In the days before his death,
Jesus began asking for trouble.
And until now, scholars have wondered why.
New historical evidence now sheds light on Jesus of Nazareth and...
the crucial hours before his death.
And for the first time scientists can put a human face...
on the person more than a billion people...
around the world believe is the son of God.
Every year Christians all over the world commemorate the death of Jesus,
here in Jerusalem pilgrims reenact the last hours when...
he carried his cross through the streets of the city to the place of his execution.
The crucifixion is one of the best attested fact in history,
not only is it mentioned in the Bible more than 80 times,
it is also recorded by the first century historian Josephus.
But Jesus's actions in the 24 hours before his death remain clouded in mystery.
He has many chances to avoid execution yet he never took them,
quite the contrary.
Growing up in Galilee Jesus knew all about the risk of challenging...
both the Jewish and Roman establishment.
Herod Antipas the king of the Jews,
the temple priests and Pontius Pilate the Roman governor,
had sent many Jewish rebels to their deaths.
Jesus had reason to fear them all.
And yet he became convinced that he was the messiah,
the savior that Jews had been longing for.
Right away Jesus gathered around him 12 disciples and...
launched a campaign that put him on a collision course, not with the Romans,
but with the Jewish authorities.
He began to reach out the outcasts,
the people rejected as impure by the religious leaders.
He healed the sick, he cured the blind and the lame,
he forgave the sins of prostitutes,
ands he welcomed into the Jewish faith long standing enemies...
like the Samaritans and the Gentiles.
But all that was in the safety of Galilee and...
one day Jesus decided to come to Jerusalem and confront...
those responsible directly.
That meant standing up to the high priests,
the aristocratic elite who restricted access to the temple.
Instead of walking he rode into the city through the East gate.
Just as the prophesy in the book of Zacharia said the Messiah would.
Then he went into the temple where the money changers were.
It was protest against all the injustices the temple system stood for.
But it was hardly going to bring it down
Obviously many many people in the temple,
would have been very proud of what he did.
Probably some of them would have been soldiers that were guarding the temple.
Certainly none of the priests,
none of the soldiers in the temple did anything at that time to stop him.
What is in Jesus' mind why does he turn around now and walk out,
what is going on Jesus.
That night was the eve of the holiest day in Judaism, Passover.
Missing another chance to escape,
Jesus invited his disciples to celebrate the holiday.
Passover was an uneasy time for both the Romans and the temple priests,
for it commemorated the flight of the Hebrews from Egypt.
It was an occasion when Jewish thoughts inevitably turned to...
freedom from oppression and injustice.
But the disciples couldn't have guess that...
this was to be their last supper together.
The meal was held in the guest room of a well to do house in Jerusalem.
The last supper is an iconic scene in Christianity,
but the historical evidence showed that it would have looked very different...
to the familiar image immortalized by Leonardo Da Vinci.
In every detail, how they sat, where they sat Da Vinci got it wrong.
In this museum in Jerusalem,
curators have recreated a typical Passover meal in a guestroom...
as described in the writing of Josephus
Historical sources tells us that important meals...
would be eaten around 3 sided tables,
pretty much like this one we have here.
With mattresses and pillows.
Josef also points out that the left side of the table,
not the center of the table is the most important position.
So lets place Jesus here on this left side where I'm sitting,
and at that time you'd be reclining to eat your meals,
I know that doesn't sound very comfortable today but...
it would be back then, and you'd eat from the table
The Gospels back up the idea of a Triclinium.
John's Gospel says that...
the beloved disciple reclined his head on the master's chest.
It was the only way he could have comfortably spoken to Jesus.
Hannaniah Pinto believes it's also possible to tell...
where some of the other disciples were sat.
The same Gospel tells us that Judas probably was to the left of Jesus,
because he's dipping his food in Jesus' bowl.
It was meant to be a festive meal.
Instead, Jesus startled his disciples,
he said that one of them would betray him,
before the disciples had taken in the news, Jesus made a cryptic remark,
he told Judas to go and do what he has to do.
The listener or reader of this story is meant to think that Judas was the trader,
but that's no necessarily how the disciples would have seen it.
The Gospel of Matthew says that Judas was...
the only disciple Jesus called his friend.
