02x01 - The Would-Be Messiah

[bunniefuu]

This is where the archeology has been found.

Hi, how are you?

Look at that.

I need a planter.

A shrine to a bellybutton.

Look at that!

No one gets into this place? - No one.

-Whoa! Don't take me too far!

Now that's naked archaeology!

Behind me is the Pantheon.

It's a shrine to the gods of Rome.

It was built in by the Emperor Hadrian

as a symbol of Roman power.

And that power was challenged not by another empire

but by an angry Judean and his band of guerrillas.

His followers called him 'Bar Kokhba'

the son of the star, Messiah.

Who was this would be messiah that almost...

brought the power of Rome to its knees?

[SIMCHA] One hundred years

after the crucifixion of Jesus

came another Messiah.

His name was Shimon Bar Kosiva.

Unlike Jesus, he was a m*llitary genius,

and led the Jewish people in a revolt

against Rome's m*llitary might.

His exploits as a m*llitary leader

were hailed by rabbis as almost supernatural.

The greatest sage of those times, Rabbi Akiva,

anointed him the messia

and renamed him Bar Kokhba the Son of the Star.

The son of the star. Now why the star?

Because it says in the books of Moses

that a star will come out of Jacob,

and that's taken as the only reference to Messiah.

So anybody who had Messianic pretensions,

anybody who said, 'I am Messiah',

He had to be connected to a star.

Therefore the star of Bethlehem leads...

the three Wise Men to Jesus.

He had to be connected to a star.

[SIMCHA] In CE,

the Jewish people were looking for their star.

They had been suffering for decades...

under Roman persecution.

Their holy temple was in ruins

and it was about to be replaced by a pagan temple

built by the Roman Emperor Hadrian.

In these dark times,

Bar Kokhba shone with messianic light.

I spoke with archaeologist, Dan Bahat.

Yes one should remember that Bar Kokhba...

is not a phenomenon of one person...

who suddenly decides to fight the Romans...

and he starts a revolt.

The many messiahs which showed up,

you know, the Jesus Christ is very famous...

but there were people who pretended to be messiahs.

Don't misunderstand me

I don't say Jesus pretended to be the messiah,

but there were other people who were.

Bar Kokhba is the same story.

The atmosphere was for the revolt...

because remember that actually according...

to what we know there were two reasons for the revolt.

One of them was the prohibition on circumcision.

[SIMCHA] Did he say circumcision?

A prohibition on circumcision started a w*r?

Hadrian, he did not understand the difference

between circumcision and castration.

And he saw in the circumcision some offense to the barbaric,

exactly and that number one and number two the desire-

So the battle that was triggered by a foreskin.

I won't say that, I won't say that.

You are saying that. -Yes, but still-

You know, this is what I love about history.

Just this immediate connection,

private I would say, with a historical figure.

[SIMCHA] But Bahat wanted me to also consider...

the second inciting event:

Hadrian was building on top of the ruined Jewish Temple.

The Jews believed that Hadrian was...

desecrating their holiest site and destroying Jerusalem.

When the Roman emperor founded a city,

you know, many cities, which were founded by the Romans,

actually existed before but they were remade by the Romans.

The emperor who does it will plow a furrow around the city.

So the Jews frightened by the fact that suddenly...

Jerusalem is going to change and, you know,

I don't have to tell you what Jerusalem symbolizes for Judaism.

I just realized that in a sense the Bar Kokhba revolt...

was triggered by two incisions.

One was the prohibition about circumcision.

The other is a furrow around Jerusalem

that symbolized to the Jews that the Romans...

are really reestablishing it.

Two incisions, yes that's a nice way to put it,

but remember never such a thing is the reason.

This is the trigger.

[SIMCHA] A trigger that released Bar Kokhba's power.

But to stand out amongst a crowd of messiah wannabes,

he had to meet a few expectations...

of Biblical proportions.

[ANNOUCNER] Wanted: Messiah.

To apply you must a) be chosen, annointed.

b) Be a spiritual warrior.

c) Rebuild the holy temple.

d) Bring world peace.

[SIMCHA] That's a lot for one man to do.

Enter Bar Kokhba.

History tells us that he scored out of ...

on the messianic checklist.

He was freshly annointed by a Rabbi,

and he was a charismatic leader...

who inspired tens of thousands of followers.

