projects
were done with great intent,
you know, the placement of
them was often political.
The money was never an issue.
Things that date back to
connect an elite person
of such magnitude with a humble fisherman
from a couple hundred years before.
- When it becomes the state religion,
the state of Christianity
becomes something different
than what we see on this
mosaic floor in Megiddo.
- [Bear Grylls] The Roman
Empire eventually fell
after being the dominant world
power for over 400 years.
The most powerful empire
in history was outlasted
by the humble movement of a Jewish rabbi.
That movement's lineage can
be traced all the way back
to this mosaic floor,
when a small window of tolerance
some 20 years was given
and a pivotal piece of history was built
and now exists to tell the story.
[air whooshing]
[gentle soaring music]
- There is so much about
looking at the history
of who this historical
figure of Jesus was,
this Jewish rabbi who taught people
in this very little part of the world
for a very short amount of
time, three years maybe.
And yet, those teachings really took hold
and humans really responded.
- [N.T. Wright] If we believe
as Christians have taught for a long time
that Jesus is both fully
divine and fully human,
then the history and the
theology ought to work together.
Getting that to happen is much
harder than you might imagine
because often historians feel as if
they're pulling the whole thing apart
and reducing it to little fragments,
and the theologians often feel as though
they're floating in a hot air balloon
way above the subject somewhere
and never the twain shall meet.
- I mean, that's the journey
of people seeking history
and that journey is taking
place in a geographical context,
it's taking place in a
chronological context,
it's taking place in historical context.
Megiddo just exemplifies
how history and spirituality
or history and theology meet.
[bright exhilarating music]
- When we look at the
inscriptions on the floor,
we are seeing this element
of Christianity play out
just in the words that are written.
This Christian community that
worshiped in this building
was embodying the very teachings of Jesus.
- Material remains, buildings,
floors, inscriptions.
These are the ways in
and even the way the letters
are formed in the writing,
there is far more to discover.
And the more we discover,
the more coherent sense it will make.
[indistinct chatter]
- [Cardinal Gregory] There
are untold numbers of people
who have disassociated themselves
from their religious history.
No matter what faith they
may have belonged to,
to lose contact with your history,
in some respects, is to
lose contact with yourself.
How do we pursue the truth that is God
and how do we attain it?
Obviously there is a
great deal of disagreement
on how do you attain truth.
- In general the world is confused
because there are confusing claims
and bits and pieces of information
that are being construed in
a way that is oversimplified.
- When we are reading history,
we bring so many assumptions to the table.
We bring stories we heard as a kid,
maybe a story we learned in
school as we were growing up,
but history is complex
and the people of history are complex.
- When you're looking
at something ancient,
patience is required for this.
Look at the whole person
as much as you can.
Be empathetic with the whole person.
You might not have much more
of a person than their name,
but sort of the challenge is saying,
"I know there's a human there."
Human empathy and sort of
the passion and patience
to get into that will get you everywhere
in learning that we're not so
different from those people.
- Which is why it's
important to be self-critical
just as much as we are being
critical of whatever text
or material goods that we are looking at,
and this is why we have
to study in community
so we can have lots of
different perspectives.
- I have to acknowledge that
there is an objective truth.
Truth is not merely what I think,
it is a truth that is beyond
more than just my perceptions.
The way God fashioned us
is to give us the capacity to reach out
and search for Him and discover Him.
[bright rousing music]
[rousing music swells]
- [Dr. Campo] This is an exciting day
at the Museum of the Bible.
Today marks a remarkable day
because we are about to
unveil and cut a ribbon,
unveil a remarkable mosaic.
This object really is a way
for us to come together,
a way for us to see that
these tiny little tessera,
these tiny little chips,
these beautiful pieces
when placed together,
they tell a remarkable story of unity,
a remarkable story of a
place that brought people in
from many different areas
and yet they shared enough
in common to understand
that they were a people
who could celebrate,
who could worship, who
could come together in peace
and is what we come
together to celebrate today.
[woman speaking in foreign language]
- [Audience] Amen.
- Blessed are You, Adonai
our God, sovereign of all,
who has kept us alive, sustained us,
and brought us to this season.
Amen.
- [Audience] Three, two, one!
[audience cheering, applauding]
- [Dr. Campo] When people ask
you what is the earliest place
that has been found, that
was a place of worship
for Christian people
ever found in history?
You can now boldly say to them,
it's often called Legio or Megiddo,
and I saw it at the Museum of the Bible.
If someone asks you, what's
the earliest written form
that declares Jesus as God?
You can confidently say
that up till now in 230,
this mosaic that was
formed has an inscription
that refers to Jesus in that
fashion, and you saw it.
- When you go and you see the places
where the text happened,
you now realize the things
that you've assumed.
You start to gather more data points,
you start to understand the context,
and people become real people.
They become people who had
to grapple with daily life
in a way that we often don't think of,
feeding their families, doing
their jobs, living life.
- If I can be that
empathetic towards people
I will never meet in a text,
I'm rubbing shoulders with
people just like that every day.
You may not think of yourself
as a historical figure,
but you are.
We all are. We all inhabit history.
- [Dr. Parker] So the
context changes everything
about how we understand
these historical people.
- [Jonathan Henry] History is absolutely
still speaking to us and we should support
the historical disciplines
that are at work here.
- This is a huge living piece
of history and it's here.
It's incredible to see in person
and just to walk around
the entire exhibit itself.
- Young people aren't aware
of the history before them
and how hard it was for
people to get to this point.
- To give women this voice,
mentioning Jesus Christ is God
for the first time ever
that we have written
outside the scriptures, just amazing.
- It just shows you that God can work
in all sorts of different facets of life
and different backgrounds in history too.
- [Dr. Parker] This movement
brought people together
who were not like-minded.
It brought people together who
grew up with the scriptures
and people who grew up
with a pagan culture
and yet provided a space
for them to figure out
how to be a like-minded people.
[bright music fades]
- [N.T. Wright] The church
in its unity and multiplicity
is designed to be the small
working model of new creation,
to demonstrate to the
world who the true God is
and what this true God is doing
and will do and will complete.
We see this in the mosaic.
And so when they said Jesus is God,
this wasn't an abstract
philosophical proposition.
This was when we're with Jesus,
we know we are with the
God who made the world
and who is in the process of remaking it.
- [Yisca Harani] Megiddo to me is a place
where Samaritans, Jews,
Pagans and Romans lived.
And if they lived together,
at least for one century,
well maybe that can be a
lesson to this wounded world.
And I think for Megiddo,
this is maybe providence, I don't know.
- [Bear Grylls] The
Megiddo Mosaic is a story
of an unlikely community
drawn together because of a shared belief.
That belief was a bold
claim, that Jesus is God.
A statement that changed history.
And as the debate of Jesus
continues even after 2,000 years,
one thing is certain,
the story isn't over.
History is still speaking.
What will it reveal next?
[bright uplifting music]
[bright uplifting music continues]
[bright uplifting music continues]
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[bright uplifting music slows]
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[bright uplifting music continues]
[bright uplifting music continues]
[bright uplifting music rises]
[bright uplifting music continues]
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[bright uplifting music fades]
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