Original subtitles

[Archaeologist] Coin!

[beeping]

[Narrator] On the shores of the Sea of Galilee,

a team of archaeologists investigates

the ruins of an ancient town.

Very beautiful.

Come on, come on.

Careful!

[Narrator] Among the 2,000-year-old treasures...

Motti, come over.

[Narrator] ...they brush the dust

from a mysterious inscription.

[Archaeologist] I don't think it is rare; I think it is unique.

I don’t know any other inscription that is even close.

This is the first one, and the only one.

[Narrator] It's an ancient text that sheds light on the truth

behind the life and death of Jesus Christ.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

The stories in the Bible are famous across the world.

They tell of great battles between good and evil,

earth-shaking catastrophes

and epic heroes.

Now, new archaeological discoveries

buried in the Middle East for thousands of years

shed light on the real events that inspired these legends.

For millions, Jesus is both the son of God

and an actual historical figure.

According to the Gospels, he was a spiritual leader

who performed miracles before being put on trial

for blasphemy, executed and buried.

Christians believe he rose again to save humanity.

But what historical evidence exists

about the real people, places and events

that shaped Jesus’ existence?

Today, international teams of archaeologists are digging

the ancient lands where he lived

for new clues about the story of Jesus,

and the final tumultuous days of his life.

They battle challenging conditions.

[Archaeologist] We couldn't start working

because the big trees were still on fire.

[Narrator] And investigate hidden locations.

[Historian] This is one of the most surprising finds

of the church.

[Narrator] To unlock the secrets of the man whose life and death

gave rise to a whole new religion:

Christianity.

In the holy ancient city of Jerusalem

lies for many the most sacred Christian basilica

in the world.

Yisca Harani, an expert in Christian history,

has studied the Church of the Holy Sepulchre for decades.

[Yisca] This is fascinating and exciting,

the longest surviving and operating place of worship

in the city of Jerusalem.

[Narrator] The church is said to be built

on what the Bible calls the Hill of Golgotha,

the place where Jesus was crucified and buried nearby.

The New Testament says that after his death on the cross,

Jesus' followers took his body to a nearby rock-cut tomb

where he was laid to rest

before rising again three days later.

Over the centuries, the church has been damaged and rebuilt

many times, burying potential evidence

of the original landscape and Jesus’ tomb deep underneath.

But stepping inside, Yisca finds the church still follows

the contours of the biblical landscape.

[Yisca] So we are ascending perhaps

the holiest mountain in Jerusalem.

[Narrator] At the top of the stairs is a sacred shrine.

[Yisca] It is here that you see an altar,

raised above the place where the cross was stuck into the ground.

[Narrator] Glass cases reveal the bedrock of Golgotha below.

[Yisca] You go down to the roots of this church,

stratigraphically, the roots are the topography of Jerusalem

in Jesus’ times.

[Narrator] Finally, in the center of the church,

Yisca reaches the Edicule.

[Yisca] This is the most prominent structure

to signify here is the tomb of Jesus.

♪ ♪

So we have entered the Chapel of the Angel.

According to the New Testament,

an angel was there when the tomb opened.

Here, where you see this altar,

that's a remnant of the rolling stone

that was closing the chamber of the burial.

[Narrator] A narrow entranceway leads into the chamber

of the most Holy Sepulchre, the closest visitors can get

to what is believed to be Jesus’ burial place.

[Yisca] It is here that you see the marble stone

protecting the place where the body was laid.

[Narrator] For many Christians,

this is the most sacred site in the world.

But archaeologists want to know if this is the real

burial place of Jesus.

It's a quest for truth that began over 1,600 years ago.

Around 325 CE, Rome's first Christian emperor Constantine,

sent his mother to Jerusalem to find physical traces

of the life and death of Jesus.

It was believed his tomb lay buried under a pagan temple

honoring Venus, which she ordered to be demolished.

As workers excavated the ground,

they unearthed a cave with an intact tomb.

Emperor Constantine built a majestic church above the tomb

to honor the place where he believed

Jesus came back to life.

