Welcome! Today is our fifth week of this series entitled
“Even the Stones Cry Out” that explores the findings of archaeology that
confirm the truths of the Bible. My original plan was that this would be a
five-week series, but there is a lot more I would love to talk about, so we
will have to come back to do more messages in this series at a later time. We
have several sites we will look at today, so let’s get right into it.
Luke 1 tells us only the town of where Mary the mother of
Jesus lived:
In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy,
God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged
to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name
was Mary. – Luke 1:26-27
The town was nothing special, a backwater town in a
backwater area. With absolutely no meant offense, saying you were from Nazareth
might today be equivalent to saying you are from Newry, or from Starr. And yet
we see that followers of Jesus sometimes were given a name tied to Nazareth. We
see this when the high priest Ananias, having had Paul arrested, has his lawyer
Tertullus present his case before the governor Felix. Listen to Tertullus’
opening argument, and note how he describes Christians:
“We have enjoyed a long period of peace under
you, and your foresight has brought about reforms in this nation. Everywhere
and in every way, most excellent Felix, we acknowledge this with profound
gratitude. But in order not to weary you further, I would request that you be
kind enough to hear us briefly. We have found this man to be a troublemaker,
stirring up riots among the Jews all over the world. He is a ringleader of the
Nazarene sect…” – Acts 24:2-5a
Now the name Nazareth is connected to the Hebrew word netzer,
which means branch, or shoot. The “ene” ending in Nazarene is not found in
Hebrew but is an add-on of later languages. At the time of Jesus, a person from
Nazareth was called a Netzer. This brings to mind a prophecy from Isaiah
11:
A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;
from his roots a Branch will bear fruit. The Spirit of the Lord will rest on
Him—the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of
might, the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord—and He will delight in
the fear of the Lord. – Isaiah 11:1-3
The word for Branch in this passage is – you guessed it – netzer.
And with only God knows how many followers of Christ there are, only God knows
how many people are a part of this “Nazarene sect,” no Branch has ever borne
more fruit. To this day, Arabs often call Christians by the name Nazarenes.
Nazareth was a part of the region of Galilee, and Galileans
generally had a poor reputation in Israel. People from Nazareth, though, were
even not thought much of in Galilee. And yet, Jesus took on the name “Jesus of
Nazareth.” Those who wanted to scorn Him used that term pejoratively. Even the
demons who spoke through the one they possessed called Him Jesus of Nazareth
(Mark 1 and Mark 10). But Jesus wore the name with honor – He did not reject
the name, just as He did not reject, but rather chose, the humble life and
association with Mary and Joseph. To see just how poorly Nazareth was thought
of, we have to only look at an unfiltered exclamation from one of the
disciples:
Philip found Nathanael and told him, “We have
found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also
wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” “Nazareth! Can anything good come
from there?” Nathanael asked. “Come and see,” said Philip. – John 1:45-46
And so, let us “come and see” Nazareth. Today, Nazareth is
one of the largest Palestinian cities in Israel. Nazareth is about 15 miles
west of the southern tip of the Sea of Galilee, roughly 60 miles north of
Jerusalem. Close to the city’s water source stands the largest church in the
entire Middle East; its name, appropriately, is the Church of the Annunciation.
This church was built in 1960, relatively recently. John mentioned this church
last week, and also mentioned that a Jesus-era home was excavated adjacent to this
church.
But we are going to look at the church location itself. As
with many of the other sites we have looked at in this series, there is a lot
more to explore, layer upon layer. Prior to this church was an older church
built in 1730. While this church was standing, excavations were limited to
locations around, not at, the building. But the church was demolished in 1954
in preparation for building the new church. Once the site had been cleaned up,
archaeologists could now dig under the location of the old church. What did
they find?
They found the ruins of a Crusader era church. This church
is mentioned in writing dated to 1106, so it is at least this old. The church
was destroyed in 1263 by Sultan Baibars, and the site remained a ruin until
1730, when the new church was built. There is enough of the foundations of the
site remaining to determine where the walls stood. In a style common in the
Crusader era, the east side of the church building has three apses,
semicircular areas protruding with rounded walls (rounded at least in the
interior).