But did he rebuild the Jewish temple?

Did he bring world peace?

I need to find out if Bar Kokhba...

lived up to the full job description of messiah.

If he believes he was messiah,

then part of his job description...

would have been to rebuild the temple.

That's his job as messiah.

Actually but your question we can ask,

"Was Bar Kokhba at all in Jerusalem?"

Remember that in Jerusalem there was a Roman legion.

There was always a garrison, Roman garrison in Jerusalem

I don't believe he was in Jerusalem...

because I think he knew that it is a trap.

[SIMCHA] Prof. Bahat suggests...

Bar Kokhba would have had good reasons...

to avoid Jerusalem.

The Romans had hundreds of thousands of soldiers...

and the deadly th Legion was stationed right there.

What does this lamppost have to do with the Tenth Legion?

[SIMCHA] Today, in the old city,

we can still find a lamppost where cavalry...

of the th Legion parked their horses.

How's your Latin? Not so good?

Mine is crappy. But some of the things-

See, MAXI-MAXIMO-LE-GA--G--.

This is the legion, the th Legion,

the most dreaded legion, the toughest of them all.

They were tough. Look at that.

That's much better. That's beautiful.

Basically they're saying, "We were here. th Legion,"

you know, like, soldiers sitting around eating sandwiches,

looking at girls, you know, talking about back home,

calling on the cell phone.

I see.

They didn't have a cell phone.

Well, they did have the cell phone.

You know how we know?

Because they found no wires for land telephones.

So they must have had cell phone.

[SIMCHA] Good thing I have mine.

The people's archaeologist.

[SIMCHA] Turns out I'm late

for my next meeting with Historian Hannah Cotton.

OK... cut...

(babbling over phone)

OK!

She has archaeological proof...

that Bar Kokhba's army wasn't avoiding the Roman Legions,

but was actually crippling them.

[SIMCHA] One hundred years after Jesus,

history tells us of a m*llitary messiah.

Bar Kokhba won so many battles...

that Rome was scrambling to reinforce its army.

I spoke with historian Hannah Cotton,

who says there is archaeological proof...

of Bar Kochba and his victories.

The thing that struck me most...

was the dimensions of the revolt.

This was a major revolt that was a real disaster

for the Roman army,

that required them to take emergency measures...

such as moving generals around recruiting armies,

and bringing them here.

Indeed they lost so much,

many auxiliaries that they had to have recruitments...

all over the Empire.

[SIMCHA] The Roman legions were being decimated...

by Bar Kokhba's rebellion.

Things were going so badly that Hadrian...

had to drag his greatest generas from Britain and Syria...

to help the Roman troops in Judea.

But how do we know that Bar Kokhba's leadership...

was having a messianic effect?

Hannah Cotton tells me of a very recent find:

a hoard of brass Roman m*llitary Diplomas...

dating from CE.

After a soldier served for years,

he became a Roman citizen...

and was given a diploma just like this.

There are a hundred and fifty thousand soldiers...

in the auxiliary forces.

And each one of them after twenty-five years got this.

The diploma, and the bottom line,

what do we learn from this?

That if there are as many diplomas in the year ,

it means that there was a huge recruitment...

years before.

This is exactly one thirty five,

the end of the Bar Kokhba revolt.

[SIMCHA] If Rome was recruiting so many soldiers,

it was because they were losing that many,

which means that Bar Kokhba and his fighters were winning,

right to the bitter end. What was his strategy?

I'll give you a hint: rabbits.

I don't mean having babies, but that probably happened too.

Actually, it also has to do with guerillas.

And I don't mean the zoo animals.

I mean human fighters who use a particular kind of warfare:

surprise att*cks.

And it was this simple tactic that totally crippled...

the huge Roman m*llitary machine.

Guide Tirtsa Cohen leads me through...

one of Bar Kokhba's rebel hideouts.

-Honey, I'm home.

[SIMCHA] We're beneath what was once...

an ancient village in the Judean Hills.

Here, Bar Kokhba's rebels had dug out...

a rabbit warren of caves and tunnels years ago.

They did this to fight their guerrilla warfare...

against the unsuspecting Roman above.

With these tunnels, Bar Kokhba's band of guerillas

wiped out an entire whole legion.

