Speaker 1: Fellow conspiracy realist. We're returning with an extra classic episode
Speaker 1: for you this week. Back in twenty twenty yield D's
Speaker 1: of the Pandemic, we got super into hidden history and
Speaker 1: we were we were fascinated by the concept of the
Speaker 1: Dead Sea Scrolls.
Speaker 2: Oh, yes, the scrolls found in the Dead Sea in a.
Speaker 3: Cave creatively named Why isn't a cave part of the name,
Speaker 3: it should be the Dead Sea Cave Scrolls.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's true, it's true. I feel like a missed
Speaker 2: opportunity there, this one.
Speaker 3: These are ancient biblical artifacts, correct, containing early translations of
Speaker 3: biblical material.
Speaker 1: Guys, no, me I am. I might be characterizing it grossly.
Speaker 1: It's it's weird because they weren't discovered until the nineteen forties.
Speaker 1: They were languishing in historical obscurity until a lucky encounter
Speaker 1: by some nerdy splunkers just wanted to say, SPLUNKI. But
Speaker 1: there's one scroll amid the collection. It was discovered in
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty two, and it's unique. It doesn't have religious information.
Speaker 1: It doesn't you know, like you're saying, no, it doesn't
Speaker 1: recount earlier stories from the area. Instead, it appears to
Speaker 1: be a kind of treasure map. It's also the only
Speaker 1: scroll written on copper, which is weird.
Speaker 4: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies, history is
Speaker 4: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 4: learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 4: production of iHeart Radios How Stuff Works.
Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt.
Speaker 1: They call me Ben. We are joined as always with
Speaker 1: our super producer Paul Mission control decond. Most importantly, you
Speaker 1: are here, and that may this stuff they don't want
Speaker 1: you to know. This is this is a bit of
Speaker 1: an Indiana Jones episode for us.
Speaker 5: Man.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, come on, I know, especially you and I
Speaker 2: love the Indiana Jones stuff.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, immensely, immensely. And I believe we may have
Speaker 1: talked before. I don't know whether it was on air
Speaker 1: off air, about which of the four you know would
Speaker 1: be our personal favorites. I gotta say, man, I blame
Speaker 1: it on the time in life that I saw it.
Speaker 1: But last Crusade, Yeah yeah, head and shoulders above, streets ahead,
Speaker 1: as they would say on the former TV show Community.
Speaker 2: Yeah exactly. I can see. I can see that argument.
Speaker 2: And you know, I generally I would have agreed with
Speaker 2: you until I saw the Crystal Skulls. Yeah, that's was like,
Speaker 2: this is a masterpiece, right.
Speaker 1: Oh man, especially the ninja that.
Speaker 2: Up here, the ninjas. For me, it's all about that refrigerator.
Speaker 2: I can't. I mean, that's yea. What better piece of
Speaker 2: cinema is there? I challenge you to show me a
Speaker 2: better piece of American cinema.
Speaker 1: Yeah, even spawned the phrase nuking the fridge, Right's right? Yeah.
Speaker 1: And you know, one thing I like about that film series,
Speaker 1: especially in Crystal Skull, is that they include realistic survival advice.
Speaker 1: You know, fridges aren't just for food.
Speaker 2: It's lined with lead sun and plus it's padded, very
Speaker 2: very padded.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know what I did overall enjoy it and
Speaker 1: we you know, the fascinating thing about the concept of
Speaker 1: Indiana Jones, which is far from perfect, of course, is
Speaker 1: that it inspired a lot of people to become actual archaeologists.
Speaker 2: Absolutely right. It made it seem a whole ton more
Speaker 2: exciting than the job actually ends up being.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there are a couple of scenes, very sparsely painted
Speaker 1: scenes in which he is ending a class or something, you.
Speaker 2: Know, exactly exactly.
