There are places that are still lost.
And one of the most important sites is Bethsaida.
[Josh] This is a really important city.
This is a place where Jesus is performing miracles.
-He's walking on water. -Absolutely.
[Josh] It's extraordinary.
What an incredible site.
This place is, like, otherworldly.
This is the first time the world has seen this
-in 1,400 years. -[Steven] Yeah.
[Josh] So, simple question,
where's Bethsaida?
Put on your gloves and let's go to work.
Oh, manual labor?
-Oh, I didn't realize. -[chuckles]
[on radio] Ready to rock and roll.
[on radio] There's another site. They believe this could be Bethsaida.
What? My brain is exploding right now.
[engines revving]
Jesus may have walked on this very street.
It's overwhelming to think about it.
[Moti] There's always surprises in archeology.
[exhales] I gotta remember to not look down too much.
It's not a smoking gun, it's a bomb.
[Josh] This is unbelievable.
I mean, look at this.
All of us have heard the stories of the miracles of Jesus.
He is said to have healed the blind,
walked on water
and fed the 5,000.
The Bible reveals that the miracles happened
on the shores of the Sea of Galilee
in a fishing village called Bethsaida.
This was also the hometown
of three of Jesus' Apostles,
including Peter, the rock of the early Church
later anointed as the first pope.
Bethsaida is, therefore,
one of the holiest Christian sites on Earth,
or it would be if we knew where it was.
Its location, lost for nearly 2,00 years
has recently sparked a heated and holy debate.
In the late 20th century,
one archeologist discovered the ruins
of an ancient town so convincing
that it was officially declared to be the long-missing site.
But not so fast
because now a different team
claims that they've found Bethsaida
and they're backing it up with a remarkable discovery
that's making headlines around the globe.
And nearby, a third archeological dig
may have unearthed the literal foundation
of Christianity itself.
So come with me
as I journey to the Holy Land
to walk in the footsteps of Jesus and his Apostles
on a quest to find the lost city of miracles.
My name is Josh Gates.
Hello!
Explorer...
Here goes nothing.
...adventurer...
[exclaiming]
Oh, that's a long way down.
...and a guy who ends up in some very strange situations.
I'm alive! For now.
With a degree in archeology
and a passion for the unexplained,
I travel to the ends of the Earth
investigating the greatest legends in history.
[on radio] Ready to rock and roll.
This is Expedition Unknown.
Through the storied stones of Damascus Gate,
I cross the threshold
into the old city of Jerusalem.
[people chattering]
Well, I am back again in the Holy Land
at the only place we could begin this expedition.
The building behind me is the most important site
in the entire Christian world,
the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
Let's go inside.
This is the place where tradition holds
that Jesus was crucified, entombed,
and then rose from the dead.
For the past 1,700 years,
Christians have made pilgrimage here
to get as close to him as possible.
But I'm here to search for Christianity's humble beginnings
and the place of miracles that started it all.
To do that, we have to go back in time,
like here, on the lowest level of the Holy Sepulchre.
This is one of the oldest parts of the church,
and this is, essentially, antique graffiti,
thousands of crosses carved into the walls
by devoted pilgrims who traveled here from far-away lands.
Chiseling your mark into holy architecture
is now a no-no,
but people are still continuing the tradition,
just using another medium.
This is Razzouk Tattoo,
and it's not just any tattoo parlor.
It's been around since the Crusades were a going concern.
The oldest stamp in the store is this,
a partially-broken Jerusalem cross.
This wood block is 500 years old
and it would look really good on me.
Wassim Razzouk is the current caretaker.
For 27 generations,
his family has been inking pilgrims in the Holy Land,
and they still come in droves.
Hello, hello.
-Hello. -How's everyone doing?
-Hey! Good. -Good.
[Josh] Okay, so we've got a sword happening here.
-You're getting what? -Mary Magdalene.
Mary Magdalene. And you've got...
-Oh, you've got all sorts of stuff going on here. -[man] We got a few things.
-I've been here eight times. -[Josh] Wow.
-If he gets 10, he gets a free one, right? -[all chuckling]
Wow, this is extraordinary.
Soon, Wassim's chair is free and I'm in it.
Okay, time for me to dig deep
and bear the pain.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Josh grunts, flinches]
[exhales]
Okay, what do you think?
Well, not gonna lie, it hurt a lot...
-It hurt. -...but I toughed it out.
What are you talking about? We didn't even start.
I didn't tattoo you yet. This was just the stamp.
What? That was just the stamp?
-[Wassim] Yeah! -Oh, no. I'm not ready for this.
-I'm not ready for this. I gotta hit the road. -You're not ready?
-No, I gotta hit the road. -Okay. Where are you going?
We're filming, uh, up north.
Oh. You wanna ride with us?
-Us? -Us.
[engine purring]
[engine revving]
[Josh] Not only is Wassim a tattoo artist,
he's also a member of the Holy Land Bikers,
a motorcycle club which patrols
the most sacred streets on Earth.
These guys are all about honor,
loyalty and brotherhood
and it is a privilege to ride alongside them.
All I had to do was kick in for gas, grass
and promise to go to mass.
