For almost two thousand years, the events leading up to Jesus's crucifixion have been honoured and celebrated by Christians around the world. The key moments of Jesus's triumphal entry into Jerusalem, his arrest, trial and finally, his crucifixion, have been immortalized in countless films, music and works of art. But recently, a growing number of religious experts and historians have begun to question the established version of events, and they have unearthed a very different story, based on archaeological evidence, contemporary historical records, and clues embedded within the gospels themselves, the last days of Jesus Christ shines a new light on the historical Jesus - to reveal the man behind the myth.
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00:00:00For almost 2,000 years, the story of the last days of Jesus
00:00:07has been celebrated by Christians the world over.
00:00:11This is the fundamental thing. Jesus has to die.
00:00:17But could there be more to this story than meets the eye?
00:00:23Judas!
00:00:25A plot twist that sheds an extraordinary new light
00:00:29on Jesus' final days.
00:00:33The story of the last days of Jesus,
00:00:36as portrayed in the Gospels, does not make sense.
00:00:41And featuring three men with big ambitions.
00:00:45A Roman general who wanted to be emperor.
00:00:49Sejanus is the essence of ambition.
00:00:53The Jewish governor of Galilee.
00:00:57Herod Antipas, he wanted to become king of the Jews.
00:01:01And Jesus.
00:01:05I see Jesus as enormously revolutionary.
00:01:10Caught up in a political power play,
00:01:13hatched by two of the most powerful men in the Roman world.
00:01:27The fateful events leading up to the death of Jesus
00:01:41tell one of the most famous stories of all time.
00:01:45It's known as the Passion.
00:01:50In spring 32 AD,
00:01:54a charismatic preacher named Jesus of Nazareth
00:01:58entered the ancient city of Jerusalem.
00:02:06The first event in the Passion story is Jesus' entry into Jerusalem
00:02:11on the back of a donkey,
00:02:13surrounded by people who are welcoming him into the city.
00:02:18Hailed as the Messiah,
00:02:21Jesus then made his way to the temple,
00:02:25the holiest site in Judaism,
00:02:29where he confronted the money changers.
00:02:33And there is this incident in the temple.
00:02:38He cleanses the temple, meaning he creates trouble.
00:02:41He overthrows tables, he shuts down the entire temple.
00:02:47He says, my house should be a house of prayer,
00:02:50but you've made it into a den of robbers.
00:02:59For almost 24 hours, Jesus and his followers shut down the temple,
00:03:05openly defying the temple priests.
00:03:08Two days later, on the eve of the annual festival of Passover,
00:03:13Jesus gathered his followers for a meal.
00:03:17The next major event is Jesus' last meal with his disciples
00:03:21the night before he dies,
00:03:23and there he takes bread and wine
00:03:25and tells them to remember him when he's gone.
00:03:28Then one of Jesus' closest followers, Judas,
00:03:31who's been with him since the very beginning,
00:03:34betrays him with a kiss.
00:03:39Jesus was arrested by the temple's high priest
00:03:42and handed to the Roman prefect, Pontius Pilate,
00:03:46charged with treason.
00:03:49He was then passed on to the Jewish governor of Galilee,
00:03:53Herod Antipas.
00:03:55But Herod Antipas was unable to prove his guilt
00:03:59and sent him back to the prefect.
00:04:02He's passed back to the Roman prefect, Pontius Pilate,
00:04:06who offers the people the choice to release Jesus.
00:04:10He says, shall I release Barabbas for you instead?
00:04:13The people shout for the death of Jesus.
00:04:17Pilate hands Jesus over to be flogged by his soldiers.
00:04:25He's so beaten up.
00:04:29And a crowd of thorns is put on his head
00:04:32because they're making fun of him
00:04:35and his claim to be king of the Jews.
00:04:38We're told that he carried his cross
00:04:40up to a place called Golgotha
00:04:42where he's crucified.
00:04:45And finally, after a short time, he dies.
00:04:59But for all its familiarity,
00:05:01there's something very strange about this story
00:05:04that suggests there might perhaps be something else going on.
00:05:10When you look at the last week of Jesus' life,
00:05:12you can tick through very quickly the events.
00:05:15But some of the events don't seem to really mesh or add up.
00:05:22Why, when Jesus caused trouble in the temple,
00:05:25wasn't he immediately arrested?
00:05:29He shut the holiest place in Judaism down
00:05:32and no one does anything.
00:05:34Absolutely nothing.
00:05:41And why was Jesus betrayed by his own disciple, Judas?
00:05:49When we think of Judas Iscariot, follower of Jesus,
00:05:53he actually has the responsible position
00:05:56to run the Jesus movement economically.
00:06:00And he turns. He turns against Jesus. Why would he do this?
00:06:04Judas!
00:06:07And why did Pilate, a man famed for his cruelty,
00:06:11offer the people the chance to have Jesus released?
00:06:15Pilate was known as a brutal, ruthless Roman ruler.
00:06:20And yet, we see him in the Gospels,
00:06:23portrayed as weak, vacillating, not sure which way to turn.
00:06:31Pontius Pilate seems like he almost likes Jesus.
00:06:35He keeps wanting to release him.
00:06:37What is that all about?
00:06:38Why wouldn't he just immediately say,
00:06:40what, he claims to be a king?
00:06:41Then we kill people that claim to be kings.
00:06:47The story of the last days of Jesus,
00:06:50as portrayed in the Gospels, does not make sense.
00:06:56The contradictions in this most famous of Gospel stories
00:07:01have baffled historians for generations.
00:07:05Trying to piece together a portrait of the historical Jesus
00:07:10has bamboozled scholars for a good 200 years.
00:07:16There are certain things that scholars agree on.
00:07:20And then there is room for a great deal of argument and speculation.
00:07:26But now, a new interpretation of the last days of Jesus
00:07:30is attempting to resolve some of the mysteries in the Gospels.
00:07:35And it involves events far away from Jerusalem.
00:07:41Everybody looks at the last days of Jesus as if it's a local story.
00:07:46It's not a local story.
00:07:50To many, this new interpretation will come as a surprise.
00:07:55And yet, it draws on historical sources.
00:08:00Archaeology, the history of the last days of Jesus,
00:08:05And yet, it draws on historical sources.
00:08:09Archaeology, and hidden clues in the Gospels themselves.
00:08:16The story of Jesus' final days is a political chess game,
00:08:20hiding in plain sight.
00:08:27The tragic events of this new theory
00:08:30revolve around the interweaving stories of three men.
00:08:35Each with overwhelming ambitions.
00:08:39One is very familiar to us.
00:08:43Jesus.
00:08:48The second is a man who's far less well-known.
00:08:52The Galilean ruler, Herod Antipas.
00:08:56We know from the historical records,
00:08:58particularly not only from the Gospels, but also from Josephus,
00:09:02that Herod Antipas bore a grudge.
00:09:07While the third is missing from the Gospels altogether.
00:09:14Aelius Sejanus, a Roman general
00:09:17who came within touching distance of becoming Emperor of Rome.
00:09:23Sejanus, I think, is a type that would be familiar to anyone
00:09:26who likes a good mafia film.
00:09:30Together, their stories explain the extraordinary events
00:09:35of the last days of Jesus.
00:09:39To understand the remarkable events of Jesus' last days,
00:09:44we must start at the very beginning
00:09:47and explore the world that he grew up in.
00:09:52The world that he grew up in.
00:09:56The world that he grew up in.
00:10:00The world that he grew up in.
00:10:04The world that he grew up in.
00:10:09The Gospels tell us that Jesus spent his childhood in Nazareth,
00:10:13not far from the Sea of Galilee.
00:10:20Today, Nazareth is a bustling town of around 75,000 people.
00:10:27But 2,000 years ago, it was just a backwater, a small village.
00:10:32The Jesus we think we know was the poor son of a humble carpenter.
00:10:39But a recent archaeological discovery challenges that view.
00:10:47The Nazareth of 2,000 years ago is mostly gone.
00:10:52But buried beneath this ancient convent
00:10:55lie the remains of an extraordinary stone dwelling.
00:10:59That, to Professor James Tabor, suggests a remarkable possibility.
00:11:08Behind me here is one of the most fascinating sites in the Holy Land.
00:11:15These are the remains of a first-century house.
00:11:19It's been dated, I think, fairly reliably to the time of Jesus.
00:11:23Tabor believes that this house must have been extremely important to early Christians.
00:11:30Above and all around us, you have construction of Byzantine churches.
00:11:36That's 4th, 5th century.
00:11:38And the question is, what is this? Why would it be preserved?
00:11:43Why would you build churches over the remains of early Christians?
00:11:50Why would you build churches over the remains of a house cut out of the hillside here?