Speaker 1: It's true also that Indiana. Jones was created or inspired
Speaker 1: by true life stories people who were adventurous archaeologists, and
Speaker 1: the field of archaeology is far from dusty or dead
Speaker 1: and very much not static. In fact, many of the
Speaker 1: debates in archaeology that began, you know, forty fifty one hundred,
Speaker 1: two hundred years ago continue today and people are still
Speaker 1: really steamed about it. Yeah, like, it's all still very
Speaker 1: relevant to the academy. You know, people have their livelihoods
Speaker 1: staked on as something that would seem like a negligible
Speaker 1: disagreement to an outsider.
Speaker 2: That's correct, and we do always have to remember here
Speaker 2: history is continually being written, even ancient history is being
Speaker 2: rewritten as we discover something new or something more. And
Speaker 2: that's what today's episode is all about.
Speaker 1: That's right. This may be familiar to those of us
Speaker 1: in the audience who watch the stuff they don't want
Speaker 1: you to know YouTube series. We are diving into the
Speaker 1: story of the Dead Sea Scrolls, but not perhaps you know,
Speaker 1: the way you might assume.
Speaker 2: Yeah, not at all.
Speaker 1: Well it's not at all the way you might assume.
Speaker 1: But first, these first Dead Sea Scrolls, other than a
Speaker 1: cool name, what are they? Here are the facts the
Speaker 1: Dead Sea Scrolls.
Speaker 2: They're these amazing discoveries. They're also known as the Kumeran
Speaker 2: Cave scrolls, and apologies for my pronunciation there. It's a
Speaker 2: collection of these ancient religious documents that were discovered in
Speaker 2: late nineteen forty six or early nineteen forty seven. They
Speaker 2: are written in versions of Hebrew, like varying versions of Hebrew,
Speaker 2: and they were discovered by these two Bedouin shepherds, just
Speaker 2: two guys, and their names were forgive me but Huma
Speaker 2: or Humah and Mohammed ed Dieb. And they were searching
Speaker 2: for this literally, this is what's happening. They're searching for
Speaker 2: a lost animal and they find these things.
Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, you know, Paul Massive favorite,
Speaker 1: could we get a little bit of kind of Indiana
Speaker 1: Jonesy music here just for a second, something from like
Speaker 1: the first or second act, something building?
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely, yeah, Crystal skulls.
Speaker 1: So so picture this. These shepherds are hunting for some
Speaker 1: animal that's straight from the flock, and they come to
Speaker 1: an outcrop overlooking the Dead Sea, and as they're looking
Speaker 1: around for their lost livestock, they see an opening in
Speaker 1: the face of the rock, a cave right and caves
Speaker 1: are relatively common in this area, not being nincompoops of
Speaker 1: any sort, these shepherds say, okay, we need to make
Speaker 1: sure it's safe to enter there, and so they throw
Speaker 1: some stones into the darkness to make sure that they
Speaker 1: don't hear a larger animal or predator of some sort reacting,
Speaker 1: and they don't. Instead, they hear the shattering of pottery,
Speaker 1: and they're thinking, what huh what, And so they crawl
Speaker 1: inside the cave to investigate, and they find that one
Speaker 1: of the rocks they had thrown, by chance, hit an
Speaker 1: ancient clay pot. And inside this clay pot, which had shattered,
Speaker 1: there were scraps of leather, and these were obviously very old.
Speaker 1: But the shepherd said, somebody wrote something on this leather.
Speaker 1: And then they looked around. This is the cinematic moment
Speaker 1: where they look from the broken in pot and they
Speaker 1: see behind it as we like focus in.
Speaker 2: Like it comes in somehow miraculously.
Speaker 1: And they see that there are a multitude of pots,
Speaker 1: and these pots also contain stuff. Some of them are
Speaker 1: complete scrolls contained, and others are fragments of previous works.
