attention to the message. thank you for joining us and thank you so much for joining us. a very merry christmas to all of you. nearly 2,000 years ago mark the remote outpost of the roman empire, three men were crucified on a hill. two of the men were thieves. the third man's crime was mocked by the sign nailed to his cross.

jesus of nazareth, king of the jews. jesus himself insisted his throne was in heaven, not of this world. that didn't matter. the romans saw him as a political nuisance. to his fellow jews he was just another failed messiah. no one thought to record his death. the story of jesus has tran scended generations and cultures. the tale of a routine execution that gave birth to a new religion. yet from that unlikely beginning, a great faith was born. today, some 2 billion people believe jesus was the son of god. but even as billions of people pledged themselves to follow jesus' teachings, we have known almost nothing about jesus the man. no other great religious figure from moses to the buddha to the prophet mohamed is so shrouded in mystery. >> it is very difficult to

classify jesus within a single category, whether he was a sage or a healer or a teacher or a charismatic figure. i suspect the most accurate response to the question, who was jesus at the time would be a mixture of all of these different identifications. >> the starting discovery of what some claimed to be the burial box of jesus' brother james reopened the biggest detective story of all time. the mystery of jesus the man. the plain limestone container is inscribed with a tantalizing clue in aramaic. james, son of joseph, brother of jesus. the public was enthralled from people who flocked to see the display to biblical scholars around the world. could this be the first physical evidence that jesus walked the earth? so when the israeli authorities

announce that had the inscription was forged, the centuries old quest for the historical jesus became ever more urgent. did he have a real brother? was mary really a virgin? how did jesus live? and why did he have to die? who was jesus the man? why has the greatest story ever told also the greatest mystery never solved? almost all we know about jesus' life comes to us from the four books of the gospels called mark, matthew, like and john. yet the gospels were written anywhere between 40 and 70 years after jesus died. and with an eye to converting people. >> the gomss weren't meant to be historically accurate accounts in the way we would think of. they were not written according to our standards of biographical

accuracy. they were meant to proclaim the good news of jesus' life, death and resurrection. >> one of the stories that historians are debating is the christmas card scene of his humble birth in a manger, heralded by a star in the east and attended by three wise men. it is only mentioned by matthew and luke and they don't always agree. so is any of it true? scholars say yes to a degree. >> when we look at the gospel of matthew and the gospel of luke, we can see that there are about 12 pieces of information. 12 facts that they share in common that they both know about jesus' early years. they both know his mother is mary. that the father or stepfather is joseph. they're from the family of david. that the birth took place in bethlehem. so they have this string, a skeleton of information about the very formative years of

jesus and his conception. they don't have much beyond that. >> sadly the birth place of the man christians call the prince of peace is often in a war zone as it has been for centuries. ♪ >> but the manger the generations of pilgrims have sought out is a bit of a shock. a stone groto that doesn't look like a cozy stable. caves like this one pock mark the region where bethlehem lies. one scholar suggests that we've got the wrong address. there is another bethlehem. one that borders joseph and mary's home territory of nazareth. >> that suggests to me that this is the bethlehem that we ought to be looking at instead of bethlehem of judea.

>> it is unlikely that this argument is going to trump centuries of tradition that point to the bethlehem of faith. >> it is an historical place, revered for centuries by the faithful. it is the place where it is celebrated jesus was born. that's enough for me in my devotion. it is not enough for me as a scientist. >> what of the other great tradition of the first christmas? the star in the east? was it a myth? or did it really exist? astronomer michael molnar may have found the answer on a 2,000-year-old coin he bought a few years ago for $50. on one side, he noticed the astrological sign for aries which stood for judea. on the other side was the god jupiter. >> when i came across the coin

that showed me that aries the ram was the sign of the jews, i asked myself, what event would have happened in aries the ram? >> so armed with a computer and chance of the ancient heavens, he started plotting the course of jupiter and the constellation of aries around the time jesus' birth. and he suddenly hit the mother of all celestial alignments. >> according to the beliefs of 2,000 years ago, if you have the sun, jupiter and the moon accompanied by saturn and the sign of aries the ram, this created the conditions for the birth of a divine and immortal person. >> if there was a star in the east, that would have been it. just when exactly did this star appear? he did more calculations. >> the computer came back with only one answer. it said it happened only once in aries the ram.