00:11:57And I think the only logical explanation is that people are thinking
00:12:03this could very well be either the house of Jesus or Mary.
00:12:10And that's why it's preserved.
00:12:15No-one can know for sure if this was the house Jesus lived in.
00:12:20But its construction challenges the idea that Nazareth was entirely poor.
00:12:26All of us would like to have a house made out of stone.
00:12:29And so I think, in that sense, it tells us that Nazareth is a prosperous place.
00:12:37This idea that Jesus was so dirt poor and he was illiterate
00:12:42and he could not even hardly, you know, make a living,
00:12:46I think that's very unlikely.
00:12:49And he does have a trade.
00:12:52But what was that trade?
00:12:56The description in the Gospels isn't as clear-cut as we are led to believe.
00:13:03Jesus is referred to in the Gospels as a tectone or a carpenter or a builder, stonemason.
00:13:09His father also has this trade.
00:13:112,000 years ago, a tectone could have been a wealthy building contractor,
00:13:16not necessarily a humble carpenter.
00:13:21So if that's the case, that he's working in the building trades,
00:13:24I think we can assume that he has a modest and reasonable livelihood and way of life.
00:13:33But, rich or poor, there was one thing that everyone in ancient Galilee had in common.
00:13:39Paying taxes.
00:13:43The average Galilean had to pay many different layers of taxes.
00:13:47There were religious taxes, transit taxes, there were toll taxes,
00:13:52so many, many different tax burdens on people.
00:13:57The Jewish historian Josephus tells us that taxes were gathered
00:14:01by men called publicans or tax farmers.
00:14:04Some of their methods of gathering the tax were little more than gangsters and extortion,
00:14:10and so it's not at all surprising that most ordinary people absolutely hated them.
00:14:19This everyday brutality was a reminder that Nazareth and the surrounding region
00:14:27was ruled by Rome.
00:14:30Rome was the world's one and only superpower.
00:14:34Its empire stretched across the Mediterranean and beyond.
00:14:41Rome, when Jesus was born, was probably the greatest power on the face of the planet.
00:14:46It's been estimated that anything up to the size of a human being
00:14:50could have been born in Rome.
00:14:52Rome, when Jesus was born, was probably the greatest power on the face of the planet.
00:14:56It's been estimated that anything up to a quarter of the population of the world at the time
00:15:02was ruled from the city on the Tiber.
00:15:07The Roman empire that Jesus grew up in was ruled by the great emperor Augustus.
00:15:14This massive wall is the autobiography of the emperor Augustus,
00:15:19but what it details is his life, his successes politically, militarily.
00:15:24It also underlines what he paid for, what he built, the games that he gave to the people.
00:15:30He restored over 80 temples.
00:15:33He also created basilicas, roads, and sewer lines.
00:15:39He really transforms the city into something new.
00:15:44But what this list doesn't say is where the money came from.
00:15:49From people like the Jews in Judea.
00:15:53There are many different forms of taxation in the Roman provinces,
00:15:57and sometimes it was downright oppressive.
00:16:01And the people of Judea and Galilee suffered as much as anyone.
00:16:07Right around the birth of Jesus,
00:16:09a delegation was sent from Judea all the way to Rome
00:16:12to complain about how excessive the taxes had become.
00:16:17Those who failed to pay Rome's crippling taxes
00:16:21faced the most brutal punishment going,
00:16:25crucifixion.
00:16:27Now, in Judea, the Jews would stone people to death when they're condemned.
00:16:31But the Romans, they bring in something new.
00:16:33They bring in something totally alien, and that is crucifixion.
00:16:37It's absolutely horrific.
00:16:39Nails going through your flesh and bone.
00:16:42The agony of the executioner.
00:16:45The agony of the executioner.
00:16:47The agony of the executioner.
00:16:49The agony of the executioner.
00:16:51The agony of the executioner.
00:16:53Nails going through your flesh and bone.
00:16:56The agony, the sheer agony of being suspended by your own weight,
00:17:00and eventually you giving in and your organs are dragged down
00:17:03and you're going to asphyxiate.
00:17:05It's got to be one of the most horrible ways to die.
00:17:08They could even leave your body to rot until it's picked apart by the birds.
00:17:13And Jesus was born at a time when crucifixion was at its height.
00:17:26Crucifixion would have been fairly commonplace in first-century society.
00:17:30It wouldn't have been uncommon to see people strung up at crossroads,
00:17:35in prominent places, and you could be crucified
00:17:38because you were a slave or a general robber
00:17:42who had somehow fallen foul of the law.
00:17:56But the greatest influence on the young Jesus was religion.
00:18:00And the Gospels contain more clues that Jesus was far more than a Christian.
00:18:05And the Gospels contain more clues
00:18:07that Jesus was far more than an illiterate carpenter's son.
00:18:15In Paul's letter to the Galatians,
00:18:18he says that Jesus was brought up under the law,
00:18:22meaning he was a descendant of David.
00:18:25He was a Jew and kept Jewish law.
00:18:35He was brought up at the age of 12 in the synagogue.
00:18:38There he is discussing the interpretation of the Jewish law, the Torah.
00:18:48So in the Gospel of Luke,
00:18:50Jesus teaches the teachers of the law when he has his bar mitzvah.
00:18:57And when Jesus was teaching,
00:18:59the Jewish religion was in a state of upheaval.
00:19:06The religious scene in Judea and Galilee in the 1st century
00:19:09was extremely complicated.
00:19:12There were all sorts of different ways of being Jewish.
00:19:16There were competing groups.
00:19:18It was a very dynamic religious culture.
00:19:27Sitting on top of this religious structure were the Sadducees.
00:19:36The Sadducees were very conservative.
00:19:38They tended to be wealthy aristocrats,
00:19:41very closely allied to Rome and Rome's interests,
00:19:45much less liked by the ordinary people.
00:19:50And it was these hated collaborators
00:19:53who had a complete monopoly of Jerusalem's holy temple.
00:19:58Behind me is the holiest site in Judaism.
00:20:01It's the western wall of what used to be the outer wall
00:20:05to the temple which stood above it, the holy temple.
00:20:10And this was the center of Judaism.
00:20:12This was the house of God where heaven and earth met.
00:20:20Now, for the first time in a thousand years,
00:20:24you've got a crisis where the people do not regard
00:20:28the priesthood as legitimate.
00:20:36And so it seems possible that Jesus,
00:20:39far from being a poor carpenter's son,
00:20:42was, in all likelihood, an educated preacher.
00:20:54Who lived in a violent world
00:20:57and believed that it was time for things to change.
00:21:12The second player in our story
00:21:14was destined to play a pivotal role in the death of Jesus.
00:21:18And he would have been well known to every Jew in Galilee.
00:21:24Herod Antipas.
00:21:27So Herod Antipas, dear old Herod Antipas,
00:21:31he is one of the sons of Herod the Great
00:21:34who was basically given a licence to rule.
00:21:38The Romans gave many client kings and rulers licences,
00:21:43essentially, to do the will of Rome,
00:21:46keep the peace and live rather privileged lives
00:21:51in their territory.
00:21:55In the Gospels, Herod Antipas only appears briefly
00:21:59in Jesus' story and seems unimportant.
00:22:06But Herod Antipas was in fact a very important figure in Galilee
00:22:11and he had a burning ambition to be king of all Judea.
00:22:18Herod Antipas is a very interesting historical figure,
00:22:21you know, worthy of a Shakespeare.
00:22:23He is the son of Herod the Great.
00:22:26He wants to be great.
00:22:28He wants to be like Dad.
00:22:30He wants to rule.
00:22:31He wants to be king of the Jews.
00:22:33And yet he's frustrated.
00:22:34He can't be.
00:22:35He's got a title that's kind of a governor kind of title.
00:22:42When Herod Antipas' father, Herod the Great, died,
00:22:46there was a violent uprising in Judea
00:22:49and the Emperor Augustus was quick to act.
00:22:53He stamped out the rebellion
00:22:55and divided Herod the Great's land between his three sons,
00:23:00giving Herod Antipas just two small territories to govern.
00:23:07Unlike Herod the Great,
00:23:08Herod Antipas was not the king of the Judeans
00:23:12ruling this vast territory.
00:23:14He was only given a little pocket handkerchief of territory
00:23:18in Galilee and another one on the other side of the Jordan River,
00:23:22in Peria.
00:23:23We know from the historical records,
00:23:25particularly not only from the Gospels but also from Josephus,
00:23:29that it rubbed him the wrong way all of his life.
00:23:33He wanted to reclaim the title king of the Jews.
00:23:41And around Jesus' 18th birthday,
00:23:44an earth-shattering event in Rome
00:23:47gave Herod Antipas the opportunity he'd been looking for.
