Caption transcript for Eretz Israel (The Land of Israel) (2021): “The Land Promised” (1/8)

• 00:03 ♪♪♪ David Hart: Welcome to "Our Jewish Roots," with insightful
• 00:07 Bible teaching from Israel by Dr. Jeffrey Seif.
• 00:10 We travel to Beersheba today on "Eretz Israel,"
• 00:14 the "Land of Israel."
• 00:18 ♪♪♪
• 00:20 [vocalizing]
• 00:25 male announcer: "Look to the north, the south,
• 00:30 the east, the West--"
• 00:35 ♪♪♪
• 00:41 announcer: "--all the land which thou seest, to thee will I
• 00:45 give it unto thy seed forever."
• 00:50 "Indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither
• 00:54 slumber nor sleep."
• 00:57 ♪♪♪
• 01:03 announcer: "Eretz Israel."
• 01:05 ♪♪♪
• 01:12 David: We're so glad you've joined us today.
• 01:14 I am David Hart.
• 01:15 Kirsten Hart: I'm Kirsten Hart.
• 01:16 Jeffrey Seif: I am Jeffrey Seif, and with the gang.
• 01:19 Thrilled you're with us today.
• 01:21 We're going to go back in time and look at the story of the
• 01:25 land of Israel.
• 01:26 David: And we learned the Hebrew word
• 01:28 for that, "Eretz Israel."
• 01:29 That's what this whole series is about.
• 01:31 Jeffrey: Yes-- [rolling tongue] "Eretz."
• 01:33 You do it quite well, tell you the truth.
• 01:34 David: I've been practicing.
• 01:36 Jeffrey: You guys are coming along.
• 01:37 You've grown over the years.
• 01:39 Kirsten: Thank you, "toda raba," thank you very much.
• 01:40 Jeffrey: Bevakasha. You're learning a little Hebrew.
• 01:42 You know, you guys are great Christian people.
• 01:44 Weren't born of Jewish extract but just fell in love with all
• 01:47 this stuff, and you're in Israel all the time,
• 01:49 leading groups, aren't ya?
• 01:50 Kirsten: Absolutely love it, but the thing that sets this
• 01:53 land apart, there's no other land in the world
• 01:56 that was promised.
• 01:58 And we call it the Promised Land, but from the voice of God
• 02:02 himself, he said, "This is for my people.
• 02:04 Jeffrey: Right, even the term "Promised Land," you say, "we
• 02:07 call it," the literature doesn't call itself the Promised Land,
• 02:11 but you notice in biblical literature, there are a variety
• 02:15 of promises associated with it and blessings to those
• 02:19 that get involved in those promises.
• 02:20 David: Amen.
• 02:22 Kirsten: Should call it, more, the "covenant land"?
• 02:23 Jeffrey: You can call it whatever you want.
• 02:25 I just want you to love it.
• 02:26 Kirsten: And this series, we see you very adventuresome.
• 02:30 You have leather jackets, and you have your leather bag, and
• 02:33 you're driving a Land Rover.
• 02:35 You went to places that people don't get to visit,
• 02:38 and you got there.
• 02:39 Jeffrey: I remember driving that Defender.
• 02:42 It's of the Range Rover series, and I'm out there and passing
• 02:47 skeletons, not of people, but animals that died.
• 02:50 I mean, we're really going places buses don't go, to show
• 02:54 people things people don't normally see, all with the mind
• 02:57 to better appreciate Eretz Israel.
• 03:01 David: That's good.
• 03:03 Dr. Seif was on location near Bethel, which is called the
• 03:05 House of God, but, first, let's watch as Abraham travels to the
• 03:09 new land of Canaan.
• 03:12 ♪♪♪
• 03:13 announcer: "Now, the Lord said unto Abram, 'Get thee out
• 03:16 of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's
• 03:20 house, unto a land that I will show thee, and I will make of
• 03:25 thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name
• 03:29 great, and thou shalt be a blessing.
• 03:32 And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curses
• 03:36 thee, and in thee shall all families of the earth
• 03:40 be blessed.'
