Archaeology Just Confirmed Jesus Without Using the Bible

Jesus Christ being the most well-attested figure in human history.

If we can't believe in Jesus, we shouldn't believe in the Roman Empire. We shouldn't believe in Alexander the Great. You are holding in your hand an actual 6-inch Roman crucifixion spike or nail. That's exactly what would happen. That's how the Romans killed their victims. They divide my garments among them and for my clothing they cast lots. Wow. On the front side that has his image in Latin it literally says he is son of God, son of the divine. The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the son of God. Mark when he writes that is signing his death certificate.

Well, hey beat family. We've got a treat today. I am back in the studio with my friend and brother Dr. Jere guys. He is no stranger to the beat. Uh, we've done a couple of videos together over the years and uh based on the numbers, uh, you're backed by popular demand, brother, because both everything we do, it strikes gold, not because of us, but because of the spirit of God and what's placed in you and myself. And so God was, we are so excited today. Uh, we're going to jump in. Uh, we are going to talk today about, uh, less importantly, uh, his new book. All right, it's called The Jesus Discoveries, and we'll talk about that and the inspiration behind it. But more importantly, we're going to talk about how to give evidence of Jesus Christ being the most well-attested figure in human history. Uh, or at least, should I say, uh, in terms of antiquity, compared to some of the other people that people don't even think about. They don't even question, right? Right.

Uh, and we have, look, guys, I am surrounded by all these artifacts. We're going to talk about all this stuff. We got the Isaiah scroll. We've got, uh, uh, crucifixion nails and needles and dice, and we got all this stuff. I'm so excited. We're going to talk about the Shroud of Turin and all that. So, talk to us a little bit about why this conversation is important for Christians and skeptics and why it's important for us to be able to give evidence for Christ outside of the Bible.

That's such a great question, Allan. And I just have to say, it is so great to be back at the beat with you. I have had people stop me all over the world who have watched our videos together from the past and to see how the Holy Spirit has used those. And these are all ages, all the way from kids to older adults who are like, "Man, I've watched that video 25 times and I've played it to my church or I've played it to my Bible study." And so we, we're going next level. Okay. I have to keep elevating my game on the beat. Okay. Though. But I love. We have brought artifacts today that I have not shown on any other program on any other YouTube channel. This stuff is brand new. Some of this we have just acquired days ago. So I'm bringing it to you and your audience first. And the whole point is this. We want to be able to have a conversant faith. C.S. Lewis, that great Christian thinker, said, "The ability of the Christian is to speak in the cultural vernacular." So that means we speak in very understandable, calm, relaxed ways about why we believe what we believe. And here's why your channel, I think, is so important, more important now than ever, Allan, is with the advent of the YouTube influencer. And you are an incredible influencer for Christ, but you're biblical, and that's why we all follow you. There are a lot of other influencers out there who are retreading the tires of very old, outdated arguments against Christianity, and these go viral like they're big news on the internet. And then all of a sudden Christians flinch, like, "Wait a minute." And I'm like, "That got answered like 300 years ago. You just need to read and know more." And so we want this to be a time of equipping for your audience. So, for some Christians, they may have heard of some of these things before, but I'm going to guess 95% of Christians have never seen the artifacts that I'm going to be handing you, that we're going to be holding and looking at. And what this will do, the payoff of this broadcast is you're going to learn that Jesus Christ is the most well-attested figure of late antiquity. If we can't believe in Jesus, we shouldn't believe in the Roman Empire. We shouldn't believe in Alexander the Great.

And so my kids challenge me. I have five children. I have two teenagers and three nine-year-old boys. I get all the hard questions at the dinner table. And then if I don't answer quickly, they go screen saver on me. Like I've got two minutes to answer. Otherwise, they kind of just start daydreaming. All right? So my answers will be quick and crisp because it's like I'm at my dinner table. But my kids asked me, they said, "Dad, I want you to tell us everything about Jesus." But they gave me a challenge, Allan. They said, "You can't use the Bible."

Now, my kids love the scripture. In fact, my boys just memorized the Romans road. But they were challenging me like, "Dad, what can we know?" Cuz some of our friends, they don't want us to start with the Bible when we talk about Jesus. They want us to start with evidence, right? What do we know from history? What, what would happen if there were no Bibles? Could we still tell the Jesus story? And we can tell an amazing, marvelous, life-changing. We can give 65 facts about the birth, the life, the death, the burial, and yes, the resurrection of Jesus without ever opening the Bible, just based on the artifacts.

I love that because, guys, trust me, you are going to come across people whenever you're trying to share your faith, and your knee-jerk reaction is going to be, "Oh, let me show you Jesus in the Bible. Let me talk about the the the resurrection appearances and all this stuff. Let me show you book, chapter, and verse." And you might go through that whole thing and people might be like, "That's nice, but I don't even believe in your Bible. I don't believe it's inspired. I don't believe in that." So, what do you have outside of that? And that's where a lot of people are stuck.

That's right.

So, let's jump in, man. I'm, I'm just like a kid in a candy store, man. Okay.

Oh, man.

Let's start with this thing.

Absolutely.

All right. What is this thing right here, guys? I'm holding it up. Uh, like I said, we, we, we got, we're surrounded by all these artifacts. All right. Tell me about this. The significance of it and how this gives any sort of evidence to Jesus Christ.

This thing here, we know that Jesus is crucified. And I want you to just hold it while I'm talking, Allan, and put it in your mind's eye. We know Jesus is crucified on Friday, the 3rd of April, AD 33. We know that date. It's one of the best-established dates of human history. Or you could say April 5, AD 330. I go with the April 3rd, AD 30 date, excuse me, April 3rd, AD 33 date for a variety of reasons, but Jesus' death by Roman crucifixion is the best-established fact of the ancient world. You are holding in your hand an actual 6-inch Roman crucifixion spike or nail. And the reason we know it's first century is because it's in a square shape. Do you notice how it's not a circular nail? It's like a, it's a, it's a square. Man, honestly, the top of the nail would have started in its iron as a square as well. And I want you to just like, put it in, like it's going through your wrist for a minute. I want people to see this. Like, that's exactly what would happen. That's how, that's how the Romans killed their victims.

The Syrian province of Rome was the most brutal. And in other words, we have more evidence from the area where Jesus is crucified of criminals being nailed to the cross than any other part, any of the other Roman provinces. And so this is a first-century Roman crucifixion spike. It's 6 inches long. You can go to the Israel Antiquities Museum today and you can see the, you can see the nail of Yohan, and it looks identical to that. It's 6 inches long. It has that shaft that's a square. It has the square top, but Allan, do you notice, and I want you to hold that up, how the nail is bent a little bit? Do you notice that?

Mhm.

This was gripping, and it took my breath away. When Jesus is crucified, they probably were using nails that had been used before on other victims. They, the most valuable part of the crucifixion weaponry were the iron spikes. So they would be used again and again and again. And so the reason that this crucifixion spike is bent is, and there's a demonic aspect to how Jesus dies for us. Demonic being in the evil way in which he is tortured. There was a demonic level of torture because we know that Roman executioners, once the victim was nailed to the cross, they would actually come back and they would adjust the nail while the criminal was dying on the cross to minimize movement but maximize pain. And over time, that very thick, total iron spike is bent from being used again and again and again. It has DNA on it. It's rusted. So, can you imagine our sinless savior dying on the cross for our sins, paying that price with nails that had probably killed many others? And so, that nail gives evidence to several facts. In the 20s, 26-36, when Pilate was governor of Judea, the Romans did nail their victims to the cross. And by the way, that comes, if I may, right out of Psalm 22, if our audience wants to go to this amazing messianic Psalm 22. This is so powerful to me because David writes Psalm 22. And he writes it, what, a thousand years before Jesus. And by the way, uh, probably 700 years before crucifixion was invented. Remember, the Romans did not invent crucifixion, but they perfected crucifixion. Um, the Phoenicians invented it, the Greeks practiced it. Alexander the Great made it kind of a global way to kill people, but the Romans perfected crucifixion. And we'll talk about that a little bit more later. But I'm reading Psalm 22:16. "For dogs have surrounded me. The congregation of the wicked has enclosed me. They pierced my hands and my feet." Wow.

David sees this messianically a thousand years before Jesus. "They pierced my hands and my feet." And you were holding, a thousand years later, a Roman crucifixion nail that was actually used to execute criminals in Judea in the first century under the Roman legions and the Roman emperor himself.

Wow. Wow, guys. That's absolutely amazing. I'm just getting emotional just holding this, and I mean, I'm putting it up against my wrist. I'm like, man, that hurts.

Yes.