april 17th, 6 bc. >> christmas in april? born six years before we thought? it is likely true since king herod who won't a murderous rampage died in 4 bc. but after his birth, jesus largely disappears from view. and the mysteries of his early life deepen. who were jesus' parents? his brothers and sisters? just how did jesus grow up? >> jesus was probably doing what most other teenagers were doing. honing their job skills, meeting other people, helping to support the family, learning what he could about his community and his tradition. >> his tradition was jewish. and his community was the village of nazareth in rural galilee. just as the ancient prophets had said, the messiah would be a nazarene.

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nazareth in the first century was just a small town in rural galilee. a world away from cosmopolitan jerusalem, 100 mile down the road. yet it was here the gospel of st. luke tell us that an angel of the lord appeared to mary and told her something extraordinary. she was going to be the mother of god's son. but what do we know about this woman who would change the course of history? >> we don't know very much about mary. we get little tantalizing snap shots. from those attendashe appears t lively, intelligent, but down to earth woman. >> maybe not a woman at all when she bore jesus but a girl with the remarkable life ahead of her. >> mary was very young when she became pregnant with jesus. probably just in her mid teens which meant by the time jesus

was doing his public ministry, maybe she was 45. >> joseph, jesus' earthly father, is perhaps the most mysterious figure of all. by the time jesus has begun his public ministry, joseph has vanished from the story. that has led to speculation that joseph, a carpenter by trade, was many years older than mary. life in the nazareth of jesus' day was hard. today a group of biblical scholars and archaeologists have built nazareth village to give a better sense of just what daily life in the nazareth of jesus' time was like. >> there were no paved streets, no luxuries of any kind. the houses are made of field stones that are insulated with mud and straw. it was a very basic kind of hand to mouth existence.

>> it was also an existence that closely followed the rituals of jewish life. in fact the only time the gospels mention jesus as a boy is during the visit to the temple in jerusalem. this visit would have made an enormous impression on the devout 12-year-old from the hinterland. jerusalem was the place where particularly at festival times, people always hoped that maybe now god would do something dramatic. that sort of sense was in the air, that you get there and it will happen. the new thing will be born. >> jesus sat with the teachers of the law, the great rabbis, the ones who ran the academies in jerusalem. and had deep, detailed discussions about the hub bible, the old testament with them. and these teachers and rabbis looked at this kid and said, this kid has a real gift. we should sign him up. let's get him to enroll. he is wasted there in nazareth. >> it was a mission, the gospels

say, that jesus thought more important than his earthly family. for when they had departed from nazareth, jesus was still in the temple. >> on the way home they realize that had jesus was missing. this always struck me like "home alone." they discover him in the temple and mary is very upset and said how can you do this? >> jesus in his 12-year-old know it all state says didn't you know, i needed to be about my father's business? and he understands that his destiny is somehow here. the temple is where he belongs. discussing these religious issues is what he is supposed to do. >> how could mary and joseph fail to notice jesus was missing? did this mean the family was so large that a child like jesus could just disappear? the gospels speak of jesus' four brothers, james, joseph, judas and simon and at least two sisters. many believe that mary remained

a virgin all her life. that these siblings were either stepchildren from joseph's earlier marriage or cousins. scholars who have read the texts closely say that doesn't seem to be the case and they don't need controversial to make their point. >> the word that's used of james and jesus' other siblings, the greek word for brother is the word for brother. some people say maybe they're cousins, for example. well, there is a greek word for cousin and that's not the word that's used here. >> the theological questions are profound. the debate is a difficult one. especially if you're a jesuit and a scientist like tom fitzpatrick. >> i don't know if we'll ever get to a definitive answer that satisfies every question, or every person on this. it has been a very important doctrine mystery for the church

