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(Sergio) "Woe to you, Bethsaida!
For if the mighty works which were done in you
had been done in Tyre and Sidon...
they would have repented long ago."
Bethsaida is the home village of the three fishermen:
Peter, Andrew, and Philip,
who became the disciples of Jesus.
Until recently, the location of Bethsaida
was believed to be on a hill,
about 2 kilometers from the shore of the Galilee Lake.
It is a famous tourist site
that's been around for over 30 years.
If you've been to Israel,
then most likely you've been here.
But this location poses a major problem.
Bethsaida was a fishing village.
What is it doing a mile away from the shore today?
To address this problem,
a few theories were brought forth.
Tectonic rifting that uplifted the village,
sedimentation,
or that the water level of the Galilee Lake
was much higher 2,000 years ago
than it is today.
However, these theories did not sit well
with the dissenters
who suggested the real location of Bethsaida
to be much closer to the lake.
Unfortunately, they lacked archaeological evidence
to back this theory up...
until 2017...
when archaeologist Dr. Mordechai Aviam
and historian Dr. Steven Notley
discovered a Roman bath house on the present-day shoreline.
This was a significant discovery,
proving that the water level 2,000 years ago
was the same as it is in our time.
So a good friend of ours
was able to get us permission
to come and film the ongoing archaeological dig
of what may be the true ancient Bethsaida.
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So, we were just stopped by a truck
that told us to keep following them
because there are mines on the left
and the right side of the road,
and they're working on removing them,
so he said just to follow them.
Not to steer away from the road, left or right,
until we get to the excavation site.
(Rhoda) That's hilarious about the mokshim.
How would Ethan know that?
(Sergio) The sign says we can't drive here.
They're doing excavations.
So, we'll just park right here and walk.
We're here at the excavation dig for Bethsaida.
It's very nice to meet you, Professor Notley.
- Is that correct? - Yes.
Okay, so the theory was before
that there were two sites,
maybe some time in the 3rd or 4th century, I heard...
Because the water was higher, there's this theory.
and then they had to move to a newer location.
What do you think about that?
No, that's...
at et-Tel, not only are they farther in than 3 kilometers,
but they're much higher.
And so, one of their suggestions
was that the lake was much higher
than it currently is and that most people assume.
They suggested up to 3 or 4 meters higher
than the current lake level.
That causes a number of problems.
Every known settlement around the lake--
Capernaum, Tiberias, Magdala--
would be under water.
More than that,
last summer, in this probe,
we actually dug down and came to a Roman bath.
And the level of it
was actually lower than--
not only lower than the folks at et-Tel assumed,
but lower than everyone assumed the lake level.
(Sergio) These are actually very good news for us,
because in the recent years,
a lot of people are quite worried
about the dangerously low water level of the Galilee Lake.
And rightfully so,
because it is our main source of drinking water.
And the assumption that it drops a meter and a half every century
is quite worrisome.
So finding out that the level hasn't changed in 2,000 years
is very appeasing.
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(Dr. Notley) We have settlement here
in the Roman period.
It means that we're between
the lake and the other site.
And if you're going to talk about a fishing village,
this is where we're going to assume that it's located.
Everything about it makes it the leading candidate
of being Bethsaida Julias.
(Sergio) How do you date,
when you excavate those layers?
How do you know which layer belongs to what?
Just the pottery?
Do you do carbon dating? How does it work?
We don't do carbon dating.
Carbon dating only works on materials that are alive,
so powdery things like that, you can't date.
Generally, you use coins.
You want to find coins that are...
in situ, in place,
that will date on floors, next to walls,
so you can date those.
And slowly, slowly, as you go down,
you're keeping records of everything.
(Dr. Ben-Yosef) It's very interesting to find it,
and important, in the excavation
because then you can date the whole surface,
the whole layer,
and that's what is so important for us.
We're trying to stop time.
When you get a coin while digging,
it's more worth than just a coin that you find
or buy from somebody.
(Sergio) Yeah.
Because then you understand what time it came from,
that layer of that Earth in that dig.
That's right. Yeah.
(Achia) The coin itself
is important for where it was found.
What can it tell us about context.
