Original subtitles

An indestructible cloak

imprinted with a divine image.

Small fragments of wood

believed to possess sacred energy.

And an ancient Egyptian staff

imbued with the power of God.

Throughout the world, there are objects in museums,

churches and private collections

that are said to come from biblical times

and the saints and martyrs whose lives

were devoted to God.

Many believe that these priceless items

not only prove that the stories

from the Old and New Testaments are true

but that the artifacts also

have the power to perform miracles.

Could the objects we know as biblical relics

really be authentic?

And might they actually possess divine energy?

Well, that is what we'll try and find out.

While tending his flock of goats in the rocky hills

just northwest of the Dead Sea,

Bedouin shepherd Muhammed ed-Dib

spies the entrance to a long-forgotten cave.

Inside, he finds an assortment of dusty clay jars

containing fragments of parchment and papyrus

with writing in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek.

They are the ancient Jewish manuscripts

we now call the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The Dead Sea Scrolls are the oldest copies

of the Hebrew Bible that we have

by a thousand years.

Prior to their discovery,

the oldest copies of the Bible that we had

were from about 1100 AD.

So, these scrolls were arguably

the greatest discovery of the 20th century.

Over the course of the ten-year excavation project,

archeologists recovered more than 15,000 scroll fragments

from 12 separate caves.

And as scholars painstakingly pieced the writings together,

what they deciphered

was a lost history of biblical proportions.

The Dead Sea Scrolls are really fascinating

because some of them are books that didn't make it

into the Bible,

like the Book of Tobit, the Book of Jubilees,

the Book of Enoch.

So, this is a brand-new set

of other information about the Bible.

The Dead Sea Scrolls fundamentally changed the way

we read the Bible because it shows us

that there was another group of sectarian Jews

who had books in their Bible

that didn't end up making it into the Hebrew Bible.

And so now we ask the questions:

Well, why do these guys believe something that's so different?

And so, we probably have just as many new questions

now that we've discovered them than we had before.

The creation of the biblical canons,

along with their carefully chosen hiding places,

seems like a clear indication

that these manuscripts were considered very important,

at least for as long as time

and the fragile parchment would allow.

But perhaps the most intriguing discovery in the Qumran desert

was an extraordinarily well-preserved scroll

created to endure the test of time,

because this document

was intentionally made of copper.

The Copper Scroll is one of the Dead Sea Scrolls,

but it's unlike all the others.

It was actually discovered in what's called Cave Three,

the third cave around Qumran.

This scroll is entirely written

on a sheet of copper alloy.

It's about eight and a half feet long.

And it had been rolled up after it was engraved in antiquity

and set into the caves.

So this is really an astonishing find.

Obviously, there was a lot of thought into making

this particular scroll out of copper.

They wanted something that could go through

all kinds of catastrophes and still be able to convey

the information that it has inside it.

When it was first discovered, the Copper Scroll

was sealed shut by thousands of years of corrosion,

preventing scholars from unraveling

the secrets it held inside.

But in 1955,

English archaeologist John Allegro

and engineers at the University of Manchester

were able to carefully cut the scroll into sections

and reveal its ancient Hebrew inscriptions.

What Allegro discovered

was nothing short of astonishing.

His translations revealed that the Copper Scroll

is actually a treasure map.

The Copper Scroll is an inventory of treasure,

63 locations of a massive amount of treasure.

We're talking like $300 billion

worth of treasure in today's money.

The Copper Scroll is a list of locations

where one can expect to find all sorts of riches.

Gold, coins, artifacts.

So, many people have viewed it

as kind of an ancient treasure map.

Unfortunately, we've not found

any treasure associated with the Copper Scroll

because a lot of the vocabulary is strange

and the geographical places are unknown to us.

Instead of ancient scripture,

the Copper Scroll lists 63 different treasure locations

in the Judean Desert.

But as with any great treasure hunt,

there's a hook.

The locations listed on the scroll

either no longer exist,

are completely unknown to scholars

or just too vague to figure out.

This is the big mystery about the Copper Scroll.

It's very nondescript. It'll give a location,

and then it'll tell you how far down to dig.