That just, I mean, just imagine the pain that Jesus went through to have something this thick going through your hands and your feet. And so, uh, so if, if I'm correct here, um, skeptics at some point, and correct me if I'm wrong, questioned whether crucifixion was even a form of execution during the time, which then would bring into question whether Jesus was really crucified because, hey, do we really have any proof that crucifixion was a form of execution? And things like this give evidence that, oh yes, uh, not only was it a form of execution, but it was a form of execution during the time of Christ. It's further evidence that the resurre, excuse me, the crucifixion of Jesus Christ is a historical fact.

You're exactly right. And this is the real crucial thing that I want our audience to know. There are skeptics who say, "Oh, well, Jesus may not have been nailed to the cross. Maybe he was like roped on the cross." Cults will say this as well, that he was just kind of tied to the cross. He wasn't nailed to the cross. Why do we want to soften it, by the way? Why do we want to make it not as bad as it really was? No, this shows us. In fact, I want to say it again. We have more evidence from the Judea of Roman criminals, and Jesus isn't the only one. There's Yohanan. There are others of being nailed to the cross. Jesus, when he is hanging on the cross, of course, it was the nails that kept him there, but more than that, it was his love for you and me.

That kept him on that cross. And I want us to just let that sink in. We can get, Allan, the reason it's important, and you, we can do this. This is a great tactic. I mean, think how I can hold this at a coffee shop and be like, "This is how much God loves you."

At some point, you were on Jesus's mind. At some point, your sin was transferred, but it did take a payment, and God did not send second best. You and I both are blessed with sons.

Yes.

And as much as we love the beat audience, we would not give our sons for anyone watching this broadcast anywhere in the world.

Right?

Can you imagine God giving us his son, knowing that his son was going to die? A man who is innocent. A man who is sinless. And the Bible does say he was nailed to the cross. It doesn't say he hung up there on ropes. And so we see that evidence, and that's why it's powerful. So, look, I'm not even using the Bible. I'm using this artifact that, again, when my children hold this, they're like, "Wow, Dad, that would have hurt."

Wow.

"That would have been hard. How did he endure that? How did he stay alive for three hours on the cross after enduring the punishment of the flag, the torture?"

Um, wow. And then to know that it's rusted and there's DNA on here.

Wow.

Um. Wow.

Wow. So, guys, that, that's just the first artifact of this video that we are going to discuss in antiquity. Now it's like,

That's, that's, that's it. I mean, that, that's, we can pack it up. Yeah. But we have so much more. And while we are in Psalm 22,

Yes.

Let's just, since we're here already,

Yeah, that's right. Let's talk about these artifacts right here. Jeremiah, tell me about these little guys right here. Looks like some dice.

Yes. You go ahead and kind of drop.

Okay. Let me see if I can. Seven-eleven.

Yes. Like there we go. Look at that.

All right. So,

Taking me back to my college days, man.

That's right.

Yeah, man. Nice, my friend.

So, let us pretend that we are the crucifixioners. Uh, excuse me. We're the executioners. Let us pretend that we are the, the Romans who are killing Jesus. And just like you and I were just laughing,

And totally desensitized to what was going around around us, right?

The scriptures tell us in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John very specifically that the Romans were gambling for Jesus's garments while the author of life was dying right before them. And so these are first-century Roman dice. And what are they made of? Well, they're made of bone. So, these are made of bone. That's why I mean, they're still pretty numbers.

Yeah. And they have numbers that are drilled into them. Isn't that amazing? Like they have numbers drilled in. Five. I mean, and by the way, these are first century from Judea as well. So, these, these came from my antiquities dealer in Jerusalem. I've just received them. I've not shown them on any other program. And this is why, what, what I did in The Jesus Discoveries. It's crisp. It's tight chapters. There's tons of pictures in my new book, which I love. It's written for the lay audience. It's not written for scholars. It's written for moms and dads who want to pass their faith onto their kid and say, "Hey, look, here's a nail. Here's, here's dice. Here's coins. Here's ossuaries. Here's all of these interesting things from history." I, it's like I wanted to time travel with my kids and be like, "Oh, yeah. Here's this. Here's this." And I had to keep their attention. So, it's written really quickly. Um, but we get the facts. So, yeah, this is a Roman dice. And then of course, this was prophesied, as you rightly said.

Yeah. So read that for me and talk, talk to me a little bit about that. I believe it's in verse 18, uh, Psalm 22, which is absolutely crazy to think that David foresaw.

Yes.

Right. Just one verse later. Yeah. That this same Messiah that was going to be pierced in his hands and his feet were then going to was then going to experience a situation where his garments would be, uh, uh, cast lots for and and all of that. So read, read that for me.

And how did he, how did David know that the Romans would love gambling a thousand years later? I mean, the Romans were truly, especially the legions, they were gambling addicts. They would gamble for on everything. Sounds, by the way, like some today.

Yeah. Um, verse 18. And put your mind, and this is messianic. This is the Psalms. This is a thousand years before Jesus's crucifixion. "They divide my garments among them and for my clothing they cast lots." Wow. And then what do we see in the New Testament? When we come to the New Testament, we see that all four gospels mention this truth in the crucifixion. I'm looking at Matthew, but it's in Mark. It's in Luke. It's in John. I'm in Matthew 27 right now. They put the charge on him, the King of the Jews. But verse 35, look at this. We're now reading Matthew's gospel. "And when they had crucified him, they divided his garments among them by casting lots." And it's interesting, we can go by that verse so quickly and not realize that except for the grace of God, that could be you and me casting lots for Jesus's clothes. We could be so desensitized to our sin, so desensitized to our need for saving, so desensitized to the fact that someone's dying in our place, that we have no problem while they're dying. I mean, can you imagine being that jaded?

Mhm.

And that just tells you how many, how many crucifixions there were in Jerusalem. And these men often were intoxicated. These executioners, they would miss the mark sometimes. I mean, it was brutal. It was truly brutal. It was the worst way man has ever invented how to kill another man. The most painful, without a doubt. I can say that there's not a more painful way to kill someone than to crucify him. But these dice just remind me of how callous I can become to my own sin. And now, even as a believer, we have to walk in the blessing that, yes, we've been forgiven all sin the moment that we come to Christ, but thank God for First John 1:9. Thank God for the blood of Jesus that continues to cleanse us from all sin.

Yeah, totally. I love that. So, guys, as you can see right here, uh, we've got this Isaiah scroll. And I'm, I'm, I'm itching to get into that, and we will. Uh, that's just a little preview of coming attractions. We're, we're going to talk about that in just a moment, but let's kind of jump around. Okay. We got some other, uh, goodies right here. And, uh, I've got some, some,

Coinage. I got some coinage here, man. I'm going to put this right here.

Let me get that.

Oh, man. Right. So, so I've got some coinage here, guys. And, um, we're, we're going to capture some, some close-ups of this so you can kind of see. But talk to me a little bit about the significance. You've got several coins here, uh, that,

For, you know, for someone like me, they might look at this and say, "It's just some coins." I mean, what's the significance? How does this point to Christ? How does it, how does this give evidence of the existence of Christ, his life? Um, the time frame, who is in charge, I mean, who are these people, the faces? Talk to me about, about these, these artifacts here.

Well, number one, money's always been cool. It's cool to have money, and it's cool to have no currency. So, the way I love to teach this, especially to college students, high school students, middle school students, there was no first, there was no social media in the first century. I mean, that's hard to believe. Like, you and I can remember a time when not everybody had cell phones like that. That's how old we are, bro. And that's hard. Like, I can remember what it was like.

Hagers. Yes, bro. Absolutely. I remember Hagers. I remember days before email. Yes. Um, but it's hard to believe that there was a time when there was not access to instant information anywhere in the world. What I love about coins from the first century, coins are the social media from the time of Jesus. I want to say that again. Coins are the social media from the time of Jesus. Allan, if, if I could take you on a time-traveling journey right now, we can't pull up TikTok or YouTube or any of the other algorithms, and we land in this place, and we need to know who's in power, who the local god is,

Who the, who the subjected people are. There's no newspapers, by the way. There might be a proclamation. There may be a gospel, by the way, a euangelion from Augustus, not from the gospels of the Bible that we use that word, but there might be like a post from the emperor saying, "Pay taxes." But for us to really know what was going on in that community, the best place you could look was the money, and you would see who is in charge. And so we have here, right here, I want you to hold this. This is my oldest coin. This is a bronze coin from 37 BC. So, I hope you're taking notes with the video. This is a bronze coin from 37 BC. And stamped on the coin in Greek is "Herodou Basileu." Herodou Basileu of Herod the Great. So, this is the first person on the scene who's a ruler who, if you know your Christmas story, he's the first guy who tries to kill Jesus. And here is a coin. And the reason, and I don't want to geek out or anything, but the reason that,

Geek out all you want.

Okay. Well, the I want to, okay.

We geek out here.

I love that.

Well, the reason it's in the genitive, the reason I pronounce it that way is like, even though, like, let's pretend Allan and I are doing business together in 37 BC. Um, the coin still belongs to Herod ultimately. It's, uh, it's literally Herod's coin. We just get the pleasure of trading currency. We can trade it and say, "I'll give you this for that." Yes. End of the day, it doesn't belong to me or you.

