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Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast am on

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Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and welcome back doctor Ken Hanson back with us.

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Speaker 1: He is a dynamic author, lecturer, founder of Treasures in Time,

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Speaker 1: which is an organization devoted to disseminating knowledge of the

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Speaker 1: Biblical and classical world. He is dug on archaeological sites

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Speaker 1: in the Middle East, lived in a very politically volatile

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Speaker 1: region of Northern Galilee, taught Hebrew on an Israeli agricultural settlement,

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Speaker 1: and he has also worked with a television news gathering

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Speaker 1: operation in a war zone in southern Lebanon at the

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Speaker 1: height of that civil war that left the jewel of

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Speaker 1: the Middle Mediterranean in ruins. Doctor Hanson lends a timeless

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Speaker 1: perspective to the challenges of the future. He's also a

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Speaker 1: noted author. One of his books includes Dead Sea Squirrels

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Speaker 1: The Untold Story Doctor Ken Hanson Back on Coast to Coast,

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Speaker 1: Hi Ken, good to have you back, Good to be

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Speaker 1: with you. George and warm Shalom from the University of

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Speaker 1: Central Florida, Orlando Judaic Studies Program. They continue to find

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Speaker 1: discoveries around Jerusalem ancient sites. They're digging them up like crazy.

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Speaker 1: What's going on there. It's unbelievable. Something is always going

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Speaker 1: on when it comes to Jerusalem, when it comes to

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Speaker 1: the land of Israel. Just this last week, as a

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Speaker 1: matter of fact, there is a new report out that

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Speaker 1: details a huge ancient complex, a government complex, that has

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Speaker 1: been uncovered. This is twenty seven hundred years old, from

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Speaker 1: the days of the ancient Israelite king Hezekiah, just recently

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Speaker 1: unearthed near the US Embassy in Jerusalem and containing georage jars,

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Speaker 1: broken up, of course, but bearing actual seal inscriptions in

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Speaker 1: Paleo Hebrew that read lamelech, which means to the king

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Speaker 1: or for the king. We're talking about the ancient king Hezekiah.

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Speaker 1: There's always something going on, it seems, Isn't that interesting?

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Speaker 1: It sure is. Let's talk a little bit about the

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Speaker 1: Ark of the Covenant. Ken so much ground to cover

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Speaker 1: in the two hours you're with us. Explain first of

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Speaker 1: all to those few people who may not know what

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Speaker 1: the Ark of the Covenant is, what it is, Well,

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Speaker 1: my goodness, beyond Indiana Jones, We've got the story of

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Speaker 1: the ancient Israelites, who, according to the scriptural text, at

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Speaker 1: least came out of the land of Egypt back in

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Speaker 1: the days of the Pharaoh. I'm not sure which pharaoh

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Speaker 1: it was, maybe the pharaoh Ramsey, maybe an earlier pharaoh,

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Speaker 1: but that's the story. And they went to the great

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Speaker 1: Mount Sinai where they encamped, where Moses went up and

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Speaker 1: received the Ten Commandments and brought them down, and the

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Speaker 1: ten Commandments, inscribed on stoned tablets, were housed in a

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Speaker 1: special chest, gold covered, intricately crafted by the Israelites, and

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Speaker 1: they called it the Ark of the Covenant, the our

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Speaker 1: own Kodesh in Hebrew, the Holy Arc, covered with gold

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Speaker 1: and resembling the kind of ancient chest we would have

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Speaker 1: found in Egypt. We actually have examples of such Egyptian chests,

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Speaker 1: and the Israelites made one fabricated one that looked strikingly

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Speaker 1: like an Egyptian chest. That that alone is evidence that

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Speaker 1: indeed Israelites may have lived, may in fact have resided

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Speaker 1: in ancient Egypt, and come out with a piece of

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Speaker 1: furniture that looked like where they had been living. And

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Speaker 1: they brought that chest, that Ark of the Covenant with

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Speaker 1: them across the Sinai Desert, wandering for forty years, brought

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Speaker 1: it under Joshua into the Land of Promise, which the

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Speaker 1: Israelites captured, according to the Bible, under their great commander Joshua,

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Speaker 1: who conquered Jericho with its walls falling down. And wherever

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Speaker 1: they went on their march of conquest, the ark went

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Speaker 1: with them, as is to guarantee their victory. Eventually it

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Speaker 1: was brought up to Jerusalem and housed in the Great

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Speaker 1: Temple built by the venerable King Solomon, and there it

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Speaker 1: resided until the temple was destroyed in the year five

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Speaker 1: eighty six BC or BC by the Babylonian invaders. But

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Speaker 1: sometime in the midst of antiquity, the arc itself was

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Speaker 1: lost no trace of it. There's no suggestion that the Babylonians,

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Speaker 1: when they destroyed the temple ever took the ark with them.

