0:00 hello whoever and wherever you may be
0:03 I'm James
0:04 Randy or did you
0:07 guess there are well accepted accounts
0:09 from the Bible that Christians and
0:11 others never question events and
0:14 locations that are part of the story
0:15 told of Christ and his history one such
0:18 is the account in John 1 of the birth of
0:21 Christ in the lower Galilee town of
0:25 Nazareth this town is not mentioned at
0:27 all in the Old Testament nor in any of
0:30 the extensive rabinal literature and the
0:32 only established site there is the
0:34 ancient Town Waterwell now referred to
0:37 No Surprise as Mar's well the modern
0:41 town is covered with churches also no
0:44 surprise and though archaeology offers
0:46 no support at all for them the nazarin
0:49 can point out sites such as Joseph's
0:52 carpentry shop and the spot where Mary
0:54 received the Annunciation the message
0:56 from the angel Gabriel that she was
0:57 pregnant with Jesus as well as the exact
1:00 location of menac Christi the table
1:03 where Jesus died with his Apostles after
1:05 his resurrection and the sight of the
1:08 synagogue where Jesus preached as a lad
1:11 but Nazareth may be overrated as an
1:13 historical site that proves the
1:15 inherency of the Bible author Rene somm
1:19 has written The Myth of Nazareth the
1:22 Invented Town of Jesus a book that
1:24 effectively demonstrates the
1:26 controversial archaeology of the town
1:28 where the Bible has Jesus Christ being
1:30 born of course the religious faction has
1:33 reacted furiously to the book
1:35 specifically in the bulletin of the
1:37 Anglo Israeli archaeological Society B A
1:41 IAS which devotes some 47 pages to five
1:46 angry rebuttal there is we are told an
1:49 ambitious commercial Enterprise
1:51 presently under construction in Nazareth
1:53 to rescue the facts about jesus'
1:56 Hometown it's a resort known as Nazareth
1:59 Village
2:00 it is designed to eventually contain
2:03 streets and several dozen ston houses
2:06 inhabited by actors and storytellers in
2:08 authentic Garb who will illuminate the
2:11 life and teachings of Jesus a notion
2:14 perhaps inspired by the phenomenal
2:16 success of Disneyland where Tinkerbell
2:19 and Mickey Mouse are seen flitting and
2:21 strolling about also in authentic Garb
2:24 as of 10 years ago an international
2:26 Consortium of Christian groups called
2:28 The Miracle of Nazareth International
2:30 Foundation had raised some $60 million
2:34 for the project with contributors in the
2:36 US such as former President Jimmy Carter
2:39 Pat Boone and Reverend Reggie White
2:42 formerly a Green Bay Packer football
2:44 star Scholars associated with the
2:46 Nazareth Village project Steven fan
2:49 Yehuda rapuano and Ross Voss none of
2:53 them
2:54 archeologists now say that evidence has
2:56 been discovered there for a town that
2:58 existed at the time time of Jesus a
3:01 settlement before the first Jewish war
3:04 that took place in 70
3:06 CE this evidence was simply lying on the
3:09 open surface of the site they say this
3:12 claim author Psalm shows is bogus and it
3:16 results from misdating mislabeling
3:18 misinterpreting and from Pure invention
3:20 these artifacts and facts were somehow
3:23 missed by the previous crowds of
3:25 professional archaeologists who have
3:28 been digging on that site for the last
3:31 century the Nazareth Village Resort lies
3:35 on a 15 acre plot of land called the
3:37 Nazareth Village Farm the
3:40 mvf the scholars under discussion
3:43 surveyed the farm dug on it and
3:45 published a lengthy report in the 2007
3:48 issue of the B AAS Journal there is
3:52 little difficulty to show that there
3:54 evidence for a town there 11 small
3:57 pieces of pottery shards actually dates
4:00 as late as the 2 Century CE and Psalms
4:03 research shows that the rest of the
4:05 material from the Nazareth site dates
4:08 well after the time of Jesus
4:11 Christ there simply is no demonstrable
4:13 evidence from the Nazareth site that
4:16 dates to the time of Jesus Christ and to
4:18 helenistic times in fact one awkward
4:21 fact after the other stands in the way
4:24 of such a claim for example the Church
4:26 of the enunciation at Nazareth the
4:29 largest Christian structure in the
4:30 Middle East is a primary destination of
4:34 Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land of
4:37 course it is there that the faithful
4:39 believe Mary received the Annunciation
4:41 from the Archangel Gabriel at her home
4:44 but the existence of a number of tombs
4:46 directly under the structure firmly
4:48 established by archaeologists is just
4:51 impossible since for the faithful tombs
4:54 have no place under such a structure
4:57 according to Jewish religious law Jews
4:59 can not live in the vicinity of tombs
5:02 which are a prime source of ritual
5:04 impurity so the ancient commentary on
5:07 Jewish law mandates that tombs must be
5:09 located outside of the Village proper
5:13 thus tombs under the house of Mary are
5:15 denied by the tradition these post Iron
5:18 Age tombs are also post Jesus middle
5:21 Roman and later and the wealth of
5:24 pottery found in them is also later
5:28 consider continuing pilgrimage to
5:30 Nazareth which fortifies the convictions