For instance, it'll say something like...

And it does this 63 times.

So, the question is: Where is this place?

But we just don't know.

Could the Copper Scroll lead to a massive fortune

buried throughout the Judean Desert?

It's an incredible notion.

But if it is true,

then where did this treasure come from?

When you look at the treasure inventory in the Copper Scroll,

and it describes like 160 tons of gold and silver,

you have to be thinking about, well, who would have

160 tons of gold and silver?

The only place that would have that is Solomon's Temple.

And so the idea is that:

Is this a list of the treasure of the temple?

Because the temple, of course, has gold and silver.

What about the things in the temple?

Including the most sacred object,

the Ark of the Covenant.

Is potentially the Ark of the Covenant

one of the things that is hidden

in this, location of treasures?

According to the Hebrew Bible,

the sacred chest said to hold

the Ten Commandments' stone tablets

was once kept in a secret chamber

beneath King Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem.

But at some point, the Ark disappeared,

and nobody has seen it for thousands of years.

Could the Copper Scrolls reveal its hidden location?

The idea that the Copper Scroll

could lead us to, say, the Ark of the Covenant

is a tantalizing, maybe even a seductive idea.

The Ark of God is probably the most powerful relic

in ancient Israel.

And it's reported to have tremendous power.

I guess if somebody finds treasure,

then the mystery will be solved.

But until then, it's still in that mysterious realm.

Is the Ark of the Covenant

hidden somewhere in the Judean wilderness?

We don't know.

If the Copper Scroll really does lead

to the Ark of the Covenant, what happens if it's found?

How will believers react?

Perhaps the answer can be found by examining another relic,

in Mexico City,

a cloak imbued with divine power by the Virgin Mary

that is believed to be indestructible.

In a busy plaza just north of downtown

sits the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Every day, thousands of worshippers

crowd inside to pray and to show their devotion

to a beautifully illustrated garment

that hangs above the church altar.

It's a miraculous cloak

known as the Tilma of Guadalupe.

The Tilma of Guadalupe shows the image

of a beautiful woman

with her head inclined downwards and her eyes half-closed.

And she is wearing a gorgeous blue flowing dress.

It's all sort of celestial imagery of

gold and stars and, kind of, rays

shooting off of her. It's very, very beautiful.

Like the Shroud of Turin,

the burial cloth laid over Jesus after the crucifixion,

this cloak is an object

revered by Christians around the world.

In fact, every year, more than 20 million people

arrive to worship the Tilma of Guadalupe.

This astonishing figure makes it the single

most popular holy relic in the Catholic faith,

which naturally begs the question:

Just what is it about the tilma

that makes it so important to believers?

The Tilma of Guadalupe is a sacred image

that is thought to be miraculously produced.

The image originates from

a series of apparitions of the Virgin Mary

that appeared to a Mexican peasant

by the name of Juan Diego in 1531.

So, the story is Juan Diego is hurrying off

to see his friend Juan Bernardino,

who's very, very ill.

As he's going off to see Juan Bernardino,

he has an apparition.

And the Virgin tells him to go to a certain hill

and to pick the roses there.

This is a strange thing. It's actually in December.

There are not really roses around.

But he goes, and there's a beautiful field of roses,

and these roses aren't even native to Mexico.

And he gathers them up in his cloak

and goes and he talks to the archbishop

about this apparition.

He opens up his cloak and all the roses fall out,

and what's left is this beautiful image

of the Virgin of Guadalupe.

Is it possible that the image of the Virgin Mary

on the Tilma of Guadalupe

was miraculously imprinted on the cloak

of a Mexican peasant?

And could it possess divine healing power,

curing everything from cancer to infertility to paralysis,

as millions of devoted followers believe it does?

Part of the mystery around this is the fact that this cloak,

which is made of cactus fibers

and is now almost 500 years old,

remains in remarkable condition.

And we have numerous accounts of people

who attest to its power to transform their life,

to bring prosperity, to heal from sicknesses.

There are literally thousands of people

that are coming off the bus on their knees,

and they're walking on their knees

to get into the cathedral.