That's fair.
Wassim,
I like your style.
Thank you, man.
Hey, I'm in a gang!
It's a miracle.
Wassim,
this is my exit.
Thank you so much.
I'll be sure to bring the bike back, okay?
God bless.
Eventually, I break off from the gang
and point my chopper north.
To find the lost city of miracles,
I'm headed to a city that isn't lost,
an ancient village mentioned in all four Gospels
known as Capernaum.
After a drive of about 100 miles,
I arrive at the archeological site of Capernaum
on the western edge of the famous Sea of Galilee.
Don't let the view confuse you.
The Sea of Galilee is actually a lake,
the lowest fresh-water lake in the world,
700 feet below sea level.
And on its shore are the ruins of Capernaum,
a simple fishing village from the first century.
It's here that I'm meeting Biblical scholar Yisca Harani.
Yisca.
Hello, Josh.
-[Josh] Beautiful morning. -Absolutely.
So, based on the thousands of people
I see walking around here,
I take it we are standing in a very important place.
Yes. Capernaum is really the heart of the Galilee.
It's Jerusalem of the Galilee
-from the perspective of Jesus. -[Josh] Right.
Right, because, in the Bible,
to put it quite simply,
Jesus was here, right? He lived here.
-Jesus was here according to the four Gospels. -Right.
All Gospels place Jesus' ministry here.
[Josh] The four Gospels, the book of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John,
don't always agree.
But in some things,
like the mention of this fishing village,
they're unanimous.
As important a place as this is,
it did become lost for a while, right?
Yes. In the ninth century,
or 10th at the latest, it is abandoned.
And that's really the thing that's brought me here,
is that, as important as this is,
there are other places like Capernaum
that are, today, still lost.
That is true. And one of the most important sites is Bethsaida.
Bethsaida. So this is, this is a place
that is also mentioned in all four of the Gospels.
[Yisca] Bethsaida is the place where three Apostles grew up.
[Josh] Right.
[Yisca] Peter and his brother Andrew...
Uh-huh.
...and then a third one called Philip.
I have to think back to Sunday school now.
I need an Apostle refresher course.
The Apostles were Jesus' crew,
his literal ride or dies
who were the first to spread the gospel of his divine nature.
There were an even dozen of them.
Peter, Peter's brother Andrew,
Simon, aka Simon the Zealot,
John, John's brother James,
another James, which must have been kind of confusing,
Matthew, Bartholomew,
Thomas, Jude, Philip,
and last and definitely least, Judas Iscariot.
Together, they are responsible not just for throwing
the most memorable dinner party in history,
but for the founding of Christianity itself.
And the fact that Peter is from Bethsaida
is also really significant.
He's the one that's going to be given
-the keys to leadership. -[Josh] Yeah.
Home to some very important characters in this story.
Bethsaida is also a place of miracles
and all of these miracles are very significant.
[Josh] The Gospel of Mark tells us of a blind man
who was brought to Jesus begging to be healed.
Jesus laid his hands on the man's eyes
and the blind could see.
Mark also tells us
that it is from the shores of the lost town
that Jesus walked on the Sea of Galilee.
And finally, there is one of Jesus' most memorable feats,
feeding 5,000 people
with just five loaves of bread and two fish.
According to Luke,
all 5,000 "ate and were filled."
And all of this happened in Bethsaida.
So, if we're digging around in the dirt
and we find a site,
what do we need for a place to be Bethsaida?
What's on the checklist?
In order to be Bethsaida,
first of all, we have to find a Jewish fishing village
-from first century. -[Josh] Right.
-Much like this. -Yes.
We need, because these Apostles were fishermen,
-we need a fishing village. -Exactly. Exactly.
Right. Okay.
But then the second level
must be a Roman polis.
Polis.
Polis means a city
-recognized by the imperial rulers. -Right.
-Okay. -So we need Jewish level
-and we need the Roman level. -[Josh] Got it.
Under the Roman Empire,
towns that were in favor with local administrators
could be given the status of a polis.
Roman polises were granted limited autonomy to self-govern,
and right around the time of Jesus' crucifixion,
Bethsaida became one such place.
It was even given a Roman name, Julius,
in honor of the emperor Caesar Augustus' wife Julia.
So, simple question, where's Bethsaida?
-There are two candidates for Bethsaida. -There are?
-The one called Et-Tell... -Uh-huh.
...is a place that was discovered in 1989...
-All right. -[Yisca] ...and is still being excavated
-and it seem to be a good candidate. -Okay.
But then we had a surprise.
Another location was identified
to be a potential candidate.
-The place is called El Araj... -Okay.
[Yisca] ...and it is being now, as we're speaking,
it is being excavated.
So which one is Bethsaida?
Well, only archeology
can be the real witness
to what has happened 2,000 years ago
because, if we don't see Bethsaida
coming alive from the ground,
it will remain a text...
Right.
...or it will remain lost.
[Josh] There are multiple contenders for the site,
but only one was a place of miracles.
I thank Yisca and rush back to my bike
to visit a pair of potential Bethsaidas.