00:24:10In 14 AD, the great Roman Emperor, Augustus, died.
00:24:18After the death of Augustus,
00:24:20there was a big period of mourning,
00:24:22not just in Rome but the entire empire.
00:24:27This is a person who ended generations of civil wars
00:24:31and now, who's going to fill in those shoes?
00:24:36Augustus' will named his 56-year-old stepson, Tiberius,
00:24:41as his successor.
00:24:48Tiberius is, by blood,
00:24:51among the most eminent men in the Republic.
00:24:54By virtue of his military achievement,
00:24:57he's incomparably the greatest general.
00:25:02Tiberius may have been a legend as a soldier,
00:25:06but he had little interest in running an empire.
00:25:12Tiberius becoming the emperor at 56,
00:25:15well, he's no spring chicken, he's not the young enthusiast.
00:25:18I mean, this is a guy whose reign is marked
00:25:21by being a person that's sombre, moody, gloomy.
00:25:26Even to the most brilliant of Roman historians,
00:25:29he seems an enigma,
00:25:31a man who is simultaneously honourable and dishonourable,
00:25:35a man who is motivated by a sense of duty
00:25:38and yet constantly seems to want to run away from it.
00:25:46Not long into his reign,
00:25:50Tiberius appointed a young soldier
00:25:53as head of the Praetorian Guard,
00:25:56his elite bodyguard.
00:26:00This soldier would go on to dominate Roman politics.
00:26:06But you won't find his name in the Gospels,
00:26:09because it was erased from Roman history.
00:26:13His name was Lucius Aelius Sejanus.
00:26:18And what happened to Sejanus
00:26:20not only had an effect on Herod Antipas's ambitions to be king,
00:26:24but also the last days of Jesus.
00:26:29Lucius Aelius Sejanus is a man of considerable ability.
00:26:34He is presented in the sources
00:26:36almost as kind of the essence of ambition.
00:26:39He seems to consist of nothing else.
00:26:43But Tiberius would not have sponsored him
00:26:46had Sejanus not had talents
00:26:49that would serve Tiberius's purposes very well.
00:26:54From the outset, it was clear
00:26:56that Sejanus had ambitions far above his station.
00:27:01And he quickly made a bold strategic move.
00:27:05The Praetorian Guard under Augustus
00:27:07was really a bodyguard system.
00:27:09But under Sejanus,
00:27:11the Praetorian Guard takes on an entirely new aspect.
00:27:15Sejanus moved his soldiers within Rome's city walls.
00:27:22The Praetorian Guard were typically stationed
00:27:24in towns surrounding and outside of Rome
00:27:26that could be called up on immediate notice to serve the emperor.
00:27:30But that all changes under Sejanus.
00:27:32Under his watch, for the first time,
00:27:34barracks are being built within the city limits,
00:27:36right here where I'm standing.
00:27:38And that is a big, bold, powerful statement.
00:27:41Whereas before the military was hidden away from the city,
00:27:44now they're living in it.
00:27:46It wasn't long before Sejanus was expanding his military muscle.
00:27:51He literally doubles the number.
00:27:53So now you're getting up to 10,000 of elite veteran forces
00:27:57within the city limits.
00:27:59Rome is now a militarized city.
00:28:06Soon, there were whispers
00:28:08that Sejanus had designs on the imperial throne.
00:28:14In 19 AD, Tiberius's adopted son
00:28:18and darling of the people, Germanicus,
00:28:21died unexpectedly from a mystery illness.
00:28:25Germanicus is sent east to Syria,
00:28:28and it's there, among seriously interesting circumstances,
00:28:32that he does become ill and dies.
00:28:34And immediately the charge is, he was poisoned.
00:28:39Although Sejanus was careful to avoid blame,
00:28:42fingers started to point
00:28:44when Tiberius's other son, Drusus, was also killed.
00:28:50It would be said that Sejanus had played a role
00:28:53in eliminating perhaps his most obvious rival, Drusus.
00:28:58And if we are to trust the stories that were later told,
00:29:03Sejanus had then plotted with Drusus's own wife to poison him.
00:29:09Drusus was poisoned.
00:29:11Sejanus was poisoned.
00:29:13Sejanus had then plotted with Drusus's own wife to poison him.
00:29:19Certainly, it was a story that was widely believed.
00:29:25Whether Sejanus was involved in the deaths of his rivals or not,
00:29:30he was now within touching distance
00:29:32of taking control of the Roman Empire.
00:29:36Meanwhile, in the Roman province of Judea,
00:29:39Jesus was still a relatively unknown preacher.
00:29:43But all that was about to change.
00:29:50The Gospels tell us that, at around the age of 30,
00:29:54Jesus went to watch his cousin preach,
00:29:57the charismatic Jewish leader now known as John the Baptist.
00:30:03John the Baptist is a priest in the Jewish faith.
00:30:08He's the son of a priest.
00:30:10As far as we know, though, he rejected that calling.
00:30:14Instead, he feels the call to go out into the desert,
00:30:18out into the wilderness.
00:30:20And apparently, he is convinced that he's been called as a prophet
00:30:25to proclaim the imminent destruction of the Roman Empire.
00:30:30To proclaim the imminent coming of the Kingdom of God.
00:30:34And the Gospels list all of the regions around the country
00:30:38where people are flocking to hear John.
00:30:46John was popular because he was the head of a new religious movement
00:30:51with a revolutionary message.
00:30:56When we first encounter John in the New Testament,
00:30:59he's down here at the River Jordan,
00:31:01dipping people, baptizing people in the water.
00:31:06Think of it as an initiation rite.
00:31:09You come down here to the River Jordan,
00:31:11and you're baptized by John the Baptizer.
00:31:14Then you have joined this, what they called, a new covenant movement.
00:31:19John is proclaiming that the end of the age is near.
00:31:24That the Kingdom of God is ready to be set up.
00:31:29John's message was simple but powerful.
00:31:32Collaborate with Rome at your peril,
00:31:35because God is about to judge us all.
00:31:40And while the righteous shall rule the earth,
00:31:43the wicked will perish.
00:31:48Jesus himself follows the career of John.
00:31:52He knows about it.
00:31:54And he finally decides, I'm joining up, basically.
00:31:58And he comes down here to the River Jordan,
00:32:01and he himself is baptized by John.
00:32:09What we get in the Gospel of Mark is this extraordinary story
00:32:13of Jesus basically sort of arriving, coming out of the crowd
00:32:17in the River Jordan.
00:32:20The heavens are split open,
00:32:23and the Holy Spirit descends out of the heavens
00:32:28upon him like a dove.
00:32:31And from that moment on, everything changes for Jesus.
00:32:36He knows that he needs to do something.
00:32:43The New Testament is a new covenant.
00:32:47The New Testament records that he has this spiritual epiphany.
00:32:51But what's very clear is he's definitively casting his lot
00:32:56with John and with the movement,
00:32:58and that indeed marks the beginning
00:33:00of this revolutionary movement.
00:33:03The Kingdom of God is near.
00:33:05Repent. The time is at hand.
00:33:17And around the same time that Jesus found his calling,
00:33:22the emperor of Rome received a sign from his gods,
00:33:26a sign that would leave the ambitious Sejanus
00:33:30one step closer to the throne.
00:33:39In 26 AD, Sejanus was a young man
00:33:44In 26 AD, Sejanus was attending a dinner party
00:33:48at Tiberius' villa overlooking the Mediterranean.
00:33:54Tiberius and his guests were lying there eating
00:33:58when suddenly disaster strikes.
00:34:02There is an earthquake.
00:34:04A great cascade of rocks come bouncing down the slopes of the hill.
00:34:08The Praetorians saw what was happening
00:34:10and in high state of alarm came rushing forward,
00:34:12but it was too late.
00:34:13It seemed that Tiberius had been crushed to death
00:34:16beneath this vast cascade of rubble.
00:34:18But when they started picking away the rocks,
00:34:20they find an astonishing scene.
00:34:22They found that Tiberius, prostrate,
00:34:26had been sheltered by somebody's body
00:34:29who'd leapt to cover him.
00:34:31And that person was Sejanus.
00:34:33And Sejanus, as well as Tiberius, had survived the avalanche.
00:34:38Any suspicion that the Emperor Tiberius couldn't trust Sejanus
00:34:42was swept away by the avalanche.
00:34:46And from that point on, Tiberius could be absolutely certain
00:34:50in Sejanus' loyalty.
00:34:52He had proved it, even to the point of risking his own life.
00:35:00Tiberius' brush with death brought him to a momentous decision.
00:35:06Life was too short to be running an empire.
00:35:14Tiberius is a man who is alert to the signs that are sent by the gods
00:35:20and it seems probable that the earthquake and the resulting avalanche
00:35:28seem to have confirmed him in his opinions
00:35:30that he should not return to Rome.