Today, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre still stands

on the site of Constantine's original church,

and is run by several Christian communities

including the Greek Orthodox, the Roman Catholic,

and the Armenian Apostolic Churches.

But today's experts are intrigued

by how Constantine's mother could have been so sure

about the location of Jesus’ tomb.

Yisca notes a puzzling contradiction.

According to the Bible, Jesus was crucified

outside of Jerusalem’s city walls.

[Yisca] Jews would not bury their dead

inside the city walls.

That's why cemeteries throughout the Jewish world

are always outside the walls.

[Narrator] Yet the Church of the Holy Sepulchre,

under which Jesus was said to be crucified and buried,

sits firmly within the ancient city walls.

Yisca will need to investigate further

to make sense of this mystery.

Most historians believe a person called Jesus

really lived and was crucified by the Romans,

with around three to four independent sources

from within a century of his death.

So how close can we get

to the real historical figure of Jesus?

The investigation moves to the shores of the Sea of Galilee.

80 miles north of Jerusalem,

at a site called El Araj,

a team of archaeologists is beginning

an ambitious excavation

that could reveal clues about Jesus’ life.

Archaeologist Mordechai "Motti" Aviam

is in charge of the dig.

[Mordechai "Motti" Aviam] Open your eyes and take all pottery

that you see, that’s very important.

I enjoy every dig.

I enjoy excavating everywhere.

But digging here, this site became very interesting for me.

Good jobs you are doing here. Good luck.

[Worker] Thank you.

[Narrator] Motti and the team believe this area could be

hiding the remains of one of the most famous miracle sites

in the New Testament:

an ancient fishing settlement called Bethsaida.

[Motti] Bethsaida, the meaning is "the house of the fishermen."

[Narrator] It was a place that played

a central role in Jesus’ life.

[Motti] It was the home place of three of Jesus' disciples.

And Jesus himself, according to the New Testament,

visited the site and made miracles at the site,

and it was very, it was well known.

[Narrator] Almost no other place features in the Gospels,

the Books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John,

as much as Bethsaida.

But for many centuries, its location has been lost.

Motti and the team want to find out

if this could be the famous biblical village.

First, the team begins scouring the ground

for any signs of ancient metal to date the site.

[Archaeologist] Coin!

[beeping]

Coin.

[Motti] Ring the bell, ring the bell.

[bell rings]

A tiny, small coin from the Byzantine period,

mainly 5th century.

[Narrator] The small coin is over 1,500 years old,

but the team needs evidence from at least 2,000 years ago

if they are to link this site to biblical Bethsaida

where Jesus is said to have performed

two of his most famous miracles.

The Bible says thousands of people came to Bethsaida

to listen to Jesus.

And as the evening drew near, they grew hungry.

The only food the disciples could find

were two fish and five loaves of bread.

So they wanted to send the crowd away.

But after Jesus blessed the food,

it was enough to feed everyone, with 12 baskets left over.

And that same night as the disciples hit a storm

on Lake Galilee, Jesus walked on water

to come to their rescue.

So far, the site has revealed a puzzling mix of artifacts

from many different eras.

Motti decides to take over duties with the metal detector.

[beeping]

[Motti] Ah, something is beeping here.

[Narrator] And he makes a tantalizing find.

[Motti] Aha! Here is something that we like very much.

Ring the bell!

[bell rings]

This is a lead weight for a fishing net.

I think it’s also a decorated one.

People on the lake were mostly fishermen,

and that goes very well with the description

in the New Testament.

That’s nice.

[Narrator] The decorated lead weight indicates

that fishing took place from this site.

But is this the real biblical Bethsaida?

[Narrator] In search of more evidence for the village

where the Bible says Jesus fed the 5,000,

Motti widens his search at El Araj

to the surrounding area.

A recent disaster has transformed

the site beyond recognition.

[Motti] Just two days before we started excavating

this season, there was a huge wildfire here,

which burned down our container with all our equipment

and also burned down this area of the site of El Araj.