All right, for your consideration,
candidate number one,
the archeological site of Et-Tell,
a place that has been calling itself Bethsaida for 30 years.
They are so convinced,
they even put it on the street signs.
So maybe this lost city
has already been found.
Et-Tell is only a few miles from Capernaum,
but the tourists don't appear to be making the trip with me.
Okay.
Where is everybody?
I hike through some seriously impressive ruins
in search of the archeologist
who discovered this site, Rami Arav.
Here we go. Rami?
-Rami? -[Rami] Josh!
Hey! How are you?
-Come! We just found something. -You found something!
-[Rami] You gotta see it. Come. -[Josh] What did you find?
What did you find?
-This. -[Josh exclaims]
What!
Look at this!
This is from, uh, a column?
[Rami] That's a column. Yes. Part of a column.
-Roman? -Yep.
[Josh] Amid first-century ruins near the Sea of Galilee,
archeologist Rami Arav
believes he's discovered the lost city
of Jesus and his Apostles, Bethsaida.
-It is beautiful. -[Rami] Yeah.
Okay, so where are we?
We are in the middle of a temple.
-This is a Roman temple. -That is a Roman temple.
Okay.
It was built in the year 30
and it was dedicated to Julia.
So, if this is the temple of Julia,
does that mean that we are in the city of Julius?
Julius.
And Julius, we know from the Roman histories,
used to be...
-Bethsaida. -...Bethsaida.
So does that mean we are standing in Bethsaida?
We are standing in Bethsaida.
That would be incredible.
-So let's make the case, right? -All right.
In order to be Bethsaida,
we have to meet a few criteria, right?
Do we have evidence, along with this Roman stuff,
do we have evidence of a Jewish fishing village here?
Absolutely, no question.
-[Josh] No question? -No question.
I love how sure you are.
-Show me. Come on. -All right, let's go.
[Josh] Rami leads me deeper
into the 20-acre first-century dig site.
His team has found evidence of fishing net weights and anchors
here in one very historic neighborhood.
Josh, look at this.
This is a street.
[Josh] Like, these stones are the actual cobblestones?
[Rami] Yeah, actual cobblestones.
[Josh] Amazing.
What is also amazing about this street
is that this is the place where the Apostles were born.
-Right. -Most probably, they walked on this street.
-Can you imagine? -They walked on here,
right where you are walking now.
-Jesus may have walked on this very street. -[Rami] Jesus...
The very street where you're walking now.
Right.
You don't have to be religious
in order to feel awe in a place like this.
Standing on 2,000 years of history
simply compels it.
I have to say, this place is really extraordinary.
There's one thing that's puzzling me.
The water,
-the Sea of Galilee... -[Rami] Yep.
[Josh] ...it looks really far away.
When I think "fishing village," I think, "We're on the water."
-Absolutely. -That feels like a long way
to carry my fishing nets and my anchors.
Correct.
[Josh] As critics of Et-Tell point out,
pretty much every fishing village in the world is,
by definition, on the water.
That's where the fish are.
This site not only sits high on a hill
but it's a mile from the shore.
-So is that puzzling? -Yes, of course.
Right. So what's the answer to the puzzle?
[Rami] So, 2,000 years ago,
the lake covered all the area up to this area.
-This was all flooded? -This was all covered. Yep.
Uh, there was lagoons all the way,
-lagoons up to here. -[Josh] Right.
So would you have been able to bring a boat
-much closer? -Yeah, to the, to the...
Yeah, to the lagoons.
Now, does everybody accept this idea
that there were lagoons here,
or is this a matter of debate?
It's... I... [stutters]
I mean, you'd have to ask a geologist about that.
-I'm not... -It's not a matter of debate for you.
-No. -This is a question for geologists.
-Exactly, sir. -Yes.
For Et-Tell to be the biblical town of Bethsaida,
it had to have been on the water.
So one of two things has to be true.
Either the Sea of Galilee was higher than it is now
and extended to the base of the hilltop city
or the water level was the same as today,
but lagoons that no longer exist
once connected Et-Tell to the Sea of Galilee.
To see if either is possible,
I'm meeting a scientist
who's investigating Rami's claims, Nati Bergman.
Nati. Hey, man. Nice to meet you.
Nice to meet you, Josh.
-Now, you are a geomorphologist, right? -Yeah.
And the definition of that is?
Uh, how the landscape is shaping during time.
Okay, great. What are we gonna do today?
-Well, we're gonna go up in the air... -[Josh] Okay.
...take a lot of photos,
connect it to satellite imagery,
and then build a topographic model of the shoreline
and get an idea
of how this environment is shaped up.
Okay, got it.
-You ready to fly? -Yeah.
Please.
[on radio] Ready to rock and roll.
We take off and soar over the Sea of Galilee.
Soon, we find ourselves hundreds of feet
above a familiar village.
[on radio] Okay, Josh, we're over the side of Et-Tell.
[Josh on radio] This is where I just was, yes.
I mean, from up here,
you really get a sense
of just how far this place is
-from the Sea of Galilee. -Yeah.
It's about at least a mile
from the current lake level.