00:35:33And certainly it's the case that from then on until his death in AD 37,
00:35:38Tiberius never does set foot back within the sacred limits of Rome.
00:35:46Sejanus grabbed his opportunity and convinced Tiberius
00:35:50to retire to his luxury island of Capri.
00:35:57Well, once Sejanus has persuaded, encouraged perhaps,
00:36:02Tiberius to move to Capri,
00:36:04it means that he is in a position to control access to the Emperor.
00:36:10The relationship perhaps is that of the mafia boss, Tiberius,
00:36:15here in Capri with Sejanus in Rome as his conciliare.
00:36:23Very quickly, people know that if you want anything done,
00:36:26you're going to have to go to Sejanus.
00:36:29He's virtually the mouthpiece.
00:36:31He's going to stand in for the Emperor himself.
00:36:35And that, of course, gives him incredible power.
00:36:38Essentially, the power that Tiberius wields
00:36:43has been invested in his deputy.
00:36:48Practically running the empire, Sejanus now began calling the shots
00:36:53and high on his list of priorities
00:36:55was keeping the troublesome Judea in check.
00:37:00In 26 AD, Sejanus sent a Roman aristocrat named Pontius Pilate
00:37:06to the Judean port of Caesarea to take control of the region.
00:37:15On arrival in the province,
00:37:17Pilate would have made his headquarters in Caesarea.
00:37:20This was going to be the Roman base,
00:37:22as it had been for all the other prefects before him.
00:37:26This is a replica of a stone
00:37:28that contains our only inscriptional evidence for Pontius Pilate.
00:37:32It was found here at Caesarea in 1961,
00:37:35and what's really interesting about it is that here is Antias Pilatus,
00:37:40which is clearly a reference to Pontius Pilate.
00:37:45The Gospels portray Pilate as a reasonable man.
00:37:49But historical records paint quite a different picture
00:37:53of Sejanus' representative in Judea.
00:37:58The kind of information that we have in Philo of Alexandria
00:38:02or Josephus about Pontius Pilate
00:38:04show him as a pretty cruel and ghastly man.
00:38:11His governorship was a list of atrocities,
00:38:14including executions of prisoners without trial.
00:38:17So you get a very different picture of Pilate
00:38:21from these sources compared to what you have in the Gospels.
00:38:26Pilate's appointment sent a clear message throughout the region...
00:38:32..that there was a new boss in Rome
00:38:34and his man wasn't going to stand for any trouble.
00:38:40Pilate's going to put down insurrection brutally.
00:38:45He's going to be sending out a message,
00:38:47a graphic, gruesome warning.
00:38:53Do not cross the Romans.
00:38:56But while most feared the new regime,
00:38:58the Galilean governor, Herod Antipas,
00:39:01saw it as a golden opportunity to finally claim the Jewish crown.
00:39:1829 AD.
00:39:21And with Rome now under the effective control of Aelius Sejanus,
00:39:26the Galilean ruler, Herod Antipas,
00:39:29now looked to Sejanus to help him finally become king of the Jews.
00:39:36Every shift in the political constellation
00:39:39is very important to Herod Antipas.
00:39:42The political constellation is very important to Herod Antipas.
00:39:47So he believed that Sejanus is about to become the big boss.
00:39:52He wants to ride that gravy train to the ultimate prize,
00:39:56king of the Jews.
00:40:00The story goes, he took a trip to Rome and he fell in love.
00:40:05And the person he fell in love with was a Jewish woman
00:40:08who was in Rome at the time,
00:40:10married to his brother.
00:40:12And he talks her into, leave your husband and marry me.
00:40:16So that's the story we get.
00:40:18That's how Josephus, the historian of the time, reports it.
00:40:23But there are strong clues that the marriage to Herodias
00:40:27was part of Herod Antipas' long-held plan to become king.
00:40:33We've got to ask, who is Herodias?
00:40:36Because there's a political dimension to this
00:40:39that's very important to really understand.
00:40:43His brother's wife, Herodias, is very attractive.
00:40:47She was of royal stock, royal Jewish stock.
00:40:51And that's another reason why he wanted to marry her,
00:40:54to marry into the remaining survivor of the Jewish royal family.
00:41:00And maybe that would give him greater credibility
00:41:03and greater legitimacy in the eyes of Rome, as well as his people.
00:41:10The couple travelled to Rome,
00:41:13where it appears that Sejanus agreed to the controversial marriage.
00:41:20Herod Antipas would not have done this
00:41:24unless there was permission at the highest levels of the imperial court.
00:41:29You've got to look to Rome.
00:41:31They're the bosses.
00:41:33The underlings don't do things without getting the OK from the bosses.
00:41:39But if Herod Antipas hoped the marriage would strengthen his bond
00:41:43with the Jewish people, he was wrong.
00:41:48Because back home, the marriage was publicly criticised
00:41:53by none other than Jesus' influential cousin,
00:41:57the hugely popular John the Baptist.
00:42:02John the Baptist doesn't go along.
00:42:04He says, it says, according to Jewish law,
00:42:07you cannot marry your brother's wife while he's still alive.
00:42:12And I'm not giving an inch on that.
00:42:18John couldn't remain loyal to the Torah
00:42:22and to the laws of the Bible
00:42:26unless Herod Antipas' marriage to his sister.
00:42:32With the popular preacher against him,
00:42:35Herod Antipas' plans to woo the Jewish people were now in tatters.
00:42:43We should remember that Herod Antipas, most of all,
00:42:47wants to be king of the Jews.
00:42:50Now a very popular prophet and preacher, John the Baptist,
00:42:55is telling crowds of people that he's living in sin
00:42:59and wickedness and adultery.
00:43:02If the population suddenly rises up and says no,
00:43:06then his whole thing will fall through.
00:43:09So it's not just a moral point,
00:43:12it's actually upsetting his whole life's project, potentially.
00:43:16So it's a very, very serious threat.
00:43:24Reacting to John the Baptist's continued criticism,
00:43:28Herod Antipas had him arrested.
00:43:43Herod Antipas is canny and he's really getting rid of John
00:43:49before anything troubling happens, before there's a revolution.
00:43:54John was imprisoned in a hilltop fortress
00:43:58overlooking the Dead Sea called Machaerus.
00:44:02Herod Antipas takes him across the Jordan to a desert fortress.
00:44:08But now Herod Antipas had to decide whether John lived or died.
00:44:14And I think he wants time to think. What is he going to do?
00:44:18Should he kill him?
00:44:20What if a full-scale revolt breaks out as a result of him killing him?
00:44:24Maybe that's not the right move.
00:44:26He's probably got his eye toward Rome again.
00:44:30What would Sejanus think? What would the emperor think?
00:44:34Is this the move to make?
00:44:37If he just wanted to kill him, he could have killed him on day one.
00:44:41If he wanted to set him free, if he thought he was no threat,
00:44:44he could have let him go.
00:44:46But he doesn't kill John.
00:44:49But Herod Antipas may also have had another very good reason for keeping John alive.
00:44:56And that was his large number of followers.
00:45:01Herod Antipas doesn't want to kill John.
00:45:04Why? Because John has a following.
00:45:07Very simple. There's muscle behind John.
00:45:11So before he's going to execute him, he better be careful.
00:45:15So the hesitancy that Herod Antipas shows means that there's a political play at hand.
00:45:45With John the Baptist in jail, we're told his followers now rallied to a new leader,
00:45:51Jesus, now in his thirties.
00:45:57We find him very early on with a very simple political message.
00:46:02Repent. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent.
00:46:08But while Jesus' message might have been the same as John's,
00:46:12his methods were different.
00:46:15Because instead of waiting for the people to come to him,
00:46:18Jesus sent his message out to the people by assembling a team of apostles or disciples.
00:46:28An apostle is someone sent out instead of Jesus.
00:46:32Their job description is not just to be a follower and not just to be a disciple,
00:46:38but to be someone who goes out instead of Jesus,
00:46:41because he can't get around all the towns and villages.
00:46:46Equally significant is the number of apostles Jesus chose.
00:46:52Jesus picks a number of individuals. Twelve. Significant number. A symbolic number.
00:47:00I think the idea of the twelve is very important because it recalls the twelve tribes of Israel.
00:47:12The twelve former tribes of ancient Israel that, it was prophesied,
00:47:16would one day be reunited under the kingdom of God.
00:47:21Suggesting that in that kingdom, the disciples would be more than just messengers.
00:47:28He says, you're going to sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.
00:47:32This is not just some pious thought about an afterlife or heaven or some other world.
00:47:37It's a government.
00:47:41He's doing something very, very sophisticated.
00:47:43He surrounds himself with a spectrum of everybody kind of from left to right,
00:47:49from revolutionary to anti-revolutionary.