Speaker 1: So imagine you know that, You imagine instead of finding
Speaker 1: a book, you find like three pages of chapter four
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 2: Now here is where the story takes a bit of
Speaker 2: a turn, because it truly is a story that one
Speaker 2: must believe the originators of this story to believe it,
Speaker 2: that this is actually what happened. But according to what
Speaker 2: is known or what is told, these guys collected all
Speaker 2: these scrolls up and they kind of held on to
Speaker 2: him for a little while. They took him to some
Speaker 2: friends and some neighbors. They were like, yo, look at this.
Speaker 2: This is pretty crazy, right, what do you think this is?
Speaker 2: What could this be? And then they ended up heading
Speaker 2: over to Bethlehem. This is the nearest commercial center to
Speaker 2: where they were located over there. It's outside of Jerusalem, right,
Speaker 2: that's what this is. And they wanted to see if
Speaker 2: they can maybe sell these things to somebody who'd be
Speaker 2: interested in this. What they believed to be in an
Speaker 2: ancient relic or a series of ancient.
Speaker 1: Relics, right, And they didn't know how old it was.
Speaker 1: They just said, Okay, this seems important, and we live
Speaker 1: in a very old part of the world, right, so
Speaker 1: let's find an expert. One of the smartest things you
Speaker 1: can do in that situation, the shepherds meet a man
Speaker 1: named Feedi Salahi. Slahi is an antique stealer, but even
Speaker 1: he is not completely sure what the shepherds have found.
Speaker 1: So he calls a friend of his, an Armenian who
Speaker 1: was also an antique stealer, and says, this is a weird,
Speaker 1: crazy story. And then his colleague degrees and reaches out
Speaker 1: to an archaeology professor named Eliza Lippa Sukinik, and Sukinik
Speaker 1: is Sukinik is interested, right, But we have to remember
Speaker 1: that this is the mid nineteen forties in the Middle East,
Speaker 1: the mid to late nineteen forties, and these are dangerous, dangerous,
Speaker 1: dangerous times. Sukinik risked life and limb as a Jewish
Speaker 1: Man traveling to Bethlehem. He made it across the border,
Speaker 1: he took possession of the scrolls. He persuaded Salahi to
Speaker 1: let them to let him take the scrolls back to
Speaker 1: study them. Right, and he is at his home in Jerusalem.
Speaker 1: He's fluent in Hebrew. But that's remember what Matt said
Speaker 1: earlier at the top, the different versions of Hebrew. Right,
Speaker 1: if you are primarily an English speaker, just imagine any
Speaker 1: time you had a teacher that may you read Canterbury
Speaker 1: Tales in the way it was originally written.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, No, sure, and something as simple as like
Speaker 2: the articles are a little strange, like and you just
Speaker 2: don't understand the flow of the language. But here's the thing.
Speaker 2: As he's looking through, it turns out these things they
Speaker 2: weren't from the nineteen forties. They weren't from the sixteen
Speaker 2: hundreds or the twelve hundreds. They were much much older. Right.
Speaker 1: Yes, the scrolls have all been ascribed to a rough
Speaker 1: period of time, the Hellenistic Roman period, somewhere between the
Speaker 1: third century BCE to the first century CE, meaning especially
Speaker 1: for people who are devoted to Christianity, meaning that these
Speaker 1: were written during the time of the historical figure Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: This is this would be contemporaneous or some of this would.
Speaker 1: Many of these works correspond to the known Biblical text,
Speaker 1: like the different Bibles you can find in hotels or
Speaker 1: in the bookstores or you know, in your house or
Speaker 1: friend's house today, and they correspond to parts of the
Speaker 1: Hebrew Bible as well, the Torah.
Speaker 2: That's incredible to find something like that. That then becomes
Speaker 2: not necessarily these texts, these specific physical texts, but the
Speaker 2: contents in them ends up becoming what the Bible is.