5:33 of the True Believer while supporting
5:34 the community financially depends on the
5:38 sanctity and the reputation of the site
5:40 as author Psalm points out perhaps the
5:43 entire Jesus story depends on it too he
5:47 also tells us not to be too surprised if
5:49 remarkable finds at Nazareth
5:51 conveniently appear in the next few
5:53 years finds that substantiate a
5:56 settlement there at the time of Christ
5:59 to fit the demands of the Christian
6:00 tradition the upcoming material will
6:03 have to be early and non- funeral and
6:06 just recently as if PM himself had
6:09 prophetic Powers the nvf now reports
6:12 that a cach of helenistic and early
6:14 Roman coins has recently been found at
6:18 Mary's well at the Northern end of the
6:20 Nazareth Basin but strangely nothing
6:24 even remotely similar had ever been
6:26 found there before in the entire Cent of
6:30 professional digging about a cache of
6:32 helenistic and early Roman coins a
6:35 bonanza for any archaeologist is exactly
6:38 the sort of evidence which the Believers
6:40 need in order to decide the matter in
6:42 their favor but the earliest coin found
6:45 there dates to about 350 CE in fact a
6:49 2006 report from the Israeli Antiquities
6:52 Authority signed by the archaeologist
6:54 who dug at the Mary's Well site mentions
6:57 no early coins at all when coins found
7:00 in Wells are very frequent discoveries
7:03 the only datable coins she found there
7:05 were from the 14th and 15th centuy after
7:09 Jesus the facts are that no demonstrable
7:13 evidence dating either to the time of
7:15 Jesus or to earlier helenistic times has
7:18 been found at Nazareth it is a late
7:21 Roman Byzantine Village not a mythical
7:24 settlement at the turn of the era as
7:26 author PM says that question has has
7:29 already been answered and answered
7:34 convincingly here we have a parallel
7:36 with the situation re evidence for the
7:38 parapsychological Miracles for
7:41 Generations the Believers who support
7:43 the Nazareth myth had been defending
7:45 their case by demanding prove me wrong
7:49 when empiricists come up with the
7:50 required facts they discovered that the
7:52 facts don't seem to matter to those
7:55 people they also know that there's no
7:57 way to disprove a myth Psalm notes as I
8:00 have that no one can prove that Santa
8:03 Claus doesn't exist for example we can
8:05 go to the North Pole we can dig up there
8:07 all we want and we can find absolutely
8:10 no evidence for his gift manufacturing
8:12 facility nor for his team of flying
8:15 reindeer all the believer has to say
8:17 under those circumstances is well you
8:20 just didn't look in the right places or
8:22 he's hiding or even he's invisible ooh
8:26 measuring chimneys tracing gifts back to
8:28 the factories and China where they were
8:30 made and discovering that the serial
8:32 numbers on watches were stamped there in
8:34 a little Swiss Town those things prove
8:37 nothing to the True Believer the
8:39 mythology of Jesus is every bit as weird
8:43 oh one additional fact there are the
8:47 so-called venerated sites at which the
8:49 various Franciscan pseudo archaeologists
8:51 have been digging for the last century
8:53 or so they were situated where they are
8:56 to make them fit as much as could be
8:58 done the require requirements of the
9:00 gospel's description for example
9:02 according to Luke 4: 16-30 quote he came
9:07 to Nazareth where he had been brought up
9:10 and as his custom was he went into the
9:12 synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood
9:15 up to read he spoke some controversial
9:18 words and all they in the synagogue when
9:20 they heard these things were filled with
9:22 wrath and Rose up and thrust him out of
9:25 the city and led him onto the brow of
9:27 the Hill whereupon their City was built
9:30 that they might cast him down headlong
9:32 end of quote by the way Jesus escaped by
9:36 some sort of subterfuge but we don't
9:38 have to get into that but let's examine
9:40 these infallible facts shall we
9:43 according to these holy words said to be
9:45 written by St Luke himself there was a
9:48 synagogue at Nazareth but extensive
9:52 archaeological excavation over a century
9:54 remember has only found the city well
9:57 nothing else not one one stone of
10:00 construction remaining from this Temple
10:02 anywhere in the vicinity also there is
10:05 no Nazareth Hill thus no brow of the
10:08 Hill nor Cliff exists or existed within
10:12 the last 100,000 years there is no such
10:15 elevation or is there any reasonable
10:18 place where such a cliff could have
10:20 existed the bare fact is that no
10:23 evidence of buildings or Cliffs of any
10:26 kind dating to the turn of the era has
10:29 has ever been found at these venerated
10:31 sites the tourists are barking up the
10:35 wrong tree St Luke and thus the inherent
10:38 Bible was plainly demonstrably dead
10:43 wrong shall we also question the rest of
10:45 the Holy Bible H yes I think so we thank
10:50 you for watching this latest episode of
10:52 James Randy speaks for more of James
10:54 Randy and the Educational Foundation
10:56 make sure you visit randy. org
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