ESPECIAL DA RESSURREIÇÃO no Israel com Aline!

♪ Shalom and welcome back to ‘Israel with Aline!’ Today we are on an Easter special and so we are going to talk about the Resurrection of Jesus and so we come here to Emmaus Nicopolis, the place where Jesus appears for the first time resurrected to his disciples. We are going to learn about the history and archeology of this fascinating place. So, if you’re ready, let’s get started! ♪ And why are we starting today’s tour at the roadside? Because this here is the road to Emmaus, here very important routes from Biblical times passed and they were as busy here two, three thousand years ago as they are to this day. This road passes inside the Valley of Aijalon and in it passes a very important story; in Joshua’s time when the people were conquering the promised land, a people called the Gibeonites made a peace agreement with Israel, but then five Kings who do not like this agreement, attack the Gibeonites and Israel goes in defense of their new allies. And there was a great battle that will culminate with the sun and the moon stopping here in the heavens. More specifically here in the Valley of Aijalon. “On the day the LORD gave the Amorites over to Israel Joshua said to the LORD in the presence of Israel: Sun, stand still over Gibeon, and you, moon, over the Valley of Aijalon.” Joshua 10:12 ♪ And here on this road is the town Emmaus Nicopolis, where Jesus appears resurrected to his disciples. So let’s get on, get off the road and get to know this story better, come with me! ♪ But let’s start the Emmaus story from the beginning, this place here in biblical times was a small Jewish village called Hamat, Hamat means “the hot springs” or “the warm waters. But if I’m very honest with you guys, there are several places in Israel that are called Hamat. And this one is one of them. But when the Greeks arrived here in the second century B.C., they couldn’t pronounce this name Hamat, and so they changed Hamat to Emmaus. Which is how we know this town until today. But how can we be sure that Emmaus is the original Hamat? For one reason, if we look for hot springs here, will we find them? Let’s now get to know the hot springs of this city together. Look how incredible the preservation of this Roman bath house is! It sat on top of the Hamat, of this hot spring, the spring has long since dried up, but this construction is proof that here is Hamat and that means that here is Emmaus of biblical times. And this place here literally has archeological remains sprouting from the ground, because anywhere we walk we will find pieces of pottery and most of them are millennials, look at this one. And here you can see how far the floor was when archaeologists started excavating this place, and the difference in floor height from Roman times to today is gigantic. Why was this bath house and all of Emmaus buried? Because almost all archeological sites in Israel were buried! First we have to take one thing into consideration; the sites that for some reason were not buried, most of them were destroyed over time. First by looters of antiquities, other times people took the stones to use in other buildings, or damaged by the sun, rain and wind. So the buildings that were best preserved, like this one were the buildings that were buried. And what happens is that as time goes by, when the place becomes disused, the earth slowly, slowly covers it. Imagine if you don’t clean your house one day, a little dirt accumulates, if you don’t clean your house for a year, two years or hundreds of years the dirt and dust accumulates, especially in areas close to where you live or close here, for example, to buildings from Byzantine times, they are buried. And also Israel unfortunately suffered many earthquakes and many wars throughout history that destroyed buildings and it was easier to cover the remains of the rubble and build over it than to clear all the land, because after all carrying each of these stones by hand was quite heavy. But then what happens here is that this difficult one fell into disuse in Byzantine times, it was buried and preserved and is witness that we are truly here in Hamat. And now let’s go back in the direction of the very city of Emmaus. ♪ And what other archaeological evidence do we have here on the site? We have here Jewish tombs from the time of Jesus and we can also connect them to the resurrection of Jesus himself, but why is this important? It shows us that not only was there a city with hot springs here, but that there was also a Jewish population in this city. If we go back two thousand years ago in Jesus’ time, how were the Jews buried? There were two ways; the first way is the simple people, the people. They would dig a hole in the ground, put the body of the person inside, without a coffin, only with shrouds, put the person inside, cover it up and put a stone to mark the place. This is the way in which all Jews are buried to this day. But in Jesus’ time there was a second option, a second way in which Jewish people could be buried. The second way was for wealthy and important people like Joseph of Arimathea. The idea is that a tomb was dug in the rock and here in the archeological excavations, people, we have found several tombs in the rock, so come with me and we will see them very close and if we can, we will even try to get inside to show you. ♪ And look what we have here; exactly as the Bible tells us, a sepulcher dug in the rock! Come close with me to see it. How were these tombs used? At the time of the person’s death, the body was prepared, washed, anointed with perfumed oils such as myrrh or nard, and then the body was wrapped in shrouds. The body was placed inside a cave in one of the small spaces that I’m going to go to, if I can get inside, I’ll show you. It was placed in one of the small spaces that we call in Hebrew “Kuch”, the sepulcher was closed, it was waited for a year and after a year they came here, opened it, took the bones and placed them in the ossuary. And the next body could be put in and so the process was repeated. And this helps us understand a few things about the tomb of Jesus; the first thing is that this was only for rich people and Joseph of Arimathea who gives his tomb to Jesus was a very rich man and not only that, the Bible tells us that it is a new tomb, why does the Bible emphasize this? Because at that time most of the tombs were not new, they were used generation after generation. And that is also why on Sunday, when the Marys, the women go to the tomb and see it open, they are so shocked because they knew that according to Jewish tradition the tomb should not be opened in less than a year. Now then folks, let’s try to get up close and see the place from the inside. ♪ Ops Wow, look how incredible, here is an original tomb from the time of Jesus! And look at these small spaces here, this is where the bodies were placed. Archaeology really helps us understand Biblical times and I want you to take a good look at this stone that is here in front of me. ♪ And look how interesting this stone is, it is a kind of a door, it could seal the entrance. Then they could seal the entrance of each of these spaces, or it could also be used to seal the entrance of the whole cave. So you see that in Jesus’ time there were two kinds of stones that closed; one was square stones, which in general were even more