[Josh on radio] Okay, let's start with the basics.
Does the water in the Sea of Galilee change?
To understand that, we need to see
-where the water comes from. -Okay.
[Nati on radio] So, Josh, look down here.
this is where the Jordan River comes into the Sea of Galilee.
[on radio] So this is the main pipe that's feeding the bathtub.
-Exactly. -Got it.
-You notice where the mouth is... -Yes.
...and you can see vegetation that is drowned,
and it used to be above ground
and now it's in the water.
So that tells you that the lake
fluctuate back and forth in the last few years.
[Josh] Fluctuations of a few feet
seem to be business as usual here,
but could the lake have reached Et-Tell in the first century?
As we hover over the shoreline,
we begin the work to find out.
[Nati on radio] Okay, Josh, it's time for you to take some pictures.
-I'm taking the pictures? -Yeah.
Why?
Well, you're the one with no door.
Okay. All right, I'm on it.
We'll take hundreds of overlapping photos
to create a 3D model of the lakeshore
to see if and how
water might have come up to Et-Tell
in the first century.
[on radio] Try to cover as much shoreline you can get.
[shutter clicking]
[Josh exhales]
I gotta remember to not look down too much.
So, I know we still have a lot of photos to take of the coastline,
but let's look at the two possibilities here.
First is that, at one point at Et-Tell,
the place that calls itself Bethsaida,
the water level was much higher.
I don't know. It sounds reasonable.
Water levels do fluctuate, right?
So do you buy this idea
that the water level was this much higher?
Well, it's a very nice idea,
but there's something I learned doing my PhD.
What's that?
Well, people don't live under water.
[Josh on radio] That's true. Unless you're Octaman,
people do not live under water. But what do you mean by that?
What does that have to do with anything?
There are other sites along the lakeshore
that would be under water
if the shoreline would be at Et-Tell.
Oh, I got it. Okay.
In order for the sea to reach Et-Tell,
it would have to have been
20 feet higher than it is today.
Unfortunately, that means that
several known first-century villages,
including Capernaum,
would have been deep under water.
So the Sea of Galilee
clearly could not have been high enough in Jesus' time
to reach Et-Tell.
But Rami's site could still be Bethsaida
if there were lagoons that are no longer there now.
To see if that's possible,
we continue to fly up the Jordan River.
[Josh on radio] I can see the geography's
getting much more dramatic here.
We have these cliffs rising up on either side of the river.
What's happening here?
Right underneath us
-are two giant tectonic plates... -Uh-huh.
[Nati on radio] ...the Arabian Plate and the African Plate.
How much do those plates move per year? Do we know?
Uh, it's about two millimeters a year.
So what's the result of that movement?
Well, the result are a lot of earthquakes,
and because of those earthquakes,
a lot of the sediment from the slopes
-falls into the Jordan River... -[Josh on radio] Got it.
...and it tries to take that sediment downstream
towards the lake, towards the delta.
[Josh] The theory is that a large seismic event
could have released tons of sediment from these hills
and filled in ancient lagoons
that connected Et-Tell to the Galilee.
But is it possible?
Our photogrammetry,
along with data recorded at ground level,
confirms that the land at the base of Et-Tell is very low
and could have once been partially flooded with water
inundating from the nearby sea.
However, the amount of soil required to fill this area
is immense
and we don't have any indicator
of a more modern earthquake
that shows this kind of soil movement,
which means the jury is still out.
But Nati points out an alternative.
[Nati on radio] There's another site here called El Araj.
They believe this could be Bethsaida.
[Josh] El Araj recently made headlines for a discovery
that they have yet to fully reveal to the world.
Naturally, I'm anxious to get there and see it for myself.
Afterall, it could be Bethsaida.
[on radio] Okay, let's bring it home.
Only a few hundred feet below,
does the true city of miracles await?
I'm on the shores of the Sea of Galilee
searching for the lost city
of Jesus and his Apostles, Bethsaida.
A new find at a new archeological site called El Araj
has stirred speculation
that this is Bethsaida's true location.
Here to greet me is one of the men who made the discovery,
Professor R. Steven Notley.
-Hey! -[Steven] How are you?
-Good, man. Nice to meet you. -Nice to meet you.
So this site behind you here,
uh, I take it you think
this is Bethsaida.
[Steve] Yes, absolutely.
Why is this maybe Bethsaida?
Because, as we look at this site,
it actually has first-century remains...
-[Josh] Right. -...uh, that indicate a settlement here.
...settlement here.
-We found 100s of, uh, lead weights. -[Josh] Mm-hmm.
That go with nets for--
Indicate that there's a substantial fishing industry at this place.
-Okay. Yes. -And here, we're right on the water.
-The Sea of Galilee is lapping against this site. -[Steven] Yes.
[Josh] So we have evidence here of a thriving fishing community
-in the first century A.D., in the right time period. -[Steven] Exactly.
So... so that's a big check mark already.
Yes, but that's not all.
We've recently made a discovery that is astonishing
and connects this place directly to Bethsaida.
-Would you like to see it? -Yeah, I'm dying to see it.
[Steven] Let's go.