In fact a careful reading of the Gospel,
show that none of the disciple's suspected Judas
When Judas leaves, during the last supper,
everybody in that room including the beloved disciple,
think there are 2 options;
he's going to give money to the poor so they can celebrate Passover,
or he's going to make preparation for the Passover for Jesus' group.
In any case everybody in the room thinks he's doing Jesus' will,
what is going on
The disciples would soon find out.
After supper the group, minus Judas,
made their way home.
Being Passover night,
Roman soldiers and temple guards may well have been on patrol,
some of them perhaps even looking out for Jesus.
On the way home to their lodgings in a nearby town...
called Bethany they stopped for a rest on a garden...
called Gesthemene on the mount of olives overlooking the city.
Though the disciples soon fell asleep,
Jesus was still up and about.
Luke's Gospel portrays Jesus that night...
as a man in crisis agonizing over what to do next.
'ln his anguish', writes Luke,
'his sweat fell to the ground like great drops of blood'.
This evocative image is sometimes regarded as a figure of speech,
but evidence shows that it may have been a very real experience.
Giving us a glimpse into Jesus' state of mind.
A similar phenomenon has been reported by doctors.
Doctor Frederick Zugibe is the chief medical examiner of...
Rockland county in the New York State.
For nearly 30 years he's also taught forensic pathology at Columbia University,
and in that times he's come across over 100 reports of people sweating blood.
In each case the people believed they were about to suffer extreme pain or die
For instance I have found 6 cases where the individual were...
on their way to the gallows or to the guillotine that the sweating occurred.
The condition is known as haematidrosis.
Under extreme anxiety the arteries burst and blood seeps into the sweat glands.
A case of a sailor in a storm, he thought he was going to die,
and he sweat blood.
A young girl from Britain during the blitz,
ev0
the city would have been heaving with pilgrims,
soldiers on red alert, according to historians the last thing Caiaphas wanted,
was a riot on his hands.
He would have to act decisively
Caiaphas probably genuinely believed that Jesus was a trouble maker,
genuinely believed that he was a false prophet who was leading the people astray...
and genuinely thought that he should be got rid of
Caiaphas wasn't the only official worried about security that week,
the chief priest was ultimately answerable to Pontius Pilate,
the ruthless Roman governor.
Jesus wasn't the only rebel to cross his path
There's actually another messianic pretender in the time of Pilate,
this man was a Samaritan,
he claimed to be the Samaritan Messiah or Taheb as he was known.
And he gather a large of people to the foot of a mountain called Mt. Garism.
Pilate heard about this,
he heard that there was a great number of people all gathering in this...
small town, and the people actually had weapons with them,
so he sent in the cavalry,
who executed lots of them and captured others.
Jesus was just a provincial,
it wasn't worth it to allow a provincial to carry on,
and possibly incite a rebellion,
which then would have got to Rome and to would have looked bad on Pilate,
it's much easier just to get rid of him straight away.
But as Jesus was being led to meet Caiaphas the chief priest...
would have know that Jesus was a popular figure, he would need a crime,
he could sell to the people, preferably a confession.
The Gospels contain revealing glimpses into the exchanges that...
took place between Jesus and Caiaphas,
the chief priest accused Jesus of acting like a Messiah and...
a new king of the Jews.
Both were charges that would make Jesus a criminal in the eyes of the Romans.
Jesus could hardly deny the charge,
but it hurt his case by adding the Caiaphas would...
see him exalted on the clouds of heaven,
sitting on the right hand of God.
Outraged Caiaphas accused Jesus of blasphemy,
in the Jewish faith no one,
not even the Messiah could be identified so closely with God
Caiaphas as a result of this onset has got 2 things that he wanted,
on the one hand he can easily now hand Jesus over to the Roman authorities...
and say, 'he thinks he's the king of the Jews you know what to do next,
and the Romans did',
on the other hand Caiaphas can put it out among the Jewish populace that...
Jesus is a Blasphemer and therefore under Jewish law he deserves to die
Jesus must have foreseen that his action might cost his life
Most of the prophets paid the great price.
Jeriamah's stoned, Isaiah is sawed in 2, who was his teacher John the Baptist,
he's beheaded, who was the great miracle worker just before him, Honi,
he was stoned just outside of Jerusalem, not far from here.
