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As the name suggest - Historical Evidence That Jesus Christ Existed. Full Documentary, I'm new to all this, to see how it goes?
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As the name suggest - Historical Evidence That Jesus Christ Existed. Full Documentary, I'm new to all this, to see how it goes?
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As the name suggest - Historical Evidence That Jesus Christ Existed. Full Documentary, I'm new to all this, to see how it goes?
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Investigative journalist Simcha Jakubowicz is trying to uncover the secrets of Christianity, including the mysterious sea voyage mentioned in the Christian Bible. According to the Gospels, Jesus and his disciples traveled to a place called the Land of the Gadarenes, but the exact location is unknown. Many believe it took place on the Sea of Galilee, but Simcha believes it happened elsewhere. He examines the clues from the Gospels, such as a great storm and the encounter with the Gadarenes, and explores possible locations like Cursi and Hippos. However, none of these locations fully match the descriptions in the Gospels. The popular site of Gadara seems to be the closest match, but it is far from the sea and lacks evidence of an ancient port. The true location of Jesus' voyage remains a mystery. The Christian Bible are clues to a mysterious sea voyage. According to the Gospels, Jesus and his disciples travel to a place called the Land of the Gadarenes. Where is this place? Why did Jesus journey there? If the clues can be decoded, will a secret history finally be revealed? This is one of the secrets of Christianity being unearthed by investigative journalist Simcha Jakubowicz. From deserts to tombs, from Rome to the Holy Land, Simcha tracks down the truth behind historical myths, long-held beliefs and some of the greatest biblical stories ever told. Behind me is a small lake in northern Israel known as the Sea of Galilee. According to Christian tradition, it's the location for one of the most dramatic episodes in Jesus' life. It's when he gets on a boat, encounters a big storm, exorcises a demon and comes face to face with a mysterious people that the Gospels call the Gadarenes. Who are these people and why did Jesus risk his life to get to them? You know what? I think we can buck 2,000 years of tradition and show that Jesus' voyage did not take place here. In fact, I think we can figure out exactly where he went to and why. More than that, I think we can take you to the Land of the Gadarenes and it's not across this lake. But before we do, let's look at the story as it's been told and understood for thousands of years. Almost 2,000 years of tradition says that Jesus' dramatic journey took place here on the freshwater lake known as the Sea of Galilee and that the Land of the Gadarenes is somewhere on these shores. This is one of the most important stories in the Gospels because it's the only time that Jesus, a Jewish rabbi, ministers to non-Jews setting the precedent for the Christian Church. The story of the sea and the storm is highly important because it will basically draw the main theme of the entire Gospel and the main theme of the Gospel is Jesus' message is to the entire world. Although the Gospels never named the body of water that Jesus crossed, they do lay out a set of very clear clues as to his destination. The Gospel of Matthew records that Jesus traveled with the twelve disciples and there arose a great tempest in the sea but surprisingly, Jesus was fast asleep and the ship was covered with waves. Taking the Gospels at their word, is there evidence here on the Sea of Galilee of ships from the time of Jesus, large enough to sleep in through a storm? Luckily, there is a boat that can be examined. It was discovered in 1986 on the shores of the lake. Tests show that the ancient fishing boat dates to two thousand years ago, the time of Jesus. Pilgrims travel from around the world to see this astonishing discovery which has become known as the Jesus boat. From the beginning we knew we were working on something very special here. So it dates to... The times of Jesus, yes. You can't ever prove that Jesus was on it or even saw it. There were about six hundred boats working in this lake at that time. It's enough, it's from that time, from that place, it's the only one and this is how they looked like. Archaeologists agree that this was the largest class of boat to sail the tiny Galilee. But a ride in a replica makes the holes in the story obvious. If the voyage took place here, Jesus, all of his disciples and maybe even a crew would have had to squeeze onto this relatively small boat. And the Gospels are unequivocal. And the Gospels are unequivocal. There was a great tempest, waves crashed over the ship and Jesus slept