00:47:52He's positioning himself to achieve his agenda.
00:47:59This is the cadre of the new government of the transformed world that Jesus is talking about.
00:48:12After more than a year in prison, John the Baptist's fate was finally sealed.
00:48:18And according to the Gospels, it was Herod Antipas' new wife, Herodias, who was responsible.
00:48:26The New Testament story surrounding the death of John the Baptist is very dramatic.
00:48:32There's a birthday party at the fortress of Machairas where he's being held.
00:48:38And Herodias arranges for her daughter to dance for Herod.
00:48:44We can only imagine this dance.
00:48:47But Herod is so moved by it, he says,
00:48:50I'll give you anything you want, up to half my kingdom.
00:48:54And Herodias more or less whispers in Salome's ear,
00:48:59Ask for the head of John the Baptist. I want it brought in on a platter right now.
00:49:04And that's what she asked for, and that's what was done.
00:49:08But the reason for John's death might have been less to do with a wronged woman
00:49:13and more to a shift in the religious landscape.
00:49:21I think the time gap, one year, is very, very significant because something happened there.
00:49:27We've got to fill it in. What happened?
00:49:31Two things may happen in this one year wait.
00:49:34Number one, it becomes clear to Herod Antipas that John won't play along.
00:49:39He's not going to bless this marriage.
00:49:42And secondly, there's another rising star.
00:49:44While he's in jail, it's John the Baptist's cousin Jesus
00:49:48why he's gathering the crowds that John used to.
00:49:52So this gives Herod Antipas two reasons to say,
00:49:56Well, maybe I don't need him anymore.
00:50:19From the Gospels, we learn that Herod Antipas,
00:50:22From the Gospels, we learn that Herod Antipas,
00:50:25was keeping a close eye on Jesus.
00:50:30Someone like Herod Antipas would have had a whole network of spies and informers
00:50:35keeping him abreast of exactly what was happening within his realm.
00:50:39And so you can imagine that somebody like Jesus,
00:50:42who has a great following, he's got crowds wherever he went,
00:50:46would have very quickly come to Herod Antipas' attention.
00:50:49And we are told in the Gospels that Antipas wanted to hear Jesus.
00:50:53He was keen to meet him.
00:50:57But the Gospels go even further,
00:51:00telling us that Herod Antipas had people close to him
00:51:03actually embedded within Jesus' movement.
00:51:08What's more, they were funding Jesus and his disciples.
00:51:13It takes a lot of money to have 12 disciples,
00:51:16and there's all their wives and all their kids.
00:51:18You're running around with 100, 200, 300 followers.
00:51:21Somebody's got to pay for this.
00:51:24And we're even told the name of the person footing the bill,
00:51:28a woman from Herod Antipas' inner circle.
00:51:32The Gospel of Luke tells us that his movement was funded by wealthy women.
00:51:37There was Johanna, and Johanna was the wife of Cusa,
00:51:42the chief of staff of Herod Antipas.
00:51:46That's a very interesting connection.
00:51:49That means that Jesus is hanging out with the wife of the guy,
00:51:55Cusa, who's running the whole government at the time.
00:52:00This woman is a politically connected person,
00:52:03that she can turn on and off the backing, the money, the political support.
00:52:10This hints at a very interesting link, perhaps,
00:52:14between Jesus and the most powerful man in the land, Herod Antipas.
00:52:22And according to early Christian sources,
00:52:25Johanna wasn't the only direct link between Jesus and Herod Antipas.
00:52:30Incredibly, the man who would later start the first Christian church outside Judea
00:52:36was Herod Antipas' own foster brother, Mannion.
00:52:42Mannion turns up in the Acts of the Apostles as an early disciple of Jesus,
00:52:48and it's said that he grew up with Herod Antipas.
00:52:53If he was an aristocrat associated with Herod Antipas,
00:52:58that's very, very interesting.
00:53:02Jesus not just has access to fishermen,
00:53:05he has access to the highest echelons of power at the time.
00:53:13After hearing of John the Baptist's death,
00:53:16Jesus' mission began to take on a new urgency.
00:53:22We're told in the Gospels,
00:53:24that the word is taken to Jesus.
00:53:26He gets the horrible news.
00:53:28This is his relative, the person he's worked with, and now he's dead.
00:53:34Now everything falls on the shoulders of Jesus.
00:53:37He essentially is thinking,
00:53:40is it up to me now to take over this movement?
00:53:43Remember, there's a singular movement.
00:53:45I would call it a messianic political movement of revolution.
00:53:49I would call it a messianic political movement of revolution.
00:53:53Who's now going to be in charge?
00:53:55It's very clear he realizes,
00:53:57you know, I now will have to do what John was doing.
00:54:04And he begins to accelerate his ministry.
00:54:08I think he really believes, more than ever, the time is at hand.
00:54:13But crucially for Jesus, two big obstacles remained.
00:54:19In Jesus' mission, he has two main targets.
00:54:22One, of course, is the occupying Roman force.
00:54:33And secondly, he has in mind the religious establishment.
00:54:37Those who were concerned more with ritual niceties,
00:54:41rather than the more ethical nature of the Jewish law.
00:54:49Jesus' first target was those rulers of the temple in Jerusalem,
00:54:53the Sadducees, led by the despised high priest, Caiaphas.
00:55:01I see Jesus as enormously revolutionary.
00:55:05He is placing himself among those
00:55:09who are disempowered and marginalized in the present world order.
00:55:13And he is saying, these people are my people,
00:55:17and those people who are in charge right now are not moral.
00:55:22They're not on the side of God.
00:55:24They're abusing their power.
00:55:26They're exploiting the weak and the marginal and the poor.
00:55:30He's talking about regime change.
00:55:32That's what's on his mind.
00:55:34And his disciples are going to help him spearhead this.
00:55:38Then, about a year after John's death,
00:55:42Jesus did something so extraordinary.
00:55:46It ranks as one of the greatest mysteries in the New Testament.
00:55:51He delivered himself into the hands of his enemies
00:55:55by entering the temple in Jerusalem.
00:56:08JERUSALEM
00:56:15After years of avoiding trouble,
00:56:17the rural preacher, Jesus, now headed south
00:56:21for the Judean capital, Jerusalem.
00:56:26Something very significant in Jesus' decision to go into Jerusalem.
00:56:31Until that point, he not only avoids Jerusalem,
00:56:35he avoids all big cities in the Galilee.
00:56:38He doesn't go to Sepphoris. He doesn't go to Tiberias.
00:56:40He seems to have a conscious strategy,
00:56:43and that strategy is to stick to the little villages and the small towns.
00:56:49In John, chapter 7, verse 1,
00:56:52it states that Jesus knew a visit to Jerusalem would result in his death.
00:56:58John, his brothers taunt him.
00:57:00You know, if you are who you say you are, what are you doing over here?
00:57:04Why don't you go to Jerusalem?
00:57:05And he explicitly tells us why he doesn't.
00:57:08He says, I feel in danger.
00:57:10My life would be in danger if I went to Jerusalem.
00:57:14Suddenly, he doesn't have a pot face.
00:57:17He actually decides to go straight to Jerusalem, the capital.
00:57:23The Gospels tell us that Jesus arrived to find the city bristling with worshippers,
00:57:28gathered to celebrate the Jewish festival of Passover.
00:57:422,000 years ago, on these very streets,
00:57:472,000 years ago, on these very steps,
00:57:50hundreds of thousands of Jewish pilgrims
00:57:53came from all over the world,
00:57:55from as far as Africa and Rome and Parthia,
00:57:58to these steps that led up to the temple.
00:58:01Right through here stood the temple, the house of God,
00:58:04the holiest place in Judaism.
00:58:09At the same time, it's so much tension here
00:58:11because the place is run by pagans.
00:58:13So much tension here because the place is run by pagans, by Romans.
00:58:16They're pushing them around. They're in control.
00:58:19They're occupying the temple mount.
00:58:21It's a spiritual high in a politically tense time.
00:58:26And it's precisely this tension
00:58:28which makes Jesus' next move so inexplicable,
00:58:32baffling many scholars.
00:58:36Because he headed straight for Jerusalem's sacred temple,
00:58:41where he launched a violent attack on the money changers,
00:58:45the people who enabled pilgrims to buy animals for ritual sacrifice.
00:58:52One of the most radical things that Jesus does
00:58:55is he puts the currency converters out of business.
00:59:05He overturns the tables of the money changers and the pigeon sellers,
00:59:09and he says, my house should be a house of prayer,
00:59:12but you've made it into a den of robbers.
00:59:14And that's a very, very radical step
00:59:16because it's an assault upon the priesthood.