The th Legion soldiers were clueless...

to where the rebels were hiding...

and from where they would strike next.

You go through this passageway.

If you were looking for revolutionaries,

you wouldn't find anything.

Right, right behind this thin wall...

is an entire living quarter in there, there's an apartment.

Up above the Romans looking for you.

And they can look and look and look,

and never imagine that underneath their feet...

there's an entire network.

What you have here is the underground water supply.

There's a huge cistern in here.

You can be totally underground, and you can have water.

The cistern fills up with water so does this internal cave well.

You just take your bucket, fill it up.

But if there isn't a lot of wat, hasn't been a lot of rain,

the water is low. Look, they've chiseled a ladder into the side,

see, into the side of the well.

So let me, I'll go down there.

They were very agile in those days.

They were much smaller than you are.

Yeah, they were. Then you bring up the water.

It's lower, you climb in further.

The whole time, you know moishe's your uncle.

They can't find you.

[SIMCHA] Bar Kokhba was leader

of a massive underground army

that controlled a lot of territory.

According to ancient historian Cassius Dio,

over settlements of the Jewish rebels...

were eventually destroyed by Rome.

At each settlement there were networks of these cave tunnels.

Today, archaeologists have only uncovered about % of them.

This is incredible, wow. This is a living quarter.

The people who lived in here...

were hiding from the Roman authorities...

so that they could preserve their faith.

While the Romans were trying to stamp out the biblical faith,

people were paying a heavy price, living in these caves,

literally these kind of Lord of the Rings caves.

They were eating here, were sleeping here,

they were lighting their candles over here,

they were reading, they were praying,

they were chatting, they were making love,

they were having children...

in these underground caves so that they could survive...

but not just physically, spiritually.

They weren't ready to pay the price of giving up their faith.

[SIMCHA] Without doubt,

Bar Kokhba was a spiritual warrior.

From his Head Quarters at Betar,

Bar Kokhba was able to command his rebel fighters...

hiding in thousands of networks like these.

How do we know this?

Well, we have the messiah's word on it.

[SIMCHA] years ago,

archaeologists found -year-old papyri letters...

in a cave in the Judean desert.

In the letters, they found Bar Kokhba's very own signature.

Until these letters were found,

the only documents that named Bar Kokhba as the leader...

of the revolt were rabbinic sources.

So what great things did the messiah write?

Unfortunately, these documents are short angry dispatches...

to his fighters.

And in some letters he seems to be obsessed...

with the Hebrew holiday, Sukkot, or Tabernacles:

a feast which commemorates the years...

that the Jews wandered in the desert.

Why is this would-be messiah so concerned...

with this particular holiday?

Well, it is a puzzle.

These were a field commander...

corresponding with his subordinates.

Yeah if a commander is talking to subordinates-

You shouldn't read too much into that,

and also it's always such tiny trivial details...

as a cow being stolen,

or a donkey to be moved or people to be punished.

But he does ask for the Sukkot , that tells us something.

Yes, that tells us indeed that they kept the Jewish holidays.

What you lack here is the personal dimension...

and if you're asking for a hint...

I don't think you get it in the documents.

I think they are very disappointing.

[SIMCHA] Sure, his letters don't claim he was the messiah.

But what they tell us about Bar Kokhba's commitment...

to the holiday of Sukkot is quite interesting...

when taken together with another archaeological find.

Bar Kokhba's rebels minted their own money.

And archaeologist have found their coins everywhere in Judea.

Some show myrtle,

willow and palm fronds bound together,

beside an etrog or large citron.

These were the specific plants...

God commanded the Jews to use in the celebration of Sukkot.

Why was this holiday so important...

to Bar Kokhba and his followers?

In the Gospels, Jesus arrives in Jerusalem...

and is greeted by people waving palm fronds.

Did Bar Kokhba choose the palm...

because of its messianic significance?

Turning the coin over, we see:

the Temple, above which shines a star.

"And a star shall come out of Jacob," says the Torah.

Kokhba is the Hebrew word for "star."

Some say these coins proved Bar Kokhba rebuilt the Temple.

So personally, I think he was in Jerusalem.

I think he conquered the place.

But now they say, wait a minute,

how come we never found those coins in Jerusalem?

He must have not conquered Jerusalem.

How do they know? They don't know. Me?

