Wow! What an amazing video. I can hardly wait for the next one! Thank you, Dr. Tabor, for your insight and teaching! The “Tracking Jesus” tour is going to be incredible!!
Thank you for exposing us to the beauty of Sephoris, Dr Tabor. I agree that Jesus had more of an urban exposure, given that it is generally accepted that he could at least read (though possibly not write). Thank you for the video keep up the good work!
At the very least, the family and Jesus would speak at least a sort of pidgin Greek or Greek to use re: numeration, coins, market trading, working/terms about building trades, land, registration/titles, ordering bread and wine at a fast food stand? If they worked a net of, say, 5years in Sephora’s and life in a multi lingual area. There was high level Greek philosophical schools (see Herculaneum scrolls) in Galilean area. area at least 100-150 years area. Reading, Hebrew? ? Who knows. But if parents or grandparents, uncles, aunts, somebody close, could read, I see no reason that they might not teach others/children in the family to read that language at least to an extent t, and a little Aramaic or even a few words of Greek (bar, wine, bathroom, help!, where is …..). Even very poor Jews. In the Eastern European shtetl would sacrifice to educate a likely child about Jewish law and practice to become a Rabi etc. (spell check insists that literate Jewish holy men have rabies or are rabid in the 1st century. I’m sure Roman governors might agree!
Awesome video, thank you so much Dr Tabor for sharing. It brings Jesus to life for me. Whilst I am no card carrying Christian, the whole "mythos" of Jesus and his times is deeply fascinating, especially learning Jesus was clearly going to be heavily exposed to the "wider world" from this locale.
Thank you Dr Tabor oh my goodness so much to learn, i love how you present your information inviting us along, its wonderful, many thanx , its so interesting..
Fascinating. Just a random thought… if this major town is never mentioned in the New Testament, does that suggest the writers of the New Testament weren’t from the area and weren’t familiar with the cities.
Perhaps the fact that it is almost exclusively a Roman town - complete with baths and a theatre - would be a reason for it to be avoided? It´s possible that Jesus reacted strongly against the Roman influences that he felt emanating from the place.
Very interesting. I bought Ken Dark's, Archaeology of Jesus’ Nazareth, via your website's Bookshelf, and found it fascinating. Given the mental imagery created by the book, the photos in this video, and your descriptions, Jesus's early life is far more real than I had acquired in my first 60 years of Sunday School. To walk 4 miles from Nazareth to Sepphoris would take less than an hour for a young man on his way to work or to return home. One could say, based on our modern perspective, that Jesus grew up in a suburb of Sepphoris. Looking forward to No. 4 in this series.
❤😂🎉 Animated Tabor! So good... marching out in full regalía to dig, loved it, smiling ear ta ear kimosabe 😊 Mirriame in Sepphius? Woo wee. How right you are about how that might change one's views, wrapping my mind round it now. I'm so glad I now understand her more as a mother, the family of Jesus, and now, how his craft may have been, moreso... thank you thank you 🙏🏻🌎❤️
I would encourage any of you to take a tour of Israel with Dr. Tabor. I went in 2020 and learned/saw amazing things! One of my favorite places we visited was Tzipori…the mosaics are gorgeous!❤
I’m glad you finally broached this subject. Jewish historians and Coptic traditions can answer many of the questions raised by the New Testament. I suspect you know that material. What you haven’t said is really more interesting.
What I picked from today's broadcast is that, Jesus' lost years may have been spent in Sephoris, a city that was under reconstruction by the Romans. Sephoris was the capital city of the Galilee province and it was destroyed in 4 BC but during the time of Jesus' young age, it started to be rebuilt. And so Jesus as a carpenter (a stone worker) use to move from Nazareth (a village) to Sephoris (the city) to help in the rebuilding.
In my current novel, Mary Messiah, I included Sepphoris in three chapters. I first became aware of Sepphoris (much beloved of Antipas) only six years ago.
Thank you for your insight and knowledge. Sephoris was a jewel in the Decapolis, Hellenized cities of Judea. Likely 4-5 times more people than Nazareth. It was being built by Herod and his son as a city and cultural center. The taxes used to fund construction were levied by Alexander the Alabarch, administrative tax collector--who was the brother of Philo of Alexandria, who sought to blend Torah theology with nascent Hellenistic philosophy: logos, man God sacrifice, resurrection were his themes. Joseph the techtron would surely make sure his sons learned Greek, might even send a son to the Alexandria musea...
