[Music] in the 1970s extensive excavations took place on the western side of Jerusalem’s old city and here a gate complex was uncovered so what this is is it’s a gate in the stone pavement and my professor Shimon Gibson was on staff in the excavation that uncovered what we’re going to be looking at here this material comes from the Mount Zion archaeological Expedition that worked here in the 1970s is this the place that in Aramaic the Bible calls gabatha the stone pavement where Jesus was tried under Pontius Pilate you see that stone pavement this is the old city of Jerusalem from 1973 to 1978 the old City’s Western Wall was excavated from Jaffa gate to the southwestern corner where the wall turns East this excavation was directed by Israeli archaeologist McGann broshi see how those uh those masonry is white and then right almost when you get to the aeroslot it turns dark the soil level before excavations went all the way up to just below that Arrow slot and my professor Shimon Gibson used to put his lunch in that Arrow slot when they were doing this dig one of the many books that my professor Dr Shimon Gibson wrote is the final days of Jesus the archaeological evidence and in it he writes the excavations revealed a Monumental Gateway with the remains of a large Courtyard these are walls on either side of the gate original you’re coming into the gate you’re coming into the gate you have your steps here you’re walking up the steps you have the wall the ottoman wall do you see this patch of preserved wall over here that’s herodian with the bulges sticking out that’s where the wall line was we know a gate went in right here because look you put steps into a wall you put steps into a gate and and there the steps are preserved in this case because they’re cut into the Bedrock this discovered gate led into the palace complex of Herod the Great and is described by the 81st Century historian Josephus who wrote of Hera the great he built himself a palace in the upper City Josephus describes the three fortification Towers Herod built to guard his Palace to the north the foundations of these towers are still visible today especially the largest one just inside Jaffa gate Josephus wrote that adjoining and on the inner side of these towers which lay to the north of it was the king’s Palace baffling all description indeed an extravagance and Equipment no building surpassed it the foundation of herod’s Palace building have been found through excavations Josephus also wrote that herod’s Palace was entirely walled about to the height of 30 cubits notice the fortification walls enclosing the palace building a Royal Garden and another building the barracks that house the soldiers Mark 15 16 says the soldiers LED Jesus away into the palace that is the praetorium and called together the whole company of soldiers in his book Dr Gibson writes today a consensus of opinion exists among Scholars that herod’s Palace on the west side of the city was the same as the praetorium and that in its immediate vicinity Jesus was tried and condemned to death so in this case the scholarly consensus is in agreement with the Bible the Gospel of John also States clearly that for his trial the Jewish leaders took Jesus to the Palace of the Roman Governor meaning in ad33 when the trial took place Herod the Great was dead and so now herod’s Palace was the Palace of the Roman governor who was at this time Pontius Pilate there is an extra biblical source that says the same so Philo you know who Philo is Philo was born in 25 BC Jewish philosopher and he gives a very important quote he says this he says Pilate was one of the Emperors the lieutenants having been appointed governor of Judea he dedicated some guilt shields in the Palace of Herod in the holy city okay so this is a purse this is a historical Source contemporary with pilate and Jesus who is connecting pilate to where is Pilot’s Palace it’s the Palace of Herod the Great so if you were to look at Jerusalem in ad33 at the time of the trial then there would be two building complexes that would dominate the city one the temple and the other the palace the temple was the focal place for Jewish worship and the palace was the seat of government so that the ruler from Rome could rule over the city and all of Judea so where would we expect after herod’s death where would we expect Pontius Pilate to be ruling from when he’s in Jerusalem definitely the palace therefore when the New Testament says Jesus went to the temple it means here just as when it says Jesus was taken to the Palace it means here so the question then is where in this Palace complex did the trial take place so on the western side of the palace complex we know there was a gate one of the main reasons Herod the Great would have built this is as an escape route in case the city revolted against him and there was only one gate that connected the palace complex to the outside of the city the way that we know this is through archeology because that entire western side was excavated in the 70s and only one gate was found in his book Shimon describes what they found when Excavating the gate area Gibson writes the excavations revealed a Monumental Gateway with the remains of a large Courtyard situated between two fortification walls on the north side of the courtyard was a Rocky outcrop and on top of it was a small rectangular built platform with steps located at the ruins of this gate a reconstruction of the gate from Dr Gibson’s book is shown on a sign which we based our own reconstructions on the Monumental Gateway can consisted of an outer and inner gate the remains of a large Courtyard made from Stone Pavements was made