Stoning is probably what the priest had in mind for Jesus,
scholars believe it's unlikely that...
they would have expected him to be crucified
If there were priests that turned him over to Pilate,
they may have, in their mind, 'let's get this great man,
this one is a trouble rouser, this one that has problems the and gathers crowds,
let's put him with the high priest,
let us put him with the Roman authorities for a day or 2',
I don't think that the high priest thought that he might be crucified,
would a Jew who was religious want that happen to another man that was religious
Jesus' last hours are remembered every year by Christians...
all over the world
here in Jerusalem pilgrims retrace the route that...
Jesus took from his prison to the place of his execution.
Some Christian go even further.
Here in the Philippines in the town of San Pedro,
young men commemorate the scourging the Romans inflicted on Jesus.
San Pedro, is a poor but devout community,
and the people here believe that their prayers for better times will be answered...
if they endure this much pain.
Many of them volunteer to be nailed to the cross.
It's a powerful evocation of the scene in Jerusalem 200 years ago,
but scholars have questioned some of the details,
for years some have argued that Jesus must have been nailed through the wrists,
as the weight of his body would have torn the hands.
But now forensic tests reveal the traditional image may...
have been right after all.
This is the home of Dr Frederick Zugibe,
forensic pathologist with Rockland County New York State.
He's been applying his forensic knowledge of how people die to...
analyze the circumstances of Jesus' death.
In this experiment a volunteer puts on special protective gloves,
then hangs from the cross.
While his assistant monitors his heart rate,
Dr Zugibe test whether the hand can support the weight of the body
Now I'm going to let him suspend without any feet rests at all...
over there, okay, now,
another pain over there, what do you feel
A lot of pain, pressure of the upper arms
The pain is a measure of how much stress the body is applying on the hands,
it would tear in a matter of minutes.
Since the Gospels say that Jesus was up on the cross for 6 hours,
it might seem as if the hand couldn't possibly support the body.
But Dr Zugibe has found that...
the stress is instantly relieved the moment the feet are supported
Now what if the difference over there, how is it difference
Tremendous difference, there's comparably very...
little weight on the upper arms
He said there's very little pull on the hands themselves, all of the weight,
all of the weight is here, it's only is the legs are free standing that...
the hands would not hold it
And the evidence suggest that Jesus' legs were not freestanding.
In 1968 archeologists in Jerusalem found the remains of a crucified victim.
One of the bones showed that the man's legs had been nailed to the cross.
Here we have a cast of this, and this is the heel bone, now we see the nail here,
and here it's perhaps somewhat clearer with this here, you see what they done,
there's a piece of olive wood, here's the nail,
they drove the nail through the plaque, it increases the diameter of the nail,
they then drove the thing into the heel.
Nailed to the side of the upright, the legs would have been able to take...
the weight off the hands.
Sometimes the Romans even nailed a piece of wood to...
the cross for the victim to sit on, a man could be up on the cross for days.
Another detail of the crucifixion questioned by scholars,
is the cross itself.
The conventional view is that Jesus was nailed to a specially made cross.
But the historian Josephus reveals that this view need revising.
With so many rebels to crucify, sometimes up to 500 a day,
the Romans adapted old olive trees, roads into towns were often...
lined with dozens of trees doubling up as crosses.
It was also common practice for the victims to be offered something...
to quench their thurst or dull the pain.
The Gospels say a soldier gave Jesus a sponge soaked in vinegar,
perhaps that's why he was able to stay alive for 6 hours.
But as Jesus hung on the cross the Gospels report that...
some of the crowd we mocking Jesus
And then you could hear the mocking,
'oh you who heal others, why don't you come down and heal yourself', the mocking.
Powerless, the great powerful one is now left powerless
The Gospels say that Jesus' mother and Mary Magdalene one of...
his closest followers were also present.
It must have seen to all those there the mission Jesus had...
launched back in Galilee was ended in humiliating failure.
But some scholars believe that suffering on this scale may...
well have been part of Jesus' plan
Well we do have evidence in some of the Dead Sea Scrolls of...
martyrs by the time of Jesus and before the time of Jesus,
believing that their death, their suffering will help atone for some of...
the problems in the land.
Some texts said that salvation would only ever come through...
the suffering of the Messiah.