00:59:20Imagine if right now I walked into this money changer
00:59:23and started smashing the place up.
00:59:25I mean, I would be pinned to the ground
00:59:27and seconds there would be soldiers all over me.
00:59:30I think my life would be in danger
00:59:32as Jerusalem then, as now, was a high-tension place.
00:59:39And yet, according to the Gospels,
00:59:42the temple guards did absolutely nothing to stop Jesus.
00:59:47It's hard to imagine what the priestly class,
00:59:51and particularly Caiaphas, the high priest,
00:59:53what they would have thought of this, they witnessed it,
00:59:56and they seemed to just stand back and let it happen.
01:00:00So how do we explain this mystery?
01:00:03Why was Jesus allowed to get away with such a serious crime?
01:00:08One possible answer lies with unfolding events back in Rome.
01:00:19By the autumn of 31 AD,
01:00:22the emperor's right-hand man, Sejanus,
01:00:25was on the brink of assuming complete control of the empire.
01:00:29By October 31, it appears that Sejanus is within reach
01:00:35of the ultimate prize.
01:00:37He is consul, he is a senator,
01:00:40he has established himself as a favourite of the masses.
01:00:44Above all, though, he is the favoured one of Tiberius.
01:00:51And so it seems to many in Rome,
01:00:54not just that Sejanus is the deputy of the emperor,
01:01:01but that he is moving towards a position
01:01:04where his power might almost rival that of the emperor himself.
01:01:15Now there were rumours that the emperor in exile
01:01:18was no longer fit to govern.
01:01:22Stories are told about what Tiberius got up to on Capri
01:01:26that to this day are incredibly shocking.
01:01:29I mean, far too shocking for me to talk,
01:01:32even on the most adult of channels.
01:01:35And they've really served to blacken Tiberius' reputation for good.
01:01:43The sources for these stories are principally two historians,
01:01:47Tacitus and Suetonius.
01:01:49Suetonius in particular is a kind of very tabloid historian
01:01:53who absolutely revels in the filthy things
01:01:56that great men are supposed to have done.
01:01:59But it's really bred of a deep-seated Roman assumption
01:02:03that someone with political power who is craving privacy
01:02:08can only be doing it for one reason,
01:02:10and that reason must be that he's an enormous pervert.
01:02:18But why would this potential change of emperor in Rome
01:02:22stop the Roman guards from arresting Jesus inside the temple?
01:02:29According to a new theory,
01:02:31this mystery can be explained by a possible deal
01:02:35between Herod Antipas and the emperor-in-waiting Sejanus.
01:02:42A deal hinted at by more than one first-century historian.
01:02:51The idea that Herod Antipas and Sejanus were co-conspirators,
01:02:55that's not a new idea.
01:02:57Philo talks about it, Josephus talks about it.
01:03:00The nephew of Herod Antipas accuses Herod Antipas
01:03:04before the new emperor Caligula,
01:03:08my uncle conspired with Sejanus.
01:03:13So what were Herod Antipas and Sejanus conspiring about?
01:03:19The clues stretch back to the marriage of Herod Antipas
01:03:23into Jewish royalty.
01:03:27To the arrest of John the Baptist.
01:03:30And to the presence of people close to Herod Antipas
01:03:34among Jesus' followers.
01:03:38Clues that point to an agreement between Herod Antipas and Sejanus
01:03:43to allow Herod Antipas to fulfil his lifelong ambition
01:03:47of becoming king of the Jews.
01:03:50And which required the two men to support Jesus
01:03:54in his efforts to rid the temple of Caiaphas and the high priests.
01:04:04Because with Jesus running the temple,
01:04:07Herod Antipas could deliver Sejanus,
01:04:10a trouble-free, tax-paying Judea.
01:04:18Judea is constantly rising in revolution.
01:04:22Constantly.
01:04:25The last thing that Sejanus needs the day after he grabs power
01:04:29is for some messiah figure to say,
01:04:31this is the moment, there's a transition in Rome,
01:04:34let's go for it, revolution.
01:04:36That's the last thing he needs, he doesn't need that.
01:04:39So if he can get a deal with Antipas,
01:04:42and by doing that suddenly he's not facing revolution,
01:04:47why not?
01:04:50Riding on the popularity of a religious figure like Jesus
01:04:54also strengthened Herod Antipas' royal bid.
01:05:00If you can harness a popular preacher and say,
01:05:05I'll be the king, you get the temple.
01:05:09You can put into play all your religious reforms
01:05:14and I'll help you get rid of this illegitimate priesthood
01:05:18that nobody likes.
01:05:20Just don't turn those masses against Rome and the crown.
01:05:26And we'll both achieve what we want.
01:05:29Instead of bad rulers and bad priests,
01:05:32we'll have a king of the Jews and a new high priesthood.
01:05:39Interestingly, this idea of two rulers or messiahs,
01:05:43one religious and one political, wasn't new.
01:05:47In fact, in Jesus' day, it was expected.
01:05:53Even though today people think of one messiah, Jews and Christians,
01:05:57you know, messiahs either come or he hadn't come,
01:05:59but it's always one messiah.
01:06:01The time of Jesus, the Bible itself,
01:06:05as well as the Dead Sea Scrolls,
01:06:07universally say that there are actually two messiahs.
01:06:10One is a king of the line of King David,
01:06:13who sits on a throne and carries out more the political side of things,
01:06:17and the other is a priest who's more the spiritual counsellor.
01:06:21And they're expecting both, not one or the other.
01:06:26For now, this new interpretation is just a theory.
01:06:30But if right, then Jesus' takeover of the temple
01:06:34would have been to everyone's advantage.
01:06:38Could this explain why Jesus was left alone?
01:06:43Let's find out.
01:06:54It always seems really odd to me
01:06:56that Jesus comes into Jerusalem
01:06:58and starts making trouble and nobody bothers him.
01:07:01There were soldiers everywhere.
01:07:03There were pilgrims, tens of thousands of pilgrims,
01:07:07and yet nothing happens to Jesus.
01:07:09How can that be?
01:07:11It's a possibility.
01:07:13He had permission from the authorities.
01:07:17Much to the fury of Caiaphas and the temple priests.
01:07:35And I think they're just rocked back on their heels,
01:07:38and they're having secret meetings after that,
01:07:41thinking, how are we going to handle this?
01:07:43What are we going to do?
01:07:46But this new theory also offers a solution
01:07:49to some of the other mysteries associated with Jesus' last days.
01:08:01For one, the Gospels tell us
01:08:04of a remarkable downturn in Jesus' fortunes.
01:08:08Starting with the famous Last Supper,
01:08:11where Jesus stunned his disciples
01:08:14by telling them that their mission was doomed.
01:08:19We have this supper, this Last Supper,
01:08:22where he meets with his disciples.
01:08:25And we have this great weight
01:08:28of a sense that something is about to happen.
01:08:33Jesus clearly knew that his death was coming
01:08:37and he told his disciples that one of them would betray him
01:08:40and that the rest of them would be scattered.
01:08:44Later that evening, just as he predicted,
01:08:47Jesus was betrayed.
01:08:50And soon enough, one of his closest followers, Judas,
01:08:54arrives with an arresting party.
01:08:56They've come out with swords and clubs and torches,
01:09:00and perhaps because it's dark,
01:09:02Judas comes over to Jesus and kisses him.
01:09:08And that's the sign by which
01:09:11all of the arresting party know which person to take.
01:09:27After the Last Supper, just hours before Passover,
01:09:31the busiest day in the Temple calendar,
01:09:34the Gospels tell us that Jesus was tried
01:09:37by the religious authorities on a charge of blasphemy.
01:09:43Found not guilty, he was then brought before Pilate
01:09:47on a new charge of treason.
01:09:50We're at David's Tower,
01:09:52and this is where Jesus would have been tried.
01:09:55I mean, it's amazing that we're right there.
01:09:57This is where it all went down.
01:10:05He's taken to Pilate, according to the Gospel of Mark,
01:10:09at dawn, so it's about 6 a.m. in the morning.
01:10:16He's a guy who's very evil,
01:10:18and yet he treats this one rabbi, this one Jew,
01:10:22with tremendous respect.
01:10:23He doesn't seem to want to kill him.
01:10:26He seems like he almost likes Jesus.
01:10:28He equivocates.
01:10:29He goes in the passageway.
01:10:31He likes Jesus. He equivocates.
01:10:33He goes in the palace and out of the palace.
01:10:35Takes a long time deliberating.
01:10:37Keeps wanting to release him.
01:10:40Given that we have this information about Pontius Pilate
01:10:44that he was pretty awful,
01:10:46why is he presented as such a nice guy in the Gospels?
01:10:52Unable to prove his guilt,
01:10:54Pilate then passed Jesus on to Herod Antipas,
01:10:58who, after questioning, sent him back.