through the storm. Is this a good ship to go sleeping in? You can sleep in it, but not in a storm. The waves are coming over it and they're swamping the boat and you can be sleeping on nets but you will be thrown around by the waves. It's the worst place in the boat, it's the place that jumps, you know, left to right, up and down. Ropes are flying and the sailors are panicking and make noise and everything and people are shouting and panic. If the boat doesn't match the one described in the story, the storm is even more mystifying. The Christian Bible clearly describes a powerful tempest that swamps Jesus' boat. This lake doesn't produce storms like the one described in the Gospels. Also, when there are the occasional storms, you're never more than 15 minutes from the shore. Hardly the stuff to panic experienced fishermen like Jesus' disciples. After all, according to the Gospels, at least 4 of the 12 were professional fishermen. Neither the boat, the storm, nor the description of Jesus sleeping through the powerful tempest fit this location. But what about the other clues mentioned in the Gospels? Do any of them fit the Sea of Galilee? The Gospel of Mark says that Jesus traveled across the water to the land of the Gadarenes and directly on the shore was a necropolis or city of the dead. Living among the tombs of that necropolis was a possessed man or demonic. Jesus exercises the demons from a possessed man, sending them into a herd of 2,000 pigs. The swine immediately plunge off the cliffs into the sea and drown. If this story really took place on the Sea of Galilee, where is the necropolis? Where are the tombs, the pigs, and the land of the Gadarenes? Around the lake, pilgrims point to three candidates for Jesus' destination. From his base in Capernaum, they say Jesus would have sailed east, so the first candidate for the land of the Gadarenes is a place that is today called Cursi. Less than 9 kilometers from Capernaum, it's the largest ancient port on the Sea of Galilee. Is this the land of the Gadarenes where the miracle of the exorcism of the possessed man took place? Were the miracle of the exorcism of the possessed man took place? Strengthening Cursi's claim is the fact that 400 years after Jesus, Christians built a monastery here, marking the spot where they believed Jesus landed. What convinces you that, historically speaking, that actually it is the place where Jesus sailed to? The thing that sells it for us is we take the New Testament seriously. Jesus came in a boat. This is the only place you can come to by boat across the lake. By process of elimination. That's it. And the fact that this church was built tells us that this miracle happened somewhere around here. Except that they may have done what you just did, come here and say, Well, it couldn't have been there. It couldn't have been there. It says cliffs. By golly, there's a cliff. And decided it that way. I'm absolutely convinced that happened. Pilgrims found a port and a couple of 50 meter high cliffs set back from the shore and decided that this must be the land of the Gadarenes. Looking at the cliffs, they saw a few caves and they decided these had to be the tombs mentioned in the Gospels. One of these has been designated the tomb of the demonic since the 5th century. What leads you to think that there's even a tomb here? We know that in the 1st century, caves were used for burial. And here we have a large cave and there's some others here in the area. That leads us to believe that these were areas were used for tombs. And believed to be the tomb in which the demoniac would have lived. Why do we think that? Just because there's a cave? There's no necropolis here. It's just the caves are our best example of one cave. This was the largest and usually you take the largest and say that's the cave. In fact, ongoing excavations show no evidence of a tomb or a necropolis here. And there's one last problem with the checklist. A large herd of pigs hardly seems plausible in a Jewish country. Let me ask you, have you found pig bones here? You know, I don't think we have. We found every other kind of bone just about. But you found no ancient pig bones? No, not that I know of. Because of all this, even the early pilgrims weren't fully satisfied with this location. So they kept looking. Two kilometers away at a place called Hippos. They marked another site with a church. Just in case the land of the Gadarenes was further inland. I'm standing at the site of ancient Hippos. You can see it's being excavated. It's not quite open to the public yet. It's literally being unearthed right now. And right over there you see the Sea of Galilee. So this is one of the great candidates for where the miracle of the swine, the demonics happened. But there's a problem. It's not on the sea. There are no cliffs right next to the water. There's no necropolis or city of