[Narrator] For at least the past century,

the area had been overgrown with thick vegetation

and often flooded, making it impossible to determine

the ancient village’s age and its boundaries.

Now, the wildfire has given Motti a unique opportunity.

[Motti] Think that no one else before us,

at least in the last 100 years,

ever looked at it in archaeological eyes.

[Narrator] Amidst the scorched landscape,

he quickly finds evidence that the village

extended beyond the main dig site.

[Motti] Opa!

Here is a nice find.

This is the top of the lower part of a grinding stone.

Part of life in a village. It’s lucky to see it on surface.

[Narrator] Further along are clues which help him date it.

[Motti] What we have here under the ash

is a section of a wall from a house.

As a matter of fact,

all the area here, all the stones you see

are debris of houses from the Roman period.

[Narrator] Thanks to the wildfire, Motti's been able

to discover finds that prove this area

was inhabited in Roman times.

It's an encouraging step,

and there’s more back at the dig site.

[Motti] We found here a piece of mosaic floor.

What's interesting is the fact that it is placed

in a very thick layer of cement;

this is not from a simple floor.

We dug here, a little probe, and in the probe you can see

three big stones in a line.

That could be the hint for a public bathhouse.

[Narrator] The mosaic floor tiles and thick walls suggest

the existence of a Roman bathhouse

in this once tiny fishing village.

It matches the description of Bethsaida

by an ancient Roman historian called Josephus Flavius.

He writes that around the time of Jesus,

the village was transformed from a Jewish settlement

to a small Roman city.

[Motti] It is a hint for us to understand

that there is a change in this village,

it's not easy to get a proof in archaeology,

but it is a strong suggestion

that these finds support

very much the identification of El Araj

as biblical Bethsaida.

[Narrator] Incredibly, it seems the team has identified

the real Bethsaida,

where the Bible says Jesus performed several miracles.

But what about the next phase of his life,

in which he would gain more followers

but also attention from the authorities?

Where were these next miracles said to have taken place?

Back in Jerusalem, around half a mile

from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is Temple Mount.

At the time of Jesus, the Temple atop this hill

was the epicenter of Jewish worship,

attracting pilgrims from all over the ancient world.

♪ ♪

Professor Uzi Leibner digs on the final approach

to the Temple, a site named Ophel Hill.

[Uzi Leibner] We can probably presume tens if not hundreds

of thousands of people arriving here.

[Narrator] So far, excavations have revealed a maze of stairs,

alleyways, and even ancient shops

designed to serve myriad pilgrims.

But some of the most intriguing infrastructure

the team has discovered lies buried beneath

the ancient city’s floor.

[Uzi] It's about three meters high

with these impressive capstones roofing them on top.

[Narrator] The mystery tunnel leads to a chamber.

Uzi believes he knows its purpose.

[Uzi] Right here we have a water reservoir,

a vaulted water reservoir.

[Narrator] It's just one small part of a rabbit warren

of subterranean public water reservoirs

and drainage channels.

[Uzi] We don't know exactly where all the water came from,

but we know it was a large quantity of water

based on the size of this drainage.

[Narrator] Uzi believes the evidence points

to one specific use for all this water.

[Uzi] We think this was all meant to serve dozens and dozens

of public ritual baths.

[Narrator] Visitors were expected to bathe

and purify themselves before making a pilgrimage.

Uzi’s team has discovered around 100 baths at the Ophel.

A ritual bathing pool is strongly associated

with one of the miracles Jesus is said to have performed.

What light can Uzi's investigations shed

on its whereabouts?

[Narrator] Just a quarter of a mile away

from the Ophel Hill excavation is a site said to be

one of Jerusalem's most important ritual baths,

the Siloam Pool.

The Bible says as Jesus walked through Jerusalem,

he saw a blind beggar.

He made mud from the dust and rubbed it on the man’s eyes.

He instructed him to wash in the Pool of Siloam,

and for the first time, the beggar could see.

Archaeologists first began exploring this site

two decades ago.