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Speaker 1: The prophet Jeremiah made an intricate list of the various

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Speaker 1: furnishings of the temple that were taken by the Babylonians

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Speaker 1: into captivity, where back when the arc was not among them.

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Speaker 1: It just vanished at some point in the Biblical record

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Speaker 1: and has not surfaced. So where on Earth might it

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Speaker 1: have ended up. There are all manner of stories. Perhaps

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Speaker 1: it was taken down to Ethiopia in the Queen of Sheba,

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Speaker 1: and that's one bit of folklore. But perhaps, just perhaps

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Speaker 1: it was lowered down into the subterranean cavities beneath the temple,

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Speaker 1: in what's called the Temple Mount and simply hidden protected there,

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Speaker 1: and who knows, it may still be there. According to

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Speaker 1: some intrepid archaeologists, including various Israelis who have actually been

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Speaker 1: on the track, that the tracing the art of the

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Speaker 1: Covenant for decades. Now, why is it so important today

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Speaker 1: this quest to find it? Well, when we think of

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Speaker 1: just how political things are, My goodness, we live in

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Speaker 1: a political season, don't we. In everything is politicized, especially

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Speaker 1: in the Middle East. This is an incendiary piece of territory.

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Speaker 1: It's like ready to explode at any minute. I've got,

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Speaker 1: in fact, a little quote from the Chief Justice of

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Speaker 1: the Palestinians, Sais Tamimi, who said, and I'm quoting him,

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Speaker 1: there was no Jewish civilization in Jerusalem. Many people live

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Speaker 1: there through the ages, and they left some artifacts, but

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Speaker 1: so what, there is no proof of any Jews being here.

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Speaker 1: And this is widely disseminated in the Middle East, and

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Speaker 1: believed that the Jewish people just kind of showed up

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Speaker 1: in the mid twentieth century and basically took Arab land.

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Speaker 1: So imagine how political this gets. Yeah, and imagine if

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Speaker 1: such an artifact we're actually uncovered. And then bear in

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Speaker 1: mind that serious archaeology in this most difficult tinder box,

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Speaker 1: it cannot be conducted just because of the political considerations. Now,

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Speaker 1: think of the ancient city and the modern city of Jerusalem,

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Speaker 1: where you have this vast, enormous plateau of limestone is

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Speaker 1: greater in size than the Great Pyramid as a matter

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Speaker 1: of fact, and contains some of the largest limestone ashlers

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Speaker 1: ever chiseled enormous. On top of that great plateau used

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Speaker 1: to stand, according to at least biblical tradition, the Jewish Temple.

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Speaker 1: It's not there anymore. What is there today is the

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Speaker 1: third holiest site in Islam. It's called the Mosque of Omar,

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Speaker 1: or the Dome of the Rock. It's the great golden

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Speaker 1: dome that people see in photos of Jerusalem. Gorgeous, absolutely gorgeous.

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Speaker 1: It's one of the most beautiful buildings in the world,

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Speaker 1: at least from my perspective. I've never never seen anything

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Speaker 1: so spectacular as the Great Golden Dome of the Rock.

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Speaker 1: Why is it so important? Why is it the holiest

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Speaker 1: site in Islam? It sits above the one piece of bedrock.

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Speaker 1: It's a rocky outcropping on this enormous plateau. Now King

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Speaker 1: Herod the Great extended what was a natural hill with

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Speaker 1: this natural piece of rock, extended it in all directions

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Speaker 1: with as I mentioned, this limestone plateau, it's it's the

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Speaker 1: size of twenty four football fields. It's that massive again

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Speaker 1: in size, larger than the Great Pyramid at Gisa. Well,

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Speaker 1: there's this one piece of rock, which, in Jewish tradition

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Speaker 1: is the exact place where Abraham almost sacrificed his son Isaac,

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Speaker 1: his hand being stopped at the last minute by an angel. Well,

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Speaker 1: in Islamic tradition, this is where the prophet Muhammad actually

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Speaker 1: came to Jerusalem miraculously in one night on a mystical

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Speaker 1: steed named Alburuk, who who transported him from Mecca all

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Speaker 1: the way to Jerusalem in a single night, And the

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Speaker 1: prophet set foot on this piece of rock, whereupon a

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Speaker 1: ladder of light miraculously extended up into the heavens, and

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Speaker 1: the prophet was brought up to meet Allah himself, who

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Speaker 1: took the heart out of his body and washed it

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Speaker 1: in pure water, put it back into his chest down

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Speaker 1: he went back on back to Mecca in a single night.