Speaker 2: That's incredible. And here's the thing. There's all kinds of
Speaker 2: other religious writings that are included in there. There are,
Speaker 2: you know, copies of the scriptures, other non canonical books
Speaker 2: that we've talked about, and I believe we've mentioned this
Speaker 2: before when we talk we talked about apocryphal texts and
Speaker 2: some of that, so things that aren't included in the
Speaker 2: official canon of the Holy Bible. And in total, there
Speaker 2: are hundreds of documents found in twelve caves around Kumran
Speaker 2: around that area, and the last cave that contained some
Speaker 2: of these scrolls or pieces of these scrolls was only
Speaker 2: discovered on it's crazy February of twenty seventeen.
Speaker 1: Right, not that long ago. And that's surprising because even now,
Speaker 1: if you read a bunch of fairly authoritative information about
Speaker 1: the Dead Sea Scrolls, you'll see the number quoted as eleven.
Speaker 1: So this is very much a case of history in
Speaker 1: the making. But who wrote them?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: See, that's the thing. Yeah, remember how we said earlier
Speaker 1: that in the realm of history and archaeology, there are
Speaker 1: there are details that might seem minor to some people,
Speaker 1: but seem incredibly, incredibly crucial to to insiders in a community.
Speaker 1: We're in a discipline. So the question of the providence
Speaker 1: of the scrolls, or the question rather the original authors
Speaker 1: is still going to cause debate in the academic community
Speaker 1: even today. We know that many of the scrolls were
Speaker 1: likely written by a Jewish sect known as the Esscenes,
Speaker 1: who are scenes who controlled the area from the second
Speaker 1: century BCE to the first century. See, they're real people.
Speaker 1: They're mentioned by plenty the elder who locates them or
Speaker 1: cites them living in the same area. So we do
Speaker 1: you know, we do have proof that they were there.
Speaker 1: They were real, they were known to be ascetic in
Speaker 1: nature their practices. There are some who may have alleged,
Speaker 1: you know, mysticism or something in their beliefs. But at
Speaker 1: the problem with a lot of those ideas throwing them
Speaker 1: m word around is that it's off. It's often coming
Speaker 1: from another group and they're they're othering or they're they're
Speaker 1: attempting to make these people seem i don't know, mysterious
Speaker 1: or dangerous or off kilter or something like that, something
Speaker 1: that is not of us.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, if you have a rigid belief system, as
Speaker 2: soon as you veer off just slightly, then you become othered, right,
Speaker 2: I mean that it tends to occur, and you know,
Speaker 2: you put mystic on there because maybe they slightly disagree
Speaker 2: on one thing that is a bit esoteric or a
Speaker 2: bit of a slightly different belief about something really big
Speaker 2: within a religion.
Speaker 1: Or it would seem to be from an outsider's perspective.
Speaker 1: For this reason, you'll you'll hear scholars occasionally refer to
Speaker 1: the Dead Sea Scrolls as the library of this group.
Speaker 1: The this is this is an interesting way to look
Speaker 1: at it because we see some strong evidence that this
Speaker 1: could happen. Not everything is written in the type of
Speaker 1: Hebrew that this group was believed to have used, you know,
Speaker 1: Aramaic is in their Greek, Latin and so on. But
Speaker 1: if you look at a substantial library at your local
Speaker 1: school or something, you're going to local college or whatever,
Speaker 1: you're going to find multiple books in different languages, right,
Speaker 1: I mean they were just acquired by the institution. But
Speaker 1: then you'll hear other people say, well, there are this
Speaker 1: is the result of multiple contributing authors across the course
Speaker 1: of centuries. There's no one group that wrote these and
Speaker 1: that's that's a debate that continues today.
Speaker 2: I just have to say that makes sense to me.
Speaker 2: But you know, I'm not a scholar.
Speaker 1: That it'd be, that would be a library.
Speaker 2: It's a you know, it's there were different authors from
Speaker 2: possibly different regions throughout you know, I don't know who
Speaker 2: knows decades.
