02x08 - Decoding Ezekiel's Vision

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What does it all mean?

This is where the archeology has been found.

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Now that's naked archeology.

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[SIMCHA] Space, the final frontier.

these are the voyages of the Naked Archaeologist,

and his five-year mission to seek out theories

that have been rejected by normal academia.

Those very theories that may explain...

just may explain stuff...

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In the timeless distances of outer space...

[SIMCHA] One of the most unusual passages

in the Bible comes from the first verses of Chapter One

in the Book of Ezekiel.

It tells of how Ezekiel has a psychedelic vision of God,

flying through the night sky on a chariot

that's driven by four winged-creatures.

And on the head of each of those creatures,

he sees four faces: that of a man, a lion,

an ox, and an eagle.

But where did this heavenly vision come from?

Was Ezekiel on dr*gs? Or was he just plain crazy?

Or could it be that his imagery holds a hidden code

that speaks of some ancient wisdom of the skies?

And if so, what archaeology is out there

that can tell us what Ezekiel's vision is all about?

Ezekiel transcribed his vision back in BCE,

when he, along with thousands of other Jews,

was exiled to Babylon by the Babylonian w*rlord,

Nebuchadnezzar.

And for the past , years

that vision has perplexed both scholars

and theologians alike.

But astrologers have always claimed

to understand its message

as a representation of the zodiac.

In fact, Yaron Livne is an Israeli astrologer

who believes that the Bible

is full of hidden astrological codes.

I always think of astrology, and this is my own prejudice,

as something pagan, non-biblical.

How do these two traditions, the astrological tradition

and the biblical tradition, how do they fit or not fit?

If we go backwards a little bit,

the people of Israel came out of Egypt,

from the pyramids, from the Sphinx,

which are a big very big- huge structure of astrology.

The Egyptians understood this astrology very deep.

I think that Moses took astrology knowledge

from the pyramids.

This is the beginning of astrology.

The astrology is everywhere.

You just have to know how to read and to look.

In Judaism, you see, we have the tribes,

like the twelve apostles of Jesus.

Did you just say the tribes are astrological?

It's symbol, it's astrological symbols.

It is hidden inside.

So let me see if I understand,

what you're saying is that the Bible,

the book of Exodus for example,

has astrology built- encoded in it.

Encoded in it, and more deep than you think,

because when you look at Ezekiel...

The chariot?

The chariot, when he describes the face of the eagle,

the face of the scorpion to the other one,

the face of the Taurus, and the face of the lion.

It's astrology. He is talking about the fixed signs-

Leo, Scorpio, Taurus and Aquarius.

This is astrology and if you're an astrologer

you understand exactly what he's looking

and what he's talking about.

[SIMCHA] According to Livne,

those four faces in Ezekiel's vision

corresponds to the four fixed symbols of the zodiac.

But I have to admit, I'm not entirely convinced.

Besides, I always thought that astrology and the Bible

were like a bacon-double-cheeseburger

with a tall glass of milk.

They just weren't a kosher combination.

People who believe in God

didn't have anything to do with the zodiac...

Or did they?

As it turns out there's an amazing piece of archaeology

that might just prove that

astrology and the Bible did mix.

In , Israeli farmers, communal farmers,

members of a kibbutz, were digging

at the base of the biblical Mount Gilboa,

and they found an ancient synagogue

of the year, the th century. That was pretty rare,

but even rarer is a mosaic that they found in there,

and even rarer they found astrological symbols

in the mosaic.

Now that's a big no-no as far as Judaism

and synagogues are concerned because

you are not supposed to have graven images,

people, animals inside a synagogue.

Here is the entrance to the synagogue.

That's where the holy of holys was.

That's where it's facing Jerusalem,

that's where the Torah would have been

and you have pillars on both sides

and you have benches on both sides.

That's where people stood.

Now look at this. It's an amazing thing.

Why?

Because at its centre you have astrological signs.

Right on the mosaic.