over 2,000 years. it is not the most important doctrine. >> just as fascinating as jesus' family tree is the debate over just what jesus looked like. this certainly isn't a matter of doctrine. but it has always been a source of intense speculation. the centuries old guessing game that science tell us is way off the mark. >> i could never reconcile myself to him having long blond hair and blue eyes because he comes from a part of the world where people are basically rather swarthy with dark hair and dark eyes. >> so what then does science say is the true face of the son of god?

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trying to figure out what jesus really looked like has preoccupied christians for centuries and legions of artists have stayed busy trying to supply the answer. but the difficulty in trying to flesh out the image of jesus is that his contemporaries considered his message, not his looks, all important. also, judaism forbids the worship of images and idols, especially of someone claiming to be god. of course, that did not stop christians from imagining how jesus looked. he was first depicted as a god. since then jesus has been reimagined by every generation and movies have never tired of

portraying him. from jesus christ superstar to the jesus of montreal to the smiling christ of the film cote dogma." >> jesus is not as far as i can tell historically, the blond, blue-eyed version or even jeffrey hunter from the movies. >> i think they would have liked very much like the term we know by the term himmies. >> now we may be able to literally put some flesh on the bones of centuries of guessing. that's what the noted medical and forensic artist did when biblical scholars gave him a copy of the skull from the first century found in present day israel. they wanted to get an idea of what a man of jesus' time and place might have looked like. >> it is a strong skull. and to live satisfactory,

especially the kind of life jesus led, you'll have to be a fairly tough, rugged kind of fella. he walked miles. he carried his staff. he could carry his cross. that takes a lot of physical strength and determination. and so he is not a wimp. >> he has spent nearly 30 years reconstructing the heads of mystery people. anonymous murder victims, ancient archaeological finds, and suicides. but how would he approach a re-creation of a face from 2,000 years ago? >> it is done in exactly the same way as you would handle a forensic case. absolutely no difference. except that in this case, a nice clean prepared cast rather than the original skull. you make a copy of that and it is mounted on to a metal stand. pegs are inserted into the skull at specific anatomical points.

and these indicate the average thickness of tissue that you'll get, say, there or there or there. >> his skull was rented entered into an image by the bbc and further developed by the artist with the help of biblical scholars. the result is a starting image. nothing like the jesus that history has imagined. >> the nose is quite prominent. a full mouth, a youngish face, between 30 and 40, i suppose. >> he stresses that his jesus head is not the jesus head. at best it represents a face that jesus himself might have seen or had and still it attracts debate. >> i've had one or two comments from people suggesting that it doesn't look anything like jesus which of course doesn't surprise me. and they actually, some of them do go on to say that they know

exactly what jesus does look like because they took a photograph of him only three weeks ago. >> even though science has given as you better idea of what jesus might have really looked like, jesus' faith wouldn't matter were it not for what he said and did. and the gospels tell us in a surprisingly short time, just three years. what was the message of this carpenter's son from galilee? and why did it get him killed? tt begins with a surprise twinge of back pain... and a choice. take up to 4 advil in a day or 2 aleve for all day relief. [ male announcer ] that's handy. ♪

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when jesus suddenly reemerged into the public eye, so the gospels tell us, he was about 30 years old and he had a powerful mission. to rock the ancient world with his teachings. his public ministry would last just three years. but in that brief span, this obscure galilean carpenter would rouse such passion that his followers would call him not just the son of man but the son of god. so who was jesus? a faith healer? a rebel? a messiah? >> some scholars think that he was principally to be understood as a jewish rabbi. some think he was better understood as a social revolutionary, even a political revolutionary. some people think he was an ancient philosopher, a jewish philosopher. and probably the majority of scholars continued to think he was best understood as a kind of jewish apocalyptic prophet. >> jesus the prophet was not alone in his search for souls to