Because if you're there to petition

Our Lady 'cause you're sick, 'cause your child is sick,

'cause you want a blessing

for your daughter who's getting married,

because you want your son to get a job,

you don't come standing in a position of arrogance.

You come on your knees in a position of humility.

Could the Tilma of Guadalupe actually have the power

to bestow people with miraculous blessings?

Perhaps.

But what may be even more remarkable

is that the tilma appears to be indestructible.

In November of 1921,

you had a disgruntled man who put a bomb

in a vase of flowers very close to the tilma,

to the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

He wanted to blow up the church.

When this bomb goes off in 1921,

it causes destruction.

It damaged the altar.

It bends a crucifix.

It blows out windows in neighboring homes.

But it doesn't damage a cloth object.

For the devout, this is a sign

that this is something very special.

This is something that will be protected.

How can one explain the otherworldly attributes

of the Tilma of Guadalupe?

Even scientists are bewildered by the durability

and the detail of the sacred garment,

because when viewed in the infrared spectrum,

the painting of the Virgin Mary imprinted on the cloak

does not appear to show any brushstrokes.

And even more baffling

is the discovery of a hidden image

inside the Virgin Mary's eyes.

Using cutting-edge computer software,

Dr. Jos� Tonsmann

enlarges a photograph of the Virgin Mary's eyes

more than 2,500 times,

revealing a microscopic image

reflected in her pupils.

People have claimed that they can see

reflections of Juan Diego

in the eyes of the Virgin

on the cloak.

And so, the idea is that,

not only is this an image

but it's almost like a photographic image

of the Virgin Mary

that has been imprinted upon this cloak,

such that whatever she was seeing when she appeared

was actually captured in the image.

It's a very mysterious, very interesting claim.

Is the hidden image inside the Virgin Mary's pupils

a reflection of what she was seeing

the moment her likeness was imprinted on the tilma?

It's a fascinating notion.

And for the faithful, it's yet further evidence

of the tilma's divine origins.

Whether the Tilma of Guadalupe

is imbued with the power of the Virgin Mary or not,

there's no denying it is a truly remarkable artifact.

But as revered as it is,

there are other extraordinary objects

said to possess the almighty power of God,

like the Staff of Moses

that was used to part the Red Sea.

Among the gilded daggers

and precious jewels on display here,

there are a number of objects

that allegedly date to biblical times.

These include a sword supposedly used by King David

to kill the giant Goliath,

hairs from the beard of the Prophet Muhammad,

and a wooden rod

which is claimed to be the actual

Staff of Moses.

This palace used to be

the residence of an Ottoman sultan.

And he was given many precious gifts over the years,

and one of the things that evidently he was given

was the Staff of Moses.

The Staff of Moses is mentioned in association with Moses

in the Book of Exodus.

And the first time that we hear about it,

it seems to just be a walking stick.

But as time goes by in the story of Exodus,

it really seems kind of like a magic wand.

Could the wooden rod on display in the Topkapi Museum

be the actual Staff of Moses?

As incredible as it sounds,

many people believe the answer is yes.

Which makes the claim even more extraordinary

because, according to biblical tradition,

the Staff of Moses was imbued with miraculous powers.

The Staff of Moses first is used in Exodus chapter seven,

when Moses confronts Pharaoh about letting the Israelites go.

He casts down his staff. It turns into a serpent.

The second instance it's used is when we have the ten plagues.

And in the first of these plagues,

Moses uses the tip of his staff dipped into the Nile

and turns the Nile into a red color like blood.

But perhaps the most awesome display

of the staff's divine force occurs in Exodus 14,

when Moses raises the rod above his head

and parts the Red Sea.

In the Exodus narrative, the Israelites

are there at the Red Sea.

They're being chased by the Egyptians,

and God basically says, "Moses, take your staff,

hold it over the waters, and the waters will part."

And the minute that the Israelites start walking,

the waters of the Red Sea part.

The minute the Egyptians come after them,

the waters of the Red Sea collapse upon them.

Is it possible that the unassuming wooden rod

displayed in the Topkapi Museum

is the same staff that Moses used to free the Israelites?

It may come as no surprise

that many experts doubt its authenticity.