01:11:03Finally, Pilate asked the Jewish crowds what to do with Jesus.
01:11:07They go to Pilate.
01:11:09It's the crowd that then also ask for Barabbas to be released,
01:11:14rather than Jesus as a sort of special bonus for the Passover.
01:11:21That morning, Jesus was taken outside the city gates and crucified.
01:11:28But could all this have really happened in the space of a few hours,
01:11:33as the Gospels suggest?
01:11:37You get this real sense of urgency going quickly.
01:11:41Middle of the night, high priest's house,
01:11:44first thing in the morning, Pilate.
01:11:46According to the Gospel of Mark,
01:11:48Jesus is on the cross at nine o'clock in the morning.
01:11:52It's going from one thing to the next.
01:11:57The problem goes away, though,
01:11:59if the events of the Passion happened not over several days,
01:12:03as has always been believed,
01:12:05but over several months.
01:12:21The Gospels inform us that the events leading up to Jesus' crucifixion
01:12:25took place in the spring, just before Passover.
01:12:32But those behind the theory that Jesus had high-level support for his temple coup
01:12:37believe there are telltale clues within the Gospels
01:12:40that Jesus in fact entered Jerusalem much earlier than spring.
01:12:47If true, then the events of the Passion suddenly make a lot more sense.
01:12:56One of the clues that Jesus, when he comes into Jerusalem,
01:12:59is not coming at the time of Passover,
01:13:01is the fact that the Gospels tell us
01:13:04that he's met by thousands of people
01:13:07who are waving palm fronds at him and saying hosannas.
01:13:12Now, some people may think that you just pick up palm fronds
01:13:15the way you pick up daffodils. That's not the case.
01:13:18Palms are difficult to get.
01:13:20Either the palm tree is very high, or even if it's low,
01:13:24the leaves are very big. They have thorns.
01:13:27You need a machete to cut them down.
01:13:30There's only one time of year in the Jewish calendar,
01:13:33then as now, that you can have access to palm fronds,
01:13:38thousands of people, when they're harvested.
01:13:41And they're only harvested once a year as part of the ritual,
01:13:46saying hosannas and waving palm fronds,
01:13:49that is associated with one Jewish holiday.
01:13:54Tabernacles.
01:13:55So that tells us that Jesus could not have entered
01:13:58in the spring at Passover time.
01:14:01He must have entered Jerusalem six months earlier
01:14:05during tabernacles.
01:14:08Leading some scholars to a remarkable conclusion
01:14:12that the most likely date for Jesus' entry into Jerusalem
01:14:16was the autumn of 31 AD,
01:14:19six months earlier than previously believed,
01:14:23allowing far more time for his multiple interrogations.
01:14:30But perhaps the most important result
01:14:33of bringing these events forward in time
01:14:36is that Jesus' sudden arrest now coincides
01:14:40with a dramatic turn of events in Rome.
01:14:44Events that explain why the temple priests
01:14:47finally made their move.
01:14:51Because in the autumn of 31 AD,
01:14:54as Jesus was humiliating the temple priests
01:14:57and Herod Antipas was closing in on the Jewish throne,
01:15:01Sir Janus was summoned to the Roman Senate.
01:15:06It seems that Sir Janus' hopes are about to be realised
01:15:10that he is about to be confirmed by Tiberius,
01:15:13not just as his deputy, but as almost his equal.
01:15:17And everyone has assembled in the Senate House
01:15:20to hear a missive from Tiberius seemingly to confirm this.
01:15:24But then as the letter begins to be read out,
01:15:27sort of puzzled looks on the face of the senators
01:15:30because Tiberius seems to be exercising some niggles
01:15:35about what Sir Janus has been doing.
01:15:39The longer the letter went on,
01:15:41the worse things looked for Sir Janus.
01:15:45The contents of the letter specify that Sir Janus
01:15:48directly conspired to poison and murder Drusus,
01:15:53Tiberius' son.
01:15:55So at that moment, with this evidence,
01:15:57Tiberius, well, for him it's like he's been woken out of a dream
01:16:01and a veil has been lifted.
01:16:03When the ultimate blow is announced,
01:16:05that Tiberius is condemning Sir Janus as a traitor,
01:16:10there's nothing that Sir Janus can do.
01:16:13The ultimate blow is announced,
01:16:15that Tiberius is condemning Sir Janus as a traitor,
01:16:19there's nothing that Sir Janus can do.
01:16:43His treachery exposed,
01:16:45Sir Janus was thrown into Rome's notorious Tullianum prison.
01:16:54The Tullianum wasn't like a modern prison.
01:16:56It wasn't that you came into the Tullianum,
01:16:58did your time and then left.
01:17:00When you came into the Tullianum, that was it.
01:17:03You weren't going to exit alive.
01:17:07Within hours of his arrest,
01:17:09Sir Janus was sentenced to death.
01:17:13The standard practice for execution of prisoners placed here
01:17:16is by karate.
01:17:18So what you're doing is you're having the executioners
01:17:20come down on this space,
01:17:22putting a rope around your neck
01:17:24and squeezing the life out of you.
01:17:26The corpse of the man who,
01:17:28only a few days before,
01:17:30had been the second most powerful man in the world,
01:17:33is kicked and trashed to a pulp
01:17:35and then it's dragged off by a hook
01:17:37and dumped into the Tiber.
01:17:40As news of Sir Janus' downfall spread across the empire,
01:17:45his former allies in Judea
01:17:47suddenly found themselves vulnerable.
01:17:56The death of Sir Janus means the main person
01:17:59who had an interest in a new political configuration,
01:18:03a new political-religious configuration in Jerusalem,
01:18:07is gone.
01:18:09So if you are playing on his team,
01:18:11you are wearing his jersey,
01:18:13you're in trouble.
01:18:15I think everybody is thinking,
01:18:17how do I survive this?
01:18:25So Herod Antipas is not thinking right now about being king.
01:18:28He's just worried about not being executed.
01:18:31Pontius Pilate is holding his breath.
01:18:35Maybe he can present himself as an asset
01:18:38instead of a liability.
01:18:40So I think right away,
01:18:42you have, right through the empire,
01:18:44a ripple effect where everybody is scared.
01:18:49With Sir Janus gone,
01:18:51Herod Antipas' plans were now in turmoil.
01:18:55But it was Jesus who was in the most danger.
01:18:59Now the Last Supper
01:19:01Now the Last Supper
01:19:03takes on a potentially different complexion.
01:19:07The Last Supper may very well be a strategy meeting.
01:19:11What do we do?
01:19:13What are the options?
01:19:15Insurrection?
01:19:17You know, you could argue the empire is vulnerable,
01:19:20it's in transition.
01:19:22Go back to Galilee?
01:19:24Very bad. You come back as losers.
01:19:26You took your game to the big town.
01:19:28You were supposed to win.
01:19:30You're a loser.
01:19:32That's not a way to get a following.
01:19:34That's a way of alienating a following.
01:19:37Sit and wait and see how things will work out.
01:19:41I think that Jesus is a no-win situation.
01:19:44The Last Supper may very well be
01:19:46that doomed strategy meeting
01:19:50where they were looking for a way out
01:19:52and they couldn't find one.
01:19:56The behavior of Judas, a revolutionary zealot,
01:19:59could also now be explained.
01:20:03He kind of alienated the extremists in his entourage,
01:20:08the zealots.
01:20:10There's only one reason that a revolutionary
01:20:12would turn against you.
01:20:14If you appear to collaborate with the regime
01:20:18and you promise the revolutionary,
01:20:20I'll deliver everything we want,
01:20:23but without bloodshed,
01:20:25he might play along for a while.
01:20:28But after you're deserted, you can't deliver,
01:20:32and you look like you just collaborated
01:20:35and have nothing to show for it,
01:20:38then the revolutionary will turn against you,
01:20:41and that's what happens.
01:20:44Judas!
01:20:49Judas!
01:20:57Having lost Judas,
01:20:59we're told that Jesus went out to pray.
01:21:03So Jesus, after the disciples have had this dinner with him,
01:21:09it's quite late,
01:21:11he goes to Jerusalem and goes to the Mount of Olives,
01:21:14an area that's cultivated, called Gethsemane.
01:21:18We're told that Jesus goes away
01:21:21from where everybody else is sheltering, in Gethsemane,
01:21:26and he prays.
01:21:35Without the protection of Herod Antipas,
01:21:38Jesus was quickly arrested by his arch-enemy,
01:21:41the high priest Caiaphas.
01:21:52Once again, the expanded timeline
01:21:55sheds a very different light on the events that follow.
01:21:59If we expand Holy Week into Holy Six Months, if you will,
01:22:05what happens during that period?