Yes but wasn't Nazareth a village built on a ridge. My goodness. If you worked in Sephorus, the walk to work would have been a lot easier than the wall home, uphill in the dark on a rocky path!
Dr Tabor do you need a Red Bull? Just asking because we need more content and you are being slow ❤ just kidding with you haha we support your work and appreciate it!
It seems that Sepphoris was a somewhat Hellenized city, though Jewish (Synagogue, inscriptions in Hebrew). Would Jesus also have been conversant therefore in Greek?
A Wonderful presentation. It is good to hear a scholar present some of the same conclusions I have come to: most important I believe is that Jesus was not a country bumpkin; rather, Jesus was well educated: in fact, I would say he knew Greek, Aramaic, and Hebrew (I would say he was a Hebrew scholar in particular, especially given the arguments with the Pharisees, etc. (probably Shammai’s group), and as well, that he frequented Sepphoris and probably worked there, knew wealthy Greek and Jewish families (who probably hired him). I also think he may have attended a Hebrew school as a child (a Hellenistic style school that taught Greek as well as Tanakh in the style of Hillel) located in Sepphoris. I would even go a rocky step further and say that I think it possible that Herod Antipas knew Jesus was a possible Messiah, and that therefore, he was his lifelong worry, and if I may be so bold to add, I would assert further that Herod the Great may have even tried to arrange a marriage between Antipas and Mary in order to incorporate and secure the Davidic lineage--- in other words, to prevent the birth of Jesus- but of course that is a real stretch.
17:50.. one thing I can never understand is these rebels of small towns or even big cities thinking somehow they were going to rebel against all of Rome and win
I'm astonished at the extent to which this video so firmly sums up ideas about Jesus's background that I have been forming over the last several years (from reading books and watching lectures by various scholars, including Professor Tabor). Two minor points occured to me while watching on this occasion. (1) One of the maps showed a village named Bethlehem perhaps 5 miles east-ish of Nazareth. I had heard of this before, and that the name - 'House of Bread' - was not uncommon in 1st century Palestine (just as 'Milltown' or 'Milton' is common in the UK today). Is this not just as likely a location of Jesus's birth than the Bethlehem near Jerusalem? The possibility of later confusion, accidental or deliberate to fulfil supposed prophesy, seems worth examining. (2) I have heard in past lectures that excavations of 1st-century Nazareth have not found a synagogue. Might Nazarenes not have routinely walked to the synagogue in Sepphoris; might this synagogue not have been the one where Jesus is portrayed as reading a lesson and adding commentary (assuming thhis was a real event)?
Yeah, a craftsman's son does not meet any reasonable definition of "peasant". Doesn't matter if you think he was Joseph's son or not, he was raised as Joseph's son, according to the accounts.
Much use of concrete in 1st century Galilee? Also, a lot of people in rural Southern US were competent in a number of building trades 50-150 years ago. I am 76, grew up in Arkansas Ozarks. Don’t know how strong Jewish trade unions were.
I have to say, I'm at home getting ready to cut firewood and I was thinking about my doctor appointment tomorrow. Doctor never remembers we've had the same conversation 100x. What did you used to do? Hvac Whats daht? You know, your heating and cooling. Ahhh okay gotcha... thats hard work, you do that? Yeah, new construction. Next appointment same conversation and I have to explain hvac again. Now I just say construction because he knows more what I'm talking about. Carpenter. ❤
If you were a contractor for a Roman-hellenistic client in the trade or the construction business, it would be wise to know some Greek! Since more than 300 years ago (Alexander the Great), Greek was the official international language throughout the whole region from Egypt to Syria and beyond - even accepted by the Romans and perhaps more important than English today! The Jews had translated their bible to Greek (Septuagint!), as many of them were more fluent in Greek than Hebrew!