the dead. So there's a lot of problems with it. The only part of Kursi in Hippos that matches our checklist are the cliffs. But they are hardly impressive and they're far from the water. And yet, there is one final candidate in this area for the land of the Gadarenes. One which attracts more pilgrims than any other. The reason for its popularity is that it's actually called Gadara. So this is the gate to Gadara? This is the gate of the first century A.D. to Gadara. We're talking Jesus' time? Yeah, this is Jesus' time. When 5th century Christian pilgrims came here, they found a necropolis that suggested a connection to the Gospels. And built a church over the most impressive tomb. The people who built this church believed that this could be the place of the man with the demons inside. And the story with the pigs and that Jesus came to this place and exorcised these demons. Here, the name of the city, the necropolis, the size of the tomb, and even the cliff-like escarpment suggests a match with the Gospels. But there is a problem. The Gospel of Mark explicitly says that the cliffs and the necropolis were right by the sea. But we're very far from the Sea of Galilee, right? That's right. It's a problem, of course. But you see, it's a miracle. And people just believed in this story. But it's a 6 km hike. That's it. But you don't have to look word by word of this miracle. In fact, Gadara doesn't really match the story at all. It's not only far from the water, but there's no evidence of an ancient port anywhere at the southern end of the lake. Nowhere at all for Jesus to land. Nowhere at all for Jesus to land. The necropolis at Gadara has no port. And the port at Kursi has no necropolis. Hippos doesn't match at all. And the Sea of Galilee is too small. The boat too small. The destinations are too close. Nothing in this story matches with this holy land location. If Jesus didn't cross the Sea of Galilee, what body of water did he cross? Where did he go and why? Interestingly, at the time of Jesus, there was one other city named Gadara. Not on the Sea of Galilee, but far, far away across the Mediterranean in southern Spain. The Gospels tell us that Jesus embarked on a sea voyage to a mysterious place called the Land of the Gadarenes. Most people place the Gadarenes somewhere on the Sea of Galilee. But as we've seen, nothing, absolutely nothing here fits that story. So where did Jesus go and why? To answer those questions, Simca heads to Jerusalem to look at an original Greek version of the Gospel of Luke. Of the three Gospels that mention the voyage, Luke is the earliest. Because it relies on an even earlier version that scholars call the Q Source. In the library of the Rockefeller Museum, he meets biblical scholar James Tabor. And together, they find that Jesus does give a clue as to what his mission was all about. We're going back to the original Greek. Original Greek, but also the original Greek of what we call the Q Source. Now the Q Source is now in Luke. It's embedded in Luke. Meaning there's a source before the Gospel that he had that's embedded in. And it's the earliest collection of the sayings of Jesus. So I've got a page of Luke here. And it's the best one. And it says, he begins to say to them, an evil generation seeks a sign. So this is the Greek word for sign? It's a mayon. And then he just makes this absolutely declarative statement. There will be no sign given, but the sign of Yonah. The sign of Yonah. There's Yonah. Now, a lot of people, when they read this, they say, oh, but I know what the sign of Yonah is. That's that Jesus would be in the tomb three days and three nights like Yonah was in the belly of the fish. But this text doesn't say that. That's very important. He's talking code. He says, you're evil for wanting this sign. But you're going to get a sign. You're going to get the sign of Yonah. So the code here is sign of Yonah, in other words. And it doesn't mean the sign of Yonah, meaning a sign that Yonah gave. It means Yonah is the sign. Whatever Yonah did in his time. That's what you would look at to decode the sign. Right. Let's look at what Yonah did. The prophet Yonah is best known for his sea journey gone bad. After surviving a storm, Yonah ends up in the belly of a whale or a great fish. Is Jesus telling us that he's following in the wake of the prophet Yonah, who undertook a sea voyage some 700 years earlier? After all, Yonah was in a storm. Jesus was in a storm. Yonah fell asleep during the storm. And so did Jesus. Yonah quelled the storm. Jesus quelled the storm. What if Jesus is telling us that whatever mission Yonah was on, Jesus was on the same mission? If we're going to rediscover the lost voyage of Jesus, we have to trace the journey of Yonah. And that journey had nothing to do with the tiny lake of Galilee. Yonah's voyage began in the ancient Mediterranean port of Jaffa in