01:22:07Well, Jesus is very vulnerable.
01:22:11I can imagine that instead of being in jail for a day or two,
01:22:15he's actually in jail for months.
01:22:19He wouldn't be the first political prisoner in jail
01:22:22with the authorities not knowing what to do with him.
01:22:25So it's entirely possible
01:22:27that while everybody was waiting to see where the cards fall,
01:22:31that Jesus was languishing in jail,
01:22:34really not knowing what his fate would be.
01:22:39As Sejanus is man, even Pilate would have been paralyzed.
01:22:45Either you take the story in the Gospels as just made up,
01:22:49or you say, wait a minute, there was a moment in time
01:22:53when Pilate didn't know what to do.
01:22:55And once you place it in that context,
01:22:58then Pilate's hesitation makes sense.
01:23:00I would hesitate. You don't know.
01:23:02Everything is in turmoil. What do you do?
01:23:06As the dust settled in Rome,
01:23:09Jesus' life now hung in the balance.
01:23:12The high priest Caiaphas wanted Jesus dead,
01:23:16but didn't have the authority to have him killed.
01:23:21While the men who did, Herod Antipas and Pilate,
01:23:25were biding their time, hoping things would blow over.
01:23:33Eventually, Jesus' fate was sealed,
01:23:36when a dramatic proclamation emanating from Rome
01:23:40swung the balance of power back towards the high priest Caiaphas.
01:23:53The first century philosopher Philo records how,
01:23:57several months after Sejanus' execution,
01:24:00the emperor Tiberius issued a hands-off order,
01:24:04giving Jewish leaders the freedom to act as they wished.
01:24:13Because Sejanus had been accused of unfairly treating the Jews,
01:24:18Tiberius issued a special edict.
01:24:21And it's recorded in Philo, and it says,
01:24:24and he charges procurators in every place
01:24:27to disturb none of the established customs,
01:24:30but even to regard them as a trust committed to their care.
01:24:33In other words, it's a tacit approval
01:24:36of the established religious order.
01:24:38Caiaphas, the temple, the priests, let them be.
01:24:41Let them do their job.
01:24:45So you have the edict from Tiberius,
01:24:48which empowers all the enemies of Jesus, Antipas, and Pilate.
01:24:54Here they were, thinking that they have full control.
01:24:58Suddenly, nothing.
01:25:00Up comes the old priesthood.
01:25:02Caiaphas, Ananus, you know, it's payback time.
01:25:25After the emperor Tiberius's order
01:25:28giving power back to the temple priests,
01:25:31Caiaphas was finally able to get his revenge on Jesus
01:25:36by having him brought before the prefect, Pontius Pilate,
01:25:40on a charge of treason.
01:25:47Determined to distance himself from any controversy,
01:25:51Pilate now offered the crowd the final say
01:25:54on whether to execute Jesus.
01:25:59Bizarrely, they condemned their former idol to death.
01:26:05Why were they one minute very positive towards Jesus
01:26:09and yet in front of Pilate suddenly they turn against him?
01:26:14I don't think they said crucify him.
01:26:17I don't want a Jewish rabbi to be crucified by their enemies.
01:26:22But I do think he lost popularity.
01:26:25You have to ask, what happened?
01:26:28But if these events took place over several months
01:26:31and not just a few days,
01:26:33then this change of heart makes more sense.
01:26:37If you see it in the context of one week,
01:26:39then the crowd is crazy.
01:26:41We love him on Sunday, we hate him on Friday.
01:26:44But if you see it in the context of a six-month period,
01:26:47then you say, wait a minute.
01:26:50Disillusionment, doubt, disappointment,
01:26:53yet another failed Messiah on the doorstep,
01:26:56all of these kind of sentiments could arise
01:26:59over a six-month period, whereas it's highly unlikely
01:27:02they would have arisen in four or five days.
01:27:14Pilate was a victim of a failed power play.
01:27:19Jesus was humiliated before being taken away to be crucified.
01:27:38In the Gospels, Jesus is taken to a place called Golgotha,
01:27:41or Place of the Skull,
01:27:43where he's put on a cross.
01:27:50As to who was there with him, we don't really know.
01:27:56Some of the Gospels say that there were just a few women
01:27:59standing at a distance,
01:28:01but John's Gospel suggests that Jesus' mother
01:28:04and at least one of his disciples was there,
01:28:07within earshot of Jesus,
01:28:09and that they watched him as he died.
01:28:14It's an extremely lonely death,
01:28:17and we shouldn't forget just how terrible crucifixion actually was.
01:28:25The person would have been naked,
01:28:27they would have been scourged already.
01:28:32He takes about six hours to die,
01:28:35which is really quite a short time
01:28:38for someone who's being crucified.
01:28:41It was expected that it would be a very, very long,
01:28:45drawn-out, torturous death.
01:28:49The way that you died was simply from exhaustion,
01:28:53suffocation as your body could no longer raise itself
01:28:57on the excruciating pain that came through your hands.
01:29:01So it was the most horrible death that anyone could imagine.
01:29:06If Jesus' mission had the support of two of the most powerful men
01:29:11in the Roman Empire,
01:29:13then why is there absolutely no record of his death?
01:29:19It's because he was a man of faith.
01:29:22He was a man of faith.
01:29:24He was a man of faith.
01:29:26He was a man of faith.
01:29:28He was a man of faith.
01:29:30He was a man of faith.
01:29:32If Jesus died in the Roman Empire,
01:29:35then why is there absolutely no record of it in the Gospels?
01:29:42The answer may well have something to do with when they were written
01:29:46and who they were written for.
01:29:52Because at the time the Gospels were composed,
01:29:55it was illegal to mention Sir Janus' name
01:29:58anywhere in the Roman Empire.
01:30:02It's not just against the person of Sir Janus,
01:30:04but against his reputation.
01:30:06And he pronounces effectively a damnatio memoriae,
01:30:10a determination that the very memory of Sir Janus
01:30:13will be erased from the public record.
01:30:16Any statue of him, any dedication in his honour,
01:30:19is to be struck down.
01:30:21So you're denying that the guy ever existed.
01:30:27Mention of Sir Janus was still dangerous.
01:30:31It was after his death,
01:30:33the very time the Gospels were written.
01:30:36What many people don't realise about the Gospels
01:30:39is they're not contemporary eyewitness accounts of what happened.
01:30:44Lots of people have thought that they were.
01:30:48They're anonymous writings.
01:30:50We don't know who Matthew, Mark, Luke and John happened to be.
01:30:55As we study them more, we realise,
01:30:57first of all, they're written 40, 50, 60, 70 years after Jesus.
01:31:03And the story they all describe is carefully crafted.
01:31:08You think of the Gospels as you would a politician
01:31:12trying to persuade you of a particular way of seeing things.
01:31:16They involve a lot of choice
01:31:18in terms of what goes into them and what gets left out.
01:31:22But they're very much designed as recruitment literature.
01:31:27And if you've got recruitment literature,
01:31:30you've got to be careful you don't alienate people.
01:31:36And the one group of the Gospel writers
01:31:39had to be very careful not to offend were the Romans.
01:31:44In an environment where there are serious consequences
01:31:48for being a Christian,
01:31:50that you could be hauled in front of Roman authorities
01:31:53and all sorts of terrible things would happen to you,
01:31:56you might want to be a bit careful about your portrayal of the Romans.
01:32:02Little wonder, then, that if Sir Janus did have a part to play
01:32:06in the last days of Jesus,
01:32:08the Gospel writers chose to leave him out.
01:32:17Whether a deal between Rome and Galilee
01:32:20played a part in the death of Jesus or not
01:32:23will inevitably be hotly debated.
01:32:26But what everyone can agree on
01:32:29is that Jesus launched a movement that changed the world.
01:32:33For me, the historical Jesus was a Jewish prophet
01:32:37who felt that God was about to break into human life
01:32:41and establish his kingdom.
01:32:44He thinks the kingdom is near, the end is near,
01:32:48and that he's chosen by God to be the Messiah.
01:32:54Basically, the ruler of the world.
01:32:59A very challenging figure
01:33:02who was very courageous and willing to die
01:33:06for what he believed in.
01:33:08He expected for God to vindicate him with his legions of angels
01:33:14and to exalt him even if he had to suffer.
01:33:18And it didn't happen.
01:33:24The New Coast to Coast
01:33:30Flamenco and the healing waters of Andalusia
01:33:33are tempting Alex Polizzi tonight
01:33:35as the new series of Spectacular Spain continues at nine.
01:33:38Before that, Tony Robinson makes hay for the sunshines
01:33:41as he takes in the beauties of Ambleforth Abbey
01:33:44and tastes the cider in New Coast to Coast.
01:33:53Spectacular Spain