Exactly.

Of Herod the Great.

It belongs to him.

And this tells me that the Bible is based on real people, real places, real events. The gospel is based in true, real history. Jesus is not legend. He is Lord, and he is the best-attested figure of human history. And so when we read that Herod was so nervous about this king of the Jews that Magi from the east were seeking, we can use a coin. And if we're talking to our kids and say, "No, this is how we know Herod the Great. I don't have to open the Bible." It's literally on the coins. And this is the man that first tried, he is Jesus's first enemy when Jesus is just a little baby. He's had people trying to kill him his whole life. Are there people, I mean, it's hard for me to believe. It's what's amazing to me is the lengths that unfortunately some people, skeptics, will go to try to discredit, uh, the overwhelming evidence of Christ. So, are there people that would actually say that someone like Herod the Great never existed?

Absolutely. And this, there, you have to understand,

It's on a coin.

Yeah. And, and this is where we need to update our audience. You know, biblical archaeology is a very new science. It's not been around for that long. We're so used to, again, pulling up on our phones and saying, "Oh, they just opened the Pilgrim Road in Jerusalem. Oh, we have archaeological digs." It is a very new science. It's also wrapped in unique history. A lot of the initial biblical archaeology had, um, the Office of Strategic Services, which was the forerunner of MI6, worked with them. Um, all kinds of interesting stories. The CIA was embedded with biblical archaeology. I mean, it's a very unique beginning of how it started. But when we look at this, I know that, for example, there's a Bible scholar by the name of Bruno Bauer, who was really good friends, by the way, um, with Karl Marx, if that wants to tell you something about Marxism. And he said that Pontius Pilate was a mythical figure, that you absolutely could not believe in Pilate, that we have no evidence from Pilate. His name's just made up in the Bible. I have a whole chapter on this in my book, The Jesus Discoveries. Boy, I would hate to be Bruno Bauer because in the 1960s, we pulled out the Pilatos stone in Caesarea Maritima that is so clear in Latin, incised on stone, that Pontius Pilate is the prefect of Judea. We have since actually found a signet ring at Herodium that has Pilate on the ring as well. But again, so there are those, and, and this Bruno Bauer was a Bible scholar. So his, his hyper-minimalism, and what I would say his hyper-minimalism means believes the very, if anything at all, probably nothing. His scholarship at the time, Allan, infected a whole generation of other Bible scholars, which led to what you may have heard of as German higher criticism. This higher criticism of the New Testament that you really can't trust that these are really the words of Jesus. Hey, Pontius Pilate didn't even exist. Jesus, it led to the Jesus mythicism. And so, especially with the rise of AI, Allan, this is why your voice is needed now more than ever. It's why we have to be so careful where we get verified information.

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. All right. So, you got a lot of other coins here going on here. You got four of them over here, two of them over here. Is there anything more you want to say about any of these different ones? I know, I know we looked at this one,

Which is Herod. That's Herod the Great.

Uh, but what, what's going on with these? Is there Denarii?

Denarii. So, let's jump over to the denarius. I just got this coin. I want you to hold it up. And this one is cool, Allan. It has this really neat kind of green sheen to it. Do you see that?

Yeah.

That is a denarius. Now, if it was more than one, we'd call it denarii. But this is a denarius. Okay. One denarius is equal to 25 to get us to an aureus, that's solid gold, which we'll get to in a minute. So, Jesus, let's look at the Bible is in Matthew 22, and he's being asked in verse 15, "Then the Pharisees went and took counsel how to entangle him." You know, Jesus was always, they were always trying to trap him.

Yeah.

And they sent their disciples along with the Herodians, and they're saying, "Teacher, we know that you're true and teach the way of God truthfully and care for no man, for you do not regard the position of men. Tell us then, teacher, is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?" But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, "Why put me to the test, you hypocrites? Show me the money for the tax. Show me the money." That wasn't invented in Jerry Maguire. Jesus said it first. It's right here. "Show me the money for tax." And they brought him a coin. And Allan, you're holding a first-century Tiberius denarius in your hand. Why do I say Tiberius? He was the emperor when Jesus said these very words. Okay? That's why I'm saying it's a Tiberius denarius. And Jesus says to them in verse 20, "Whose likeness is in an inscription is on this." And you can see it's Tiberius's likeness on the denarius.

Caesar. Yeah.

He says, "They said Caesar." So, Caesar Tiberius.

Right? Exactly. So they said, literally, he's like, "Whose likeness?" And they, "Well, that's Caesar." Well, it's Caesar Tiberius. And then he said to them, "Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's." Verse 22. "When they heard it, they marveled and they left and went away." Here's the point of this. First off, wow. I'm looking at Tiberius. I'm looking at Caesar. I can literally put myself in Jesus's place saying, "Whose likeness?" Oh, that is Caesar. Okay. Give to Caesar what? Caesar. Give him your money. Whose likeness is on this? Jesus says, "Give me your life." You can give Caesar the taxes, but he's making a stronger point. He's saying, "Give me your life. Let my imprint be on you. Let my likeness be yours. Give me your life." That's what the audience would have known because, again, the money belonged to Caesar Tiberius. Jesus said, "You belong to me.

Give me your life." So you see how we're giving all these many little gospel micro-messages just using artifacts from the world of Jesus.

So someone who might have questioned, say, "Well, Caesar Tiberius, if he even really was a real guy." Well,

There's a denarius right there.

Pictures right here on the, on the money.

In circulation at the same time Jesus would have said these very words.

Wow. Okay. Awesome. Any other, uh,

This is a big one right here. So, um, I want you to hold that in your hand. Um, this one has a very special place in my heart. So, uh, a couple of things about it. This, you're holding a full shekel. It's 14 grams. Um, a half shekel was 7 grams. And that is a Tyrian silver. It's very rare temple tax coin that you're holding in your hand. And that actually has the god Melqart on it. Um, which is interesting to think that a false deity was the actual temple currency at the temple tax. So if you were going to pay your temple tax, now we're talking about Judaism. Remember Jesus overturns the tables of the money changers because they were ripping everyone off. Do you remember that?

Mhm.

So you had to put whatever currency you had into that. That is the only tax that they would accept at the temple. Silver from Tyre. Okay. That's why I call it Tyrian silver. Now, what's interesting is they were of course ripping them off on the exchange rates, and Jesus, as only Jesus could, being the Messiah, overturns the tables, said, "You've, you've made my house a den of thieves." But fast forward, look at this. Judas made a deal for Jesus.

"Then one of the twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, 'What will you give me if I deliver him to you?' And they paid him thirty pieces of silver. And from that moment he sought an opportunity to betray him." So that's also the currency that Judas would have used. He would have been paid to betray Jesus. Thirty of those.

Wow. Okay. Wow. Amazing. Amazing. Um,

Yeah. I feel the weight of that.

Yeah. These things are, these things are pretty heavy.

Yeah.

These things are pretty heavy. Um, any significance of those if you want to. If not, we, we can, we can move on. But any, you've got three other gold ones there. Any, anything special you want to say about those?

The thing that, again, because if I, my task is, how do I tell people about Jesus but I don't use the Bible? I want people to know that the whole story of Jesus that we have recorded in the New Testament is accurate. It's historical, and it's factual. And I also wanted a collection of actual coins of everyone who's tried to kill Jesus. So we have Augustus here. This is an aureus. You see Augustus on here. This is, uh, 7 grams. It's a beautiful coin, and this is an actual solid gold coin. Um, and then what I wanted to share about this one from Tiberius, because Tiberius is the emperor who kills Jesus. He is the emperor who the execution is laid at Jesus's feet. Pontius Pilate would have reported to Tiberius that they executed Jesus of Nazareth. Now,

These key figures are, I mean, they're, they're, there's it's undeniable that they existed because imprints and their names are embedded on coinage.

That's right. And why I want to share this coin in particular is I want people to understand the boldness of the early Christians. This is again another practical application from this. On this coin, I'm wearing my glasses on purpose. On the back of the Tiberius, this is amazing. "Pontifex Maximus," high priest, chief priest. So Tiberius is known as the high priest or the chief priest on the coinage. On the front side that has his image in Latin, it literally says, "He is Son of God,"

Son of the divine.

So when you open the Gospel of Mark, and I can almost quote it from memory in Greek, "En archē ēn to euangelion huiou theou," the Son of God, Jesus Christ. Do you realize that on the very coinage, Tiberius is the only one who's known as Son of God, not Jesus? And so we, we read the first verse of Mark's gospel so quickly, we don't realize. And I, I want to just, I'll read it in English because I can't remember it exactly in Greek, but in Greek, it's amazing because it would have, if we, the reason it's important to hear it in Greek is, is we would have heard it and we would have been shocked, Allan, if you and I were in the audience and we hear someone pronounced as the Son of God, we're thinking, "Oh, he's talking about Tiberius. Tiberius is the Son of God. It's right there on the money." And anyone else who would be called the Son of God, that would be an enemy of Rome.