He must have often asked himself whether he was out to lunch on this,
I mean his own family say he was mad, and he must have sometimes...
wondered if they were right, but we mustn't think of Him,
as though he was just some crazy suicide bomber or Kamikaze pilot or...
something like that.
Jesus' glimpsed in the Jewish scripture that the way that God will defeat evil,
is not by fighting it but curiously by leting it do it's worst to...
God's anointed one,
so that through his suffering the force of evil may be exhausted
But Jesus was not immune to human emotions,
'in his final hours', said the Gospels, 'he cried out to God'.
'My God My God why have you forsaken me',
it seems that he's a little bit frustrated,
'where the hell are you now God, when I need you',
I think he's simply in a dialogue with God as he always had been,
'God where are you now'
Jesus' mission had followed the tragic past of other messianic uprisings,
the minute the movement threatens disorder,
it's leader is picked out and eliminated.
Normally a dead Messiah led to the collapse of the movement.
With the crucifixion it's over, it's completely over, it's no more hope.
Well Christianity's around, what happened?
There is something that happens, there is something that happens
After 2000 years Christians from all over the world still make a pilgrimage to...
the Church of the Holy Sephulcre, the place where Christianity believes...
Jesus was crucified and buried.
Pilgrims still come here because they believe that the crucifixion...
was not the end of the story.
It's now one the great mysteries of history.
Somewhere on this spot where a church now stand a small...
first century Jewish sect, snatched victory from the jaws of defeat.
Dan Bahat is one of the Archeologists who've been trying to establish...
what the area here was like at the time of Jesus' death.
He's discovered that the church of the Holy Sephulcre was originally...
built on an old quarry.
You can see that actually it's an old quarry,
you can see the incisions of the stone everywhere, of the nature of rock,
because it was a quarry, and a quarry was always outside the city wall
The archeologists had also found several tombs inside the church dating back...
to the first century.
Archeologists are now able to strip away 2000 years of building history,
and get back to the time of Jesus.
During the first century when the population was smaller,
the city walls were less than 100 yards further back then where they are today.
Quarries had many uses, organic remains found under the church reveal that...
the quarry would have been used as a garbage dump.
Quarries were also the place where criminals were executed.
Jesus would have been crucified on an outcrop of rock somewhere here.
In Jewish law, a corpse was the most impure thing,
so tombs were also built in quarries outside the city wall.
This first century tomb hewn into the rock in Jerusalem is typical of the tombs...
in the time of Jesus.
His burial in a tomb like this should have been the end fo the story,
but it's here that it developed a surprising twist.
The Gospels say that Jesus was resurrected,
physically brought back to life.
Did it happen, there are Christian Bishops who say,
'this is an ancient myth,
we have to get rid of it', but most Christians say the heart of Christianity...
is the absurd claim that this man who was crucified was raised by God,
yes it is not a rational claim, it is an expression of belief.
The strength and depth of that belief is testified by the fact that...
billions of people around the world believe in resurrection,
but in fact the Gospels do attempt to marshal some evidence.
They claim that Jesus appeared to his disciples.
On one occasion Jesus' uncle Clepoas and a friend are walking on the road to...
Emmaus when Jesus suddenly appears to them.
Strangely, at first Jesus' followers don't recognize him.
Now apparitions are sometimes experienced by bereaved people.
Grief stricken, they imagine their loved are alive again.
According to Dr Mark Goodacre, in such trick of the mind,
the bereaved have no difficulty in recognizing their loved one.
But the appearances repre, these things,
rather than being long headed which many of the skulls are,
these things are very very wide here in terms of the parietals, narrow over here,
sometimes these things are even almost round.
Joe Zias has found that non Jewish skulls are quite different.
And if you look at this, notice how this is very long and...
this is very very narrow, it's a complete complete different type, if we put,
particularly these next to each other, perhaps you can see clearly...
what I'm talking about.
The one on the right, the Jewish skulls is clearly rounder and...
wider than the one on the left.
This is much more gracile, much more fine, as compared to this one here,
this one's much more robust, even in terms of weight.
There are of course many other faces used to represent the man many believe...
is the son of God, but they too reflect the cultures of their artists.
Now using the first century skull, it may be possible to get even closer...
to the face of the Jesus of history.
What can scientists deduce.
Richard Neave for the Unit of Art and Medicine at the University of...
Manchester in England is one of the world's leading forensic artists.