And on discovering a wide set of steps and the first signs

of a particularly well crafted big pool,

declared that this was the ancient miracle site of Siloam.

Now, archaeologists are taking a second look.

Itamar Berko runs the dig.

Right now we are in the bottom

of what is considered as the Pool of Siloam.

It was such an enormous find.

[Narrator] Now excavated to its full size of 225 feet wide

and around 16 feet deep, this giant freshwater pool

is dotted with evidence from the time of Jesus.

But Itamar is no longer convinced

this is the original miracle site.

We, the archaeologists, think otherwise.

It has too many stairs for ritual baths

and it’s too big to be a ritual bath.

[Narrator] Another reason is the debris his team pulls

from the pool floor.

We just discovered a sherd of pottery.

It probably came from floods

and sediments that arrived to the pool.

[Narrator] Itamar believes rainwater and debris

were diverted here by this 40-foot-high wall

running the length of the pool.

If the true Pool of Siloam

was meant for religious purification,

such impure water casts serious doubt

that this is the right place.

The Pool of Siloam has only pure water,

much more pure than what we have right here.

[Narrator] So where might the actual Pool of Siloam be?

The Bible states that it was fed

by a pure, freshwater source called the Gihon Spring,

which still flows today.

It's a clue that leads Itamar to explore

an underground waterway around 300 yards away.

This tunnel was built 700 years before Jesus Christ.

Its purpose was to deliver the water

to a location inside of the city walls of Jerusalem.

It was carved by a chisel and a hammer for more than 533 meters.

[Narrator] This channel, called Hezekiah's Tunnel,

extends over a third of a mile beneath Jerusalem

to the Gihon Spring

and ends here in a small, shallow pool.

This pool is fed by

spring water, which is pure water.

[Narrator] According to long-held, local tradition,

this was the Siloam Pool.

But 20 years ago, it was eclipsed

by the exciting discovery of the monumental basin

Itamar currently excavates.

So was this the right place all along?

Historical texts from the first century offer clues,

noting that the Pool of Siloam was located next to

a much bigger pool called the Pool of Solomon.

We suggest that the Solomon's Pool was now

where we are excavating and the Pool of Siloam

is right in the outlet of Hezekiah's Tunnel

which was the site where Jesus cured a blind man.

[Narrator] It seems Itamar's team might have confirmed

the location of one of the most sacred miracle sites

in all of Jerusalem.

But if this is the true Pool of Siloam,

what was the purpose of the much larger Solomon’s Pool?

Right here it was used, I think, for a reservoir pool

as a pool to drink water in the years before Jesus himself.

♪ ♪

[Narrator] This huge pool probably supplied

vital fresh water to the city's residents

and the vast numbers of pilgrims who came to Jerusalem.

From there they climbed a wide-stepped street

known as the Pilgrim Road.

Merchants lined the way selling offerings

to be taken on their journey.

And branching streets led to markets and lodging houses.

At the top of the stairs rose three mighty gates,

the entrances to the sacred complex which was the epicenter

of Jewish worship during the time of Jesus.

The Bible tells us that it was here in Jerusalem

that the authorities began to take notice of Jesus.

But why did he come here?

And can more clues be unearthed that might help

crack the mystery of his final burial site?

[Narrator] In Jerusalem, outside the ancient city walls,

lies a secluded, hidden garden.

[Yisca] Jerusalem is so crowded, so busy,

and here we are a stone's throw away from the old city,

and you walk in this paradise.

[Narrator] Here, historian Yisca Harani continues

to explore the mystery of how the body of Jesus

could be buried in a site that lies inside the city walls.

[Yisca] It is known that Jewish tradition has it

that no one will be dead and buried inside the city.

That's why cemeteries throughout the Jewish world

are always outside the walls.

[Narrator] That contradiction led scholars

in the 19th century to propose this place,

known as the Garden Tomb, as Jesus’ burial place instead.

[Yisca] This seemed to be a very logical and a very beautiful

and a very aesthetical solution

to the quest after Jesus’ tomb.