Almost blasphemy.

Totally.

Like, what?

And so, "En archē," in the beginning, "to euangelion," so this is verse one, "the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God." Mark, when he writes that, is signing his death certificate.

Yeah, that would have been offensive to anyone in the Roman.

And this is why I tell my kids how powerful and bold the early Christian movement was. Then you come around and we're going to call Jesus our Great High Priest. Hey, the Pontifex Maximus was Tiberius. What do you mean, Jesus? Oh, no. Jesus is our High Priest. He is before the Father, constantly interceding for us. So, Allan, do you see all the ways that I'm drawing you in spiritually? I'm not using the Bible.

I'm using artifacts that, that help us understand and clarify the Bible. Isn't that cool? And no other religion can do this. I hope the beat audience realize that I can't do this with any other religion or any of the made-in-America cults. With Christianity, we are blessed with this abundance of riches because our faith is based in history, and our faith is based in the historical fact of Jesus's deity, his death, and his resurrection.

I love it.

So, I mean, I could give the gospel with any of these artifacts. And guess what? You can, too. You can show a clip of this video. You don't even have to show the whole thing. You could show, "Hey, let me show you the 90 seconds where he explains Mark saying that Jesus is the real Son of God holding a gold aureus, which, by the way, gold's gone up. This is a very expensive, uh, artifact." Wow.

All right. So, I got another, uh, artifact in my hand right here. An interesting little thing that, uh, is not nearly as thick as this guy.

And it's because it's used for a different purpose. Obviously, you wouldn't be crucifying people with this. So, this looks like a needle.

That's right.

Looks like a needle of some sort.

You want to do some sewing?

All right. All right. That's sharp, isn't it?

Very, very sharp.

Yeah. Don't break it.

No. Oh, not at all. But tell me about this and, um, if you're a Bible student, you probably, your brain is probably starting to churn a little bit in terms of Jesus and his relationship with the needle and, yes,

What he talked about. But, uh, talk to me a little bit about this, and then we're going to jump into the big boys. We got the Shroud of Turin coming up.

And the great Isaiah scrolls. Got some other things. Uh, Magdalene Papyrus. We got some good ones coming up, but let's, let's, let's kind of, some of these I don't want to call them smaller ones, but quicker ones. Quick.

Okay. Yeah. I love this because Jesus was the master teacher. He could use anything to share truth with people. The, even something as simple as a needle that has the eye. And if I'm looking at that eye, I mean, that is a small circle. I mean, what could you get through the eye of a needle? I mean, I mean, you can, I mean, I guess thread,

Right?

But certainly not a camel, right?

And so Jesus, and I'm in Matthew 19, verse 23. And Jesus said to his disciples, "Truly, I say to you, it will be hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. And I tell you, it is easier." This is verse 24. It's so, I've not actually read this passage while holding this artifact before. This is the first time I've actually read the passage in the Bible while holding, holding this artifact. So, forgive me for geeking out again. But he says in verse 24, "And again I tell you, it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." When the disciples heard this, they were astonished, saying, "Who then can be saved?" But Jesus said, "With men, it is impossible. With God, all things are possible."

Yeah. So Jesus saying,

"You're not going to buy your way to heaven, and you're not going to earn your way to heaven. It's only going to be by grace." And he uses something as simple as a needle. And that is a first-century Roman needle from Jerusalem. And

You can see just how small. I used to teach math. I'm going to use a math term. The diameter is,

Yes.

Of this eye. It's just basically saying it's impossible.

Exactly.

It's impossible.

But with God, all things are possible.

Yeah. Yeah.

And isn't that a great object lesson? Like, here we are using artifacts again. We can, I mean, this shows how as Christians, we should again and again be appealing to history and to the material culture to just share faith truths. So, I mean, that probably took us two minutes to just talk about, and we're able to share a powerful truth.

Yeah, I love it. All right, the moment has come.

Okay.

This beauty right here, man.

The Isaiah scroll.

I hear the trumpets.

The Dead Sea Scroll. The, the, the Isaiah scroll. Talk to us a little bit about, um, first and foremost, let's just, let's just talk about the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. I've done a whole video on the Dead Sea Scrolls and the significance of it, but we'll just kind of do a little micro, uh, discussion here. What, what is the big, uh, significance, if you will, of the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls? Obviously, you know, comparing manuscripts and, right, got some older ones and everything is still the same in terms of, or at least very small differences in terms of comparing the older ones with the newer ones. So talk to me first and foremost about the Dead Sea Scrolls in general, and then we'll dig into the, the significance of this particular finding.

Absolutely. Scroll.

So, one of my top 10 historical discoveries that bring us face to face with Jesus are the Dead Sea Scrolls. So I have a whole chapter developed on it because it is so important that we understand context. We understand it is so easy for Christians to become heretics. It happens unfortunately every Sunday. It happens in Bible studies because all I need is the Bible in no context, or Jesus in no context. And this is why I again love your show and your teachings so much is you always draw us back to the context of the Bible. I believe in the CIA method of Bible study. I talk about this in the, in The Jesus Discoveries: Context, Interpretation, Application. So, what's the context? How do I interpret it? And then how do I apply that interpretation to my life? CIA. So I do that in The Jesus Discoveries. Why the Dead Sea Scrolls are so important. Let me start with that. It helps us understand the climate of the first century and what the messianic expectations were. It really helps us understand that people were looking for a savior. People were looking for a Messiah. And we see that reflected in the Dead Sea Scrolls library. It also helps us understand the confusion even by Jesus's disciples. Do you remember in Matthew chapter 16 when Jesus has to rebuke Peter? Peter says, "No, Lord, you're not going to go to the cross." Peter rebukes Jesus, which is shocking. And he said, "Get behind me." What?

Satan.

"Get behind me, Satan. I'm going to the cross." We see that reflected in the Dead Sea Scrolls. In one of the Dead Sea Scrolls, it is very clear that when the Messiah comes, he will kill the Kims. That was code language for the Romans. And then he would kill and vanquish the corrupt priesthood. The Qumran community were a, they were a not secretive, but an esoteric. I'm trying to think about an, they, they just lived in the desert together. They studied scripture. There was a scriptorium. They had kind of left society. They had left. They, they would have seen the Jewish temple as corrupt. They would have seen the Sadducees and the Pharisees as, "No, they're not practicing real Judaism, pure Judaism." And so the Messiah, when he comes, will vanquish the corrupt priesthood, kill all the Romans, and then take his seat on the throne of David. That was the expectation. And so when we see Jesus saying, "No," when he gives his wonderful, in Mark 8:31, in Mark 9:31, in Mark 10:33 and 34, "The Son of Man must be betrayed. He must go to the cross. He must die and rise again." The, you have to understand the Dead Sea Scrolls help us understand how hard that was of a concept for them to get because they were not expecting a savior that would die this way. They were expecting a savior, according to the Dead Sea Scrolls, who would kill all the Romans,

Overthrow, overthrow him, and sit on the throne of David, and it would be a theocracy. But they didn't know the gospel. They didn't know that. And so the Dead Sea Scrolls are the William F. Albright said it was the greatest discovery in archaeology. I tend to agree. This scroll we have is an actual facsimile. Allan, I'm so excited. We just acquired this.

The facsimile of the great Isaiah scroll. It's nearly 24 feet long. It is the entire book of Isaiah. And we have it. It's found, of course, in 1947 in Qumran Cave 1. So if you see the Q in the Dead Sea Scrolls sometimes, that means it's Qumran, and then you see like one, well, that means it's found in one. Yeah. Cave one. So 4Q would be the cave four. So 1Q Isaiah. This is Isaiah. And Allan, um, this is so amazing because we see that it's a scroll. It's not a codex. It's not a book. But the dating of this is what's also so significant.

Yeah. Let's talk about that because that, that's, that's one of the major things is that, um, when you get into bibliology, you know, people talk about, one of the things that, uh, skeptics will say is that, well, the Bible has changed,

Right?

Um, maybe the Bible said one thing at some point, but you can't trust that the Bible that you're reading today, as of recording this video in 2026, is the same because it's been altered. It's been manipulated. It's been through too many hands. And the beauty of the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls is that, uh, there were scrolls or portions of the Bible that were discovered. And, uh, essentially, let's just talk about this one for example. Um, you probably know better the, uh, the dating of this particular scroll as it relates to

The oldest one that we had before the Dead Sea Scrolls. I, if I, I want to say, it was, I could be wrong, maybe a thousand years. Correct. They brought a thousand. You're absolutely correct. Something like that. The MT. Yeah. So, so to think about how when they compared the Isaiah scroll and other fragments of the the New Testament as well to the, uh, to the oldest ones that we had at that time. Here we have an example. Don't quote me exactly, but roughly a difference of a thousand years. Right? And yet, um, you tell me like, what, how much has changed, if anything. Maybe just a jot, a tittle, a couple, but nothing that would change the meaning or any sort of doctrine.