the land of Israel. Can it be that by following Yonah, Jesus began his journey in the port of Jaffa and sailed across the Mediterranean? We shouldn't assume that people in this period didn't travel and travel all the way to France and Spain. It was done all the time, especially by seafaring people and military people. So we tend to think of Jesus as this quaint guy who just walked around the lake all day and talked to fishermen. But here we have this story that doesn't seem to fit a little lake in a storm. And essentially he says in Greek, let's go across. He doesn't call it a lake. It says he gets into the boat and that's when he falls asleep in the stern. And there's this, he says, a great storm. And then he says, and he went across the Thalassa. Thalassa is not the word for lake. Now all these words he said, well, it could mean lake. It could mean ocean. But it's the normal word for sea. If Jesus' journey began here in the port of Jaffa and he was following in Yonah's footsteps, it's clear where he would have been heading. The Bible tells us that Yonah was heading to a place called Tarshish. Scholars generally agree that Tarshish is ancient Tartessos in southern Spain. Somewhere beyond the Straits of Gibraltar. The area called Tarshish in Jonah's time was called Gadara in Jesus' time. They were sailing to the same place. The details provided in the Gospel suddenly make sense. On the Mediterranean Sea, ships have always been large enough to fall asleep in during a storm. If Jesus and his disciples were sailing towards ancient Gadara, now modern Cadiz, then there should be impressive cliffs here. Traditions of demonics, of pig-centered culture, and finally, a necropolis by the sea. On the way to ancient Gadara, one must first pass through the Straits of Gibraltar. Gibraltar is famous for some of the most remarkable cliffs in the world. Rounding the southern tip of Spain, ships sail into the waters of Cadiz, ancient Gadara. Today, Cadiz sits on a peninsula. However, geologists tell us that in Jesus' time, before it silted up, Gadara was situated on a large island. Part of an archipelago of islands located at the very edge of the known world. Matching the Gospels, this area is world-famous for the black Iberian pig. For more than 2,000 years, these animals have been the mainstay of the local diet. And the most famous festival here is the annual carnival. Incredibly, once again matching the Gospels, the central figure of the celebration is the demonic. According to the Gospels, the demonic lived in a tomb in a necropolis by the sea. Have any tombs been discovered under the streets of modern Cadiz? In fact, there have been. And they contained some of the most magnificent marble coffins found anywhere in the world. But what about the necropolis that once housed such breathtaking coffins? Have any of the tombs survived? A site just a few kilometers inland from Cadiz may hold the answer. According to some aerial photographs, we have been able to see the place where the ships were made, where the goods were stored. This is a port city. We have a port that is nothing like any other in the Mediterranean. According to Professor Mata, Dona Blanca was the ancient port of Cadiz. Geological research shows that 2,000 years ago, instead of flatlands, there was a rocky shore here and a sharp drop-off around the ruined city. There were cliffs like the ones described in the Gospels. And there were tombs. Lots of tombs. 2 million square meters. In the first century, there was a small city full of tombs. Lots of tombs. Thousands of tombs. In those days, you could see that the tombs were filled with trees. The water was flowing. It was a garden structure. A paradise. A necropolis. You could see that by not being in use. The tombs were abandoned. If Jesus sailed into this necropolis, he might have seen an abandoned burial site, a demonic living in an ancient tomb, and swine grazing among the trees. But of the 5,000 tombs found here, only one has been excavated. Professor Mata agrees to take Simca to it. This excavation has never been filmed or published. The tomb conforms to the traditions of the early Canaanites and Israelites. In a Spanish context, scholars call these people Phoenicians. Clearly, this tomb is big enough for a demonic to live in. In fact, Professor Mata has a surprise for Simca. When we excavated this and left it, the next year we found a man living here. A poor man. There was a man living in the tomb? Yes, yes, yes. Clearly, we're in the right area. We seem to be in the general area described by the Gospels as the goal of Jesus' journey. But around here, you have several necropolis by the sea. The one at Gadara is not the only one. And it would seem to me that if Jesus did come here, there would be some kind of oral tradition preserving that event. So I want to find the exact spot where Jesus landed. Simca