[Narrator] But what evidence is there to support this idea?

Deeper into the garden,

Yisca spots an opening in the rock face.

[Yisca] So we are in an ancient tomb.

You can see the stone,

the original stone into which the place was carved,

and three niches were placed for three bodies.

[Narrator] The surroundings also match the environment

as described in the Bible.

[Yisca] It is fitting to the word that appears

in the Gospel of John, there was a garden where the body of Jesus

was placed in a tomb.

And here you are, you have a beautiful garden.

[Narrator] Archaeological evidence shows there's been

a garden here in the past.

Outside there's more evidence

to match the account of Jesus’ burial place.

[Yisca] Gospels all recall the rolling stone,

and that helped to see here,

potential place for the burial of Jesus.

So if you look here, you will see that there's a trench

and there is the leftovers of a rolling stone

that could have been rolled to lock the door.

[Narrator] The style of the tomb and its location

seem to fit the description in biblical texts.

But Yisca is not convinced.

[Yisca] This is way too far

from the walls of the city in Jesus’ times.

And it is clearly the case that Romans crucified people

right next to the walls of the city,

because they wanted people, especially pilgrims,

they would see people crucified outside the walls.

They would learn not to mess with the rulers.

[Narrator] If this garden tomb isn't the true tomb of Jesus,

Yisca must continue her investigation elsewhere.

Could finding out more about the last days of Jesus,

including the people he shared his final journey with,

the disciples, shed light on this mystery?

80 miles north of Jerusalem

at El Araj,

having finally identified Bethsaida,

Motti and his team now want to investigate a biblical mystery

for which the town is famous.

Bethsaida was said to be home to three disciples,

Philip, Andrew and Peter.

No archaeological evidence has been found to prove

any of the apostles really existed,

so could this be the place to look for clues?

Over the past few seasons, the team has unearthed remains

of what appears to be an ancient Byzantine church,

but dated to around 500 years after the time of Jesus.

Why it’s here is a mystery.

[Motti] The discovery of the church was very surprising,

very surprising.

No one mentions a church here since the 8th century.

[Narrator] Motti and the team want to understand

why a church was built on this particular spot.

Recently, while excavating the floor inside the ruins,

the team uncovered something extraordinary.

Today, Motti's showing

colleague Professor Jacob Ashkenazi.

[Jacob Ashkenazi] Very impressive.

More than impressive.

Almost complete. No damage.

[Narrator] It’s an ancient mosaic inscription.

[Motti] No damage, not even one stone is missing.

[Jacob] No, no, no, no.

Maybe some scratches, but all the letters are there.

[Narrator] Jacob translates the ancient Greek text.

[Jacob] The first word is egéneto, it means "was done."

Psiphos, okay the, the mosaic,

All the work of the mosaic was done.

Spoudé, in the generosity or by the generosity of Konstantinou,

Konstantin, the name of the donor.

[Narrator] It appears to be an inscription which celebrates

the man who funded part of the church's construction

in the name of his family.

[Jacob] And I believe that this Constantine was a pilgrim

who came here and was fascinated by the place,

and was very excited, of course,

and decided to donate and to commemorate his children.

[Narrator] But then, in the next line,

an intriguing dedication jumps out.

[Jacob] Ken-nou-the.

It means the chief, the leader.

Ton apostolon, the chief of the apostles.

Chief of the apostles is St. Peter, of course,

the first disciple of Jesus,

whom he met together with his brother Andrew on the lake.

[Narrator] Could this inscription really refer to

Peter of the disciples, one of Jesus’ closest companions?

[Narrator] At El-Araj, archaeologists try to decipher

whether a 1,500-year-old inscription

names one of the disciples from the Bible.

[Jacob] "The keeper of the keys."

This is very interesting.

[Motti] There’s only one keeper...

[Jacob] Yeah, there is only one keeper of the keys,

which is, of course, Peter.

[Narrator] According to the Gospels, Peter was a fisherman

on the Sea of Galilee

whom Jesus granted a miraculous catch of fish.