There is no significant difference. And what we see in 1Q Isaiah, which is 150 years before Jesus. It's 150 BC with the nearest copy that we have of Isaiah 8, 800 to a thousand years later. There is no difference. In other words, the text is stable. There is a stability, perfectly, accurately, no differences. And that's so powerful to me because it shows that we can trust the Bible. The Bible is a historical document. It's not a legend. It's not myth. It's not lore. It is based in historical fact.

And here, what's fascinating because we can't say this with the Dead Sea Scrolls that we have all of the, we don't even have all, you know, like the book of Esther, for example, is not in the Dead Sea Scrolls. So we don't have that. But the fact that we have all the chapters of the book of Isaiah and we have it in one scroll that's 24 feet long. Someone was in a scriptorium in Qumran recording this.

And little did they know in 1947, Bedouins who were throwing rocks with sheep would hear something break and be like, "Well, that's odd." And inside these amazing pottery jars are these invaluable Dead Sea scrolls. Now, here's the interesting thing. Um, and there's so many interesting things about it, and we should read Isaiah 53 together. We're heading there. Uh, but the fascinating thing is this is a facsimile, Allan. So, and the group that we acquired this facsimile from also provided the facsimile of Isaiah 53 to the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C. So these are the only two places in the United States that you can see the great Isaiah scrolls. The beat, and the museum of the Museum of the Bible. They also provided them for the Vatican. So the Vatican has a Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition that was beautiful. They provided it for the National Library in Paris and they provided them for the British Library, so in London. So it is a. And so if you've been to Israel, which I know you've been, um, most of us have, you've also seen, you may not realize this. You didn't see the actual great Isaiah scroll because nobody sees that in the public because of light and oxygen. Now, there's some breaking news on that. Actually, they've just taken it out to show the public, like literally in the last 24 hours as of taping this program. But the in the Shrine of the Book, when you go into the Israel Museum and you see the great Isaiah scroll wrapped around, that's a facsimile, just like the one we're looking at. So, it's important for Christians to know that term. A facsimile is an exact representation so that we can study it.

Yeah. And handle it and put ourselves in the world of the text.

I love that. So speaking of the text, I mean, we can't have this wonderful, beautiful facsimile of the Isaiah scroll, right? Without going to discuss, um, what I would consider to be one of the most beautiful passages of scripture in the book of Isaiah, none other than chapter 53. Right? So guys, we're just going to give you a little treat here. We're going to just kind of walk through Isaiah 53 and just kind of geek out on the, um, just how amazing it is to think about how is it possible for a human mind to be able to write down in the past tense, right? As if all these things have already happened. He was despised. He was bruised, right? And none of these things when Isaiah wrote this had even taken place. But yet, because he was filled with the spirit of God, uh, empowered by God, he was writing these things, prophesying that these things would happen to the Messiah that was going to come. And he wrote it down as if it had already happened. And, uh, you could talk a little bit later about how the Jews don't even read this portion in their, in their synagogues because it's almost such, such proof that, hey, the Messiah, yes, one day we do know in his second coming, he will, uh, sit on a throne. He will fulfill all of these, uh, messianic prophecies that the Jews expected him to do in his first coming. Right? But they often times misunderstand that this also was a, a passage that talked about what the Messiah would experience, and they missed that.

And, and I want to, may I add one thing before we read? Charles Spurgeon, Augustine, John Calvin, Martin Luther knew nothing of the Dead Sea Scrolls. So they would deal with critics. Think of Charles Spurgeon who's reading Isaiah 53 and a critic of the Bible would say, "Well, all we have is a Masoretic text. Those are actually after the time of Jesus. Um, those are absolutely interpolations." So the fact that we are blessed right now, um, with a scroll that is from before the time of Jesus that matches Isaiah 53 completely. Do you realize what a gift that is for us as believers? I mean, they did not have that benefit. Charles Spurgeon did not. He could not have rolled out because it hadn't been discovered yet. That's what I mean about biblical archaeology being so new. So these are gifts to us in this day. That's why this video should be watched and shared and reshared. We are showing artifacts that prove Jesus, that help us clarify the Bible and tell us the story of Jesus in new and exciting ways. That these are tools that we need to use. They're skills that we need to have. I love it. I love it.

So guys, we're going to, we're going to walk through, beat style. We're going to do verse by verse. All right. And there, there, there will be some, some, uh, verses that, that may or may not have as much punch to them, but we'll stop and, uh, and look at the ones that are, are just filled with prophetic, uh, significance when it comes to Jesus Christ. And as we're doing this, I want you to be thinking about, um, how Jesus fulfilled this, uh, at his first coming. So, uh, who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant and as a root out of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness, and when we see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. Anything you want to kind of share?

Yeah. So, if you're reading the Hebrew, it begins right here. For who has, and I'm reading upside down, believed our report? Remember, it's right to left in Hebrew. And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? So all of chapter 53 is on column 44, if those that are watching that, and it's facing the audience. And what I would just add to this is sometimes people realize it took a body. Jesus said, "Sacrifices and offerings you did not require, but a body you prepared for me." That's what the Bible says. So when we talk about our sacrifice here in these first three verses, or in these first two verses, it says, "He will grow up as a tender plant." Jesus has purity. He, we know that he dies, and he dies a sinless death. He pays the debt that he did not owe because we owed a debt that we could not pay.

I love that. And also love the fact that it talks about that this Messiah isn't going to be some figure that you immediately look at and think, "Oh, wow. He looks like, you know, uh, I don't want to mention any names, but like somebody that you look at and be like, "Wow, this, this guy is, I mean, it's like, no, he's just a regular. He has no form or comeliness, and when we see him, there's no beauty that we should desire him." Nothing elaborately special. So, let's move on. He is despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid as it were our faces from him. He was despised and we did not esteem him. I find it so fascinating that Isaiah is writing this, and Isaiah is what? A Jewish person.

That's right. And he, at least the way I'm reading it, seems to be prophesying that we as Jews will miss him. That's right. We will miss him. It says, because he's talking about "we," right? We did not esteem.

Personalized. Yes. We as a people, as a nation, we did not esteem the Messiah, as he should have been. We miss, we hid our faces from him. He's basically confessing that his people, as a, as a nation, are going to reject the Messiah.

Right. Right. The other cool thing about this passage is, he is acquainted with grief. Jesus knows our sorrows. He knows our pain. He knows how to meet us at our deepest point of need. That's the powerful thing that even here in this messianic, powerful chapter, I'm reminded that Jesus can relate to what I'm going through right now. He can meet me at my greatest point of need. And so, if you're out there and you're watching, I hope you'll read this and personalize it. Thank you, Jesus, for being acquainted with grief. Cuz maybe I'm going through grief right now. I know you were acquainted with that. You were not foreign to that. You, maybe you've been rejected by someone. Uh, Jesus was rejected. That's what it says right here.

I love that point. Very pastoral. Yeah. He can relate to everything that we're going through. Why don't you, uh, why don't you read verse verse four?

Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him. And by his stripes we are healed.

Okay, we, we, we, we got to, we got to, we got to stop right there. That, that's got some meat on it, guys. Notice once again, Isaiah is speaking in the past tense as if these things have already happened. And he's saying, "Yet we as Jewish people esteemed or considered him to be smitten by God." He's basically saying that from a Jewish perspective, there will come a time, from a Jewish perspective, where we will assume that this Messiah is being punished by God because we know that Jesus, um, they accused him of blasphemy. That's right. They cl, they, they thought that he was blaspheming and saying that he was another god and things of that nature. So when they crucified Jesus, they esteemed him as at that point being punished by God or smitten by God, right? Because he was blaspheming.

That's right. Yeah. And what's amazing too, when I look at this passage, his peace, the chastisement, we see this word "shalom," which is over 600 times in the Bible. This is a power place for shalom. By the way, shalom is the first word that Jesus says when he's resurrected. It's the very first word out of his mouth in the resurrection. Shalom. Talk about a power shalom. But here, the chastisement for our shalom was upon him. So he experienced no peace so we could have peace with God and have transformational peace of God in our lives. And so even here, I can pray this passage and I can thank Jesus that you took my chastisement. You took my place. We see atonement right here. We see substitution.

Absolutely. I mean, the chastisement of our peace that we could never achieve was on him, and by his stripes we are healed.

Yes. And we can talk about those stripes later if you want.

Yes. Yes. I mean, guys, just look at the language, the rich language. When you think about how Christ was crucified, scourging, right? Where they would put these sharp pieces of metal at the end of a whip and they would whip you and it would, they would pull it back and it would leave stripes. It would leave bruises. And all of this was prophesied some 700 plus years before it ever existed, which, or before it ever happened, which once again gives further evidence not only of Christ, but of the, of the, uh, the validity of the scriptures.