It is simply not possible

to follow the provenance of the Staff of Moses.

And the staff that is in the museum in Istanbul,

there's just no way, there's just no way

of authenticating this as the Staff of Moses.

All we have is legend and tradition.

One real mystery is that we don't know

what happens to the staff after the end of Moses.

One story is that it gets passed down

through the Davidic line.

King David has the staff.

He uses it as a scepter.

At that point, we kind of lose sight of it.

If it's true that the mystical artifact

disappeared from history, then what happened to it?

Author and relic hunter Graham Phillips has a theory.

He's been researching the Staff of Moses for decades,

and according to his research,

there's a wooden rod in the Birmingham Museum in England

that was said to be found in the ancient tomb

where Moses was supposedly laid to rest.

We're told that Moses was buried at a place called Petra.

So, somewhere in Petra, in this valley,

there's something there called the Snake Monument,

and it dates from the right time, from Moses' period.

And in the middle of the 19th century,

a couple of archeologists went there,

excavated a cave beneath it

and believed that they had found the tomb of Moses.

The problem was, there was no body in it.

It had been robbed at some point,

but there was, all covered in dust and debris, a staff.

Eventually, this staff ended up

in the Birmingham Museum.

And there, in this glass case, was this staff

exactly as described by these guys who'd found it.

Dark-colored, about four feet long

with Egyptian hieroglyphics in white on them.

I couldn't believe it.

According to the Bible,

before Moses became a Hebrew leader,

he was a prince of Egypt.

And the hieroglyphics on the Birmingham Museum staff

says it belonged to a member of the royal Egyptian court

named Tuthmosis.

A name that bears an undeniable similarity

to the legendary prophet Moses.

It says, in Egyptian hieroglyphics on this staff,

"This belongs to Tuthmosis."

So, you've got a person whose name

could've been Moses, who had been a prince in Egypt.

I mean, if that's not Moses' staff, I don't know what is.

Could the legendary Staff of Moses

really still exist and be displayed

in a museum in Istanbul or in England?

It's an extraordinary possibility.

But perhaps even more compelling

is a small piece of wood held in safekeeping at the Vatican,

which, according to Christian tradition,

was once part of the True Cross.

On May 6th, 2023,

the Prince of Wales was crowned King Charles III

in a coronation ceremony that honored

both the secular and the spiritual role of the monarch.

Included in the coronation that day

was a very special object

commissioned specifically for the ceremony

called the Cross of Wales.

What makes this cross so special

is that it contains two tiny slivers of wood

that are believed to be part of the True Cross.

The True Cross refers to pieces of the cross

on which Jesus was crucified.

So, the idea is that this is not just any old cross.

And you can imagine the importance of this, relic

because we have very few relics associated with Jesus.

The True Cross is very important to Christian believers

because it directly had contact with Jesus's body.

Jesus suffered on that cross. Jesus bled on that cross.

And believers feel that, if they can be in the presence

of that cross, be in the presence of that wood,

that they can feel themselves connected back

to Jesus Christ himself.

For the past 2,000 years, the surviving artifacts

from Jesus's crucifixion

have been deeply revered by believers.

Relics such as the bloodstained cloth,

known as the Sudarium, that was draped over Christ's head

or the Shroud of Turin, which covered Jesus's body

after his death,

are some of the most sacred objects

in the Christian religion,

and they are said to be blessed with incredible power.

With Jesus relics especially, the idea is that they contain

a power, a sacredness, a-a holiness.

Sometimes, the object itself has great power.

For example, the Shroud of Turin

is literally the burial cloth of Jesus.

It has touched Jesus.

Jesus has been resurrected, and he leaves the cloth behind.

So there's a power associated with this.

There are often occurrences,

miraculous healings that come from this.

So, you can see the importance of that for Christians.

And so, what more important relic than the True Cross,

a piece of the cross on which Jesus was crucified?

Today, slivers of the True Cross

are present in churches all around the world,

where they are revered by hundreds

of millions of worshippers.

But how do we know that these tiny splinters

were actually once part of the cross

upon which Jesus was crucified?

The Romans crucified

tens of thousands of people over a long period of time.