Around the time of the rebellion Sepphoris had a Roman theater - in later periods, bath-houses and mosaic floors ECT certainly not an all Jewish Community but a mix of Greek also. Why would Jesus desire to build or work as a stonemason in that urban city where Hellenistic values began to become prominent . Roman amphitheatres are theatres - large, circular or oval open-air venues with raised seating - built by the ancient Romans. They were used for events such as gladiator combats, venationes (animal slayings) and executions. Why would Jesus be anywhere near there. Just because he lived 4-5 miles away you forget the 365 degree scope of possible other directions that he could have gone to gain employment. He would have never labored there because of his Golden convictions. Why would he use his hands to build stone when it profited nothing. Especially for the Heathen to profit from . No you are seriously mistaken if you think Jesus would do that. He was more likely using his hands in a more Godly Profession despite the wages. Jesus had little reason to care about money except to provide for basic nessecctities of life. Jesus was poor he did not want wealth but wanted the desire to fulfill God's Will and only that. To try and place him in a middle class category is ridiculous, and then try to place him as maybe working in Sepphoris is even more absurd. No I think Jesus learned from the people in that city and probably knew people there but he did not approve of their ideology.p, worshipping other Greek gods and especially if that awful amphitheatre where evil reigned in their lust for bloody games and persecutions. Nothing here to prove not even the History of Jesus, just a bunch of assumptions that taint the REAL JESUS. Jesus never had anything in common in SEPPHORIS Except maybe to save souls from there. Have a nice day. You might want to change your narrative on this topic. This is not Jesus History ♥️🙏
He was a farmer. Most of the parables had to do with farming. One of His brother's sons were farmers. A sun god on floor of a synagogue is not roman culture but pagan culture. helios is a pagan god. not roman. pagan.
The other 70 are the מערה group. The first 70 are the מאת group. The 12 are in the לוק class. And those few like John are in the יענה class. Faith is multi-portioned which is the "first use" meaning of the word "hebrew." There is no Q. The four gospels perfectly describe the lessons as they applied to the portion of faith for their eyes and ears.
Jesus IS John the Baptist raised to new spiritual life, Romans 1:3-4. He received his new name at his new birth Phillipians 2:9-10. Just like we do, Rev. 3:12. Jesus is actually John speaking by the spirit. All tje clues to discovery who Jesus actually is is hidden as clues within the NT. Herod Antipas thought Jesus was John raised from the dead because he was. From spiritual death to new life. Its a hidden story within a story. In Revelation 1 John says "i was in the spirit on the LORDS day" then the spirit (messenger) proceeds to speak thru John who is now Jesus. Its like when Jacob became Israel or Simon became Peter or Saul became Paul. Same thing.
I guess he will speak for himself at some point since the evidence is not evident.... but Jesus was a story teller and spoke against MASONRY.... and lets not forget the passage "The Stones that you builders rejected, is the HEAD CORNERSTONE...."
You didn't explicitly identify the timeframe of the period of Sephoris as a functioning metropolis as compared to Jesus' time. Your implication is that he is somehow because of the proximity of the metropolis not what He is characterized as in the Gospels. Your implication seems to not be specific but only designed to cast dispersion on Jesus' cultural beginnings. Sure he worked there. But the implication that He was somehow corrupted by the influence of the pagan city is pure speculative invention. Quite a cheap shot.
If Josef had some kind of building-crew with a dozen? men, it would have been very positive to have at least one of his offspring literate or at least semi-literate. But it would have been better to bei literate in greek than in aramaic (hebrew was already only cultic). Yes, all speculation, but I think if Jesus could read (and write) in one language, it would have been greek.
Super interesting. It would be great if you could bring in the material on your video "The Lost Years of Jesus" into the context of "Jesus Archaeology." If anyone has not seen that video, it is here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-XLybEyhp3Rg.html
Hmm, wonder if the gospel of Thomas and Qurans reference to young Jesus healing the little bird is flipping the realistic carpenter work then petrofying the real Incarceration or messiah into the prophet lol. Flipping the script perhaps
The timelines in the Gospels I believe are not true as Pilot himself inorder to kill a citizen would need permission from Rome and would send a letter by horse and would have had to wait, you may not believe it but it was not the old west mentality back in Rome , it would have taken atleast 3 weeks or more to even get permission to kill Jesus .
James can you agree or deny archeology finds in United States from Shepherds student documentaries? Would love to hear your input. 💪😇🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏I don't need any proof I know he is real he sits in the sky on his throne and the world is his footstool.Thanks though.Some asked Alexis when Jesus was coming back it said 7 days,7 days ago.Told him better repent and study!He might not have alexa nomore😂