Speaker 1: It's a long time. So while scholars still go back
Speaker 1: and forth about the identity of all the authors of
Speaker 1: the scrolls, it's pretty easy to agree on the content. Luckily,
Speaker 1: since since shortly after nineteen forty six, we have literally
Speaker 1: had members of our species working around the clock to
Speaker 1: figure out what on earth these things actually say.
Speaker 2: Yeah, as we mentioned, there's a lot of it's written
Speaker 2: in versions of Hebrew. There's also some writing in Aramaic,
Speaker 2: some in Greek, some in Latin. And the scrolls themselves
Speaker 2: can be divided up into three rough sections, let's say
Speaker 2: three sections. There's stuff from content at least from the
Speaker 2: Old Testament. There's all kinds of information in there that
Speaker 2: would match up, and it matches up pretty well with
Speaker 2: the Old Testament, the Bible. There's also slightly alternative versions
Speaker 2: of existing Biblical writings in there, especially Old Testaments.
Speaker 1: Of conversations that may not have made it into what
Speaker 1: is sorder of the canonical version of those religious works exactly.
Speaker 2: And there's also some a little more mundane things like
Speaker 2: texts that's relating to everyday life stuff that is occurring
Speaker 2: in that area with the people who live there, traditional
Speaker 2: practices of those peoples. And a lot of this stuff
Speaker 2: is written in Greek and in Latin, which again like
Speaker 2: kind of painting a picture of Okay, well, maybe these
Speaker 2: different authors are interested in recording different things here. It's
Speaker 2: almost like an historian and like you've gotten a religious
Speaker 2: studies sect writing those first, you know, the first set there,
Speaker 2: and then you've got well, I don't know, historians writing
Speaker 2: the second the second set there, and then the next
Speaker 2: one is where it gets really fun. This is where
Speaker 2: it's like the Revelation scrolls, but they've got a different.
Speaker 1: Name, right the so called Sectarian scrolls, also known as
Speaker 1: the War Rule or the War scroll. This definitely came
Speaker 1: from the scene sect. It's called the War of the
Speaker 1: Suns of Light against the suns of darkness. Right now,
Speaker 1: this sect believed themselves to be sort of the Holy elect,
Speaker 1: the Kreme de la Creme of Israel, and they call
Speaker 1: themselves the suns of Light, and at sometime at the
Speaker 1: end of time, specifically, they would have a catastrophic war
Speaker 1: with the enemies of Israel, who were called the sons
Speaker 1: of Darkness. This scroll is an instructional an instructional piece.
Speaker 1: It's a manual for organization and strategy. It talks about
Speaker 1: battle gear, It gets down into the nitty gritty of signals.
Speaker 1: It portrays a forty year holy war, and it says
Speaker 1: this will be between the forces of good and evil,
Speaker 1: involving divine as well as earthly soldiers. Yeah, and you know,
Speaker 1: of course infernal assistance on the other side. So this
Speaker 1: is fascinating because it's prophetic and apocalyptic. The scenes themselves
Speaker 1: by the way to flesh this out. One of the
Speaker 1: reasons that they were looked at askance is because they
Speaker 1: were generally going to be found in monastic communities, and
Speaker 1: in most cases these excluded women. So these were people
Speaker 1: living specifically for the purpose of their faith or their
Speaker 1: their spiritual values.
Speaker 2: And a lot of that entilled writing things down.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, and we're going to explore some more of
Speaker 1: that after a quick word from our sponsor. Right, they
Speaker 1: wrote things down, and since a lot of the stuff
Speaker 1: they wrote down predates the Bible. We can look back.
Speaker 1: We could do this side by side. There are projects
Speaker 1: to digitize this information. You can look side by side
Speaker 1: and see the evolution of beliefs and concepts from the
Speaker 1: time the scrolls were actually written, all the way to
Speaker 1: the current translations of Bibles or other religious texts that
Speaker 1: you see used today in twenty twenty. For example, you
Speaker 1: can see depictions of narratives like what you would find
Speaker 1: in modern day Exodus or Genesis. But here's the thing,
Speaker 1: these are the earlier versions. They're different.