That's exactly right. I can't think about what's going to happen seven minutes from now. Exactly. Seven days, 700 hours, let alone 700 years. And yet we see it being written and played out in history perfectly. And that's why I remember scripture always corroborates scripture. Scripture interprets scripture. This is why Peter writes in his epistle that men of God were carried along by the Holy Spirit as they wrote down the word of God. So Isaiah is literally being carried along by the Holy Spirit in this passage. I love that.

All right, so let's just, let's keep going. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way. And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Once again, the same concept, guys, of placing our sin, our iniquity on him. All right? He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth. He was led as a lamb to the slaughter. We know that the first time Jesus came, he came as a lamb. We call him the Lamb of God, right? All of this is symbolic, talking about is pointing back to the Old Testament sacrificial system where, you know, lambs were sacrificed, uh, on behalf of the people and whatnot. Uh, and then it goes on to say, "He was taken from prison and from judgment. And who will declare his generation? For he was cut off from the land of the living." Cut off.

That's talking about the Messiah and how he's going to be, he's going to die. He was cut off from the land of the living for the transgressions of my people. He was stricken. Isaiah is seeing all of this. He's seeing as a nation, we are going to reject Christ. We're going to reject the Messiah. Right? And it's for our transgressions that he was stricken.

Absolutely. And, you know, it's interesting to think about. A lot of interpreters think that this was actually a song originally that people would sing, Isaiah 53, about this servant who would take this affliction, who would die in the place of all of us. And to see that, to interpret that, and then to apply that is where the power is.

Wow. Now, verse 9 is, is, is powerful. Verse 9 is powerful, guys. Um, why don't you read that one?

And they made his grave with the wicked, but with the rich at his death, because he had done no violence, nor was any deceit found in his mouth.

Wow. Yeah. And when I think about that, I think about, um, who, who, uh, created the grave? Joseph of Arimathea.

Yep. That's right. Yeah. I mean, guys, I mean, Job, rich man. Rich man. Yeah. A rich man. Joseph of Arimathea said, "You know what? He needs to have a proper tomb. He needs to have burial, right?" Uh, and so he, being a rich man, was able to, uh, carve out a new tomb for Christ. And it's all of this was prophesied, right? With the, "He made his grave with the wicked." So they thought he was wicked, but with the rich at his death, because he had done no violence, nor was any deceit found in his mouth. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him. He had put him to grief. When you make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed. He shall prolong his days.

Talking about the eternality of the Messiah. He's not going to die. He will prolong his days. What does that speak of? Yes, he dies, but he will, he will rise again. That's again, he's going to live forever. Yeah. Uh, let's finish this up here. Verse 11. He shall see the labor of his soul and be satisfied. By his knowledge, my righteous servant shall justify many. There's hope.

Yes, that includes you. That includes me. And then I love this. Therefore, I will divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul unto death, and he was numbered with the transgressors. They put him in the category of, hey, he's a sinner. He's just a sinner. And he bore the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors.

Wow. Wow. I, I, just, it's, it's mind-boggling to me that all of this was prophesied so many years before it ever happened. And Jesus fulfilled every single part of it. And that's why it's not read in Jewish synagogues today. And this is the first time I've ever studied Isaiah 53 with the great Isaiah scroll right in front of me. So I am inspired right now. I'm, uh, I've got goosebumps right now because it is so powerful for me to see that, yes, we're reading it in the English. Yes, we're reading it in our own language. But here it is, written and copied in this amazing scroll. These very words in column 44, Isaiah 53. How powerful. And this is a discovery that brings us face to face with Jesus.

Wow. Speaking of the face of Jesus.

Yes. A good segue into, uh, what may or may not be our last one. I know we may want to touch on the Magdalene Papyrus, but while we're here.

Okay. Um, you've done quite a bit of work, uh, on the Shroud of Turin.

I have. Let's, let's dig into that.

Absolutely. Guys, we've done a whole video on the Shroud of Turin. That was about two, maybe three years ago. But to your confession, you have learned so much more. Call yourself a a rookie, a beginner a couple years ago when we did that video. So I want you to just take this any way you want to take as much time because I know our audience is going to be fascinated with this concept of the shroud and what, what God has shown you.

Absolutely. The skepticism, I think it's a thing or whatever. Just, you just take it, brother.

And I'm so excited. Out of all the published works that the Lord's allowed me to write, "The Jesus Discoveries" is my first book where I take everything that I've learned about the Shroud of Turin and I put it in. It's one of the great discoveries of Jesus outside of the Bible. I am convinced that the Shroud of Turin, and I'm convinced because I'm not irrational, Allan. That's what I say. Now, 102 academic disciplines have spent over 600,000 hours researching and publishing about the Shroud of Turin. The greatest scientists of our time, and I'm talking about rocket scientists who I have met, by the way, uh, scientists from Sandia Labs, SAC scientists from, uh, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, scientists from all over the world have staked their academic reputation saying, "We cannot understand how there is an image in this burial cloth."

So, for the benefit of our audience, we're talking about a first-century linen burial cloth. It's about 14 feet wide by about 3' 7" wide. 14 feet wide, excuse me, 14 feet long by about 3.7 inches wide. And it has the image, the full image of a crucified man, the front and back of this image that completely corresponds with the ways in which Jesus was crucified as it's explained in the Gospels. Now,

Ways if you wanted to touch, I mean, just, I don't want to put you on the spot there.

No, please do. Yeah. No, this is, you were, if we were to show an image of the Shroud of Turin, what are some ways in which people would look at that and scholars have looked at and said, "Oh yeah, that, that, that image, uh, definitely corresponds or corroborates absolutely how with?"

So, I've never done a book with pictures, and it was a labor of love to to do all these, but in, in my book right here, I actually have to answer your question. Um, I have all of the different ways it corresponds with the Gospels, and I mean, it would take us a whole show to read all these, but I want to summarize it in this cool way. Yeah. Um, I was in Turin, Italy, cuz I went to study the shroud itself, and I met with a mathematician by the name of Bruno Barbaris, and he is at the University of Turin, and he's a mathematician, pretty cool. He has, he has seen the actual shroud over 100 times. And he took all of these probabilities. The probabilities being matching how the crucified man, uh, died with what the Bible says how Jesus died.

Okay? And he boiled it down to a probability factor that there is a one in 200 billion chance it's not the Jesus of the Bible.

Okay. So let me, let me, let me, let me back that up a bit. So essentially, if I can wrap my brain around it, they look at the Shroud of Turin. Yep. They look at all of the evidence in terms of, uh, what is shown, the broken bones, or the, the, the blood stains, or the placement of the nail. I don't know what's there. And they look at all of these things, all the stuff that's on that page right there, and they say, "Okay, if this is how the Bible describes that Jesus was crucified, and this is how we see,"

Yes, we're comparing receipts.

Comparing receipts. We're comparing what the Bible says he was crucified, and we're comparing the evidence that's that was left on this shroud, this burial.

That is uncontrovertible. I mean, nobody argues with it. They're saying there's a one out of 200 billion, billion chance it's not.

That the two would be different. Exactly. I like our odds. I mean, here, crown of thorns, no decomposition, carried the cross, spear wound, hasty burial, crucified with nails, linen shroud, the wound pattern, the side wound, the blood angle, the wrist wound, no thumbs because of rigor mortis. He had thumbs, but with because of rigor mortis and because of how his hands were crucified, it would have been like that in rigor mortis. Um, Jesus, his body, it's, it's amazing. There's no decomposition on the shroud because we know that decomposition will begin at about hour 40, generally, and Jesus would have been resurrected after 39 hours in the tomb. So again, just almost an eerie correspondence. And so I'm interviewing him. I have this on video, and I was kind of like you were just now. I'm like, "Okay, let me make sure I get this right. Professor Barbaris, do you, are you telling me that you believe that it is Jesus of the Bible on the Shroud?" He said, he kind of looked at me like I was dumb, and he's a really nice guy. He's like, "Of course I believe. How can I not believe it? I just said there's a one in 200 billion chance." So again, like this is, because and I want to make this point, this is why I believe in the shroud. Um, because it has so much. And there's a lot of great Christians who have questions. They have questions about, well, does it match how Jesus was buried according to John 25-7? That's a great question. And yes, there's complete correspondence there. Linen strips, ethonia. Jesus was not mummified. The Jews did not practice embalming. They did not mummify. When you hear strips of linen, that is accurate. When you hear one complete linen shroud, that is also accurate. Both are true. Jesus's body is wrapped like a pa, and then strips are are are bound around the already wrapped body to keep the hands and the feet and the corpse together so you can move it. So there's no, there's actually a compliment. There's not a contradiction with how Jesus is buried with the shroud. So, there's some great questions in the last three years since I was on here. Even questions like, well, it says that his beard was plucked, you know, and the man on the shroud still has some beard left. And I mean, that's a great question, but if you look closely on the image, you'll see that the front of the beard was completely ripped off. Now, I mean, Allan, I would never do this to you, but can you imagine if I just pulled one little whisker out of your beard? That would hurt.