My money's on Bar Kokhba was in Jerusalem...

and by the time this show airs,

they'll find some coins in Jerusalem.

[SIMCHA] I drove back to Dan Bahat.

(squealing tires)

Now one of the things that I heard...

is that Bar Kokhba did attempt to build a third temple...

depicted in his coins.

Look, we have to be very careful with messianic temples.

I think today that the coins of Bar Kokhba,

are a kind of a vision rather than reality.

Meaning future dreams.

Future dreams, yes.

So he's making a claim.

He's making a claim to the possibility, yes.

To be a messiah. -Yes.

[SIMCHA] On Bar Kokhba's coins,

Dan Bahat sees only messianic dreams.

But I met with Rabbi Rosenberg who explained to me that

historically, leaders didn't waste time minting possibilities

Could this be a fantasy?

Meaning could it be like an election promise?

Bar Kokhba's minting coins of what he plans to build?

No. According to most scholars,

coins were only minted after actual accomplishments.

For example, we know that there was a coin...

that was minted in the era of Hadrian...

which shows a man behind an ox.

This is called the coin of the plowing of Jerusalem.

[SIMCHA] Emperor Hadrian minted a coin...

showing an actual event: his plowing of Jerusalem.

Rabbi Rosenberg claims that the Temple images...

on Bar Kokhba's coin are no fantasy,

but a fulfillment of the prophecy.

And that's the third requirement...

on Bar Kokhba's messianic checklist.

And guess what?

Rabbi Rosenberg says that the foundations...

laid for Bar Kokhba's temple are still visible today,

and no one even notices.

[SIMCHA] Rabbi Rosenberg believes...

that Bar Kokhba built the temple...

that the messiah is supposed to build,

according to the specifications outlined by the prophet Ezekiel.

out of on the messianic checklist.

There is some rather complicated mathematical measurements...

which do show that the area...

which we call the Temple Mount today,

actually matches the exact measurements...

of what the Third Temple should look like...

as described in the book of Ezekiel.

And that is why some modern scholars postulate...

that Bar Kokhba actually completed the building...

of this Third Temple.

Oh.So the measurements of what's there today...

don't correspond to what we know about the Second Temple.

That's correct.

They do correspond to the...

messianic dimensions of the Temple.

That's correct.

[SIMCHA] The Second Temple,

which was destroyed by Rome in CE,

had a courtyard that measured feet by feet.

The Temple Mount courtyard today measures feet by feet.

Ezekiel's specifications for the messianic temple...

was by .

Which could only lead us...

to the remnants of the Bar Kokhba temple.

I mean, that's pretty big stuff.

That would explain why somebody of Akiba's stature...

would say he's got to be the messiah.

Absolutely.

[SIMCHA] It was a sad day for Rabbi Akiva...

when he realized the camel he was backing had a heart defect:

He loved himself too much.

You should have warned me about that!

It's different than a horse!

A horse doesn't do that. Whoa!

The thoroughbred warrior, Bar Kokhba,

caught up in his battle successs became arrogant.

Bar Kokhba never did accomplish the fourth messianic task...

of bringing world peace.

He refused spiritual guidance from the rabbis.

And as punishment, they said God withdrew his support.

And that's when they basically said he lost it.

He went over to the dark side.

So instead of Bar Kokhba the Son of the Star,

they made a play on his name which is Bar Hosiba,

and they called him the Son of the Liar.

The Son of the Lie.

So, he had his moment,

and it was a glorious moment actually.

It was a glorious moment,

but then he went from being the Son of the Star...

to the Son of the Lie. Sad.

[SIMCHA] Bar Kokhba d*ed fighting the Romans...

at his Headquarters in Betar in CE,

and thousands of his followers were k*lled...

or captured and made slaves.

His revolt had a final death toll...

of almost , Jewish fighters,

and untold numbers of civilians.

Hadrian banished Jews from Jerusalem,

allowing them to enter the city only once a year to mourn.

But Bar Kochba did leave a fighting legacy.

We were told here on the street,

one guy we stopped said he was a loser.

A person who loses a battle is a loser.

But sometimes you have to judge a hundred years,

fifty years, or a thousand years afterwards...

exactly what he achieved, and losers...

sometimes can be winners.

So you think Bar Kokhba at the end of the day-?

-Was definately a winner.

(playful theme music)