Buried under the Crusader-era church was found a Byzantine
church built in the 400s AD. This church, like the Crusader-era church, was
oriented facing east with three apses in the east. Portions of a mosaic floor
were discovered in this layer, also oriented toward the east.
Beneath this layer was found evidence for a Jewish
synagogue! This structure is less complete, but enough remains to be certain
that a synagogue was there, and that it was oriented southward, toward Jerusalem,
rather than eastward. Inscriptions were found on plaster with the word “Jesus”
and “Rejoice Mary” so that there can be no doubt what the synagogue
commemorated. This church was built in the 100s AD. Portions of another mosaic
floor were found below the Byzantine floor, and we know that this floor was a
part of the synagogue because it is pointed southward. This mosaic includes
several chi-rho symbol (which looks like a cross with a small p sticking out of
the vertical line of the cross). The Greek letters chi and rho are the first
two letters of the Greek word Christos. One chi-rho symbol was encircled with
what symbolizes a crown, demonstrating their belief of the kingship of Christ.
Note that the only way Christian symbolism is in a Jewish synagogue is if the
builders were Jewish Christians. Also note that if you ever heard that crosses
were not used until Constantine, centuries later, that is absolutely false. We
even have crosses on ossuaries (burial urns) going back to the first century.
We have discussed five layers, the current church, the 1730
church, the Crusader church, the Byzantine church, and the synagogue, but
shockingly, there is one more layer: the remains of a house dating to the first
century AD; that is, a house at the time of Jesus. What remains of this house?
Cisterns, caverns, and, amazingly, a mikvah, which is a Jewish ritual bath. The
fact that the home contains a mikvah proves that it is a Jewish home. It is
clear that the mikvah was preserved in the synagogue church that came after it.
Pottery and coins found with the home shows that it was lived in even a bit
before the first century AD, that is, the time of the birth announcement by the
angel to Mary. There is no question that the early Jewish believers were
certain that this location was indeed the location of the annunciation. Note
that the later churches did not have the benefit of this knowledge, of these
discoveries, but that the discoveries strongly confirm the veracity of the
location.
The modern church has preserved portions of the Crusader
church, the Byzantine church, the synagogue, and the mikvah. More is continuing
to be discovered – a second mosaic floor just outside the modern building has
been found, for example, that also dates back to the Byzantine church.
Let’s move on from Nazareth to Bethlehem. Bethlehem has a
long history in the Bible, so as we have done multiple times before in this
series, we will go all the way back to Genesis, to the family of Jacob, whom
God had just renamed Israel.
Then they moved on from Bethel. While they were
still some distance from Ephrath, Rachel began to give birth and had great
difficulty. And as she was having great difficulty in childbirth, the midwife
said to her, “Don’t despair, for you have another son.” As she breathed her
last—for she was dying—she named her son Ben-Oni. But his father named him
Benjamin. So Rachel died and was buried on the way to Ephrath (that is,
Bethlehem). Over her tomb Jacob set up a pillar, and to this day that pillar
marks Rachel’s tomb. – Genesis 35:16-20
We do not have time to discuss the archaeological site now
claimed to be Rachel’s tomb. The site is one of the most famous in Israel, and
because it involves Rachel, it is of importance to Jews, Christians, and
Moslems. But we need to move on.
Jacob retells a shortened version of this account in his
reunion with his son Joseph in Egypt. Ben-Oni means son of my trouble, and
Benjamin means son of my right hand. As we saw in the Joseph series, Jacob had
favorites when it came to his children, and Benjamin, well, being at one’s
right hand was the position of greatest honor – we even see this concept when
the disciples argue about who gets to be at Jesus’ right hand.