common at that time And they closed just as a door is slammed. The second way is the way we believe the tomb of Jesus was, which was a large round stone and that it rolled, which is a more practical system. It rolled to open and close the door of the cave, but now we are going to leave the sepulcher here and we are going to know not only death, but life and resurrection here in Emmaus! ♪ Really the idea of the sepulchers is that the entrances are small because it is not for people to be going in and out here every day, but let’s go on and continue towards the central part of Emmaus, come on! ♪ And it was not just an isolated sepulcher, normally when we find sepulchers, we find several and here we are seeing other Jewish sepulchers from the time of Jesus. And here we can see perfectly the stone that served as a door, the stone that closed the entrance of this tomb. Another name for the Jewish Passover is “Chag Ha’aviv”, “the feast of spring” and precisely the Jewish and the Christian Passover happens during springtime and we can see here an Almond tree in bloom and all Israel is starting to bloom it is really a unique time to see the desert blooming here in the land of Israel! And one thing that catches my attention here is that Emmaus Nicopolis is such an important site linked to the resurrection of Jesus that very few groups visit the place, I am just seeing at the distance a group arriving, so it caught my attention because whenever I come here I am usually the only person there or one of the few who come, so I am happy that some pilgrims are also discovering this place. ♪ Behind me we see the archeological Christian remains of Emmaus and everything is related to Easter Sunday as written in Luke 24: On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: ‘The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’ ” Then they remembered his words. When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the Eleven and to all the others. It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them who told this to the apostles. But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense. Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb. Bending over, he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves and he went away, wondering to himself what had happened.” Luke 24:1-12 And that same day, on Resurrection Sunday two men were walking from Jerusalem to here Emmaus and they pass by the road that to this day is in use, it’s the same road since that time and those two men were walking and talking about the events of the last days in Jerusalem and there approaches them a man who was the resurrected Jesus but they don’t recognize him. ♪ And the two men and Jesus come here to Emmaus and Jesus bids them farewell and says “I’m still going to another place even further away.” But they say “No, no, it’s too late, stay here with us” and they go to Cleopas’ house which we believe is exactly there. And so they go together and I want to invite you too, to come together with me to Cleopas’ house and see how the story ends. ♪ And Jesus enters here in Cleopas’ house to have the meal with them, and imagine they were walking together for miles and miles and miles. The distance from here to Jerusalem is 20 miles and they’ve walked at least part of this way together, they’re walking so long with him, but they have no idea who Jesus is because the Bible tells us that their eyes were closed. And they are going to sit here to have their meal and then Jesus is going to break bread for them: “When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight.” Luke 24:30-31 Unfortunately by then it was a little too late because Jesus disappears, and on top of Cleopas’ house a Byzantine church was built here that was destroyed later in the Arab period, rebuilt in the Crusader period, destroyed again in the late Arab period and to this day it stands like this as you can see. But this helps us to be sure that here where the remains of the Byzantine church and the Crusader church stand in Jesus’ time was the house where Jesus appears on Resurrection Sunday. ♪ Notice that here is full of plastic chairs, why? Because besides being an archaeological park, this place gathers pilgrims to this day and that is why they take, spread the chairs here inside this church and here they can also break and eat the bread in the same place where Jesus broke it. It really is a unique feeling to be in this place, and in general to be in the Holy Land and that’s why I also want to take advantage and invite you, if you want to get to know the Holy Land and have the trip of a lifetime, come with us in the caravans Israel with Aline and come to know in depth the biblical archeology and history and literally walk in the same places where Jesus walked. See the archaeological excavations for example here, they show remains that are from the time of Jesus, but now we are going to leave here back to the entrance of the site. ♪ And now we are going to see the archaeological remains around the church and there is no shortage of Byzantine archaeological evidence here showing Christian worship here from the earliest of the early centuries, come with me. ♪ Here we see a baptistery, a place where people could immerse themselves in the waters this baptistery first is beautiful, cross-shaped and it’s from around the 5th and 6th century. I mean, people from all over the region came here and saw the place where Jesus appeared resurrected on Easter Sunday and decided to convert and so they could get baptized here, right before entering the church. Also next door we have Byzantine mosaics, ♪ but why am I putting so much focus on showing the archeological evidence from this site? First I think that archeology always strengthens our faith, but in the case of Emmaus it is because there is not only one version of Emmaus, there are other theories of where the biblical city of Emmaus might be. One of them is what we know as Kiriat Anavim, Abu Gosh, Colonia, El Kubeibeh, Artas, Khurbet Khamasa. Yes, Emmaus is the place that has the most possibilities of where the story really happened, but most archaeologists really believe that it was here. First is the oldest tradition and we have all this archaeological evidence in here; from the hot baths, Byzantine churches and also inscriptions; for example Eusebius of Caesarea, considered the father of church history who lived and was born in the 3rd century after Christ, tells us that the real Emmaus is Emmaus Nicopolis, but so far I haven’t said anything about Nicopolis, what is this Nicopolis? In the year 221 the Romans change the name of this city because they had destroyed it before and rebuild it under the name Nicopolis, Nicopolis means “the city of Victory”, they were celebrating the victory of the Romans against the Jews, because not long before they had put an end to the Jewish rebellions. But in the end this city that was created to be a Roman city becomes once again a Jewish and Christian city. And the archaeological remains here prove this to us. And also Jerome of Straussia speaks in the 4th century that there was a church over Cleopas’ house and right here we see this church. Jesus was here on Resurrection Sunday and so from this very special place I want to wish you all a happy and blessed Easter from Israel and the Holy Land, thank you all for watching and see you next time! ♪