Using forensic skills he can reconstruct the face of...
an average first century Jewish male.
The basic face, basic shape the general configuration of the face is...
determined by the skull and the face that will immerge from...
this reconstruction will be broadly similar to the kind of face that...
this man had when he was alive
The face Neave constructs will be that of a first century middle eastern man.
Weathered by desert life and hard work, probably one that was old before it's time.
Much like the face of Jesus would have been.
This certainly doesn't look anything like the images that one associates with Him,
and I think it's much more likely to be a accurate reflection of...
a majority of people who would've been around at that time
It looks like an older man than Jesus, but Neave argues that it...
easily fits the profile of a man in his mid 30s for that part of the world.
Especially at the time the average life expectancy was well below 50
With an archeological reconstruction, that is a fair thing to do,
for somebody who you know has probably been living fairly hot climate,
with lots of bright sunshine, which does tend to make the brows...
become more furrowed and the skin more creased and wrinkled.
It's very much the kinds of face that you see in parts of the world today.
In parts of North Africa and Egypt and around into parts of Jordan and Israel.
But this face still leaves many question unanswered.
What kind of hair did Jesus have? how long was it? Did he have a beard?
How would he have worn it? and what was the color of his skin?
To find the answers the reconstructed face was first scanned into a computer.
Biblical scholar Dr Mark Goodacre has discovered a number of...
historical clues which, when fed into the computer,
could get us even closer to the likely face of Jesus.
One of the most telling clues are these images from a Jewish synagogue in Syria,
they were painted in the third century, less than 200 years from the time of Jesus.
They are the earliest pictures of Jewish people in the world,
and they provide an insight into Jewish styles of beard and hair.
They kind of hair style that you get, it's short it's curly,
if you like Afro in style, and this seems to be almost uniform in the way that...
Jesus is depicted there.
Moreover it's likely that Jesus would have had a short cropped,
kind of black sort of beard, something a little bit like this.
This length of hair is confirmed by Saint Paul,
in his letter to the Corinthians composed barely 20 years after the time of Jesus.
He write, that it's disgraceful for a man to have long hair.
And what's interesting about this is that,
Saint Paul knew members of the family of Jesus,
he knew the disciples of Jesus, it's unlikely that Paul...
would have be able to say something like this if it was well known that...
Jesus himself had long hair.
Dr Goodacre, believes that the traditional depictions of...
Jesus' skin color may also need revising.
Firstly, most historians would assume that in Jesus' part of the world,
people would be darker skinned.
In addition, Dr Goodacre has now found supporting evidence...
in the Gospels themselves.
Matthew writes that when Herod order the massacre of children under the age of 2,
Mary and Joseph escaped with Jesus to Egypt.
Now it's very unlikely that Jesus would have been able to be hidden in Egypt...
if he had a very different color skin from the people that were in Egypt.
Intrigued by this possibility, Dr Goodacre investigated further.
He looked again at Mathew's and Luke's Gospel and...
found some unexpected clues.
Detailed genealogies or records of Jesus' ancestry.
There are quite a good number of people of Afro-asiatic origin,
in particular you see women of Afro-asiatic origin, people like Rahab,
people like Ruth and so on, who if you like,
would have been much more likely to have dark skin tones.
Although this is not the actual face of Jesus, it does takes up beyond the...
idealized images of the last 1500 years and closer than...
ever before to the real Jesus of History.
There can now be little doubt that a real flesh and blood man called...
Jesus of Nazareth challenged the Jewish establishment.
At the time his mission must have seems like an act of folly.
Not only did he pay the ultimate price, but the temple system he attack survived.
For Christians of course, Jesus' death became the ultimate sacrifice,
and a new source of hope in the world.
But now historians too are recognizing Jesus' place in first century politics.
The temple system may well have survived Jesus' challenge,
but not for long.
When he was alive, Jesus had warned that the temple would be destroyed...
before his generation had passed away.
After his death, Jewish resentment against oppression and injustice deepened,
the chief priests remained puppets of the Romans, new Messiahs came and went.
In 64 AD, 1000's of Jew's began to revolt.
The Roman response was brutal.
This city was burned down, the temple destroyed, 1000's were massacred.
Jesus had been proved right after all.
His campaign wasn't an act of madness.
He had understood before anyone the need for change.