• 03:41 And Abraham took Sarai, his wife, his nephew,
• 03:45 Lot, all the substance and persons they had acquired in
• 03:49 Haran and journeyed to Canaan."
• 03:53 ♪♪♪
• 03:54 Jeffrey: It has been said that a journey of a lifetime
• 03:56 begins with the very first steps.
• 03:59 Well, come with me now and journey with me as we walk in
• 04:04 the footsteps of our father Abraham.
• 04:06 ♪♪♪
• 04:16 ♪♪♪
• 04:24 ♪♪♪
• 04:44 Jeffrey: Ever heard the expression,
• 04:45 "The road less traveled"?
• 04:48 For many of us, the road of faith is just that.
• 04:53 We wanna consider the footsteps of the father of faith, and to
• 04:57 help us, I wanna show you a map so you can get some vision for
• 05:01 the road that he traveled.
• 05:06 It's a big map, but he took some big steps.
• 05:09 Avraham left Ur of Chaldee.
• 05:12 He made his way through Mesopotamia, a Greek word
• 05:15 meaning "between the rivers," the Euphrates and the Tigris.
• 05:19 He goes to Haran for a season until such time as the Lord
• 05:22 beckons him to finish the final leg of the journey, making his
• 05:26 way, the Eretz Kna'an, in the land of Canaan, and it's gonna
• 05:31 lead him to this place here, Bethel, and it's not only this
• 05:36 place here, but it's this place here.
• 05:40 Come with me now.
• 05:41 Let me give you a window of what it looks like.
• 05:44 ♪♪♪
• 05:54 Jeffrey: The promise given of a great nation, Avraham then
• 05:58 departs, and he makes his way to the land of Kna'an, the land
• 06:04 then called Canaan.
• 06:06 Open your Bibles, please, to Genesis chapter 12, and let's
• 06:10 follow in the footsteps of our father Abraham.
• 06:15 We're told in verse 5, "They departed,
• 06:17 and they came to Canaan."
• 06:19 Avraham is noted as passing through various places, and
• 06:25 isn't it like a journey?
• 06:26 As we're going to our inheritance in the Lord, there's
• 06:30 various stops along the way.
• 06:32 We're told in verse 6, that "The Canaanites were in the land."
• 06:36 It's interesting.
• 06:37 The Lord says, "I'll give you the land of Canaan."
• 06:40 There still were people using the term "Canaanites" broadly
• 06:43 construed that were here.
• 06:45 That aside, even with some scattered people moving about
• 06:49 here, the Lord is explicit.
• 06:51 And I want you to hear me, please, in verse 7.
• 06:53 In no uncertain terms, the Lord says, first, "The Lord appeared
• 06:57 to him--" it's something of a vision-- "and said, 'To your
• 07:03 descendants I will give this land," the land of Canaan.
• 07:08 There's real estate, there's a tribal sorts, loose
• 07:14 confederacies moving around in different places here, and some
• 07:18 have taken residency in the cities, small fledgling cities,
• 07:22 if you will, but, you know, as people are migrating along the
• 07:26 Fertile Crescent and settling down here--but the Lord brings
• 07:30 Avraham here and he says, "Listen, I have given this land
• 07:34 to you," in no uncertain terms of promise.
• 07:37 "To your descendants I will give it."
• 07:40 And what does he do in response to hearing that?
• 07:42 We're told something that Avraham has done more than once.
• 07:45 What does he do?
• 07:47 He builds an altar, a "mizbeach,"
• 07:50 a place of sacrifice.
• 07:53 As we make our journey from the womb to the tomb, some of us
• 07:56 have moments where we have something of an existential
• 07:59 encounter with the Lord, where we hear him speak to us.
• 08:02 He stirs us up in our hearts.
• 08:05 It's not all intellect, but there's a sense if we have a
• 08:08 little "Ruach HaKodesh" dwelling in us, a little Holy
• 08:10 Spirit that we're being driven along by a force
• 08:13 that's not our own.
• 08:15 We hear God's voice.
• 08:16 We move by his Spirit.
• 08:18 An individual is thus inclined within that context or mind it
• 08:22 along the way to build some altars, to take some time out to
• 08:26 worship the Lord.
