02x15 - The Miracle Workers of Galilee

[bunniefuu]

What does it all mean?

This is where the archeology has been found.

Oh, hi how are you?

Look at that.

I need a planter.

A shrine to a bellybutton.

Is this a rock of salt?

Look at that!

No one gets into this place?

Whoa, don't take me too far!

Now that's naked archeology.

[theme music]

For you sir.

Pepe Le Peu? ?

Yes.

You know I'd like some of the fish and the loaves.

And please don't forget to multiply them.

Of course.

Thank you.

Here in the Galilee you can just order miracles, really,

all the time.

And if you want to put Jesus in a historical context

we have to understand one thing that at the time,

the Galilee was teaming, teaming with miracle workers.

[SIMCHA] Why so many miracle workers in the Galilee?

If I can find archaeological evidence

of these miracle workers,

maybe I can better understand

this miracle-making phenomenon.

Right here at the Sea of Galilee,

there's a well-known story in the Gospels

that tells of a mighty storm that threatens Jesus

and his disciples on their journey by sea.

Miraculously, Jesus suddenly calms the storm.

But there's another miracle worker

you may not have heard of who was famous for starting storms.

His name is Honi the Circle Maker.

I've come to meet with Yisca Harani,

to better understand this Galilean who could

forecast the weather better than any meteorologist.

One of the most typical miracles in Judaic societies and,

actually, in all ancient societies,

would have to do with rainfall.

I mean, that's the thing that you really need

in order to live in our part of the world.

No rain, you have famine and you die.

Exactly. So we have a long line of miracle workers

who managed to get rain to come down.

Now Honi the Circle Maker is the most incredible example.

[SIMCHA] According to the Talmud,

Honi was said to have performed miracles

by using his extraordinary powers of prayer.

His most famous miracle ended one of the worst

natural disasters of the time.

Israel had suffered a crippling drought.

In desperation, people turned to Honi

because they had heard of his miraculous ability

to make it rain.

Honi prayed, but no rain came.

So he drew a circle in the dust and stood in it.

Raising his hands to heaven, he addressed God

as his Father and said,

"I will not move from this circle until You send rain!"

But only a few drops fell.

Honi, like a child, grew petulant

and demanded enough rain

to fill wells, cisterns, and ditches.

His Father obliged.

The heavens opened up and a deluge

flooded the wells and the cisterns.

So Honi humbly prayed for a slow steady rain instead.

And once again God answered his request,

as a father would a son.

Honi calls God "Father."

Yeah, Simeon Ben Shetach says to Honi he says-

The Jewish leader at the time.

Yeah. He says,

"You are like son who's playing in front of his father."

And so he describes the relationship

between Honi the Circle Maker and God

as a father-son relationship,

which was obviously the term used for Jesus,

because Jesus was a son to God

pretty much as Honi HaM'agel.

[SIMCHA] Honi sounds like an interesting rival to Jesus.

Not only that, Honi lived in the Galilee around the same time.

I've discovered Honi's grave up in the hills of Hatzor HaGlilit.

We're fortunate to have one of his followers,

Shlomo Shushan help us better understand the man

behind the miracle.

Why is this place important?

It's important because its here buried Honi the Circle Maker.

But how do you know this is really his grave?

Tradition, that's it. Its his place, that's it.

He'll take us to the. his grave, yes?

Yes.

[SIMCHA] In this marble coffin

lie the remains of Honi the Circle Maker.

But I have to wait for his followers

to finish their prayers, because

Shlomo has something more to show me.

We go, where no one goes.

Shlomo's given me access to an ancient tomb

that's not open to the public.

This is the grave behind the grave.

There's no marble here, but you can see

this is a Galilean cemetery.

The family of Honi the Circle Maker was buried here.

What you see over there are burial niches.

All these niches represent different people.

This is the archaeology behind the pilgrimage spot.

[SIMCHA] Is it just a coincidence

that miracle workers like Jesus

and Honi the Circle Maker both lived in the Galilee

around the same time?

Petra Heldt, an ordained minister and an expert

in the history of Christianity,

is here to shed light on the question.

If we zap back in time, right,

and we went around to Galilee.

Why so many in Galilee?

Those people were very, very pious.

They were pious-more pious, people seem to think,

than those in Jerusalem.

It seems in Galilee,

it was that there was a genuine attachment

to the word of God.

It was a Bible belt.

It was a Bible belt. Exactly.

He has sanctified us with his comandments.

[SIMCHA] So the people were pious, but that's not all.

Back in BCE, the Jews of Israel asked the Romans

to help fight off the invading Syrians.

After helping to defeat the Syrians,

the Romans put up their boots

and decided they didn't want to leave.

They started taxing Israelites.

And none more so than the Galileans.

And there's one final ingredient

that when added to the mix, brought the Galileans

to the boiling point. Historian Yisca Harani.

First of all, when you read the Gospels,

Jesus came first and foremost to preach

the coming of the kingdom.