Now, it's not so unusual in the Byzantine period,

the Greek influenced period,

but for a synagogue it's very unusual.

[SIMCHA] But I'm still confused.

The Bet Alpha synagogue wasn't built until years

after Ezekiel had his vision,

the mosaic there is clearly influenced by Hellenism,

a world view that dominated the first centuries

of the Common Era, when the Greeks

became world leaders in both astronomy and astrology.

But what could the ancients have known

about the stars back in Ezekiel's time?

Maybe more than you think.

Recently archaeologists have uncovered

a year-old ivory carving

that strangely matches Ezekiel's vision.

And some believe it might contain

a secretly coded star chart.

♪Twinkle, twinkle little star.

♪I'm looking for archaeology in my car.♪

[SIMCHA] I'm looking for clues

that might explain Ezekiel's psychedelic vision

of four winged, four headed creatures

flying with the chariot of God.

So far, I've had an astrologer tell me

that those creatures represent the four fixed-signs

of the zodiac.

And my trip to the Bet Alpha synagogue

revealed a mosaic that shows that astrology and Judaism

definitely mixed it up back in the first centuries

of the Common Era.

It's important to remember that in ancient times,

astrology and astronomy were essentially the same thing.

And you didn't study the movement of the stars

to explain the universe only,

you studied the movement of the stars

to explain what was going to happen right here on earth.

[SIMCHA] At the Bible Lands Museum in Jerusalem,

there's an ancient ivory carving

that might have served astrology and astronomy.

Not only does it seem to match Ezekiel's vision

of winged creatures,

but it may contain a hidden star map.

These are very rare. Expensive, right?

Mmhm.

If we were to break this, that would be bad, right?

Mmhm.

How bad? -Very bad.

You're a restorer, so you'd be able to restore it, right?

Yeah. But that's not the problem.

So, it doesn't... It just keeps you busy.

Very busy.

So these are , years old, correct?

Yup.

And these are cherubs, right?

Yup.

And they came from a throne. Is that correct?

Yeah.

You restored it? How?

They we're in very bad shape,

they were dried out, so I had to-

Here, I'll hold this. I'm very strong. You show us.

I had to put them in solibus to refresh them,

and what was missing.

Filled in. -Filled in with-

With a telephone. It's okay.

I'll just stand here while you talk on the telephone.

Okay, my arms are going. My arms are going.

I can't do this much longer.

Okay.

Okay, thank you.

You know there's this man by the name of Peter Aleff,

who has a theory.

And his theory is that embedded in these ivories

and these cherubs is really a sky chart

of how the northern sky would have looked like

, years ago from Damascus.

Yep.

[SIMCHA] By identifying all the circular shapes

in the carving and then finding their centers,

an engineer by the name of Peter Aleff

discovered that the resulting configuration

very closely matches the position of the stars

in the ancient Damascus sky.

If I borrowed this for just a few days...

It's beautiful, actually. It's extremely beautiful.

I'm just going to take a close, close look at it.

I have to tell you it's moving to be next to an object

that's , years old.

To be so close and to see every detail.

See, there's a circle, there's a circle, there's a circle.

Anyway, you have been very kind.

[SIMCHA] The carving tells me

that the ancients knew a lot more about the stars

than I originally imagined.

Which makes sense, because by tracking the moon

and the stars they were able to keep track of time.

Back then people didn't have watches

or blackberries to organize their schedules,

so they looked to the skies to monitor

the passing of the months and seasons.

And here, in Northern Israel,

there's a ,-year-old ruin,

a kind of Middle Eastern Stonehenge

that was designed to do just that.

[SIMCHA] My quest to decode

the prophet Ezekiel's vision

introduced me to the idea

that there is a hidden astrological message

in what Ezekiel saw.

The archaeology was suggesting

that the ancients knew more about the movement

of the stars than I had previously thought.

After all, the Egyptians worshipped the sun

as if it was a god

and the great pyramids still stand

as a testimony to those beliefs.