• 08:28 Abraham, upon hearing at this place is minded to do much that.
• 08:33 I want you to see, we're told, having heard the promise, "He
• 08:38 moves from there," in verse 8, "to the mountain east of Beit
• 08:41 El, Bethel, and he pitched his tent with Bethel on the west
• 08:45 and Ai on the east."
• 08:46 And, by the way, I'm coming to you from that place right now.
• 08:52 Tourists don't frequent this because it's not much at one
• 08:54 level, but one pilgrim did many years ago, and we're all about
• 08:59 following the off-road story of the Bible where the tourist
• 09:03 buses don't come.
• 09:05 It's easy to get a camera crew or easier, I should say, to get
• 09:08 a crew in to take you to see some things that they haven't
• 09:12 built highways for others to get to.
• 09:15 In any place, we're in proximity to that place here, between
• 09:19 those two cities noted where Abraham is minded to worship the
• 09:23 Lord, we're told, and there, as I noted earlier, "he built an
• 09:28 altar to the Lord, and he calls on the name of the Lord."
• 09:34 Now, I call upon good people who call upon the name of the Lord
• 09:38 to read the Bible.
• 09:41 I'm surprised, by the way, how individuals that lay siege to
• 09:46 the claim of being Bible believers, but I don't know what
• 09:49 Bible they're reading because I'm clueless how someone can be
• 09:51 a Bible believer on the one hand, and a non-supporter of
• 09:55 Jewish people in this land or on the other.
• 09:57 It makes no sense to me whatsoever.
• 10:00 They can call themselves bishop, professor, doctor, reverend,
• 10:03 whatever, but I'm clueless how someone can read the Bible and
• 10:07 not just, you know, hold on to what the Bible says.
• 10:09 Well, I wanna do that, and so I wanna commend to you, not just
• 10:13 as I leave this one teaching segment, but as I introduce a
• 10:16 series to remind you God gave land to people, and in this
• 10:21 series, "Eretz Israel," we're gonna not only follow Abraham,
• 10:25 but we're gonna follow his progeny, Yischaq, and Yaaqob.
• 10:29 We'll follow them around the land, the land called the
• 10:33 Promised Land, the land of Israel.
• 10:36 ♪♪♪
• 10:40 [vocalizing]
• 10:45 announcer: Our offer on this program, "The Covenants of God."
• 10:49 The covenants made by God with men and nations throughout the
• 10:53 Bible are guideposts for understanding Scripture.
• 10:56 This series illustrates through testimony of expert teachers and
• 11:00 analysis of the actual verses, the great covenants of God.
• 11:05 Zola Levitt helps us understand God's covenants with man,
• 11:09 enriching our faith and expanding our knowledge of the
• 11:12 great Creator we're privileged to call "Father."
• 11:16 Ask for "The Covenants of God" DVDs.
• 11:21 David: Join us right now for additional content that is only
• 11:24 available on our social media sites, Facebook,
• 11:27 YouTube, and Twitter.
• 11:29 Visit our website, levitt.com, for the current and past
• 11:32 programs, the television schedule, tour information, and
• 11:36 our free monthly newsletter, which is full of insightful
• 11:39 articles and news commentary.
• 11:41 View it online, or we can ship it directly
• 11:43 to your mailbox every month.
• 11:46 Also, on our website, is the online store.
• 11:48 There you can order this week's resource, or you can always give
• 11:52 us a call at 1-800-WONDERS.
• 11:56 Your donations to Our Jewish Roots, help us to support these
• 11:59 organizations as they bless Israel.
• 12:02 David: Please remember, we depend on tax-deductible
• 12:04 donations from viewers like you.
• 12:08 For many, a trip to the Holy Land is the dream of a lifetime.
• 12:14 The Bible truly comes alive as you see the sites were so many
• 12:17 biblical events happened.
• 12:20 Come on a Zola tour to see Israel and Petra.
• 12:25 See the land of the Bible for yourself.
• 12:30 Contact us to reserve your dream of a lifetime.