That means the end of days.

So his miracles, understood by his own disciples

and later by the readers of the Gospels,

as proclaiming the end of days.

[SIMCHA] The Book of Daniel seems to predict

the end of days and the coming of the Messiah

as happening around the first century CE.

Searching for a source of hope,

the people turn to miracle workers.

Jesus and Honi the Circle Maker-

two miracle workers so similar.

They were like two peas in a pod.

So Honi's a kind of Jesus, isn't he?

He's the favourite son of God,

he calls God "Father." He's a Galilean.

He seems to have power over nature...

But he's not the only one.

You see, when we read from the rabbinical sources

you come up with a group of people that would be called

the pious men. The pious men of old.

Righteous, charismatic people.

Righteous, charismatic.

And if you want to take someone who parallels Jesus

even more, then it would be Rabbi Hanina Ben Dosa.

If I would add a little bit of a nativity story,

and maybe something about his end,

then I would get the whole biography

of a replicated Jesus.

[SIMCHA] Who was this Hanina Ben Dosa?

And was he really a spitting image of Jesus?

[SIMCHA] I've been searching

for archaeological evidence of miracle workers

all over the Galilee.

I've been to the tomb of Honi the Circle Maker.

Like Jesus, he lived in the Galilee

and was considered a son of God.

But in the Talmud, we discover another miracle worker,

Hanina Ben Dosa,

whose miracles were supposedly so similar to those of Jesus,

one could have claimed plagiarism.

One of Hanina's most famous miracles

involved an ill child of a prominent Jewish leader,

so a messenger was sent to ask Hanina to heal the boy.

Hanina agreed but instead of going to the boy,

he simply prayed on the spot for his recovery.

He then told the messenger that the boy was cured.

Not believing that this was possible

the messenger asked Hanina, "Art thou a prophet?"

Hanina replied:

Historian Yisca Harani describes a similar miracle

associated with Jesus.

If you read the Gospel of John, Chapter , Verse ,

you hear about the story of a governor his son very sick,

about to die,

and he sends two messengers towards Jesus

to come and heal the child.

And when they find Jesus, Jesus says,

"Well, it's okay. He's healed."

Later, they find out that indeed he was healed,

and he was healed at the very same time

when Jesus said that he will be healed.

[SIMCHA] Hanina sounds like a mirror image of Jesus.

Shlomo says he knows where Hanina's grave is.

Here...

Just a minute. Just a minute. It's simple ya?

Go back to Amir junction. Take the right.

Then you get to Khardarim junction. Take left.

The middle of the road, take the right to Khardarim.

And from Khardarim... to Arabi...

No. It's not in Arabi...

It's not in Arabi?

[SIMCHA] How hard can it be to find the grave

of a venerated Miracle worker?

God bless you. -God bless you.

Shlomo's directions are a bit sketchy

but I'm going to find this miracle worker's grave

even if it takes all day.

Okay, we're in the wrong place.

We're in the wrong place.

[SIMCHA] We've been driving for hours.

We're tired, hungry, and ....lost.

We're stuck.

[SIMCHA] I've been told that Hanina is buried

in what's now an Arab village,

and since Hanina was Jewish

it hasn't been easy to find his grave.

I'm hoping this baker can point us in the right direction.

Looks delicious...Look at that. Is that hospitality?

Let me see the map. Hanina Ben Dosa.

Let's go. I think it's just over here. Let's go.

Come on.

Where are we going here?

I'm going to talk to the municipality

about widening the streets here...

Ok guys, we made it.

Simcha, this is a street

It was a street. Now it's a driveway.

It's a graveyard. Kind of spooky, a little bit...

Oh, it's open.

We have some modern Arabic inscriptions here.

This is an ancient tomb.

It's of a righteous person, known as Ruben

and it's not the guy we're looking for.

[SIMCHA] This plaque in the graveyard,

the only one written in Hebrew tells us

that this righteous man lived at the time of Jesus.

Whoa. They're throwing stones at us.

Hey! What's that about?

I've been searching all day for Hanina's grave

and now we're getting stones thrown at us?

Why are you doing that?

Am I on a wild goose chase?

Peace man

[SIMCHA] I've been hunting for the grave

of Galilean Miracle Worker Hanina Ben Dosa,

who is said to have rivaled Jesus

in the kinds of miracles he performed.

Hey! What's that about?

[SIMCHA] We're lost, we've had stones thrown at us,

but luckily, a guy with a big rock has come to our aid.

We now know where we're going now.

There is another righteous man a little bit further...

It's an adventure, eh?

Blue is significant. It wards off evil eye.

It's open.

This is it! The gravesite of Hanina Ben Dosa.

And up here it says, "the tomb of Rabba..."

the little sign here "...Hanina Ben Dosa.

Hanina, son of Dosa".

It's open. Let's go in. What was that?

[SIMCHA] Having had stones thrown at me,

I'm a little jumpy right now.

Well there's two graves...it's a family tomb.

