Transcription
[music] Crucify him. Crucify him. Crucify him. [music] Pilot's palace was right here. So you see the minoret there. You see that tall spiral from there all the way down here was Herod's [music] palace. It was huge. It was in three sections. Had barracks of soldiers. It had an [music] intersection garden and then his palace. So this was Herod's palace.
But then after he died, the succeeding governors would stay here. It was the place to be for the governors when they came to Jerusalem. Like I say, fortified. So what we have right here is a gate complex. Okay? So you're coming in through these walls and then we're going to see the stone [music] pavement. We're going to see the door. We're going to see the beam of seat where he sat and where Jesus would have came in and out. Okay.
So, the crowds would be here. It was early in the morning, so there wasn't a huge crowd cuz they it was a mock trial. So, we walked up here. Crowds out here. >> These are the original stones going up. All this is original. All this was buried until after the 1960s. in the 70s they excavated this whole wall and uncovered all this. So it was buried. Okay.
So the problem with archaeology is it's destructive in and of itself because you have to remove things to go down. So right here is still evidence of the stone pavement. Okay. This came out and filled this in. Now, you see these stairs right here? Those went into the palace, Pilate's palace. And so, it's been filled in since the time of Jesus because Sulleon the Great rebuilt the walls. But you have these stairs going up. You'd have had a platform here. Then coming out here and then another upper platform that we'll see in a moment. Right here would have been the entryway door right here. These are steps that Jesus walked on right there. Came in and out of the palace several times. He would talk with [music] Pilate. Come out before the crowd in and out. Then he was flogged and stuff. Then he came out. Then he came out with his crown of thorns. [music]
So this is happening. He's going in and out. The Jews, it says they wouldn't go in because they didn't want to be unclean. Why would they be unclean? Because inside the palace were all these idols and everything. So right here was a door and Jesus would come in and out of here. And then you can come on up here a little bit. You see these stones here? This is from the time of Jesus. These are original. Okay, this is from the time [music] of Herod. Okay, they were all buried for a long time. In fact, if you look up on the wall, you see kind of a lighter color and a darker color. The lighter color was underground. That's why it's lighter. It was like this for many, many, many years.
Then walk up here. This stone right here, nobody really realizes how [music] valuable this stone is. It used to set up right here because the beimma seat was right up here. It this was had post going up to kind of cover. It's kind of an archway out here. Kind of a pavilion. So, this sat right up there. Someone pushed it down. That is very valuable right there. That's evidence of the bema seat up here, part of it. And as you come up here, then you see more of the stone pavement, right up here, see more of the evidence of the stone pavement. So you had kind of a lower platform, then you had an upper platform. This was the upper platform.
Now right here was the bema seat. What does beimma mean? Judgment. This is the judgment [music] seat. So Pilate would judge people. So Jesus comes in and out and then Pilate [music] would be seated here. So when Pilate makes his formal announcement of Christ being handed over to be crucified, washing his hands, that's going to take place right here. Once again, that stone that's down there used to sit out here on part of this judgment seat, kind of a [music] throne, you might say, so to speak. It's all right here.
And it says that then Simon ofSirene, what did he do? Carried Jesus's [music] cross. It says he was coming in from the open [music] country. This is the place. Some believe that the the judgment took place at the Antonia fortress, but the Antonia fortress really didn't [music] face the open country. So anyway, all of the evidence is here. This was hidden for many, many, many years, then recently to be exposed, to be excavated, and it's just absolutely amazing. You have everything here that the Bible talks about necessary. And scripture [music] talks about the palace. And then we have eyewitnesses and writers that tell us that Herod's palace was used by the succeeding governors. So this would have been Pilot's palace, his headquarters, so to speak. Amazing, huh? Absolutely amazing.