believes the area of Cadiz, called Gadara in ancient times, is the land of the Gadarenes mentioned in the Christian Bible. He also believes that this was Jesus' destination when he embarked on the sea voyage recounted in the Gospels. But there is no oral tradition that Jesus made landfall here. So he's now looking for a nearby island that has the physical characteristics required, along with a living tradition, that Jesus was there. The key is the storm described in the Gospels. If the storm defines where Jesus made landfall, then it would have to be around the Balearic Islands, just off Spain, an area notorious for its light-threatening gales. If Jesus set sail from the port of Jaffa across the Mediterranean, what would have happened? He probably would have been caught in a storm. That's what happens. And sailing then was a little more dangerous than sailing today. And when that happened, when you were caught in a tempest, sailors set sail for the largest of the Balearic Islands, here, Majorca. And if you came into this safe harbor, or one like it, you're confronted with cliffs on the one hand. That's the geology of the place. But the culture of the place is cities of the dead, dwellings of the dead, tombs. As in nearby Cádiz, the geography of this area fits the story in the Gospels. As in Cádiz, the people here buried their dead on the beaches in tombs large enough for the living to take refuge in. Like the necropolis just outside Cádiz, this necropolis was already 700 years old by the time Jesus was born. If Jesus did come here, some of his first followers, all of them from Israel and all of them Jewish, would have followed in his footsteps after the crucifixion. But is there any hard archaeology linking this island with those early Hebrew-speaking followers of Jesus? Hidden away in a corner of the Archaeological Museum of Majorca, there are three lead Hebrew-inscribed anchors found in a Christian necropolis. Anchors are perhaps the earliest Christian symbols. Someone was literally buried with them. Oh, that's really heavy. E-M-I-N-G. Oh, that's really heavy. The Hebrew inscription names the man buried with these anchors He was called Samuel, son of Hanai. Suddenly, Simcha notices something. I have a surprise for you. There's more inscriptions here. More ancient inscriptions. See here? I see here, this looks like either an ale for a man. This is a shin. Let me get this straight. Somebody was buried with this? Yes. The shins were found on a grave, with the body facing Jerusalem. Simcha's discovery draws the attention of the head curator of the museum. This is R, Yerusha. It may say from Jerusalem. Have you ever seen this before? We've discovered a new inscription? A new inscription? That's right. Right in the place where Jesus would have had to take shelter if he was caught in a Mediterranean storm, Simcha has tracked down a 2nd century Jewish-Christian burial that is commemorated with anchors. He's also discovered an inscription that seems to point to Jerusalem, the center of the Jewish-Christian movement after the crucifixion. These anchors could be archaeological evidence that Jesus' earliest Hebrew followers lived in Majorca. But is there any tradition or physical evidence that Jesus actually set foot on this island? Incredibly, all it takes is a question to the driver to reveal that there is a local tradition, claiming that Jesus came here and left his footprint as a permanent reminder of his voyage to Majorca. There's a little sign here, Aramitta, the Bethlehem. Yeah, right. Do you know what is Aramitta? Aramitta is a holy place. It used to be a place of pilgrimage. Pilgrimage? Yeah, it's a sort of pilgrimage place. You're kidding. Simcha's driver takes him to the footprint that locals treat with veneration. Look, my grandparents, when I was a little boy, when they took me to pray, they always made me step on the footprint. They said there's the mark of when Jesus came to visit the people, that there was this stone here. Did I understand him correctly? He said that Jesus came to visit? Yeah. This is not Israel, this is not Jerusalem. Why is there a tradition that Jesus was here? But it was a very old tradition. My grandmother, and this is her mother, and before that, the years she had to do a lot, it was a very old tradition. It seems clear that Majorca was an early Christian colony. The evidence suggests that Jesus himself may have journeyed here. Does this island preserve a lost tradition? Since some of Jesus' earliest followers included members of his family, is it possible that Simcha can now come face to face with their forgotten descendants? People have assumed that Jesus never, ever left the shores of the Holy Land. But our investigation has led us to the conclusion that his famous journey to the land of the Gadarenes, mentioned in three of the four Gospels, was not a nine kilometer trek across