The Holy Land / Between Independence and Destruction

From the 63 BCE to 73 AD

This episode brings together the dramatic events that took place from the conquest of the land by Rome in 63 BCE - until the fall of Masada in 73 AD. In those 110 years, Herod built magnificent buildings, a rebellion took place, the reasons for the destruction were sown and a new religion emerged, beginning with the activities of a young Jewish prophet from the Galilee.

These are the most fateful years for Judaism, described in the episode dealing with Herod, the rebellion, the destruction and the appearance of Jesus.

Using senior archaeologists and historians, animations, aerial photographs and archival materials, the film reveals lesser-known aspects and insights and reaches hidden archaeological sites that have not yet been seen.

What characterizes Herod's art of construction, water works and leisure sites and what social, cultural and economic change did he bring to Israel under the influence of Rome? What did the three pilgrimages look like in Jerusalem? What really happened in the temple and how was a social gap created that gave rise to fraternal wars and messiahs like Jesus?

Did the artist of the engraving of the Temple Menorah that was discovered in a synagogue in Migdal actually see the Temple Menorah? Are new Jewish findings from the first century in the excavations in Nazareth from the house of Jesus? What is the probability that the Church of the Sepulcher is indeed the burial place of the Christian Messiah and what were the burial methods during the Second Temple period?

What were the real reasons for the Roman revolt? Was it because of the hatred of brothers that Jerusalem was destroyed? What is the chilling evidence discovered in the excavations that complete the descriptions of the horror of the siege, the famine and the bloodshed? Was there even mass suicide in the cities that the Romans besieged or is the story a figment of Joseph's imagination and a literary genre?

The episode was shot in Jerusalem, Herodion, Gamla, Capernaum, Magdala, Yodfat, Caesarea, Nazareth and Bethlehem.

It reveals new archaeological findings, such as the engraving of the temple lamp on a stone table from a synagogue in Magdala on the Sea of ​​Galilee, Jewish remains two hundred meters from the Church of the Annunciation in Nazareth, Jewish stone vessels from the homes of the wealthy in Jerusalem and Jewish burial mounds in the recesses of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. In Herod's palace in the Herodion wall paintings and un-excavated caves are revealed and endless discoveries from the sunken port of Caesarea.