[Josh] Steven leads me through a very active dig site
to meet his colleague, Israeli archaeologist, Motti Aviam.
This is incredible here.
Give me some context. Where are we in the site right now?
-Josh, you are in a church. But not just any church. -[Josh] Okay.
This is a basilica, which is a very specific architectural structure.
[Josh] Okay. So Motti, when are we? When was this built?
Uh, this church was built somewhere at the end of the fifth,
beginning of sixth century.
-This is the Byzantine era, right? -Yeah.
Take me back in time, what would this basilica have looked like.
This is a large building, uh,
facing to the east. It means that the apse is on the eastern side.
[Josh] Right. So this... this curved area, this is the end of the church.
This is the apse.
And, uh two rows of columns supported the large roof red tiles.
-And I'm just now noticing all of this is mosaic. -[Motti] Yes.
[Josh] Not just a little mosaic either.
The intricate tile work stretches across the entire floor
from wall to wall.
Along with the mosaic floors,
I read that you found mosaic inscriptions in the floors.
-Yes. -Yes? How many inscriptions have you found total?
We found three inscriptions.
Two of them are in the main hall, they preserved only partially.
Right over here we have third inscription, which preserved completely.
It's below your feet.
[Josh] Literally below my feet?
-Yep. -Completely.
-Like, under the dirt? -Under the dirt.
And why is it covered?
It's covered because we wanted to protect it after we discovered it.
And this inscription is the one that connects to Bethsaida, yes?
Yes.
Is it possible to see what's down here?
Yes, we'll have to work a little bit.
I'm not afraid of work.
Put on your gloves and let's go do the work.
-Oh, manual labor. I didn't realize. -[Steven laughs]
[Josh] Before you can say, "Hail Mary" I'm geared up and moving dirt.
The floor beneath our feet is priceless.
So the work needs to be very, very careful.
Getting close?
-[Motti] You can smell it. -[Josh laughs]
We've made it through most of the top soil.
But to see what's hidden beneath the final layer,
we're gonna need to use a little finesse.
-Whoa. -[Motti] Huh? Huh?
[Josh] Yes, look at this black mosaic, right here.
-This is the inscription. -[Steven] Yep.
[Josh] Oh, my word.
And this floor that we're revealing right now, this was laid down when?
[Motti] It was laid down at the end of the sixth century.
-So we're revealing a 1,400-year-old inscription? -[Motti] Exactly.
This is what we do in archaeology.
[Josh] Millimeter by millimeter we expose ancient letters
from beneath the soil.
But making them legible is going to take a little more work.
-What's the next step? -Next step is washing it.
-Okay. Please. -[Motti] Steve.
[Josh] With the dirt swept away all it takes is some water and elbow grease
for the past to shine through.
Wow, look at that.
Oh, it's just coming to life. That's unbelievable.
-Can I use the scrubber? -[Steven] Sure.
[Josh] If it looks like we shouldn't be doing this, don't worry.
The mosaic has lasted 14 centuries in a harsh world.
A little spit and polish ain't gonna hurt it.
Wow. My brain is exploding right now.
[laughs]
-It looks like it was written just few hours ago. -[Josh] It really does.
I can't describe what an honor it is to be able see this
and to reveal it to the world in its entirety
for the very first time.
This is unbelievable.
I mean, look at this, it's extraordinary.
The entire inscription is here.
[Motti] Not a letter is missing.
[Josh] In the news articles, I saw like a corner of this but not the whole thing.
Really this is the first time publicly it's being shown clearly.
This is the first time the world has seen this in 1,400 years?
-Yep. Amazing, isn't it? -[Josh] Heh. It's unreal.
Okay, now the big question, what does it say?
I read ancient Greek about as well as I swing dance.
Fortunately, Steven and Motti have
Professor Jacob Ashkenazi on hand to do the translating.
Okay, so Professor, help us out here. What does it say?
[Jacob] The word here,
[speaking Ancient Greek]
[in English] It means the chief.
[speaks Ancient Greek] of what?
-Right the chief of "what"? Uh-huh. -Chief of what?
[Jacob] Of...
[speaking Ancient Greek]
[in English] The Apostles.
-The Apostles? Chief of the Apostles? -Chief of the Apostles.
-Peter? -[Steven] Peter.
-Peter is-- Nobody else. -[Jacob] Saint Peter.
-He is the chief of the Apostles. -Okay.
The apostle, Peter, who of course was from Bethsaida
was first among equals in Jesus' devout dozen.
It was to Peter that Jesus would entrust his church
and to whom he gave the keys to the kingdom of heaven.
Now I'm reading his title right here on the floor.
So there is no doubt at all that we are talking about Peter.
-[Motti] Zero doubt. -Zero.
How common is it to find an inscription like this,
that is a dedication to Saint Peter?
Zero common.
-This has not happened before. -This is a unique one.
So when you first found this, what was your reaction?
It's not a smoking gun. It's a bomb. Okay.
We have 100s of years after the time of the apostles.
In the Byzantine era, this beautiful basilica is built here
-and appears to be dedicated to the apostle, Peter. -Yes.