Yes, it would.

Um, so we're not saying that, you know, yeah, that he was cleanly shaven, but I mean, you can see a clear vertical. It's like an up, inverted E, that is ripped out of the front of his beard. Can you imagine the pain of that? And so those are great questions that a lot of fine Christians have that I've taken my time to answer in the book. Specifically, is there a contradiction with linen strips and a burial garment? Because they expect it's like Jesus should be mummified or something. No. And I clear that up biblically, and I use the Greek New Testament to do that. Clear up. Um, some people will use a, a passage in Paul where men should not have long hair and say, "Well, why does Jesus have long hair?" Again, guys, different context. Totally. Remember, context, interpretation, application. Jews in the first century had long hair. So, again, great question. And I take my time to guide the reader by the hand and answer those questions. So, the shroud for me is this. It is an itemized receipt of how much God loves us. The Bible uses amazing terms to go to the lengths to tell us how much God loves you. He says that we've been bought. The Bible says that we've been purchased. The Bible says we've been ransomed. The scripture says that we have been redeemed. These are all transactional financial terms. You're a math guy. Jesus uses a financial term, an accounting term, as the last word he utters on the cross. And we hear it in his native Aramaic tongue to tell us, "Paid in full."

And so in the Shroud of Turin, we have the death, burial, and resurrection in one historical artifact. And outside of the Bible, no other artifact does that. So because I'm not irrational, I absolutely believe it's, it is Jesus's burial garment. And it is an itemized receipt of Romans 5:8. But God demonstrated his love for me. I can insert my name. You can put your name in that passage. But God demonstrated his love for Jeremiah. And that when Jeremiah was unlovable and a sinner, God sent his best, his son to die for me. And what a demonstration it is. And so when you study the shroud and the evidence for the resurrection, it's actually informing your own future resurrection. It's affirming your own belief in your future resurrection in Christ. So there's a payoff to this immediately. It's not to get smarter. It's like, whoa. Every shred of evidence for Jesus's resurrection is evidence for my resurrection, too.

Wow. All right. So, um, earlier off camera, we talked about the, the power that go, that it would have taken, yes, to get an imprint, uh, of Christ. That's right. His body on a piece of, uh, of gar, this this linen garment. Talk, talk a little bit about that. This is, and I have to,

1.21 gigawatts more.

It was more. I have to update my research because I've learned a lot since I was on the last video. We, we, um, I actually, again, I want to learn. I'm a lifelong learner. I, I have not arrived educationally. I am still learning. I'm still learning and growing in my faith. I'm still learning the Bible. The Bible's inexhaustible. And so I got on a plane and I went and met with a physicist by the name of Paulo Delazero. And I had heard of Paulo. He's a physicist, Allan. Okay. He's a very smart man, and he has a very powerful laser. He has a defense clearance. So, he's working with lasers that are very powerful. And I actually have a sample of, they had to grow fine linen that would match the fine linen that Joseph of Arimathea would have purchased for his own death planning. I want to make this clear. You know, they didn't go out to Walmart at 4 in the afternoon on Friday before Shabbat and buy a linen garment. Joseph of Arimathea, being a wealthy man, would have already purchased his death garment. He would have already had that. Joseph. Yeah. He would have given Jesus his burial garment. That's my point. Yeah. They, they didn't go out and like buy one for him that afternoon when he was dying.

Joseph would have said, "Well, give him mine." Cuz he, we know that it's a fine linen garment. That's what it says in scripture. So, they grew these scientists grew using all the same materials from the first century. Flax is what produces linen, and they, they produced a linen shroud. So when we talk about, you might want to look at that. You can see, you can see even the herringbone weave on it. So here's the thing. When we talk about the image on the shroud, I want to make this as simple as possible. The image, the image itself is the moment of Jesus's resurrection. That is what causes the image on the shroud. Now, the image is, is 1/5 the thickness of one of my hairs. It's 0.02 micron. So whereas the blood absorbs all the way through the shroud, where you see that, that absorbs. The image itself is very superficial. If you get a few feet away from it, it disappears. This is what scientists cannot replicate. So Paulo, being the physicist and having a very powerful laser that works with the light estimates, and he publishes this. You can go download his peer-reviewed paper that to change. So here's the question. What can change the chemical makeup of a garment and cause an image to be left in the garment? Because the science is already proven. That may be the first time I've used the word "proven" on this interview. Science has proven that the image is not paint. It's not pigment. It's not dye. It's not color. They have published, again, 102 academic disciplines. We don't know. We know what it's not. It's not paint. It's not pigment. It's not dye. It's not colored on there. It's not painted on there. So, what caused this image? Well, there, there was something that changed chemically in the shroud from a burst of energy to leave this center. It, it's the first selfie. It's what we said before. God took, literally Jesus took the first selfie. It's of the moment of his resurrection. And so Paulo published a paper that it would take, according to his laser, and they were able to modify a very small piece of linen, the chemical makeup of it. And he then estimates, and we don't have this much power on Earth. It would take 34,000 billion watts of energy traveling at 1/40th of a billionth of a second to leave the image on the shroud. Now, let that sink in. 34,000 billion watts of energy. I'm not saying radiation energy, but it's, and Paulo explained this to me in Turin, and I'm not a physicist, nor do I want to be, but he said, "Now Jeremiah, this is peak power. It's not hot power. It goes so fast because if it took longer, it would have just scorched, you know, it would have just incinerated the shroud. But it travels that fast, faster than the speed of light." And so what you're looking at, and again, here's what I want you to think about for a minute. Those of you that are Bible students, every time Jesus manifests himself in the New Testament, he manifests himself in brilliant light. Think of the Transfiguration. They wanted to stay in this light around him. It's this brilliant light. Remember, someday in the new heaven and the new earth, there will be no need for the sun, for Jesus will give light to all. We're told that Paul in his conversion, sorry to preach for a minute, Allan.

Preach, brother.

Um, in Acts, he's on the way to Damascus, and I have filmed on first-century Roman roads at lunchtime. It is hot. The sun is up there. You're just dying of sweat. I mean, how could anything be brighter? And yet Paul said he sees the resurrected Christ brighter than the noonday sun. M. So it, it should not surprise us that essentially a nuclear event occurred in 1/40th of a second, 1/40th of a second to leave a flash that causes an image that stays on a shroud for 2,000 years. And at this, and at such a time as this. And so science can't explain it. It's become probably the greatest evangelism and discipleship tool I've ever been part of. Evangelism in that it invites skeptics. It invites people who are more scientifically and evidentially minded to say, "Wow, there's a lot of science and history behind this." And when I talk [clears throat] about the 102 academic disciplines, I mean, I list them in my book. I mean, I remember I used to be a skeptic of the shroud. I wrote a whole book on the resurrection called "Body of Proof" and never mentioned the shroud because I didn't believe in it. Had never studied it. And I, it was, I was dangerous, too, because I was YouTube smart about it. You know, I saw a couple cherry-picked a little things. Had never read it for myself, had never talked. I called Barry Schwartz on the phone. That's who I ended up acquiring our shroud from. Barry Schwartz is now dead. He died believing that the shroud was Jesus of Nazareth.

You have the shroud?

So, I've acquired his copy of the shroud. The shroud itself is in Turin, Italy, but Barry's organization. I acquired the shroud here. No, we don't have it here, but it's not, not far by, not far from here. It's very close by. Right. Get some footage of it.

Absolutely. All right. Could do that.