Now, the Bible never mentions anywhere

what happens to the cross after Jesus's crucifixion.

It talks about how his body was taken down from the cross

by Joseph of Arimathea,

but it doesn't say anything about what happens

to the cross itself.

In Christian tradition,

the True Cross is discovered by Helena,

the mother of the Emperor Constantine.

Helena was a convert to Christianity.

And in the early fourth century,

she embarks on a pilgrimage in Jerusalem

to walk the steps of Jesus

to visit the site of his crucifixion.

She's taken to what we now know

as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

And while there, she seeks out and discovers

three crosses in an area

that is close by the tomb where Jesus was buried.

Which one is the True Cross?

We have a fascinating story

of how she actually came to find out

which was the True Cross.

What Helena decided to do was take this woman,

this poor old woman who was near death,

and they brought her out,

and they laid her on one of these crosses,

and she let out a groan and she was in agony.

And they said, "Well, it's not that one."

And so, they took her and they put her on the next cross,

and she was screaming and hollering and just near death.

She goes, "Not that one."

And they put her on the third cross,

and she was instantly healed.

And she got up and started walking around, and they said,

"Well, clearly, this is the cross of Christ."

And from that point on, that became the cross of Christ.

According to the story,

Helena had a piece carved off the True Cross,

which she took to Constantinople for safekeeping.

Over the next few centuries,

this relic was further whittled down

by churches seeking to obtain slivers as relics of their own.

But for the faithful,

each one of these tiny pieces of the True Cross

possess the full divine power of the original.

The interesting thing about biblical relics

is that no matter how many times you divide up a biblical relic,

it maintains the same kind of miraculous power.

Every piece of the True Cross

has equal power to the entire cross.

This has become the main symbol now for Christianity.

So, to have a piece literally of the cross

on which Jesus is crucified is priceless.

It's incalculable, the value of this.

It's understandable why the True Cross

is one of the most revered holy relics on Earth,

but that's not the only artifact believed

to have survived the crucifixion.

Pieces of the crown of thorns that once adorned

the head of Christ can also be found around the world,

including one on display in an Italian Cathedral that,

to this day, still appears to bleed.

The world watches in horror

as a massive fire rips through

the historic Cathedral of Notre-Dame.

As the blaze rages on for the next 15 hours,

experts fear that many of the priceless holy relics

kept within the cathedral will be consumed by the flames.

Including one of the most sacred

in the entire Christian religion, the holy crown,

or as it is more commonly known, the crown of thorns.

The crown of thorns is an important biblical relic

in the story of Jesus's Passion, his crucifixion.

At one point, when he's about to be put on the cross,

the Roman soldiers are mocking him,

and one of the soldiers takes a thorny vine

and twists it into a crown,

and they force that down on Jesus's head.

The crown of thorns is described in the Bible

as a circlet of thorny branches that

probably came from what's called the jujube,

also known as the Christ thorn tree

because it's a tree that puts out very long thorns

on branches that can be woven into a crown,

so it would've caused excruciating pain,

and would've also resulted

in a lot of blood on Jesus's face.

Despite the devastation caused by the Notre-Dame fire of 2019,

miraculously, the holy crown was saved from destruction.

And as images of the sacred relic began to circulate,

many were surprised to learn that the crown of thorns

no longer held any of its piercing barbs.

The thing about the crown of thorns is that

these thorns could be snapped off

and given away as different sorts of relics

to different places.

And these were kind of dispatched.

They were sent all over Christendom.

Anything that touches

a holy person has the potential to also become a relic.

And so, something like the thorns,

which would've actually pierced the flesh of Jesus,

that had been covered in the blood of Jesus,

it's hard to imagine a relic

more powerful than something like this.

It is believed that these relics

had amazing power,

that they could heal people of sickness.

By being close to them,

you could be imbued with spiritual powers.

So, in other words, they had divine properties.

While scholars debate the number of thorns

that were originally on the holy crown,

today, there are dozens of churches all around the world

that claim to possess one of these sacred relics.

And among them is a thorn that appears to be

nothing short of miraculous.

There's a church in Italy, in Andria,

that has a thorn from the crown of thorns.