• 12:34 ♪♪♪
• 12:38 Kirsten: Two times a year, we host tours to the beautiful land
• 12:42 of Israel, Eretz Israel, the Land of Israel.
• 12:45 We would love for you to go along with us.
• 12:48 Levitt.com is the easiest way to get in touch with our tour
• 12:52 manager, and there's a place in this next segment that David
• 12:57 Dolan is gonna take all of you to the Church
• 12:59 of the Holy Sepulchre.
• 13:01 And we've been, oh, my gosh, how many times?
• 13:02 David: Ten? Kirsten: Ten?
• 13:04 David: At least, yeah.
• 13:05 Kirsten: To this church, and it's somewhere that we always
• 13:07 take you, take our pilgrims on tour.
• 13:10 It's fascinating.
• 13:11 The history is amazing.
• 13:12 We would love for you to go with us to the Land of Israel.
• 13:17 David: How many times you think you've been to the Church
• 13:19 of the Holy Sepulchre?
• 13:20 Jeffrey: Oh, 50-somethin' times.
• 13:21 David: Yeah, it's amazing.
• 13:23 Jeffrey: And you can go back in ancient history.
• 13:25 There's diaries of people that made long pilgrimages
• 13:28 at great expense.
• 13:30 They wanted to get to the Holy Land.
• 13:32 I think Egeria, the diary of Egeria, I recall reading a
• 13:37 fourth or fifth century, giving voice to the experience of
• 13:41 visiting the land and the church at great expense.
• 13:45 Speaking of a great expense, you know, if you look at television,
• 13:50 someone always pays for it.
• 13:51 You know, there's commercials.
• 13:52 I don't know if you get bothered by commercials, you know,
• 13:55 selling toothpaste, selling this, selling that.
• 13:57 Someone pays for this.
• 13:59 It's not free.
• 14:00 You know, salvation is a free gift that someone paid for.
• 14:03 Jesus, in this case.
• 14:05 But relative to television, the reason why we do this
• 14:08 is because you care to share.
• 14:11 If it's a toothpaste commercial that the toothpaste company is
• 14:14 purchasing, then the stock goes up,
• 14:17 and the stockholders are pleased.
• 14:19 The Gospel goes out.
• 14:20 The principal stockholder is pleased.
• 14:22 That's God himself.
• 14:23 Thank you for investing in what we do.
• 14:26 Please help us tell the story.
• 14:29 If you find value in traveling the land of Israel with an open
• 14:33 Bible, if you find value in going to sites not frequented by
• 14:38 many, if you can't go there yourself but you like it when we
• 14:42 show you the place, please get behind us and help us.
• 14:46 I know that God will bless you as you do.
• 14:50 David: David Dolan is on location at the famous Church of
• 14:52 the Holy Sepulchre.
• 14:53 Let's go there right now.
• 14:57 Jeffrey: And now from the old city in Jerusalem,
• 15:00 David Dolan begins his story of the beginning
• 15:03 of the modern state of Israel.
• 15:07 David Dolan: I'm standing in front of one of the oldest
• 15:09 churches on earth, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre
• 15:12 in the old city of Jerusalem.
• 15:14 As you can see, Christians from around the world are here,
• 15:17 visiting this site, the site that many believe Jesus was
• 15:20 crucified, buried, rose from the dead on a little hill that's
• 15:24 inside the church, called Golgotha.
• 15:26 The Emperor Hadrian, the Roman emperor, destroyed the state of
• 15:30 Judea in the year 135, after a Jewish revolt.
• 15:34 The temple had already been destroyed in A.D.
• 15:36 70, replaced by a temple to a pagan god, Jupiter.
• 15:42 Here there was a pagan temple to the God Venus.
• 15:46 That was deliberate because the Romans knew that Christians
• 15:50 revered this site as some sort of a special place.
• 15:53 A Jewish mini state remained in the land after Judea was
• 15:56 destroyed and renamed Syria Palaestina, a name that was
• 16:00 deliberately picked to insult the Jews because it came from
• 16:03 their ancient enemy, the Philistines.
• 16:05 Up in the northern Galilee, a Jewish state remained in effect.
• 16:09 In fact, the Sanhedrin was reconstituted there.