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Speaker 1: That's why it's the third holiest sight in Islam. That's

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Speaker 1: why it is so very political, and that's why it's

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Speaker 1: impossible to conduct archaeology, any serious archaeology in this area.

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Speaker 1: It's also the holiest site in Judaism. It is, And

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Speaker 1: hasn't it been threatened to be blown up? Oh? Yes

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Speaker 1: as well. The dome has been threatened on numerous occasions.

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Speaker 1: And how tragic it is. But because wouldn't it be nice,

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Speaker 1: as somebody said, if we could all just get along, right,

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Speaker 1: wouldn't it be nice? Especially in the Holy city where

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Speaker 1: you have so many treasures. Literally, there's an area in

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Speaker 1: old Jeruslem. I used to live there. It's about one

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Speaker 1: square kilometer, that's it, and it's called the Holy Basin.

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Speaker 1: And in this Holy Basin we've got the remains of

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Speaker 1: the three great monotheistic civilizations of the Western world Judaism, Christianity, Islam.

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Speaker 1: We mentioned the Mosque. We also have the Church of

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Speaker 1: the Holy Sepulcher in that same area. As I could

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Speaker 1: just walk over there any evening. That's the holy aside

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Speaker 1: in Christianity, and also the last vestige of the Temple Mount,

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Speaker 1: that great limestone plateau that I've talked about, containing the

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Speaker 1: largest single limestone ashlar in the in the entire Middle East,

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Speaker 1: one of the largest ever ever fabricated. Ken let me

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Speaker 1: ask you too, how far from that region where you

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Speaker 1: were in Jerusalem was Jesus killed. He was crucified outside

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Speaker 1: of Jerusalem, But how far away? Well, in those days

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Speaker 1: it was immediately outside of the old city wall that

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Speaker 1: the city wall of that day, I should say today

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Speaker 1: that wall was has been expanded actually in Ottoman Turkish times,

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Speaker 1: so that the location of the crucifixion is today inside

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Speaker 1: the old city wall of Jerusalem. Some people think, well,

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Speaker 1: that disqualifies it, because, as you mentioned, he's, according to

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Speaker 1: the texis crucified outside. Well, in antiquity it was exactly outside.

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Speaker 1: It's the place we call the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.

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Speaker 1: It dates all the way back to the mother of

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Speaker 1: the Emperor Constantine. We're talking Roman times, Queen Helena. She

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Speaker 1: went through the Middle East and found various places which

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Speaker 1: she claimed were authentic Christian sites, and the Church of

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Speaker 1: the Holy Sepulcher. What she created as the church is

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Speaker 1: one of them, but all the archaeology points to this

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Speaker 1: as in fact the place. It's it's incredible because we're

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Speaker 1: nineteen maybe ninety nine percent sure that it happened right there.

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Speaker 1: Isn't it's got to be our inspiring to be there,

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Speaker 1: absolutely is. Um it's a little bit dank and musty

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Speaker 1: these days because we've got an old and old Romanesque

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Speaker 1: piece of architecture, the church itself Romanesque, very dark and dank,

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Speaker 1: and some people find it rather they're depressing. But when

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Speaker 1: you actually examine the archaeology, it all comes back to

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Speaker 1: the archaeology. We have first century tombs exactly there in

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Speaker 1: the center of the church we have one. Then underground

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Speaker 1: we have authentic first century tombs. This had to be

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Speaker 1: the place. And also not far we have a rather

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Speaker 1: recent discovery, just within the last couple of decades, the

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Speaker 1: place where Jesus of Nazareth, the historical Jesus would have

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Speaker 1: been tried by Pontius Pilot, And people don't even recognize

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Speaker 1: that it's there. They walk right by and they don't

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Speaker 1: know what they're looking at. But it's a piece of

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Speaker 1: rocky outcropping. The dates from the days of King Herod

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Speaker 1: the Great. We know exactly where ponscious Pilot would have

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Speaker 1: sat on his praetorium is little throne where Jesus would

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Speaker 1: have been brought out of the remains of an ancient

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Speaker 1: gate and stood exactly before him where the Roman soldiers

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Speaker 1: would have been positioned. I've been there many times, and

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Speaker 1: as they say, people walk right by, drive ride by it.

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Speaker 1: It's it's part of the old City Wall of Jerusalem.