save. scholars tell us the landscape was teaming with jewish groups. each with their own take on god's word. one such sect were a apocalyptic jews who lived in the desert by the dead sea. when their writings were discovered in the caves in 1948, we suddenly gained starling new clues with b jesus' own spiritual roots. >> we have from kumran a small bit of man you've script that shows us there were other jews just before the time of jesus who were waiting for a messiah, who would exert miraculous and healing power and who would have the power to raise the dead. and jesus embraces that messianic expectation. >> and it began with a baptism as the gospels tell us, performed by the man who tradition and scholarships say was jesus' cousin and boyhood friend. john the baptist lived in the wilderness wearing camel skins, eating locusts and wild honey

and baptizing people in the jordan river to cleanse them of their sins. this was a radical jewish spin. john was turning an ancient ritual into a new sacrament. >> john the baptist. he recognized jesus at the baptism and he said this is the man i've been waiting for. this is the person i'm preparing the way for. and he expected jesus to be the messiah of israel. >> and that's the message jesus took to the jewish people. that the gospels tell us he returned home, found his first disciples among galilean fishermen and soon called attention to himself by casting out demons and healing the sick. >> those healings would have attracted greater and greater crowds and those crowds then would have provided the base for jesus' other teachings. was jesus a healer and an exorcist? i think so. quite a good one in fact.

>> a healer, an exorcist, and soon a miracle worker. according to the gospel of john, jesus first big public miracle was at the wedding of cana turning water into wine. science can never say whether a miracle really happened but scholars say there would be no mistaking the message that jesus was sending. >> in turning water to wine, he is saying i am the bridegroom of the great messianic banquet that god will have one day is that the bridegroom has arrived on the scene. >> the miracles kept coming. the loaves and fishes, raising lazarus from the dead, walking on water, and repelling satan. but magicians and healers and exorcists were everywhere in the middle east in those days. >> we have various accounts of

miracle workers, both pagan as well as jewish. the book of acts has other exorcists who were not part of jesus' contingent but they do seem to be successful exorcists. >> we can put him on the continuum buzz he breaks the mold. >> more than miracles, jesus reaches beyond social boundaries to include women prominently among his disciples. one woman who followed jesus has become second only to his mother in his life. yet mary magdalene has not exactly been regarded as a virgin. >> christian tradition depicts her as a prostitute but she is never called a prostitute in the new testament. the most went is that she was independent. luke says she was possessed by seven demons and had been exorcised by jesus so perhaps she followed him because he had performed a healing for her. other than that, mary is an

independent woman. prostitute? no reason to think so. >> but what was she to jesus? could jesus have been married to mary magdalene as some legends have it? or to anyone else? >> we have no indication in the gospel tradition that jesus is married. would it have been unusual for a jewish man to have been unmarried? not at all. >> whatever the details of jesus' personal life, to his fellow jews, what he said was as important as what he did. he gave them a radical agenda, scholars say, one of which society's outcasts could play a central role. its manifesto promise that had the powerful would be brought low. and the meek would inherit the earth. the sermon on the mount was an edgy message at a volatile time. >> the thought of jesus going up into the hills and giving special teaching has kind of a revolutionary flavor. we're being prepared to do something. this is not just lesson that's

will help us say our prayers a bit better thoerk it will. it is much more than. that it is setting an agenda for a whole movement and how it will go. >> the gospels tell us that jesus as the messiah had huge appeal for the masses. here finally was someone who could liberate the jews from a century of roman rule. >> jews in particular thought this land they occupied had been given to them by god. the idea that some other power was controlling this land was considered not only to be a political nightmare, it was also thought to be theologically blasphemous. >> if jesus is preaching the kingdom of god, he is clearly preaching something ant athletic cal to the norm. >> if that was not enough, jesus took his disciples and his message to jerusalem. the heart of judaism and the roman political power. the fuse was primed. the people wanted a savior. >> as they sit here on this