• 16:12 In the fourth century, the Roman Empire was divided.
• 16:16 The eastern half was ruled by the Byzantines
• 16:18 from Constantinople.
• 16:19 The western half remained under Roman rule.
• 16:22 The Byzantines fiercely persecuted the Jews here in the
• 16:25 land, and many of them fled to the east
• 16:27 to Mesopotamia or Babylon.
• 16:29 Yet some Jewish communities remained and, in fact, the
• 16:32 records show, in the sixth century, there were 43 Jewish
• 16:35 communities remaining.
• 16:37 The Roman Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity
• 16:40 in the fourth century.
• 16:41 The temple that was here to Venus was destroyed by his
• 16:45 mother Queen Helena, who came by to find Christian holy sites
• 16:49 in this land.
• 16:50 The Church of the Holy Sepulchre that you see behind me has six
• 16:54 denominations operating in it, the Greek Orthodox Church, which
• 16:58 was based in Constantinople, but that became Istanbul.
• 17:01 The Roman Catholic Church is there.
• 17:03 Armenian Orthodox Christians also were there.
• 17:06 The Syrian Orthodox Church operates there, the Egyptian
• 17:09 Coptic Church, and the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.
• 17:12 It's not always easy for these different denominations to be
• 17:15 together in this building, and there are some clashes.
• 17:19 ♪♪♪
• 17:21 [chanting]
• 17:30 David: In the year 614, the Persians invaded the land.
• 17:33 They damaged the church, but they weren't there very long.
• 17:36 In 630, the Byzantines recaptured it, but just a few
• 17:40 years after that, in 638, a new religion, Islam, sent its forces
• 17:44 up to this land.
• 17:46 Behind me, you see the Tower of David.
• 17:48 That was a mosque minaret.
• 17:50 It's gone between Christian, Jewish,
• 17:53 and Muslim rule over the centuries.
• 17:55 They also captured the Temple Mount.
• 17:57 They began work on a magnificent shrine, the Dome of the Rock.
• 18:00 That was finished in the year 691.
• 18:03 The Muslims that ruled here didn't set this up as a capital.
• 18:06 They ruled the city, but they did so from Baghdad, sometimes
• 18:10 from Damascus, sometimes from Cairo, and the different armies
• 18:13 from those different areas would clash here in the city often.
• 18:17 In the year 1009, the church was destroyed by Caliph Al-Hakim.
• 18:22 This was one of the prompts for the Crusades.
• 18:26 The Pope in Rome said, "We must go to the Holy City.
• 18:29 We must recapture it."
• 18:31 And in 1096, Crusader forces landed down on the coast,
• 18:35 capturing the city of Jerusalem in 1099,
• 18:37 but it didn't last very long.
• 18:39 They were defeated by the Muslim forces led by Saladin,
• 18:43 up near the Sea of Galilee in the year 1187.
• 18:46 Jerusalem was again under Muslim rule, and they were finally
• 18:49 pushed out of the entire land in 1291.
• 18:52 Meanwhile, Jews were being expelled
• 18:54 from various European countries.
• 18:57 The Roman Catholic Church was unhappy that they had helped the
• 19:00 Muslims to retake the city.
• 19:02 They were expelled from England, then from France, then from
• 19:05 Germany, from Hungary, finally, from Spain and Portugal
• 19:08 in 1492 and '97.
• 19:10 The Muslims again were ruling this land.
• 19:13 And, again, it was different Muslim groups often clashing.
• 19:16 The Mamluks, they were based in Damascus and in Cairo.
• 19:19 And then, in the year 1516, a new empire took control.
• 19:24 The Turkish Ottoman Empire gained the city and the
• 19:27 surrounding areas, and these magnificent walls that you see
• 19:30 behind me were built by Suleiman the Magnificent.
• 19:33 At that time, the records show there were 30 Jewish communities
• 19:36 in the land, and the Turkish Muslims were fairly tolerant of
• 19:40 the Jews living here.
• 19:42 Persecution decreased, and Jewish life was thriving fairly
• 19:45 well, but that was at the beginning.