We want to go down here. see a little bit more of this and then show you where Pilot's palace was and where the archaeological evidence was for that. I'll say this about this site here is that when it was uncovered, they found so much evidence here, but this site hasn't officially been published. All the evidence is here. and Shimon Gibson, one of the archaeologists, it probably will be him who does publish it, but it's all here. You can see it. It's all here. And he verified and he firmly believes that this is this is the spot. This is where the trial took place. So, the traditional Vodola, bless their hearts, that was mainly started by the crusaders. They didn't even know this existed because it was underground. And so anyway, the traditional Vodol is great to do. We we take people on it and everything, but this right here and when we do our tour of this with when everyone's here, we will actually walk the new Vodola to Gala.
>> Okay. Yeah. >> So these steps >> Yep. All this Yep. Yep. Yeah. would come all the way up. This was all built by Herod and then used by Pilot. So yeah, this is all original. So the beam of seats right up here, right? The judgment seat right up there. This is where the crowd's at. And what are they going to yell from here? Crucify him. Crucify him. We have no other king but >> Caesar. For a Jew to say that, it's absolutely a declaration that God is not our king. It was an embracing of Caesar as our king. Because Caesar set himself up as God and he was like a god. So we have no king. God's not our king. Caesar is our king. That's anathema. For for a Jew to say that is just totally total rejection of who they are and what they believe. But here it is. It's all right there. It's all right there.
Okay. So then where would the what we want to say the biblical via Doladosa, what route would that be? Well, we believe this is where it starts off. Okay. I think that the scriptures and the archaeological evidence really strongly support here. One thing it says is that when Simon ofSirene carried Jesus's cross, he was [music] coming from the open country. This over here would be most likely enclosed, the Antonia fortress. The open country means you're coming from outside the city. So this would match very well. So then the biblical we believe theosa would come along here then it would go in here and then it would go in the city for just a little bit and then it would go back out the city to Goltha. Okay.
So this right here would be the Joffa gate during the time of Jesus. This wall here was not here. It was built about 10 years afterwards. During the time of Jesus, the city walls would be the inner one. Okay? It would be the inner one. And Goltha then would be right out here. But there was a gate right here called the Guinath Gate. That means garden gate. Scripture says that Jesus was crucified. It was in a garden and there was a freshly heed tomb. So the viodoladosa would come here I believe inside the city because the Romans wanted maximum humility and then go through the Genith [music] gate to Goltha. We're going to walk that tomorrow. The alternate route would be then from the pilot's palace here staying outside the city walls to Goltha. But from right here to right here this is going to be the route because this is a valley down here. We know it's going to be here. So he's either he's going to go in and then through or he's going to stay on the outside right to Golgtha. But Golgtha during the time of Jesus was outside the city walls.
Now to be fair, others believe the Vodoladosa began at the Antonia fortress because they believe it was the palace where Pilate was staying or because they believe Pilate went there from Herod's palace for the trial of Jesus. The route from the Antonia fortress is the traditional one developed around 1100 AD by the crusaders and then later it was modified somewhat to what we have today. For those who hold to this view, the Vodoladosa would start at the Antonia fortress and end here at the church of the holy supplr. Regardless of where the Vodoladosa began, recent archaeology does confirm that [music] Herod's palace that we've looked at here was where Pilate was staying [music] and it was on the west side of Jerusalem as shown here in this model layout.
Now, we'll be walking to Vidoladosa, the traditional one on our tour. It has 14 stations, including five in the Church of the Holy Supplr. It does provide a special sense of being able to experience the suffering and all that happened on Christ's path to the cross. So, we'll be walking that on our tour and experiencing the traditional vodosa. Now, while we believe the historical, archaeological, and biblical evidence support [music] the trial of Jesus being held at Herod's palace, our heart's desire is to recognize what Jesus was willing to do for us. He voluntarily chose to go to the cross and die for us in [music] our place to pay for our sins and give us the hope of eternal life. The Bible says in John 15:13 that greater love has no one than this, that a person will lay down his life for his friends. That's exactly what Jesus did. Our desire is that all watching this video would believe in the love of Jesus for us and receive the free gift of salvation and eternal life. Thank you for watching [music] and may God richly bless you.