But our focus today is on the location: Bethlehem,
Bethlehem near Ephrath. When the tribes were allotted their land, Bethlehem was
a part of the land of Judah. (There was also another Bethlehem mentioned in the
land of Zebulun.) Bethlehem of Judah is mentioned repeatedly in Judges 17
through 19, as where some people come from or where they are going. Bethlehem
is likewise mentioned in the book of Ruth, which takes place during the times
of the judges. In fact, Naomi’s husband Elimelech and sons Mahlon and Kilion
are described as Ephrathites from Bethlehem. If you remember the account, all
three men die, and so Naomi and Ruth, the wife of one of her sons, go back to
Bethlehem after living in Moab, home of the Moabites. Indeed, all the events of
Naomi, Ruth, and Boaz, Ruth’s eventual new husband, takes place in Bethlehem.
In fact, when Ruth and Boaz were married, the elders of the town served as
witnesses and said the following:
“We are witnesses. May the Lord make the woman
who is coming into your home like Rachel and Leah, who together built up the
family of Israel. May you have standing in Ephrathah and be famous in
Bethlehem. Through the offspring the Lord gives you by this young woman, may
your family be like that of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah.” – Ruth 4:11b-12
So it seems that perhaps Bethlehem and Ephrathah were twin
villages at that time. And it was in Bethlehem Ephrathah that Ruth became
pregnant and she and Boaz had a son, whom they named Obed, and Obed was the
father of Jesse, who was the father of David, who was in the line of Jesus.
I find hints and shadows of Jesus in the account of Ruth,
and in particular, I am struck by what the women tell the Moabite woman Naomi
when Obed is born:
“Praise be to the Lord, who this day has not
left you without a guardian-redeemer. May he become famous throughout Israel!
He will renew your life…”– Ruth 4:14b-15a
Prophetic words, finding their ultimate fulfillment in
Jesus, the true guardian-redeemer, the most famous person of all throughout
Israel, and the only One who can truly renew your life.
In I Samuel 16 and 17, Jesse, David’s father, is described
as Jesse of Bethlehem, and he is also called Jesse the Ephrathite, and so we
see that the family of Obed has remained in Bethlehem. And indeed, David, in
his early life, lived in Bethlehem. Even when he served Saul, he would go back
to Bethlehem to help tend his father’s sheep. And of course, David is truly a
foreshadowing of Jesus, as we have spoken about many times in the past.
We need to next talk about Micah. Micah, lived centuries
after David, when the people had for a long time mostly rejected God. During
Micah’s lifetime, the nation of Israel fell, and Sennacherib also invaded
Judah. Micah prophesied about the fall of Jerusalem. And he describes Zion (a
part of Jerusalem) in Micah 3:12 as being plowed under, a prophecy that finds
its fulfillment twice, with the destruction of both Temples:
Therefore because of you, Zion will be plowed
like a field, Jerusalem will become a heap of rubble, the temple hill a mound
overgrown with thickets. – Micah 3:12
Yet despite this gloomy subject and despite being revealed
from God the destruction that was to come, God also gave Micah hope. Consider
this famous prophecy of Micah:
“But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are
small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for Me One who will be
ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.” – Micah
5:2
And so, yes, Bethlehem Ephrathah was a relatively small,
insignificant town at the time of Micah, but it had a long history of being
where important things had their beginnings. The line of Jesus was preserved
through the baby of Ruth and Boaz there, and David, the greatest king of
Israel, had his beginnings there. And recall that David himself was the
smallest and least likely of Jesse’s sons to be the one to be king. He was just
a shepherd boy. And so, not only did important things have their beginnings in
Bethlehem Ephrathah, but important things did not look at all important there
when they had their beginnings.
I want to emphasize that Micah wrote the prophesies of
Christ 700 years before Christ was born, and, thanks to the Dead Sea scrolls,
we have copies of Micah that date to at least 150 years before Christ. Micah
was right about the Messiah being born in Bethlehem Ephrathah, and he was also
right that the Messiah would come “from the days of eternity.” The Messiah
Jesus is both man and God. With no man alone could someone come from the days
of eternity.