• 19:48 Towards the end of the Ottoman Rule, more anti-Jewish rulers
• 19:51 emerged that persecuted the Jews, and it was a bad situation
• 19:56 that only started to change when the European powers gained more
• 19:59 and more influence in the 1800s.
• 20:02 ♪♪♪
• 20:04 Jeffrey: You know, Dave, looking behind me over here, I'm
• 20:07 reminded of the fact that religion really has a way of
• 20:09 inspiriting people, yes, for good and bad.
• 20:12 What say you?
• 20:13 David: Well, absolutely.
• 20:15 In the historic review that I did just a bit ago, I mentioned
• 20:19 Constantine, the Roman Emperor converting to Christianity, and
• 20:23 his mother Queen Helena coming out here to check on the holy
• 20:27 sites of Christianity, and as a result, churches were built, and
• 20:31 the faith spread here.
• 20:33 Jeffrey: An enormous investment of energy and money
• 20:35 in people--amazing.
• 20:36 David: It really was, and, of course, he was the emperor,
• 20:39 so--and she was the queen mother, as it were,
• 20:42 so they had a lot of that.
• 20:43 But then, later on, we see the negative influence of religion,
• 20:47 again, from Christianity to Crusades.
• 20:50 They came down, of course, to reconquer the land for Christ,
• 20:53 but in doing so, as you know well, killed hundreds of
• 20:56 thousands of Jews and Muslims and others, and many of them
• 21:00 were killed, and the Muslim rule later on had good and bad--good,
• 21:05 in that they established some economic reforms and they--you
• 21:10 know, the standard of living was increased for the people, but,
• 21:12 again, there was persecution of Jews and of Christians, and the
• 21:16 destruction of some of the earlier
• 21:17 Christian holy sites, et cetera.
• 21:19 Jeffrey: I mean, it's something, the nature of
• 21:20 religious enthusiasm, for good or for bad, but it mobilizes it.
• 21:25 It elicits energies.
• 21:27 David: It does, and for the most part, for the good.
• 21:30 We have several hospitals here in town that were started by
• 21:33 Christian missionaries in the 1800s.
• 21:35 We're right next to the Augusta Victoria one
• 21:37 that German Lutherans founded.
• 21:39 So, very positive in that sense, but, you know, this is the only
• 21:43 spot on earth, Jeff, that's holy to three different faiths.
• 21:46 It is unique in that way, and they don't always fit together
• 21:49 so well, and even the different groups inside of the faiths.
• 21:53 The different denominations in Judaism and Christianity, they
• 21:56 clash at times.
• 21:57 Jeffrey: Listen, the groups inside of the churches go at it.
• 21:59 Last night, I was speaking to two Catholic priests that were
• 22:01 just chagrinned about how the way the monks are fighting
• 22:03 in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
• 22:05 Go figure.
• 22:06 They thought it was an embarrassment, and I agree.
• 22:09 David: I've actually witnessed it out in Bethlehem,
• 22:11 where they had broom handles and they were attacking each other,
• 22:14 and this was because one group, I think, the Armenians, were
• 22:18 cleaning a certain wall that the Greek Orthodox said was their
• 22:20 wall, and they should clean it, so the issues
• 22:22 were even just tiny.
• 22:24 Jeffrey: Right, those stories are legion.
• 22:25 So as you noted that religion--and there are plenty
• 22:30 of examples--has a way of eliciting energies, but then
• 22:33 there's something else beside religion that's related to it.
• 22:36 It's the voice of God, and our story here began with Abraham
• 22:42 and, just, the biblical drama of individuals hearing God and
• 22:48 responding and going on a journey.
• 22:50 It takes them to interesting places, doesn't it?
• 22:52 Last word's yours.
• 22:53 David: It absolutely does, and if there wasn't God, it
• 22:55 would be a mess, but there is a God, and he has it all
• 22:57 in his hands.
• 22:58 Jeffrey: Yes, so somehow, all these tensions get resolved as
• 23:02 the voice of God leads us on in triumph.
• 23:07 Kirsten: You and David in one of the last segments, you guys
• 23:10 were on the Mount Olives and were talking about the land.