♪ ♪

Peter then became one of the 12 Disciples,

Jesus names him Cephas, meaning "the rock,"

on whom the future would be built.

On the day Jesus was arrested, fear gripped Peter.

To his great shame, he denied knowing Jesus three times.

But after the resurrection, Peter was forgiven,

becoming the leader of the church

and keeper of the keys to heaven and earth.

♪ ♪

[Motti] Isn’t it a rare inscription?

[Jacob] I don't think it is rare.

[Motti] No. [Jacob] I think it is unique.

I dont know any other inscription that is even close

to the content of this inscription.

There is no inscription all over Palestine

that mentions St. Peter, not even one.

[Narrator] The reference to St. Peter

is an astounding discovery that could explain the reason

this church was built.

Motti investigates the rest of its ruins.

[Motti] Underneath the floor of the church,

which was at this level,

there are three earlier layers.

One, the very deep one,

a wall from the first century CE

of a private dwelling.

We dated it according to pottery that we found

at the base of the wall.

Above it, the basilica was built.

[Narrator] It seems the church was built on top

of a much older house-- but why?

[Motti] The most important part of the basilica, the apse,

in which the altar stands, is right above this wall.

It means that the important part of the church,

what is underneath the altar, is the wall.

[Narrator] Coupled with the clues

from the mosaic inscription,

Motti thinks the people who built this church

believed the house beneath was a sacred place.

[Motti] That for me says that they identified

as the house of Peter.

[Narrator] This could be the home of St. Peter of Bethsaida,

one of Jesus' very closest friends

who could accompany him in his final weeks.

So what led Jesus, Peter and the other disciples

back to Jerusalem for the final time?

In Jerusalem, beside the city's holy Temple Mount,

archaeologist Uzi Leibner and his team continue to dig

for artifacts along the ancient Jewish pilgrimage route.

So far, the team has unearthed a treasure trove

of bronze and silver coins

among the ruins of a grand building.

It’s evidence of a bustling marketplace.

[Uzi] Shops, money changers,

places where can people can buy their sacrifice.

Commerce is a important part of life around the Temple.

[Narrator] And the Bible says it was something

Jesus found hard to tolerate,

especially during his final trip to Jerusalem

with the disciples in the last week of his life.

♪ ♪

When Jesus saw the money changers in the Temple,

his heart filled with rage.

♪ ♪

[coins clinking]

He overturned tables,

accusing them of turning a house of prayer

into a den of robbers.

He then drove away animal traders,

asking them to stop making his father’s house a marketplace.

According to the Bible, Jesus and his 12 Disciples

were on a pilgrimage to the Temple at the time,

for a festival known as Passover.

It commemorates the story of Exodus,

the liberation of the Israelites

from slavery in ancient Egypt, and is celebrated with a feast.

The Passover meal, said to have been eaten by Jesus

and his followers, is known as the Last Supper.

And among the debris in another ritual pool,

the team finds sherds of pottery,

cooking vessels and hundreds of fragments of animal bones.

[Orit Peleg-Barkat] So we have three boxes of animal bones

that were collected.

Clearly lamb or sheep was the major sacrificial animal

in the Temple, especially over Passover,

you give the lamb sacrifice.

Taking into consideration our close vicinity to the Temple,

this might be from the ritual that was taking place.

[Narrator] On some of the pot fragments,

archaeologist Orit Peleg-Barkat finds a unique feature

that ties this trash specifically

to the cooking of lamb for Passover.

[Orit] What is interesting about these cooking pots

is that many of them are punctured.

[Narrator] Ritually pure cooking vessels were required

for the pilgrims' sacrificial meals in the Temple,

and had to be put out of use at the end of the pilgrimage.

[Orit] The fact that this cooking pot was used

for preparing the lamb sacrifice meant they became impure

and you could not use them anymore for your daily cooking.

Ceremonially, they were making a small hole within the sides

so they cannot be used any further.

[Narrator] The bones and pottery document the reality

behind the Last Supper.

But it was far more sinister reasons

that made the Last Supper famous.