So why would they have done that?
I think the church here commemorates the home of Peter, Andrew and Philip.
[Josh] Byzantine churches like this were frequently placed atop sites
believed to have been the locations of biblical events.
Hence, the church has become destination for the pilgrims.
This is very compelling evidence.
This is something that you don't often get at an archaeological site
in the Holy Land. A complete inscription.
One word is missing. The title.
Right. That's it.
-If it said Bethsaida then it would be a done deal. -[Steven] Yeah.
But just short of that.
There is yet hope for finding that one word.
The basilicas mosaic floor continues outward
and it could contain more inscriptions.
-Here we only have pieces of the mosaic floor. -Right.
And here we have a wall.
This is a later wall. It is from the 12th, 13th century crusader period.
[Josh] The wall is covering the original mosaic.
And since an inscription could confirm that this is Bethsaida,
the choice is simple.
The wall has got to go.
Anything could be under here.
There's always surprises in archaeology.
-That's right. Okay. So, shall we see what's there? -Let's go.
Let's move the wall.
[dramatic music playing]
-Dirty enough. [laughs] -Not yet.
We got lots of dirt for that.
[Josh] The lost city of Bethsaida, where Jesus reportedly walked on water,
may be beneath the ruins of this medieval wall.
The wall was built one stone at a time.
And we're taking it down the same way.
The team's project manager Achia Kohn-Tavor
stands nearby to preserve any artefacts we find.
Like the pottery that is literally wedged in the mortar.
[Achia] Fifth, sixth, seventh century, something like that.
-Uh, you know, very fancy dishes. -[Josh] How cool is that?
But the pottery is just the beginning
of what we find built into this wall.
Like, ancient Roman glass.
-How beautiful is that? -How delicate it is.
I mean, so thin.
Pieces of marble--
If we get enough of these, I'm gonna redo my kitchen counter.
-So, hold onto this. -[Achia laughs]
[Josh] ...and shards of finely made vessels.
-That's a handle. -What! That is insane.
[Josh] So this would either be, like, an offering brought to the church
-or something that a pilgrim would take from the church. -Probably, yeah.
And in this case, holy oil, maybe from the church of Peter
-or the Church of the Apostles. -[Achia] Yeah. Yep.
-[Achia] Yeah. Yeah. -[Josh] Right? Wow.
This maybe more evidence of a place visited by Christian pilgrims.
Something that could be verified by additional inscriptions on the floor.
Watch your finger.
After a few hours, we removed the final blocks
and the last bit of dirt.
Beneath the edges of the wall more beautiful mosaic tiles from the Byzantine church.
Hundreds of literal puzzle pieces
slotting together into a work of art.
But we find no additional inscriptions mixed in,
which leaves us with an incomplete picture of El-Araj.
We definitely have a fishing village on the water.
Check and check.
And this remarkable church.
But somebody might say,
"Hey, you know, just because you've got a Byzantine church here
that doesn't mean that this is Bethsaida."
If it was just the church,
-then you could have some doubts. -Right.
What you need together with that is evidence
of what we read in the historical sources
about a site that becomes a Romanpolis.
-[Josh] Right. Right. -A Roman city.
[Josh] For El-Araj to be Bethsaida,
Steven and Motti need to prove that it was once a Romanpolis,
which means it has to be bigger than the single church
they're exploring.
An aerial scan of the site could help reveal the extent of El-Araj for the first time.
If it's too small, it's a village and not Bethsaida.
For help they've brought in Terralog Innovation.
A company run by Avi Buzaglo and his son, Eldar.
How big an area are we gonna be scanning today?
So we're gonna fly like a, grid of around one and a half square miles.
-Okay, should we do it? -Let's do it.
[Motti and Josh] Let's go.
[Avi] Okay, we're ready to go and up.
-You can take off. -[Eldar] Taking off.
-There we go. -[drone whirring]
[Josh] She's up!
This drone is carrying a special payload.
Strapped to the bottom is a state-of-the-art magnetometer,
which is measuring the Earth's magnetic field.
Able to extrapolate the location of stonewalls and structures
buried beneath the surface.
-Um, so what do we do? -We wait.
-We wait. I'm good at that. -[Avi laughs]
[Josh] The drone flies through a pre-programmed grid
covering over a square mile and a half near the basilica.
Until it finishes its course and lands.
And we extract the data for analysis.
Let's see how big this ancient town really is.
All right. What do we have? The big moment.
-Whoa! -Oh! Oh.
-Is this construction, all these red areas? -[Avi] Yeah.
[Motti] I assume that all these walls,
are the Roman village. And-- We have it. We have houses from the Roman period.
[Josh] The data reveals structures that Motti believes to be from the first century.
The era of the Apostles.
That's, uh, surprising. Because on surface we've seen nothing.
Right, it's just vegetation out there.
[Motti] It's just vegetation.
[Josh] And did you expect there would be this much here?
-I want to. [laughs] -[Josh] You hoped.
This is unbelievable.
-Yes. -[Avi] It is. It is.
And, and just for reference, this here,
this... this is the tarping on the main site
-of the Byzantine church. -[Motti] Yes.