Speaker 2: Oh yes, And then we mentioned apocrypha before, because there's
Speaker 2: all kinds of stuff in there about that, stories of
Speaker 2: these giants, these ancient giants from before, these things called watchers,
Speaker 2: these fallen watchers, and there's all kinds of other imagery
Speaker 2: in there, and characters that you probably wouldn't if you
Speaker 2: open and cracked a Bible.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was thinking of I was thinking of, what's
Speaker 1: what's the strange comparison we can make to this experience
Speaker 1: in the modern day.
Speaker 2: Okay, all right?
Speaker 1: Uh do you remember Fresh Prince of bel Air.
Speaker 2: I've heard of it, Yes, I've seen every episode.
Speaker 1: Right, Okay, so Aunt Viv in Fresh Prince of bel
Speaker 1: Air is actually two different actors, right, what Yeah, one
Speaker 1: of them gets replaced in nineteen ninety three, right, I remember,
Speaker 1: I know Matt clearly knows all of this. Intimately, you're
Speaker 1: like the biggest fresh prints.
Speaker 2: I remember the episode and it changed. I was like,
Speaker 2: that is not on viv Get out of here. Who
Speaker 2: are you collitch.
Speaker 1: In the matrix?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: So for some people reading this is sort of like
Speaker 1: that experience, because we grow up thinking that religious texts
Speaker 1: are all poor choice of words here carved in stone,
Speaker 1: that they do not change, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: And now there is clear evidence that at some point,
Speaker 1: yeah dude, they did. They still have you know, a
Speaker 1: lot in common, right, And there is also a fascinating
Speaker 1: case to be made that this stuff remains remarkably consistent. Right,
Speaker 1: But especially when you look at the modern Christian versions,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of differences. There are things that
Speaker 1: were cut out, and that has been the root of
Speaker 1: a great deal of research. The fast spanning the spectrum
Speaker 1: of plausibility and credibility, I would say, because you get
Speaker 1: a lot of pseudo historians.
Speaker 2: In there, you know, oh yeah exactly.
Speaker 1: And there is so much to explore in the story
Speaker 1: of the Dead Sea scrolls, but we want to hone
Speaker 1: in on a specific story. We want to hone in
Speaker 1: on a single scroll, and we may to be completely clear,
Speaker 1: we may return in the future to other parts of
Speaker 1: the Dead Sea story.
Speaker 2: I would love that.
Speaker 1: The Dead Sea itself, man, it's a crazy place.
Speaker 2: It really is.
Speaker 1: Thirty three percent salinity. It's nuts. They also recently scientists
Speaker 1: found life at the bottom of the Dead Sea.
Speaker 2: You're saying, there's life in the bottom of the Dead Sea.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, maybe we were a little too uh click
Speaker 1: to pull the trigger on the name.
Speaker 2: For an update.
Speaker 1: Mostly dead sea, the live bottom sea. That's you know,
Speaker 1: that's not gonna.
Speaker 2: Have probiotics at the bottom there we go.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and and underwater whole foods because of course. But
Speaker 1: also the Dead Sea is a receding at a precipitous rate.
Speaker 1: It's sad.
Speaker 2: Great, thanks, thanks Ben, You're welcome in Australia's on fire.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Also still and then as we're recording this, there
Speaker 1: were a series of earthquakes and an and.
Speaker 2: You know, some attacks. Yeah, yeah, it's fine, Everything's going
Speaker 2: to be fine.
Speaker 1: I was talking to an old professor of mine recently
Speaker 1: regarding geopolitical tensions in the modern world, and asked him,
Speaker 1: you know what he thought was going to happen off
Speaker 1: the record and stuff. And his answer was, you know,
Speaker 1: he said, I envy you young folks out there because
Speaker 1: you know you could make a choice and you might
Speaker 1: not ever have to deal with the consequences. And he said,
Speaker 1: you think about it, which you want, wreck a car,
Speaker 1: tell someone you'll marry them, It doesn't matter.