And on March 25th, 2016,

in this church in Andria, the thorn begins to bleed.

The church maintains that it is an authentic relic,

and they claim that, every time that Good Friday

falls on a March 25th,

the thorn itself bleeds.

And this has been widely seen

and was shown around as a great miracle.

What could explain the miraculous powers

of the bleeding thorn at Andria Cathedral?

Its mere existence is an undeniable confirmation

of the mysteries of faith.

The Christian faith had its central figure, Jesus,

ascend into heaven.

There are no remains of Jesus from his tomb.

And so, if you could say,

"I believe in him, but how do I prove this faith?"

Well, here, these are the thorns of this crown of thorns,

and then that gives a little tangibility to that faith.

But not all relics are so easily accepted as authentic.

Like an ancient limestone box

that is claimed to have once held the remains

of the brother of Jesus Christ.

On the third floor of the Royal Ontario Museum,

a remarkable artifact is put on display.

At the time, patrons don't know

this humble object will soon become

one of the most controversial holy relics in history.

It is an empty limestone box dating to the first century AD,

known as the James Ossuary.

Ossuary literally means "bone box."

So, in Judaism, in the time of Jesus particularly,

ossuaries were very common for Jewish burial.

The Jewish practice was, when a person died,

the skeletal remains would be gathered up

and placed in a niche or in an ossuary.

And there were thousands of these made.

But what was valuable about these ossuaries

is people's names would be written on them.

In the case of the James Ossuary,

the name of the person whose bones it holds

is inscribed in Aramaic.

Which, when translated to English,

reveals something astonishing.

The story of the James Ossuary itself

first came to attention in 2002

when an Israeli antiquities dealer

by the name of Oded Golan announced its discovery.

Now, he claimed to have bought it

on the antiquities market in the 1970s.

And most certainly, this ossuary would attract

worldwide attention and fame

and perhaps even fortune, for its discoverer.

If you're a Christian, if you know the Bible,

you know that James is one of the key figures

in early Christianity.

James the Just, as-as he's known within the church,

the brother of Jesus.

And so, if this ossuary

literally is the bone box of James,

then you've got direct archeological evidence

for Jesus.

Now, of course, there's controversy around this.

Of the thousands of bone boxes recovered

from the time of Jesus, could the James Ossuary

have once held the remains of his actual brother?

It's an extraordinary notion.

So extraordinary, in fact, that not everyone was convinced

of the James Ossuary's authenticity.

In a case that would become known as

the forgery trial of the century,

the Israeli government charged Oded Golan

in December of 2004 with 44 counts

of fraud related to the James Ossuary.

The trial lasted seven years.

There was hundreds of thousands of pages of testimony,

and one of the main pieces of evidence

was the patina in the letters.

Patina is this sort of surface coating

that gets on stone,

and when it was examined microscopically

by several very major authorities,

they found these fossilized microbes.

And so, there was original patina

on the surface and inside the inscription.

That can't be forged.

When the verdict came through, the judge ruled

there's no evidence that Oded Golan forged it.

To date, the James Ossuary

is one of the few relics associated with Jesus

that has been tested both scientifically

and in a court of law.

And if the James Ossuary is authentic,

as many now believe,

it would be one of the most valuable

biblical artifacts ever discovered.

But like so many other objects, we may never know the truth.

Remember that people of faith are using these objects

as a means by which to connect to the divine.

Is there a credible provenance

of all of these articles, all of these objects, these relics?

And therein lies the mystery.

The Bible is not meant to be a history book.

It's a mythological book.

But today, we've got 3D imaging.

We've got artificial intelligence.

We've got all kinds of spectrographical analysis.

And there's certain things that we can point to and say,

"we actually have historical evidence.

This actually is a miraculous object."

It's intriguing to think that artifacts

from more than 2,000 years ago might still be uncovered

and added to the collection of revered objects

we know as holy relics.

Regardless if one thinks they are real or not,

these artifacts hold both historical importance

and profound spiritual connection

for those who believe.

And in any case,

whether they are charged with divine energy

or operate on the power of faith itself,

the mystery of ancient biblical relics

remains unexplained.

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