And this brings us to the New Testament. From Luke 2:
In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree
that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first
census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone
went to their own town to register. So Joseph also went up from the town of
Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he
belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary,
who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were
there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn,
a son. She wrapped Him in cloths and placed Him in a manger, because there was
no guest room available for them. – Luke 2:1-7
So now we understand why Bethlehem was called the town of
David, and we appreciate why Joseph and Mary had to go to this particular town:
they were indeed in that family line of David, that family line that went right
through Bethlehem Ephrathah.
And so, is it possible that we have some evidence of the
exact location where Jesus was born? Shockingly, yes – a lot of evidence, enough
to convince even many Jewish and secular archaeologists and historians.
Bethlehem today is a fairly large Palestinian city. It is
located six miles south of Jerusalem, so yes, Mary and Joseph had a long
journey to get there from Nazareth. Bethlehem has a section of town that is
higher in elevation, and yes, it is another tel, a raised area containing the
remains of multiple civilizations. Pottery has been found dating back to the
Iron Age, the Roman period, and the Byzantine Period, establishing that the
location has been settled during each of these ages. The tel is unfortunately
covered by a residential area, so it is not currently possible to do a large
excavation of the site, particularly the proportion of the site where the
oldest pottery was found, the section that undoubtedly is where the Bethlehem
at the time of David (and before) was located.
But the New Testament Bethlehem is a different story.
Before we get into the archaeological evidence, I want to quote some early
writings.
Justin, also known as Justin Martyr, wrote about Bethlehem
in AD 150. His writings are the earliest discussion of the birth of Jesus we
have apart from the Bible. Here is what he wrote:
The child was born in
Bethlehem… in a certain cave… there Mary brought forth the Christ and placed
him in a manger.” – Justin
Now, that cave mention may surprise you. But there is no
reason to question this detail, because caves in fact made excellent stables
and were then, naturally, common places to find mangers, a structure used to hold
food for animals. Known as shepherd caves, their advantages include being a
place to avoid rain as well as temperature extremes in either direction. Many
ancient houses from the times of Christ and before that time have been found to
contain caves under them or next to them.
And at least until quite recently, there were still people
living in caves around the area of Bethlehem! Listen to this article I found
from the Chicago Tribune dated Christmas, 1987. The title is “Shepherds’ Caves
Still Dot Holy Land.”
Mohammed Abu Sharq, a
17-year-old Moslem Arab shepherd from this ancient hilltop settlement south of
Hebron, probably can relate to the first Christmas a lot better than most
modern Christians. Like Jesus, Abu Sharq was born in a cave, one of hundreds
that dot the rocky slopes of biblical Judea and the Judean Desert, located in
the southern bulge of the Israeli-occupied West Bank that embraces Bethlehem.
Today, according to experts, about 5,000 Arab felahin, or peasants, still live
in caves that have been inhabited continuously for the past 3,000 years.
[…] In these areas, […] the
peasants roam the hills with their herds by day and share their caves with the
animals by night. In June they move back to the parent villages, where the
cycle begins anew. The caves are formed naturally or carved from soft pockets
of limestone. Some are large, multichambered caverns tall enough for a 6-foot
person to stand. Some are small niches housing primitive ground ovens where
peasant women use heated stones to bake bread from coarsely ground whole wheat
flour. The large, single-room cave where Mohammed lives with his parents and
five brothers and sisters year round has a man-made raised area, called a
mastaba, where the family sleeps and eats. The animals sleep on the lower
level. Once a week, the floor is doused with ammonia to sanitize the cave and
neutralize the pungent odor of the animals. “The animals make it warm for the
people, and the people make it warm for the animals,” says Mohammed, who
studied in a school in the nearby village of Dhahiriya through 6th grade but
left to become a family herdsman. The five families of the Abu Sharq clan earn
their living by selling the lambs and kids from their herds and the butter,
cheese and milk provided by their cows. Their food further reflects their
simple lives. Breakfast consists of bread dipped in olive oil and dry zaatar,
the wild thyme that grows between rocks on the hillside. Lunch is often a soup
made from barley or lentils. For dinner, cooked inside over a wood fire that
blackens the cave`s stone ceiling, the Abu Sharqs sit crosslegged on the
mastaba around a large plate of lamb and rice.