of a lower and upper floor connected by stairs [Music] foreign why don’t you see Stone pavement here today well because that’s a problem with archeology archeology has also it’s self-destructive and so when you find a floor in this case a stone pavement floor then what archaeologists tend to do is rip it up and look for coins underneath it because that’s date when that dates when that floor was put in but there’s still just a few of those Stone Pavements that are still in C2 in their original position you ready here they are you see that stone pavement okay so that’s Stone pavement went out across here on the upper Stone pavement was a small rectangular built platform with steps in Greek this is called a bema which is translated judgment seat from here Herod and then later Pontius Pilate could address a crowd of people as you’re coming up here they found these steps oh my gosh it’s gone oh man the bema stone is gone wow there was a bema stone that they found that was right here maybe that’s it yeah that’s it so somebody pushed it over do you see how that rock is carved right there well that’s it it was sitting up here over the last two years somebody pushed it down looks like it broke off the side of it too that’s a cry in shame because that is part of uh the preservation of the bhima so whenever something is found in archeology it needs to be interpreted what is it what what does it mean and the best tool to use for interpreting archeology are ancient texts and the ancient text that was used in this excavation to interpret these fines was the Gospel of John in his book Gibson writes these finds also fit very well the description in the Gospel of John regarding the place of the trial of Jesus there’s a lot of description in the Gospel of John that they’re going in and out Pilots going in and out he’s bringing Jesus in and out so there has to be a gate and in the excavations they found this gate complex the place is called in the Gospel of John the stone pavement and what did they find in the excavations a stone pavement pilot sits down on a judgment seat which they found through archeology they found the Judgment seat but this is where Pontius Pilate would speak to the people where he would sit on his judgment seat so this fitting between the Gospel of John and what was found in the excavations that he took part in is why Dr Gibson interprets this place as being biblical gabitha so if you want to learn more about how the Bible fits with the archeology of Jesus I recommend my book where God came down the archaeological evidence I’m a very visual person so it’s a very visual book and I’ll leave a link in the description below where you can order that so the reason that this site is not better known is that the director of these excavations back in the 70s again broshi never published the excavations Dr broshi has now passed away and so my professor Shamel Gibson has inherited the responsibility of publishing these excavations and as one of his students I’ve worked for many years on the material that comes from this gate complex likes in other places and I can tell you that it’s still going to be a long time until this is published because the amount of material coming from this excavation is overwhelming these are Stone vessels also from that period of time wow and boxes and bags and boxes and it just goes on and on all the way up here so much work yep so before we go in and read the details about the trial we need to understand something in general when the Bible talks about the palace it’s talking about anywhere within that Palace complex the same is true for the temple when we read that Jesus and the apostles went to the temple it does not mean that they went into the temple building itself and the same is true for the palace when it says that Jesus was brought to the palace for his trial it could mean anywhere within the whole Palace complex When you entered into that Western gate you were inside the palace and when you exited that Western gate you were outside the palace now come on up and we’ll read the story um because that’s of course what brings it all to life the Gospel of John says the Jewish leaders took Jesus to the Palace of the Roman Governor by now it was early morning and to avoid ceremonial uncleanness they did not enter the palace because they wanted to be able to eat the Passover now Josephus informs us that the palace complex was filled with Brazen statues and this only makes sense because the palace was the Roman stronghold of the city and Roman places had the statues of their gods and their goddesses and so this is why the Jews don’t want to go in to anywhere inside the palace complex or it would make them unclean so pilate came out to them and asked what charges are you bringing against this man pilate then went back inside the palace to ask Jesus are you the king of the Jews they have a discussion and then pilate went out again to the Jews and said I find no basis for a charge against him he went back in the Palace where pilate took Jesus and had him flogged the soldiers Twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head they clothed him in a purple robe so the question then is where is the most likely place in the palace complex where the flogging of Jesus took place by the Roman soldiers the barracks for housing the soldiers was located at the southern end of the palace complex near the Western gate until recently this area was covered by a massive pile of Earth to get the next shot I stood on the wall facing west this shows that the pile of Earth has now been removed and is now a large parking lot the Western gate entered the palace here and when