And look at the size of this area.
-And you can see the edges up here and up here. -[Josh] Right.
-It means that the site is much larger. -Right. It must extend out.
Extend out no doubt.
-[Josh] 'Cause we see walls or disturbances-- -Yes.
-[Josh] ...right on the edges of all of this. -Yes.
I mean, this... this is incredible.
So if you had to guess, how far do you think this site extends?
I would assume, uh, 15 acres.
[Josh] In the first century,
fifteen acres was a sizeable settlement.
Certainly big enough for consideration as a polis.
So when we put all of this together, right?
We have evidence of this fishing village here, this Jewish fishing village
on the shores of Sea of Galilee.
Hundreds of years later, we have this beautiful Byzantine church dedicated
to Peter the apostle.
Now we have evidence here, geo physical evidence that
this is a polis, a Roman city.
When you put all of this together, what does it say to you?
You think this is the place?
I think this is the place.
[Josh] El-Araj, like Et-Tell before it
has a strong case for being the city of miracles.
But for now, more work needs to be done exploring both sites.
And there's enough to keep these guys busy until the Second Coming.
As for me, I've just got word of something,
well, kind of miraculous.
Another site nearby that isn't claiming to be Bethsaida,
but where a new discovery may tie it to the apostle, Peter in a shocking way.
I travelled to the ruins of what was once the regional capital.
A place known as Caesarea Philippi.
Even before the Romans were here,
this place was considered sacred.
Home to a natural spring that flows out of the rocks and into the Sea of Galilee.
Deep inside the site, I find an active dig.
-Hello. Howdy? -Hi. She's over there.
Uh-huh. Thank you.
Near the back of the ruins beneath a soaring grotto in the side of a cliff
I find archaeologist, Adi Erlich.
-Please. -[Josh] Hi, I'm Josh. Nice to meet you.
Hi, nice to meet you. I'm Adi.
What an incredible site.
This place is like, otherworldly.
So few 1,000 years ago, this would have looked like, what?
It was full of water.
Very, very deep water as we are told by the ancient sources.
[Josh] So this would have been a very
-mystical kind of place, right? -[Adi] Yeah.
A dark grotto, flooded with deep water.
We know the place started to be dedicated to the god Pan
-in the third century B.C.E. -Okay. I know Pan.
-Human on top, goat on the bottom. -[Adi] Exactly.
Horns. Pan is the god of like, nature, wilderness, shepherds, things like that, right?
Exactly.
So the Romans start coming here to worship and building things here
in the first century.
-Yes. -Christianity hasn't caught on yet,
-it's not a thing just yet. -[Adi] No.
-So we're still worshipping gods like Pan? -[Adi] Exactly.
[Josh] This site was once home to Roman temples.
So when Adi's team began to dig
she expected to find pagan ruins.
Instead, they made a discovery that may change
what we know about the origins of Christianity.
-Wow. -[Adi] Yeah.
-Look what we found here. -[Josh] Unbelievable. Beautiful mosaic floor.
[Adi] We were amazed to find this floor,
I mean, why would we have a mosaic floor in a cultic place
to the god Pan.
-Right. -[Adi] And then we realized that this floor is much later.
During the fifth century C.E.,
the place has become a beautiful church.
They built a church here?
-They built a church here. -[Josh] In the middle of this pagan grotto
-there's a Byzantine church. -[Adi] Exactly.
[Josh] Unlike at El-Araj, this floor didn't have any intact inscriptions.
However, Adi's team found something else that speaks volumes.
A major clue that this church was another pilgrimage site.
Josh, I would like you to have a look at this stone.
-Yes, here? -Yes, this unique slab of stone.
-[Josh] Uh-huh. -This is one of the reasons that make us think
this is not yet another ordinary church but a pilgrim center.
-This stone carries rows of crosses. -[Josh softly] Oh, yeah.
Look at that.
There's crosses all over this.
That is crazy.
[upbeat music playing]
[Josh] Expedition Unknown is a well-oiled machine
that requires every member of my team to stay laser-focused.
Unless you're my camera guy, Ryan at the world's oldest tattoo parlor.
-[machinery whirring] -Dude, what is going on?
Getting a tattoo.
What do you mean you're "getting a tattoo"?
I can't not come here and not get a tattoo.
-Dude, you're working. -I know.
-See? -[Josh laughs]
-Well, okay. What is the tattoo? -[Ryan] Love and family.
[Josh] Love and family.
Do you have one for work and responsibility?
I couldn't find that one.
-[laughs] Yeah, no kidding. -[laughter]
Okay, I'll just-- Should I just-- I'll just
-film the show then, I guess. -Thank you.
Yeah, I'm docking your pay for this.
At least you got a tattoo.
All right, Wassim. I said I was gonna come back.
[laughter]
-Next time. -[Wassim] Next time.
[laughter]
[dramatic music playing]
We believe that people came here,
and marked crosses
-to commemorate something or worship. -[Josh] Right.
Near a grotto in the one-time Roman city of Caesarea Philippi,
archaeologists are finding clues that this was a place of immense importance
to the early Christian church.