I suspect this is the wife.

And I suspect that belongs to Hanina Ben Dosa.

Very simple. He didn't leave writings,

probably the only saying he left of his was

"if your brothers and sisters like you,

then God probably likes you, too."

He was bit once by a deadly snake

but the snake d*ed.

He was so concentrated in prayer,

it says woe to the man that is bit by a snake.

It says in the Talmud but woe to the snake

who bites Rabbi Hanina Ben Dosa.

And that recalls a saying of Jesus

if you believe enough you can hold snakes

and they won't harm you.

In fact, there are a lot of things that recall Jesus.

The parallels between Hanina Ben Dosa

and Jesus are uncanny. They're both Galilean,

they both live around the same time,

they both heal from a distance.

They are both known for their righteousness and poverty.

They both hear a heavenly voice

and a heavenly voice says you are my son.

[SIMCHA] In the hope of being miraculously healed,

a few devoted followers

still journey to Hanina's grave every year.

But Hanina never catered to very large crowds,

and when it comes to catering, no one trumps Jesus.

Even his very first miracle was a crowd-pleaser.

What feast is this? -A wedding feast.

Wedding feast?

[SIMCHA] I've discovered miracle workers

all over the Galilee

who matched Jesus in the kinds of miracles they performed.

But now I want to get to know the superstar himself

to see what made his miracles so darn special.

I'm hoping these fine people can help me in my search.

What's your favourite miracle?

The Wedding Feast at Cana.

Wedding Feast at Cana?

[SIMCHA] Ok, so off I go to the Cana Church,

where tradition says Jesus performed

his very first miracle, turning water into wine at a wedding.

This modern church is just over years old,

so we want to see if there's any

older archaeological evidence supporting the tradition

that this is where the wedding took place.

Guide, Jacob Firsel, has taken me to a side building,

which holds remains of a Christian church,

built by Crusaders years ago to commemorate this site.

So the crusaders were here.

Meaning the tradition is still alive

that this is Cana, this is where the Wedding took place.

This is what it tells me.

[SIMCHA] Is there any more archaeological evidence

that supports the Crusaders' claims?

What have we got here?

What we have here is a stone jar.

Now, there were of them.

[SIMCHA] The Gospel of John tells us

that the wedding was about to grind to a halt

because the wine had run out.

So Mary, Jesus' mother turned to Jesus and said:

"Do something!" And he turned stone jars

full of water into wine.

Here you have a story at Cana

that talks about stone vessels

and the amazing thing is they find stone vessels

at this spot.

There's tremendous synchronicity here

between the archaeology, the tradition,

and the story in the Gospel of John.

[SIMCHA] But we need one more piece of evidence

to clinch the idea that this is where the wedding took place.

We're in a Christian church but at the time,

the wedding would have taken place in a Synagogue.

Ok, what have we got here archaeologically

that may corroborate that?

Right here on the floor.

On the floor?

Actually, under the floor.

We have an Aramaic inscription.

Oh, look at this. Can one get in there?

One can't get in there unfortunately.

Can we lift it? -We can try.

[SIMCHA] The gentiles in this area

would have spoken Greek,

but this inscription is written in Aramaic,

the language of the Jews.

We're going to go in and see if the sound of the wedding,

This is exciting.

We're underneath the church,

underneath the church at Cana.

It's a miracle actually that the inscription was preserved.

What it says is:

[SIMCHA] So right under our noses,

this Aramaic inscription is proof positive

that this was originally a synagogue.

Not only that, but this is one of the very few mosaics

to include the nickname "Yoseh"

an extremely rare variation of Joseph in ancient times.

It was also, coincidentally, the name

used in the Gospel of Mark

when speaking of one of the four brothers of Jesus.

This inscription may be the decisive evidence

that connects this church to the family of Jesus.

From where the wedding took place,

we head off to where Jesus built his mass

following of Galileans, the town of Capernaum.

According to the gospels

Jesus performed more miracles at Capernaum

than anywhere else.

One of the most significant archaeological finds here

is the remains of a house, belong to Simon Peter,

Jesus was based in this house

and gave Simon Peter the colossal task

of spreading his gospel.

I've got to check out this house

that is arguably the single most important

archaeological structure in all of Christianity.

I have to be careful.

In case I want to have more children...

This is exciting.

It's just amazing.

To actually touch a place that was the centre

of a world revolution- Christianity.

Two thousand years of history

and millions of prayers have surrounded this place.

Whoa. I just had to touch those stones.

[SIMCHA] Simon Peter's house

became ground zero for a new religion that,

in it's Pauline version, would one day take over the world.

Here we also learned that Jesus was not alone.

These were hard times for the Galileans

and many believed the end of days was coming soon

and so the Galilee, this little place on the map,

became a sort of messianic pressure cooker.

Jesus was one member of a larger guild,

so to speak, a guild of miracle workers

whose archaeology is still being preserved

and whose devoted followers

continue to venerate their lives.