Following traditions and
patterns detailed in the Bible, most Judean peasants still live from June to
December in small villages, where they farm nearby lands planted with wheat,
barley, olives and grapes. But after the harvest, plowing and sowing of the new
crops at year`s end, they move into caves in the outlying, windswept hills to
oversee their flocks of sheep and goats.
And so what Justin Martyr describes is quite reasonable. If
there was no room for Mary and Joseph in conventional lodging, it is entirely
possible that they stayed in a shepherd’s cave. I have an image (from a
different article) that shows a modern such cave, and following this is an
image from an ancient house and cave.
Origen is another church father who visited Bethlehem and
wrote the following in AD 248:
With respect to the birth of
Jesus in Bethlehem, if any one desires, after the prophecy of Micah and after
the history recorded in the Gospels by the disciples of Jesus, to have
additional evidence from other sources, let him know that, in conformity with
the narrative in the Gospel regarding His birth, there is shown at Bethlehem
the cave where He was born, and the manger in the cave where He was wrapped in
swaddling clothes. And this sight is greatly talked of in surrounding places,
even among the enemies of the faith, it being said that in this cave was born
that Jesus who is worshiped and reverenced by the Christians. – Origen
What was that part about the enemies of the faith? We’ll
come back to that in a moment. But first, the historian Eusebius (whom we have
mentioned before) wrote about the birth of Jesus around AD 313:
Now, all agree that Jesus Christ
was born in Bethlehem and a cave is shown there by the inhabitants to those who
come from abroad to see it. – Eusebius
We also have a quote from Jerome, a believer who moved to
Bethlehem to learn Hebrew so that he could translate the Old Testament into
Latin. Here is what he wrote in AD 395:
From the time of Hadrian… the
original persecutors, indeed, supposed that by polluting our holy places they
would deprive us of our faith… Even my own Bethlehem… that most venerable spot
in the whole world was overshadowed by a grove of Tammuz, that is of Adonis,
and in the very cave where the infant Christ uttered His earliest cry,
lamentation was made for the paramour (lover) of Venus. – Jerome
We have mentioned Hadrian previously as well. He is the
person that rebuilt Jerusalem, who tried to put a giant temple to the Greek
gods on the Temple Mount but had to downsize his plan after war broke out.
Ironically, the very desecration of the Bethlehem site helped preserve the
knowledge of its location!
As we have heard at Jerusalem, once again, we see a
reversal of the desecration when Constantine comes into power. Eusebius tells
us that he built a church around AD 327, and in AD 333, we have the record of
an unnamed pilgrim who wrote “There a basilica has been built by order of
Constantine.” This church was destroyed in a revolt against Emperor Justinian
in the 500s AD, but it was almost immediately rebuilt. Although the church has
had many modifications and repairs over the centuries, it is still standing,
and indeed, is the oldest church still standing in the Middle East. The
Persians destroyed many churches in Muslim times, but they did not destroy this
church because there were pictures in the mosaic on the floor that had people
who looked like Persians.
Now, there are pictures of the exterior of the modern
church, and the mosaic floor remaining from Constantine’s church (uncovered
during a renovation in 1934). I haven’t included a picture of the interior of
the church because it looks like, well, a modern Catholic church. Now the apse
of Constantine’s church and the later church are in the same location. Under
the apse of the church is a cave, called the Nativity cave, where it is
believed that Jesus was born. The cave is not impressive to me; it is so
heavily built up that there is not much that resembles what it must have
originally been like. Inside the central area that looks like a fireplace is a
twelve-pointed star on the ground that supposedly indicates where the baby
Jesus was born. But that is of course conjecture. Nevertheless, many historians
and archaeologists, even secular ones, do affirm that the evidence points to
this cave as indeed the location of Jesus’ birth. They base this on the same
types of arguments we have used in our other sites: dating to the proper period
based on pottery and other artifacts, Biblical and extra-biblical writings, and
an unbroken testimony that that this is the location going all the way back to
the generation that would have known if it was true.