This is something you see at pilgrimage sites.
This is like the crosses on, uh,
,uh, Helena's staircase in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
-Yeah. -So the big question is, why?
Like, why put a church here at all?
And why does it become a pilgrimage site?
So I think we have a clue and you can find it in the gospels.
[Josh] Adi believes that the reason people might have travelled to this place
is available to us in black and white.
The book of Matthew to be precise.
Here we go. Reading from the book of Matthew.
So, when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi,
which is right where we are,
uh, he says to his disciples, "Who do you say that I am?"
"And Simon Peter answered,
'You are the messiah and the Son of the living God.'"
"And Jesus answered him, 'Blessed are you.'"
So he's saying, uh, "I will tell you, you are Peter,
and on this rock I will build my church,
and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.
I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven,
and whatever you bind on Earth will be bound in heaven."
So this is really the moment when Jesus is called the messiah.
This is the moment when he is,
kind of handing the church over to his apostles.
So is that why this is here, because it happened somewhere in Caesarea Philippi.
They said, "Let's build the church here
and venerate this story, and make it a pilgrimage site."
Yes. But I think there is even more than that.
-Okay. -And in order to expand this view,
I would like to take you into the grotto.
-Into the grotto? -[Adi] Yeah.
Josh, are you claustrophobic?
No.
What? What is this?
-This is a Roman aqueduct. -[Josh] That goes to the grotto?
Goes straight to the grotto.
Oh, boy.
Okay.
[adventurous music playing]
Okay.
This passage way that Adi has sent me through is an ancient aqueduct.
A long dark water channel that's been here since Caesar was in diapers.
These Roman aqueducts are held up with these flat,
heavy stones that are set into an A-frame.
They've been holding for a couple 1,000 years.
But on the other hand, there's not much holding them there
other than gravity.
Lord, only knows what's waiting for me on the other side.
And I'm out. Heh.
-Well, you made it Josh. -What!
Wait, why couldn't I walk around?
Well, you have to work hard in order to learn the truth.
What are you, a fortune cookie? All right. Come on.
I've done the work.
And it turns out the aqueduct is an important clue
to learning why this grotto is so important.
[majestic music playing]
[Josh whispers] Wow.
I mean, you really don't feel the enormity of this grotto
until you're inside of it.
And to think that 2,000 years ago,
all of this would have been under water.
[Adi] Well, not all of it.
The top of this rock was exposed.
And what would have been on top of this rock during Roman times.
We believe, there could have been a statue,
maybe Pan statue--
-[Josh] Uh-huh. -[Adi] ...standing here on top of the rock.
[Josh] Like, a little island in this lake.
[Adi] Like a little island, yeah.
[Josh] Right. Okay.
Josh, I want you to think about the aqueduct that you just crawled through
for a reason.
Oh, so it's like, maintaining the water level in here.
It's maintaining the water level
in order to keep this giant rock exposed.
So this is like a design feature.
Now think about the verse from Matthew that you just read.
"And on this rock--"
[Adi] Yeah.
[Josh] "...I will build my church.
And the gates of Hades... will not prevail against it."
[Adi] Correct.
The entrance to the underworld itself. The gates of Hades,
-which is exactly what this place looks like. -Exactly.
[Josh] And so this moment,
this moment where Jesus effectively founds the church.
The... the birth of Christianity
-may have happened on this rock. -[Adi] On this rock.
They may have seen this as "the place where that happened."
Yeah.
That would make this rock... one of the holiest sites in Christendom.
I agree,
It's not just unbelievable, it's-- This is, you know.
-[Adi] Touching. -Yeah, this is--
-It's overwhelming to think about. -Yeah.
It would make it stand alongside--
The Church of the Nativity, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
-[stuttering] -Yeah.
It would make this place what it was. A pilgrimage site.
Yeah.
-You might have a whole lot visitors here soon. -[Adi chuckles]
-Thank you for coming. -Thank you for sharing it.
I walk away from the grotto in a state of elated shock.
In the Holy Land, I may have just seen, the most sacred place of all.
[triumphant music playing]
[Josh] The 19th century scholar, Ernest Renan wrote,
"That the Holy Land should actually be considered
the fifth gospel of Jesus Christ."
Describing this place as, "Torn, but still legible."
It has been inspiring to work alongside the men and women
committed to deciphering the history written here into the very Earth itself.
We can't yet say with certainty,
which of our two candidates is the authentic Bethsaida.
Though I think there is terrific case to be made for El-Araj
and it's newly unveiled mosaic.
But I also leave with another discovery.
I realized for the first time,
what it means to walk amongst pilgrims.
I have been able to touch the tangible fragments of their faith
in venerated churches both past,
and still vitally present.
The pilgrims symbols are etched on the walls of the Holy Sepulchre
and in a remote grotto.
And even on the very skin of those who make the journey to Jerusalem.
Belief is a powerful companion
and these ruins vibrate with the possibility that here,
right here, beneath our feet
is the same ground where Jesus and his apostles
created the faith that still animates the spirits of billions today.
Whether you're a true believer or not,
it is a history worth discovering.