But more than years before the Egyptians

set their first block of stone,

people all over the world had started building

their own monuments to the sun and the stars.

Stonehenge is one of the most famous examples.

But the Middle East has its own version of Stonehenge.

I'm going there to meet up with Yoni Mizrachi,

the man who first excavated this puzzling site

back in the early s.

Maybe he can tell me about the people

who built this site and what they would have known

about charting the stars.

You're going to show us?

Yeah, let's go.

We're talking about a site

that's thirty-five hundred years old?

No more four thousand, more five.

No, actually five thousand years old.

BC early bronze age.

This is the central mound.

So, this was the highest point.

So this is, this is great.

I'm actually standing here.'

The concentric circles are so clear.

Yes they are.

And the problem is you don't get a sense

of the symmetry and the geometry

from a ground level you must go up.

[SIMCHA] Seen from above,

the site is comprised of three concentric rings

made out of more than , tons of volcanic fieldstone.

One of the mysteries is

why would anyone bother to do such a huge effort

to bring thousands of stones

and to build such a perfect geometry and symmetry to a site.

The question of function became extremely important

very early on since the site was discovered.

And there were tons of hypotheses-

Aliens from outerspace?

Oh yeah. That too. Obviously.

Did you find any remnants of a flying saucer?

No.

So there goes that theory.

Yeah. Absolutely.

Let's deal with the astronomy.

Ya.

How did you figure it out?

And what did you figure out?

When the archaeologist first found this site

they saw all these radial walls,

but more importantly when they saw two huge rocks,

which are exactly due east.

I don't know if you can see them.

I think I can see them those two cut in a v?

Yeah, exactly. A notch.

In there. This is the exact east.

Is that perfectly at east?

Yeah.

[SIMCHA] The archaeologists knew

that the east-facing notched rock was significant.

They had a hunch that it would line up

with the Equinox. it didn't.

But the sun would have had a different path

, years ago.

So what we had to do is find the geometrical center

of the site and take all the measurements

from there but to calculate where the sun

and where the stars were around BC.

And when you did that was there a wow moment?

Yeah, there was a wow moment.

If you stand at the geometrical center of the site

years ago there is the spring Equinox,

the sun would rise exactly between those two stones.

So if you're a priest standing in the center looking out

you can do two things, one is you can track,

edicts can go out and say plough,

you know, gather whatever.

The second thing is you can set the calendar ritually,

you can have celebrations, days of atonement.

Exactly, as they did throughout the Near East.

This is the time when all the animals give birth.

Fertility. -Sure.

If you want to have your little orgy sex orgy in the center.

Sure, sure.

Helps fertility.

Oh, a sex orgy always helps fertility.

So you is this a giant sun dial?

Yeah, it's a giant marking of celestial events basically

and if you follow this calendar

you get a sense of, you know, what's actually

going to be what's actually going to happen.

This is extremely important.

[SIMCHA] Rujm el Hiri is an amazing site,

not only because of the massive effort

it took to organize all those stones into concentric circles,

but because it tells me that the ancients of the Near East

really were well-acquainted

with the movements of the stars.

Maybe they even understood Ezekiel's vision

as an astrological metaphor.

But if the ancients were so good

at using the heavenly bodies to track time,

then what did they think of the biblical concept of creation?

How could they possibly believe that the entire universe

and everything in our planet was created

in just six days like it says in the Bible?

Wouldn't Genesis sound like some elaborate children's story?

Today scientists believe that the universe was formed,

not in six days, but over the course of billions of years.

But it turns out that modern science and the Bible

may both be right.

And I found an astrophysicist who believes he can explain why.

[SIMCHA] My quest to uncover the meaning

of Ezekiel's Vision has shown me

that the Bible is full of astrological

and astronomical information, encoded within its text.

That idea is leading me to something even bigger:

the Biblical explanation of how the universe was created.