a tiny lake called Galilee, but an epic voyage across the Mediterranean to Spain. We have revealed that the geology, geography, culture, and archaeology mentioned in the Gospels match southern Spain and nowhere else. In fact, on the island of Majorca, we found a living tradition that Jesus made landfall there. There's even a stone revered as a cast of his foot. After the crucifixion, his movement, which included disciples and family, were on the run from the Roman authorities. Is it possible that they literally followed in their master's footsteps? Is it possible that Majorca is home to his descendants? To his descendants, sometimes called the Ebionites. Did the Ebionites think of Jesus the way other Christians do? They would probably think of Jesus more as a human being. He was on a mission sent by God. He was in the long lineage of the kind of prophets and leaders of ancient Israel. But he was a human being. They would never have thought of him as a divinity or a son of God. Let's say they were still alive, their descendants. What would have been preserved? What traditions? First of all, I think it's a remarkable idea. I mean, it's a question that's never been asked before because everybody assumes that the Ebionites disappeared from history. And I think it's very possible that that tradition could survive. And I think there would be a consciousness, at least, of being descended from his first followers. His first followers in Jerusalem included family members. But if they're still around, is that possible that 2,000 years after the crucifixion there would be echoes of some of these traditions? There probably would be, but it would be a diminishing kind of echo. But there would still be Jewish practices, Jewish beliefs, and I think a kind of a Jewish sensibility. Simca now inquires if there are any people claiming traditions like these in Majorca. Ebionites means poor ones. He now discovers that there is a movement in Majorca known as the Poor Church. Could this group possess remnants of Ebionite beliefs? Is it possible that some of these people are of the bloodline of Jesus? Simca learns that like the Ebionites, these Catholics are attracted to Judaism and believe in Jesus not as a god, but as a Jewish teacher. Not as a god, but as a Jewish teacher. This perfectly matches the beliefs of the Ebionites. They believe in Jesus, but they don't believe in God. They don't believe in God. They don't believe in God. They don't believe in God. They don't believe in God. They don't believe in God. They don't believe in God. They don't believe in God. They don't believe in God. They don't believe in God. They don't believe in God. This perfectly matches the beliefs of the Ebionites. Even more astounding, the group's main spiritual leader, Cayetano, who recently passed away, taught that they were descendants of Jesus and his original Jewish followers. In the room are Cayetano's brother, daughter, and granddaughter. I'm very interested in this tradition and the family that you are from the family of Jesus. We are descendants of the Jews who came to Mallorca. Cayetano spoke of possible descendants of Jesus in his family. What I ask José, it's true, he said so calmly that he was the son of Jesus, but he said it so calmly. I said to him, do you know the role you have given us? You have given us a hot stone according to what he said, he died there, but in theory he married Maria Magdalena and they had Juan. You have commented that Magdalena is a name very widespread here and that they may have some kind of connection with that coming of the family of Jesus. Because, of course, when we talk about the oral tradition, it was something that, if we talked about this, one could be labeled crazy. It never caught my attention. I mean, I'm interested in Judaism as a religion, Judaism as a history, but I'm not interested in knowing if I'm a descendant. No, I don't know. Jesus thought this mission was so important that he tells one of his disciples to get on the boat instead of burying his father. He tells him, let the dead bury the dead. Essentially, he's telling him to break one of the Ten Commandments, to honor thy father and thy mother. What could be so important? Jesus says that if you want to understand him, we've got to look at Jonah. He calls it the sign of Jonah. And as we've seen, it's in southern Spain. Why? Just when you say the word Spain, to me, in my field, it rings all kinds of bells because in the prophets, it's the ends of the earth. And the Messiah has to reach to the ends of the earth. There's something in the agenda of a Messiah that people tend to forget. He's got to do a number of things, basically three things. He's going to sit on a throne and rule over his people. He's going to bring peace and justice to the world. But the third thing that's often forgotten is he's got to bring in the rest of the tribes