I want to finish today by talking about Herod and Jesus.
Micah 5:4 prophesied that the Messiah would be great to the ends of the earth.
And this prophecy definitely came true. Jesus is the most known person in
history, the most known person on Earth. And for believers all around the
world, He is not only known about, but He is worshiped. The magi, when they
came to see the prophesied king, baby Jesus, bowed down and worshiped Him too.
Without a doubt, there has never been a person greater than Jesus.
At the time, Herod thought he was the greatest person in
all of Israel. There were multiple Herods in Israel’s history, but this Herod
is very likely Herod the Great, the Herod we have spoken of repeatedly in this
series, the builder, the one who built up structures around many of the sites
we have discussed, including the one who built the incredible base at the
Temple Mount. Because of his Idumean background, and because of his willingness
to serve under the Romans, he was never really accepted as one of the Jews. But
Herod craved not only their acceptance but their love, so he undertook these
amazing building projects, even spending much of his own money to do so. Maybe
he thought that his projects were working – that he was winning over the
people. And perhaps, for some, he was.
But there were reports about a baby, a baby who was to be
king of the Jews. A baby born to an obscure young couple, a couple for which
rumors were flying that they had questionable morality – no baby could be born
without a father, a human father, so what really happened? A baby from a
ridiculed backwater village.
This baby, and what people were saying about Him, made
Herod angry. There was only room for one king. He wanted the baby dead, and for
a man so accustomed to both committing evil and getting whatever he wanted,
carrying this action out was not even a big deal. But an angel warned Joseph to
take Mary and the baby and escape to Egypt, and so they did escape. When Herod
realized he had been outwitted by the magi, he was so furious that he gave the
order for all boys two years old and younger in Bethlehem to be killed. He did
not know that Jesus was gone, safe, protected by God. He did not think about
how God had protected His Son, and how God was watching the unimaginably evil
actions that Herod was responsible for.
I find it ironic that, while Jesus is the most famous
person who ever lived, today, the vast majority of people have never heard of
Herod. Today, Herod is dead, buried at the Herodium, a cone-shaped hill only
three miles from Bethlehem. Bethlehem is also a high place, and so you can see
Herodium from Bethlehem and you can see Bethlehem from Herodium.
The Herodium was excavated continuously for 35 years until,
in 2007, they finally found Herod the Great’s mausoleum and sarcophagus. There
were three sarcophagi at the site, two white and one red – appropriate for one
who was Idumean since Idumean means red. But it also means earthy, and bloody,
and earthy and bloody are appropriate descriptions of the one who would kill
babies to feed his own ego. Unlike the two white sarcophagi, which probably
were for his family, Herod’s sarcophagus was smashed to bits. Reassembling it
has been like working a jigsaw puzzle. In the picture, you see the work before
completion – more puzzle pieces were found.
I find this an appropriate ending for our series – at least
an ending for now. If you recall, at the beginning of the series I mentioned
that putting a jigsaw puzzle together was a good analogy for Biblical
archaeology – we have been solving the puzzles the easy way – we have been
using the Bible as our guide for what the puzzle should look like. I have not
spent much time discussing the views of critics who reject the Bible, because
frankly it is not worth our time. The Bible is many wonderful things, but it is
also the greatest archaeological artifact ever given to man. Not only does it
tell us about our history, it also tells us about the One who is eternal,
beyond time, whose holiness is unfathomable and whose greatness is beyond
comparison. As we have seen, the world is filled with stones and other
artifacts that cry out the greatness of God. But the Bible alone tells us
clearly what God is like and why He has sent His Son into the world. Let us
worship Him, not only at Christmas, not only as a baby, but as King of kings.
As it says in Revelation 12:10,
Now have come the salvation and the power and
the kingdom of our God, and the authority of His Messiah. – Revelation 12:10