I can't help but wonder if there's a hidden code

in that text as well.

In the Bible, God said: "Let there be light"

and WHAM! there was light.

God then creates the entire universe,

including our own planet, in only six days.

Throughout history, science has insisted

that the universe is eternal,

and that the Bible's explanation is nothing more than myth.

But recently a theory has emerged

that the universe did have a beginning.

It started off with a Big Bang.

But according to that theory it took billions of years

to create the universe, not six days.

So, I'm on my way, if this light ever turns,

to Gerry Schroeder.

He's an astrophysicist who believes

that modern science and the Book of Genesis

don't contradict each other.

Let's talk about the big bang.

Most people think there's a basic conflict

between the Bible's idea of the origin of the universe

and modern science.

I could put it this way in simple words,

the discovery of the Big Bang is the best news

for God since Moses came down from Sinai.

Nothing can match it.

There was a creation to the world.

The Big Bang says there is a creation.

Most people would say yeah,

but that beginning it's not a six day creation.

It's billions of years.

We're not talking days, we're talking eons.

There's two problems here.

First the creation of the universe,

we solved that problem.

so is it billions of year or is it numbers of days?

From the creation of the universe

to the creation of the soul of Adam on day six

the universe has to advance from a burst of energy

to the existence that we know of modern man.

All I need to know is how time dilation would work.

From this moment when matter forms til today

or Adam or anytime that you want in the modern world

and we know that number.

We know the ratio of this dilation of time.

It's not gravity and its not velocity

it's the stretching of space.

The original space stretches...

Almost like rubber and that affects the perception of time

when seen at a distance.

[SIMCHA] Professor Schroeder

came up with an extremely complex theory

that can explain the creation of the universe

in six days,

but it is so complicated that we had to

get our cr*ck team of writers and editors

to cut it down to its bare essentials.

It goes like this:

Physicists around the world agree

that the Big Bang created our universe.

And as it expanded it stretched

by a factor of a trillion.

As space stretches it also distorts time

and that's why from earth the universe

appears to be approximately billion years old.

But, if you were to observe the universe

from its point of origin,

it would appear much, much younger.

Gerry Schroeder has come up with a formula

that he believes reflects the age of the universe

from the perspective of the origin of the Big Bang.

He took the billion years,

that science estimates to be the age of the universe,

and divided it by the "stretching factor",

which is one trillion.

He came up with the number ..

Converted into days just happens to equal six days.

The fact is the universe is days old

from this perception and billions of years old

from this perspective, provided you take the view

from the beginning looking forward.

Those six -hour days do indeed contain all the ages,

the billions of years.

So, you're saying there's God's clock?

The Bible's clock.

So, you're saying there's the Bible's Clock...

For the six days of Genesis.

...and then there's the human clock.

And the first days until man is created...

is it a kind of a...

A perception of time from the beginning looking forward.

Do you think the ancients somehow

intuitively understood that

when they looked up at the heavens?

I think we all understand it.

It sounds strange but we have a cosmic memory

and the ancients being closer to nature

could in fact look at the stars and feel it.

They saw that they were a part of this big system.

There wasn't this tremendous separation that we have today.

[SIMCHA] Ezekiel's prophecy may have been

drawing on knowledge that we are only now discovering,

namely, that time is pliable

and that understanding it is a matter of perspective.

There's creation from the Biblical perspective

and creation from our own somewhat shrunken point of view.

As for Ezekiel's strange vision,

we may never know exactly what it really means.

But from what I've learned, it obviously has deep roots

in astrology and astronomy.

It's introduced me to a whole new layer of meaning

that is embedded in the Biblical text.

A layer of meaning that tells me

that there may be knowledge in the Bible that is ahead,

not behind,science's current understanding

of the cosmos.

Sometimes great minds feel misunderstood.

I know that I do.

Come on, we're getting a ticket for filming.

Excuse me. What's going on?

I'm the Naked Archaeologist.

Permit?