Can it date the context?
Has it got a year or a season
that we know of written on it?
We'll get it in the laboratory.
And it has a date.
And if it was found right beneath the floor,
sealed beneath the floor,
then it dates the construction of that floor.
So this is very important.
This is the best place you would imagine finding coin.
I say this is 500 AD.
So, the wall couldn't have been constructed
before 500 AD
or whatever that date might be.
How would you know that? Just from the size of it?
Size, material. Yes.
It's mainly a chemical procedure
with some physical, very delicate,
under the microscope in the laboratory.
The specialist will do that.
And then, there's another specialist who dates them.
More than 20 years, all over Israel,
I especially did Biblical archaeology.
This is classical archaeology, we call it.
In the Old Testament, we call it,
the Jews call it the Old Testament.
I mean, the Bible, you know the story of Joshua
and the prophets and so on.
So, I made a very big research
in the Jordan Valley, in the Israeli side,
trying to understand the story of the Bible,
whether it's correct or just a fairy tale.
Yeah.
And I think it's correct.
Wow!
(Sergio) And this is exactly
why we are so interested in archaeology.
All of the findings illuminate the stories written in the Bible
and confirm them.
No wonder the 19th-century
French theologian and explorer, Ernest Renan,
called the Galilean landscape the "Fifth Gospel."
(Marc Turnage) Look. I think that you have--
especially when you talk about Christian tourism in the land,
you have the traditions that have developed
primarily in the Catholic and the Orthodox churches
where, oftentimes, it was about remembering the site or the event,
not necessarily saying that X marks the spot.
It's just remembering the event or something like this.
And a lot of Christian tourism,
even for Protestant tours that come here,
still go to those sites.
People want to see, where does X actually happen?
I think this is what makes it very interesting.
(Sergio) Yeah. Because when we were reading,
it would say Jesus was taking the man
and healing him around the site,
the blind man.
And you're reading that He saw men walking like trees.
And in my mind, I'm trying to envision this,
where would it happen.
Was it on the lake? Was it somewhere in the mountains?
But now, when you actually read this,
you can envision where it took place.
Close, by the shore.
So where would the water be?
Because it's kind of far right now.
The water is more or less
about a half kilometer, a kilometer away.
But this ledge that you see here,
that, more or less, is the water line.
So, I mean, this was a site that was right on the water.
(Sergio) In fact, just 20 years ago,
the shoreline came all the way up here,
to the Bethsaida site.
The people that dig
extract the soil from the site.
It comes here.
We sift it and look for goodies.
Stuff like coins, glass...
ceramics.
What is this?
This is glass,
but it's inconclusive yet.
And what we find, we put into the bucket.
Then, we put a tag on it
so that we will know it's from here.
And then, in the evening, we wash it.
This is a handle of a vessel.
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(Dr. Notley) The feeding of the 5,000 in Luke's Gospel,
in the plains here, it uses the term--
it speaks of the wilderness.
In Greek it's érēmos, in Hebrew Midbar.
Sometimes our English translations translate it as "desert."
We don't have deserts up here.
(Sergio) So, if you read your Bible
and get to the place where it says
Jesus went to a solitary, deserted place in Galilee...
imagine this shoreline and its nearby hills
where there are no settlements
but only nature.
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(metal detector beeping)
So, they think they found something huge in there.
He could feel the vibration from the handle
that there is a big metal piece in there.
The pulse is very strong.
(Sergio) It has a vibration or something?
Yeah.
They are going to lift up the rocks under the floor,
and they're going to find out what it is.
It's exciting.
I don't know.
Maybe a box of treasure.
(Dr. Ben-Yosef) Right here.
(metal detector beeping)
(fast beeping)
- (woman) That's it.
(woman) Coin?
Vindication after all this work?
(Tim) Yes!
(woman) Whoo-hoo!
(Dr. Ben-Yosef) We have a few of these coins above floor.
That's an M, yeah.
Yeah, Tim! Money under the floor!
Yes!
- (man) Finally.
- (Achia) (non-English speech) - (woman) Ah.
(Sergio) One for the camera.
Wow!
See the purple here?
See the edge?
It's incredible.