mount of olives where we are today, they say okay, now are you going to set up the kingdom? we're waiting. we want to rule. >> and then no sooner had jesus' ministry begun, it was over. he was now reviled as a common criminal, deserted by the people who once hailed him as the messiah. was it prophecy or politics that set jesus up to die? [ male announcer ] alka-seltzer plus presents the cold truth. [ sniffles, coughs ] shhhh! shhhh. [ coughs ] i have a cold with this annoying runny nose. [ sniffles ] i better take something. [ male announcer ] truth is, dayquil cold and flu doesn't treat all that. it doesn't? [ male announcer ] nope. [ sniffles ] alka-seltzer plus fights your worst cold symptoms plus has a fast acting antihistamine to relieve your runny nose. oh, what a relief it is! [ man ] shhhh! for fast cold and flu relief, day or night, try alka-seltzer plus day and night liquid gels. where does the united states get most of its energy?

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♪ jesus came back to jerusalem, the gospels tell us, at passover. he had been to the great temple

many time before with his family but now he came at a politically charged time and a provocative message. >> passover is the feast of freedom. the city has swelled with well over a million pilgrims. there is a concern for roman occupation. pilate has brought his troops into the city of anybody who talks about the kingdom of god and even more, anybody about whom the word goes out, this is a new king, is clearly a political liability. >> not just a liability to the romans but to the jewish hierarchy led by the high priest caiphus. one of the most vivid messages of the gospels, a furious jesus enters the temple to cleanse it of the money changers he finds there. >> overturning the temple tables, the money changers, it was the necessary business of temple work. was it a direct prophetic

assault on the religious institution. in a way, he was saying that a new era was beginning. this was about as much as the religious authorities could take. and they put together a plot to turn him over to the romans. >> but first, jesus would fulfill the ritual duties of his religion and eat the passover seder with his friends. a meal known today as the last supper. >> according to our earliest accounts, he knew he was in trouble and likely to be arrested so he took these symbolic foods of the passover meal and installed new significance in them. >> it is a communion re-created today in churches everywhere. >> this is my body which will be given up for you. >> it is difficult to know if he actually said these things. our reports are decades later. but i think he certainly had a last supper and he may well have

anticipated that he would be killed soon there after. >> according to the gospels, that's exactly what happened. betrayed among olive trees in the garden of gethsemane by his own disciple, judas iscariot. what did he betray? >> it is possible that jesus taught the disciples privately, when the kingdom comes, you will be the rulers and i of course will be the king of this coming kingdom. if that's what he was teaching them, then everything else falls in place. what judas betrays to the authorities is that jesus was teaching in private. it was brought to pontius pilate. >> he had power of life and death over his jewish subjects and often used it. >> pontius pilate, the very year that jesus entered into

jerusalem, was in a very difficult political position. as a consequence of that, he agreed to help caiphus. and to pin the whole blame for what had occurred within the temple. the disturbance there involving jesus on jesus himself. >> scholars think the most accurate part of the gospels comes here at the end. the eyewitness details of his death by crucifixion, perhaps the most gruesome form of capital punishment ever devised. >> it was a case of a state organized around the principle of terror. and you pointed this terror at anyone who was seen as posing a threat or posing a potential threat. that is certainly applied in the case of jesus.

>> and to many others. the romans crucified up to 10,000 people during jesus' lifetime. often people just like himself. >> it wasn't unusual at all to have somebody, even a prophet arrested and executed. even in the gospels. he is killed with two other people that morning. probably they too are troublemakers and the next day, pilate probably ordered a couple other people killed. >> the crucifixion has always been depicted as an awful death. modern forensic science says it was even worse than we imagined. after three decades as a medical examiner in new york, dr. frederick zuckerby has investigated hundreds of homicides. but his research into death by