According to the New Testament,

it was here, in the final week of his life,

that Jesus predicted his betrayal.

By the end of the next day, he was put on trial, executed,

and buried in a rock-cut tomb with a garden nearby.

While it's been claimed since Roman times

that his burial site lies beneath the Holy Sepulchre,

the church's location inside the city walls

seems to rule it out.

So how can this contradiction be solved?

Where is the tomb of Jesus?

[Narrator] The key to the mysterious location

of Jesus' tomb could lie in the complex history

of Jerusalem itself.

Just as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre

has been rebuilt and reshaped over two millennia,

so has Jerusalem.

The city walls haven’t always looked like they do today.

Has their location changed since the time of Jesus?

Yisca pursues the investigation in a lower level of the church.

[Yisca] It is cramped and it is dark,

but this is one of the most surprising finds

of the church.

You see that we are in a stone cave,

and in it at least four niches,

two of them, look, two of them are sealed.

But if these stones were taken out,

we would see that there's a niche

in the size of a human body, just as you see here and here.

[Narrator] Incredibly it seems this was a Jewish cemetery,

one that archaeologists have now dated

to the first century AD.

For Yisca, it is proof the city plan must have changed

over the years.

[Yisca] Finding this, finding this burial system here,

so close to the Edicule, proves to us beyond any doubt

that this was outside the walls of the city of Jerusalem

in Jesus’ times.

[Narrator] Archaeologists believe the city walls

were altered and expanded a few years after the burial

is said to have occurred,

bringing this area of the church inside their boundary.

The contradiction is solved.

But is there any evidence that Jesus himself is buried here?

In 2023, after years of negotiation,

archaeologists were granted permission to lift the floor

and carry out the most extensive excavations

in 200 years.

What they found would have an earth-shattering impact

on the hunt for the tomb of Jesus.

Yisca has been granted rare access

to this hidden underground area through a secret doorway

in the Armenian part of the church.

[Yisca] This place was hidden from the eyes of everyone,

also from the Armenians,

but in the '70s when they opened the little opening,

and this is what you see, an ancient quarry.

[Narrator] Dating to 1,000 years before Jesus,

the quarry extended beneath the entire area

of the current church.

It is in the ancient quarry where excavators

made an exciting discovery--soil--

and within the soil, seeds.

Could this be evidence of an ancient garden

as recorded in the Gospel of John?

[Yisca] Here, this is the depression,

look, here it was full of soil.

In such depressions you've got these little gardens

which eventually are mentioned

and become the big story of the tomb in the garden.

♪ ♪

[Narrator] In 2025, tests on samples

taken from nearly 20 feet below today's ground level

show that the soil contains grape seeds, olive pits,

and pollen, and dating reveals their age.

They are 2,000 years old.

Conclusive evidence that by the time of Jesus,

the quarry had become a garden,

planted with olive trees and vines.

The Bible says that beside this garden lay a rock-cut tomb,

perhaps similar to the carved tombs

that today lie beneath the church.

♪ ♪

This new scientific discovery,

that seems to confirm the presence of an ancient garden,

convinces Yisca that the puzzle is finally solved.

[Yisca] To myself, as a historian,

I am completely convinced that this is perhaps the closest

we can get to Jesus’ original tomb.

But without this exceptional place

and without the recent lab researchers,

we wouldn’t have been able to prove the case.

[Narrator] The archaeological investigation

into the real Jesus Christ

has brought the world he knew to life.

[Orit] Jerusalem in the time of Jesus

was not something very sterile;

it was a vibrant city, very alive.

[Narrator] Excavations also shed light on his lasting legacy.

[Motti] That's a very important discovery

in understanding the development of Christianity

in the Holy Land.

[Narrator] While the investigation

into the life and death of Jesus

reveals much about the politics and people of the time.

[Yisca] As a personality, he's of great interest to historians,

not only to the faithful.

And the events of his death are also depicting

a period of the harshness of the rulers.

The real man is important for everybody--

historians, archaeologists, and faithful alike.