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Speaker 1: They don't know what they're looking at. But that's the archaeology,

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Speaker 1: and that's why I wrote my new book whose Holy

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Speaker 1: Land Archaeology meets Geopoliti Middle East. Let's bring in the

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Speaker 1: name Rabbi Yehouda gets Who was he. Rabbi Yehouda gets

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Speaker 1: Here was a rather mystical rabbi, modern Israeli rabbi. He

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Speaker 1: was known as the Rabbi Emeritus of the Western Wall.

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Speaker 1: People call it the Whaling Wall. This is the holiest

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Speaker 1: sight in Judaism to this day, the last vestige of

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Speaker 1: that great Temple mount and Jews pray there today weep

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Speaker 1: whale throw themselves against the wall. I've been there, of

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Speaker 1: course many times, and this is the Rabbi who's in

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Speaker 1: charge of the wall. The wall. Now, bear in mind

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Speaker 1: that Jerusalem was a divided city between the Jewish western

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Speaker 1: side and the Arab eastern side from the Israeli War

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Speaker 1: of Independence in nineteen forty seven forty eight. Really when

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Speaker 1: the British left. Right up until the Sixth Day War

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Speaker 1: of nineteen sixty seven, Arab East Jerusalem was in the

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Speaker 1: hands of the Jordanians and there was an international border.

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Speaker 1: Jerusalem was a divided city, was like the Berlin It

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Speaker 1: was really a horrific place, a barbed wire, land mines. Literally,

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Speaker 1: a friend of mine, good friend of mine, actually lost

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Speaker 1: his leg when he stepped on one of those landmarks

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Speaker 1: between East and West Jerusalem. That's the reality of what

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Speaker 1: the city was until the Jews nineteen sixty seven Sixth

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Speaker 1: Day War with Israel's Blitzkrieg, Essentially Israel conquered the Sinai Peninsula,

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Speaker 1: the Golan Heights, a very incendiary turf, and the so

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Speaker 1: called West Bank Judea Samaria and that includes East Jerusalem.

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Speaker 1: Jerusalem was united under Israeli control, The border was taken down,

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Speaker 1: the land mines all dismantled, and has remained a united

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Speaker 1: city to this day. Back to Rabbi Gets, Suddenly Jews

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Speaker 1: had access to their holiest site. Imagine, from forty seven

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Speaker 1: to sixty seven, Jews could not get to the Western

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Speaker 1: Wall to pray, literally the divided city. Suddenly the Israelis

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Speaker 1: have conquered the whole of East Jerusalem, united the city,

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Speaker 1: and Rabbi Gets is there. He's one of the first

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Speaker 1: people to actually move his family back into East Jerusalem

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Speaker 1: where Jews had been living for centuries. And well, and

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Speaker 1: as you say, though conquered that, but they were attacked first,

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Speaker 1: they fought back. Well, as a matter of fact, yes,

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Speaker 1: first the Egyptians had blockaded the straits of Tehran and

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Speaker 1: that basically blocked Israeli shipping in and out of the

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Speaker 1: port city of a lot. That's an act of war.

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Speaker 1: Then the Israelis initiated a first strike against the Egyptian

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Speaker 1: air force and basically blew them up on the ground,

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Speaker 1: and that's what initiated the actual war. Now, the Israelis

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Speaker 1: then telegraphed frantically to King Hussein of Jordan's saying, stay

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Speaker 1: out of this. This is between us and the Egyptians.

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Speaker 1: And yes, the Syrians were involved. Well, the response of

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Speaker 1: the Jordanians was they opened cannon fire all along the

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Speaker 1: border with the fledgling state of Israel, which actually was

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Speaker 1: quite truncated in those days. You've got to Jerusalem, you've

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Speaker 1: got Galilee in the north, in a little strip of

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Speaker 1: territory between nine and eleven miles wide along the Mediterranean Sea.

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Speaker 1: That was the state of Israel, and now it's being

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Speaker 1: attacked by the Jordanians. Well, the Israelis responded, and you're right,

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Speaker 1: it was a defensive war, and they took all of

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Speaker 1: the territory up to the Jordan River. This is ancient

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Speaker 1: Judea and Samaria, and this is also part of my book.

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Speaker 1: We have archaeology all over this region that proves that

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Speaker 1: Jews were living here for millennia as a matter of fact,

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Speaker 1: and now they simply want to be able to live

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Speaker 1: in holy areas again, and yet it is so very political,

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Speaker 1: so inceniary. Listen to more Coast to Coast AM every

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Speaker 1: weeknight at one am Eastern and go to Coast to

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Speaker 1: Coast am dot com for more