the pile of Earth was removed an archaeological Square was left behind from the Salvage dig here I was leading a group when I saw this for the first time wow hi I will explain when everybody gets here so you haven’t seen this no I’ve never seen this me neither this is uh there was a gigantic mound of dirt and the whole mound of dirt is gone and so I jumped up on a bench and looked over and saw this ah we are inside of Herod the Great’s Palace complex and that is the floor of some building that was in that complex now I can tell by looking at the whoa I almost went to visit it down there I can tell by looking at the Tesla tesserae you know these little cubes this is the Roman period we’re looking at the time of Jesus right there and we’re looking at it in a place that we know Jesus went through this particular event where he was flogged by the Roman soldiers so it makes sense it’s the most probable place where the flogging of Jesus took place would be inside the gate and near the barracks where the soldiers lived since it was the soldiers that flogged him and so I’m not saying that it took place right where we saw that Mosaic floor but somewhere in the vicinity of these Barracks is the likely place where the flogging of Jesus took place and so these mosaics are critically important they connect to the event of Jesus being flogged by the Roman soldiers and yet they’re a parking lot today I mean as an archaeologist that’s that’s pretty depressing after the vlogging John’s gospel continues once more pilate came out and this time Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe pilate said to them here is the man as soon as the chief priests and their officials saw him they shouted crucify crucify bringing the charge that Jesus claimed to be the Son of God when pilate heard this he went back inside the palace where do you come from he asked Jesus then pilate goes back out where he is told of Jesus that anyone who claims to be a king opposes Caesar and pilate heard this he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judge’s seat at a place known as the stone pavement which in Aramaic is gabatha with all this going in and out there has to be a gate why not the gate complex that is found in the 1970s through archeology where they also uncovered a stone pavement and a judgment seat John 19 16 says finally pilate handed him over to them to be crucified and then what happens next as recorded in the Gospel of Luke is what absolutely convinced me that this place was gabitha Luke 23 26 says as the soldiers led him away They seized Simon from Cyrene who was on his way in from the country and put the cross on him and made him carry it behind Jesus so Luke says as they LED Jesus away where were they leading Jesus away from gabitha from the stone pavement the place of the trial and so then it says that Simon of Cyrene is coming in from the Open Country okay there’s only one gate for the palace complex that connected the palace to the Open Country and that’s this Western gate surely there was an Eastern Gate but that connected the palace to the city Simon of Cyrene couldn’t have been coming in from the country uh approaching that Eastern Gate the Western gate we know that there’s only one we know this from the archeology because the entire western side of the palace complex was excavated and only one gate was found and so this is the gate for the palace complex uh that would allow for Simon of Cyrene to come in from the Open Country and then be given the cross of Jesus to carry okay so we have to deal with the problem of why people aren’t brought to this gate and shown this place um they’re taken to another place on the Eastern side of the city and they’re showing the remains archaeological remains of another gate over there so in order to understand how this happened we need to follow the history of Jerusalem in ad70 the city of Jerusalem was massively destroyed by the Romans and this is when that Western gate was also destroyed it was sealed off under the rubble of the destroyed wall and fortifications that were near it so it’s sealed off about a hundred years later the Roman Emperor Hadrian comes and rebuilds the city calling it Alia capitalina in Hadrian City he built an Eastern Gate and it’s the remains from this gate that is seen and and that people are taken to today and so now it’s known with certainty that this gate that people are shown dates to the time of Hadrian and so it is in the wrong place and it is from the wrong time the gate that dates to the right time and is in the right place is the Western gate which of course remained sealed under the rubble and destruction of Jerusalem until it was finally discovered through excavations in the 1970s again another amazing place that nobody comes to and yet of course it’s not about the Jews crucifying Jesus and it’s not about the Romans crucifying Jesus it’s about all of us who crucified Jesus right because we’re all fallen short of the glory of God we’re all sinners in need of the forgiveness and the atonement of the blood of Jesus he wasn’t crucified against his will against God’s will he surrendered himself to that kind of punishment to take our punishment on himself so that we could receive what we don’t deserve and that is his grace it’s this match between the archeology and the Gospel of John that really convinces me that this is gabitha the place where Jesus was Tried by pilate if you found value in this video please like it it helps it get out to other people so that they can also see this information you also may be interested in watching this other video where I explore direct archaeological evidence for Jesus of Nazareth