crucifixion is as chilling as anything he has ever seen. a death that began with a ferocious scourging by roman soldiers using a metal tipd whip. >> the bits of metal would literally enter the skin. even the front of the body, the weight would carry it to the front of the body and rip. rip blood vessels, skin. the pains were literally brutal. >> he said the agony was compounded when jesus was forced to carry the 50-pound cross beam out of pilate's fortress and through these streets of jerusalem, today called the via de la rosa. the way of sorrows. >> the condition that jesus was in, the shocking condition which is being built up. the crown of thorns adding more shock, jesus would be stumbling, unsteady on his feet. he would get up, fall, get up, fall. >> finally jesus arrived at a hill outside the city walls

called golgotha, the site of the skull. today it is covered by the church of the holy sepulchre. it was a killing field where a team of roman soldiers awaited their victim and quickly set to their grisly task. >> the members of it would hold their legs, close to their body, their arms, while they nailed the nails into their hands. >> some victims lasted a week, zuckerby calculated that jesus spent about six hours on the cross. then it was finished. >> if i were to write a death certificate, i would say the cause of death was due to shock which causes cardiogenic shock. that would be the cause of death. >> while politics had a hand in jesus' death, scholars say so, too, did prophecy.

they note that jesus' followers believed the prophecies of ancient scripture that a political messiah, a glorious earthly king, would come to free them from rome. jesus had a new prophecy. one that was very different from what they had expected. >> he begins to teach them that the messiah must suffer and die. and that he would go up to jerusalem. he would be tortured, beaten, crucified, he would die and he would rise again. this was not an expectation that they had for the messiah. >> so the gospels say when the disciples showed up at jesus' tomb three days after his death and found it empty, they were astonished. jesus said he would rise from the dead. had his prophecy been fulfilled?

♪ ♪ the defining moment came three days of jesus' death and the gospels told us he rose from the tome to the downcast followers. they believe the gospels were wrote backwards starting with jesus' death because those were the facts they knew best and the facts that launched their faith. ♪ ♪ >> what makes jesus different isn't that his message was different. what makes him different is that after he was executed, his followers claim that he was rose from the dead. christianity begins when jesus followers proclaim his rest sore

recollection. >> that was the point science stops and faith begins. ♪ ♪ >> skeptics have explained the resurrection as a tale told to comfort jesus followers, but none of those theories explain the mystery of faith. >> the belief that dead people don't rise was universal across the an excellent world with the exception of the jews that said at moment they don't rise but one day with the richous or everybody. the best explanation for the rise of the early christian movement is that jesus really was rose from the dead on the third day. >> while science doesn't explain, it can illuminate his life to a believer. >> i'm one of those perps. look at the secular world and say there are wonderful things going there, and they can be a help to us talking about jesus.

good, let's recognize that. let ourselves be tested by the world. we can only be helped. bring as much evidence as you can, coins, data, let's do the history thing properly and then this figure emerges in three dimensions and we say my goodness, this is not just a religious icon. it is not just a wild-eyed revolutionary. it's somebody that's all of that and much, much more and he's enormously compelling. ♪ ♪ >> perhaps more compelling in today's world where religion more often than not seems to be a source of conflict. >> jesus as a historical figure provide as point of dialogue among jews, christians and muslims because the islamic world accepts him as a profit

and clearly, he was a jew. we will not' agree from synagogue to church, but at least we have a claim upon him and that's the basis of conversation. >> so historians will continue to dig through clues in the dust of holy land to capture the essence of this jewish rabbi that so changed the world and faithfully christians will rely on jesus' words, words that define the mystery of faith. bless it are those who have not seen and yet believe. ♪ ♪

♪ ♪ tonight, a special holiday event. was the christmas star real? >> there was extraordinary activity in the skies. >> do noah's flood happen? >> the land that went under, stayed under. >> where is the garden of eden? >> figure out where all four rivers are, and then you've got the location. >> come along on an epic journey around the world and across time with christiane am man pour. the danger is real. >> our guide is carrying a gun. >> and so are