• 23:12 That is kind of prime real estate--isn't it?--in Jerusalem?
• 23:16 Jeffrey: Yes, especially cemetery real estate.
• 23:18 Kirsten: It is. Jeffrey: True story.
• 23:19 Barri--I'll mention her--this past week,
• 23:21 went and bought some funeral plots for us.
• 23:23 Zola said you should never buy funeral plots.
• 23:26 You should just see if they can rent them to you 'cause we're
• 23:28 gonna be resurrected from it.
• 23:30 Kirsten: Well, you were standing there, and on the Mount
• 23:32 of Olives, we noticed all these tombs.
• 23:34 What is the history of that?
• 23:36 Jeffrey: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
• 23:37 Well, it's box office seats to the greatest show on earth, you
• 23:41 know, to be buried there, opposite the temple complex,
• 23:45 when the eschaton, when prophecy is fulfilled and to be
• 23:49 resurrected from there.
• 23:51 It's all staged in the anticipation of that event.
• 23:55 "T'chiyat hameitim," in Hebrew, the resurrection of the dead,
• 23:59 isn't just a cardinal Christian doctrine.
• 24:01 Jews believe in it, and they're being buried there
• 24:03 in order to get a front-row seat to it.
• 24:05 Kirsten: It's a fascinating place, isn't it--
• 24:07 David: It is.
• 24:08 Kirsten: --the Mount of Olives, when we go there on
• 24:09 tour, to see these massive tombs,
• 24:11 and they're not in the ground.
• 24:13 They're just right above the ground.
• 24:14 They were ready to go.
• 24:15 Jeffrey: Speaking of one, there's a church we looked at,
• 24:17 in this program, that designed around a tomb, yes?
• 24:20 Kirsten: Okay, what do you think?
• 24:22 There's two places.
• 24:23 There's the Garden Tomb, and then there's
• 24:25 Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
• 24:26 In your opinion, do we even do that?
• 24:29 What's the authentic site?
• 24:32 Or can we find the authentic site?
• 24:33 Jeffrey: Well, we can--we like--I know, when you do tours,
• 24:36 take people to both.
• 24:37 David: We do.
• 24:38 Jeffrey: Going back to the fourth century, Helena,
• 24:42 Constantine's mom, visited the land, and early Christians took
• 24:46 her to the site, and she then began the development
• 24:49 of a church around it.
• 24:50 Actually, a number of churches sprung up in response
• 24:53 to her early tour.
• 24:54 So there's a story that goes back millennia to that site, and
• 25:00 Christians have made pilgrimages there.
• 25:03 And, of course, when people go there today, it shows all of
• 25:06 that Medieval, you know, the castle churches, which doesn't
• 25:12 speak to the sensibilities of individuals with a Christian
• 25:15 persuasion that's less ornate, given to incense
• 25:18 and the architecture.
• 25:20 Simply, they would prefer the Garden Tomb the more so, and
• 25:24 there's an argument for the Garden Tomb spot.
• 25:26 It's simple.
• 25:28 There's a story there.
• 25:29 There's a story of the Sepulchre.
• 25:30 I say, let people make up their own mind.
• 25:32 We just like showing both.
• 25:33 Kirsten: It's still fascinating.
• 25:34 Jeffrey: And it's still an empty tomb, by the way,
• 25:36 either way, yeah.
• 25:37 Kirsten: That's-- that's the most important thing.
• 25:39 "Where" doesn't really matter.
• 25:40 "That it's empty," does matter.
• 25:42 Jeffrey: It's an empty tomb.
• 25:43 David: So much more about this beautiful land of Israel
• 25:45 that we love so much, but right now, we end with a song
• 25:49 from Esther and also--
• 25:51 Jeffrey: A word from the Scripture,
• 25:53 Sha'alu Shalom Yerushalayim.
• 25:56 Kirsten: Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.
• 25:59 ♪♪♪
• 26:05 [singing in Hebrew]
• 26:23 ♪♪♪
• 27:36 ♪♪♪
• 28:00 ♪♪♪
• 28:06 ♪♪♪
• 28:15 ♪♪♪
• 28:25 ♪♪♪