of Israel that are not living in the land during the time of Jesus. Ten of the twelve tribes of biblical Israel were exiled from the Holy Land around 700 B.C. One of these tribes was called Gad. At the same time as the exile of the tribe of Gad, historians tell us that a colony was established in southern Spain. In fact, most places in the area such as Guadalquivir, Guadiana, and Guadalat include the Spanish word for Gad in their names. Interestingly, the Israelite tribe of Gad was on the eastern side of the Jordan River where the only other city of Gadara existed. Can it be that the exiled Gadarenes that once lived in modern-day Jordan made their way to southern Spain? Amazingly, to this day, people living in Cadiz don't call themselves Cadizians. Rather, they call themselves Gadites. But is there any hard archaeological evidence linking the lost tribe of Gad to Spanish Gadara? Overlooked in a corner of the Museum of Cadiz is an ancient inscription that dates to the 7th century B.C., the time of Jonah, when the tribe of Gad would have arrived here. The inscription is in Hebrew and it reads, If Jesus, like Jonah, was trying to return the lost tribe of Gad, he failed. The Gospels tell us that the Gadarenes asked him to get back on his ship and go back where he came from. It seems that when the Gospel writers set this story to paper, they removed some important details. They shrouded the land of the Gadarenes in mystery, and situated it in the Galilee, a place where it doesn't belong. Could it be that the big secret of the trip to Gadara is that actually Jesus failed? Because the Gadarenes clearly say, get back on that boat and get out of here. He does say that he was only sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. The lost sheep are the two images of the lost tribes. I'll raise a shepherd and he'll bring back the lost sheep, tell stories about lost sheep, and then fishing, pulling fish in. Since he doesn't do it, it's not something the Gospels would report triumphantly. There's no record of huge numbers from Spain coming to Jerusalem and saying here we are. So maybe if it's a failed mission whether it's conscious or unconscious, I don't know. If it was a failed mission, that would explain why the story has been lost. It would also suggest that his closest followers would have expected the second coming to occur in Spain. They would have expected him to succeed, where he had once failed. Perhaps that's why James, son of Zebedee, and his disciples followed in Jesus' footsteps. He went to Spain and tradition holds he was buried there, making Santiago de Compostela the third most important pilgrimage destination in all of Christendom. And what about Paul? It may surprise people to learn that Paul was also determined to go to Spain. Romans 15.24 states explicitly and the earliest evidence outside the Christian Bible suggests that he got there. The tribe of Gad did not sail to the Holy Land with Jesus. Nonetheless, it seems that Jesus' most intimate followers believed that the second coming would only happen when the Gadites, the Gadarenes of the Gospels, rejoined the Jewish people. As it turns out, it was the Gadites who did journey to Jerusalem after the crucifixion. Incredibly, at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, a holy site for Christians and the traditional location of the crucifixion, hidden from public view is Christianity's earliest inscription. And it may be the defining evidence that at least one member of the tribe of Gad came home. It leads to a tunnel and a long walk beneath the traditional site of Jesus' burial. And there, next to an altar dedicated to the Virgin Mary, is a 2nd century graffiti of a seafaring boat. Beneath it, there's a Latin inscription suggesting that it came from the West. The man or woman who drew this may very well be a Christian. What we can see here is a boat where you can see the masts. The sails are in red. Very difficult to see. You can see the oars. You can see the steering tail. You've got everything here. I see here a pilgrim coming from the western part of the empire. It can be as far as Spain. He says two things. First of all, Evimus. In Latin, which means O Lord, we have come. 2,000 years of Christian tradition says that Jesus never left the Holy Land and that his famous sea voyage was across this tiny lake. I think we've made a powerful case that this is not where the voyage took place. It took place across the Mediterranean. He didn't go to modern-day Jordan. He went to modern-day Spain. To fulfill his messianic, his messiah agenda to bring the lost tribe of Gad home to the land of Israel. Ironically, the tribe of Gad did not follow him to the Holy Land. But after the crucifixion, it seems that one group of Gadites did finally make the voyage. For more UN videos visit www.un.org
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