Yeah. So, but Barry gave the TED talk on the Shroud. So, he was the first documenting photographer of the Shroud. So, he gave literally the TED talk on the Shroud. He called him on the phone. He spent time with me. This is probably after we had even done our interview, just helping me walk through all of these evidences that are so compelling. And so, that's that flash of light. And it's pretty powerful to think that that was the moment of his resurrection. It's probably what moved the stone when you think about it. Like,

Wow. Wow. Okay. So guys, guys, we, we, we've covered, we've covered a whole lot and, and I don't know if we want to, I mean, we can keep going to the Magdalene Papyrus, or we could, I know there's, um, you have a couple of New Testament fragments. Do you want to just touch on

I can touch on them briefly, but

On them briefly. Absolutely. I've, I've brought these to show you. This is the Magdalene Papyrus. It's three fragments and it's actually, um, it's actually, uh, in Oxford. I've seen it. I've held it in my hands, and this is called the Jesus fragment. What you're holding is the oldest fragment of Matthew's gospel. It dates to the second half of the second century. And it's called the Jesus fragment because Jesus's name shows up in it a couple of times. As does, it's the first mention of Peter. It's the first mention of Judas that we have attested in New Testament manuscripts. You've probably often told your audience, Allan, that we have around 5,800 Greek manuscripts of the Bible. We have about, we have about exactly of the New Testament. And, um, this is the second oldest. And so I talk about the Magdalene Papyrus as one of the great discoveries that bring us face to face with Jesus because this shows us the antiquity of our faith, the reliability of the gospel account of Jesus. No one questions that this was written and copied in the late 2nd century. So this would have been a copy of the original. By the way, the Dead Sea Scrolls show us that libraries and manuscripts lasted a long time. There have been skeptics that would say, "Oh, you know, a manuscript like the autograph would have only lasted 20 years." That's not true. We actually, I've published this at an academic level in my book, "Scribes and Their Remains," how long libraries would be passed down generationally. So, we shouldn't be worried like, "Oh, man, you know, is that accurate? Is that too far away from the original?" And I'll show you another papyrus. So when I say P, that means papyrus. So you'll often see New Testament fragments and they all have a P, P64. It looks like a Gothic P. There's really not anything significant. 64 doesn't mean it's like the 64th place. It just means it was the 64th one cataloged because, you know, we don't find these in order of importance. We find them as we find them, right? So that's the oldest of Matthew and the second oldest New Testament fragment that we have. And I talk all about it in "The Jesus Discoveries," but you're probably familiar with this. This is the oldest New Testament fragment. This is Papyrus 52. It's John 18. It's Jesus's conversation with Pontius Pilate. It's dated to 125 AD. So this copy would have been in circulation when the original autograph of John is circulating, which is written in the '90s.

So that's the power of it. And let me see if I can read one aspect of it that was one of my favorites. Let me look at. So it's written on the front and back. This is important for the audience. The recto and the verso. I love this. So this is, I'm holding up John 18, and in Greek, I see "ek tou althous." This is where Jesus says to Pilate, "Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice." So, the oldest New Testament fragment that we have is this conversation that Jesus is having with Pontius Pilate. Isn't that cool?

Wow. Wow. Guys, we, I, I mean, I don't know if you all realize just how, how fortunate and blessed, uh, we, we are, uh, to have, uh, my, my friend and brother, uh, Jeremiah Johnston. And, man, I, I have learned so much. Oh, me too. And, uh, guys, just to remember, and, and I'm going to let Jeremiah just kind of talk about, uh, the inspiration of his book. He, we talked about it at the beginning of the video, but the whole point of this is not to make us smarter, to help us to win more arguments, or anything like that. First and foremost, I always say this when I talk about apologetics, there's always an internal benefit and an external benefit.

That's so good. There's an internal benefit because, let's be honest, many people have grown up in church and, you know, we have a superficial belief, uh, of Christianity, and, and we might have doubts, might have questions. And guess what? It's okay to have those questions. Matter of fact, a lot of times those questions and those doubts can help us develop a stronger faith as we get more answers. And so, as we talk about apologetics, defending our faith, biblical archaeology, and all these things, all these artifacts, it's all designed first and foremost to give you and I more confidence about our own faith so that we can say, "Yes, this faith that I've given my life to, this Christ that I've given my life to, yes, I do believe it. It is true. It is grounded within history, and there are answers for the difficult questions that we have about our faith." So, there's an internal benefit, but then there's also an external benefit. It's supposed to help us have talking points and conversations, uh, uh, things that to talk about in conversations with people who may not believe what we believe. And let me just say one last thing before I, I turn it over. I want to encourage you as you are discussing things with friends and family who might be skeptical. Always remember, the point of the conversation, and it's not always to win them over. Yes. If they come running and say, "What must I do to be saved?" In that moment, praise God. But your primary job is to plant a seed, to put a stone in their shoe, as we say, right? To get them to rethink their position because, as Paul says, I want to say in 1 Corinthians 3, he says that some people, uh, plant seeds and other people water those seeds, but it is ultimately God that gives the increase. And I love in 1 Corinthians 3, it talks about he who plants and he who waters will receive the same reward. So you, you might just be planting a seed in somebody's life, right? You might just be speaking things now that they may not even, it may not even click for them until 10 years later, until Jeremiah comes along and pours water on that seed that you planted in their life 10 years prior, right? And then someone else comes and and gives the increase, and they get saved. So, I just want to encourage you. Don't get discouraged if you share your faith with people and they don't immediately get saved. Your role, take the pressure off yourself, is to plant seeds.

I love that, Allan. And I'll just say this, the whole point, I don't know of another program out there that has used this many artifacts, all pointing to Jesus. I would love to know how many times we've said his name in this whole interview. We've said it so many times, as we should. And so for me, the payoff is there's nothing more important in my life than passing my faith on to my children. And I have two teenagers and three nine-year-olds. And these are the kind of conversations we're having at the dinner table in quick snippets. And so when they asked me to write this book, I said, "Yeah, I'm going to write it in a way my nine-year-old was reading from my book to me." Do you know how much that blessed me that a nine-year-old could pronounce the words and that he could say it and he could understand it? And, "Oh, Dad, is that the Isaiah scroll?" We had it on the dining room table last night. And so I wanted to write it in an accessible way with lots of photographs where you can pull people along and just say, "Hey, check this out. Do you see how well Jesus is evidenced?" But I also wrote it so I could get closer to Jesus. That's why I said they bring me face to face with Jesus again and again. Do you remember 1 Corinthians 13? Until we see him face to face. In Revelation 22, someday we will see him face to face. Those that are our loved ones who have died in the Lord, they're in face-to-face fellowship with Jesus right now. That's 2 Corinthians 5:8. To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. And in Greek, it's face-to-face fellowship with the Lord. That's what it means. To be absent from the body is to be in fellowship. It's to be in the presence of the Lord. And so these discoveries bring me closer to Jesus. And then one final thought, this is what we do. This is how we pass our faith on. Paul in 1 Corinthians 15, after 57 magisterial verses, just giving one evidence after another about Jesus's resurrection and our resurrection in Christ. He says this, and this really ministers to me. "Therefore, be strong, be immovable, always abound in the work of the Lord, knowing your labor in the Lord is not in vain." So everything we do for Jesus matters. What you may think right now is an insignificant act of obedience could have eternal impact on someone and you not even be aware of it. When I first went to see the Magdalene Papyrus 17 years ago, no one believed in my ministry. My wife did.

My parents did. I've been there.

But, uh, outside of that, it was the Lord and his calling. I had a calling burning in my heart. And to know that now I'm using those experiences to spread the faith. That act of, in my mind, insignificant obedience 17 years ago is now ministering to others through this program. And so you never know what you do in the name of Jesus. So be strong. That's what I hope this broadcast has done today. It's made you strong. It's made you immovable. It's encouraged you to abound in the work of the Lord, knowing that none of it's in vain.

I love that. So guys, hopefully you all have enjoyed this. This. Uh, we put a lot of work into this and, uh, hopefully you've enjoyed the visuals and the close-ups and the B-roll and all of that. Uh, and I'm going to put a link in the description. Uh, do yourself a favor and, uh, get a couple of copies. All right. I'm, I'm just going to,

By the way, thank you, Allan Parr, for the cover endorsement on my book. Thank you, sir.

There we go.

Thank you for doing that.

Absolutely. I believe in it. And matter of fact, my daughter's turning nine next month.

Okay.

This together. How amazing it would it be to be a nine-year-old, strong in your faith at 19 years old.

Absolutely. That's.

We're going to, we're going to go through that and we're going to put a link in the description. Get yourself a couple copies. Get one for yourself and then one to give away. All right, Jeremiah. Thank you, my brother, for being here. God bless you. Thank you for your last time.

Absolutely.

And, uh, we're going to, to keep this thing going. So,

Thank you so much.

And thank you guys for, uh, for tuning in. We'll see you in the next video. Bye for now. Hey, my friend, thank you so much for watching this video. So I want to take just a quick moment to say that if you are at a place now where you're planning your monthly giving, maybe for your church or other organizations, would you prayerfully consider supporting our ministry? If we've been a blessing to you and you enjoy these videos, we have a variety of needs ranging from a ton of subscriptions that we have to invest in in order to keep this thing going. [music] We've got team members that we need to pay salaries for, uh, to make sure that they can provide for their families. Um, [music] studio rental fees, equipment, and all sorts of other expenses that are required to enable this ministry to continue to create the high-quality free content that you see on this YouTube channel and beyond that impacts the world. So, a donation of any amount would be much appreciated. Although if you are able to partner with us on a monthly basis, that would be preferred. There is a link below this video where you can give. And yes, we are a 501c3 nonprofit organization. So whatever you give is certainly tax-deductible. [music] If you are unable to support us at this time, we understand that. We just ask that you continue to support us through prayer. So thank you in advance for whatever support you're able to give us. Blessings to you.