Speaker 2: Now he's saying, we're not going to live, yes, yes,
Speaker 2: for long.
Speaker 1: It was his way of saying that you can make
Speaker 1: the most ridiculous choices because you really don't know if
Speaker 1: you know, if you were going to do something that
Speaker 1: would have killed you in your eighties, is that a
Speaker 1: moot concern at this point?
Speaker 2: Oh my god, we can really live like there's no tomorrow.
Speaker 2: Tonight's the night. That's why all the pop songs are
Speaker 2: telling me Tonight's the night.
Speaker 1: I want to also point out, I'm not going to
Speaker 1: give this professor's name. They are retired. Also want to
Speaker 1: point out I think they're eighty percent joking. I would
Speaker 1: like to think that. And if they're not, and if
Speaker 1: you're listening, that is a horrible take on this on
Speaker 1: this situation anyhow. Yeah, yes, we are focusing on one
Speaker 1: one specific scroll because there was a scroll discovered on
Speaker 1: March fourteenth, nineteen fifty two, and out of all of
Speaker 1: the nine hundred something Dead Sea scrolls, this one is
Speaker 1: unique for a number of reasons.
Speaker 2: Well, firstly, it's not written on papyrus or you know,
Speaker 2: leather or any of these other mediums that where the
Speaker 2: other ones were written or how they're what they were
Speaker 2: written on. This one was written on a thin sheet
Speaker 2: of rolled up copper. That's crazy, a thin sheet of
Speaker 2: rolled up metal. And this thing is really really interesting.
Speaker 2: There are several different estimates here. A lot of these
Speaker 2: scholars believe that the probable range for the Copper scrolls
Speaker 2: creation was somewhere in the period of twenty five to
Speaker 2: seventy five CE, and that's just looking at the handwriting itself.
Speaker 2: When you're analyzing that it's called from a paleographical perspective.
Speaker 2: While there's this person in WF. Albright who suggests it
Speaker 2: was probably written somewhere between seventy and one hundred and
Speaker 2: thirty five CE, so a little bit after that range
Speaker 2: at least when you're looking at it from a different perspective.
Speaker 2: It's really really interesting because this thing is unlike the
Speaker 2: other scrolls in way more ways than just the medium
Speaker 2: on which it's written.
Speaker 1: Right, this scroll eschewed the trend of religious content entirely
Speaker 1: focus on something else, something that has haunted amateurs and
Speaker 1: archaeologists alike since the fifties. The copper scroll you see
Speaker 1: is not a guide to day to day life. It
Speaker 1: is not an early version of Exodus or Genesis. It's
Speaker 1: not apocrypha. It is best described as a treasure map.
Speaker 1: Here's where it gets crazy.
Speaker 2: A treasure map, Ben, a treasure map, Matt, No, you're right,
Speaker 2: that's exactly what this thing is. It's about as Indiana
Speaker 2: Jones as you can get. If you were to pick
Speaker 2: this up and if you were able to read it immediately,
Speaker 2: you would you would just in my mind, you would
Speaker 2: grab a big stick or a shovel or something and
Speaker 2: you would just start digging all over the place. It's
Speaker 2: intense stuff.
Speaker 1: And it's not just one treasure, No, it's one treasure
Speaker 1: across what it's all the treasure sixty four locations. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The treasures are are precious metals, gold and silver, and
Speaker 1: the text of the copper scroll is entirely an inventory
Speaker 1: of these locations and coins, right, and coins, Yeah, sorry,
Speaker 1: sixty three locations are, according to the scroll, holding gold
Speaker 1: and silver, and there's a sixty fourth location that's a
Speaker 1: little bit different. But they're talking, you know, they're making
Speaker 1: money moves here. These these are not little burlap sacks
Speaker 1: of like five to ten pieces of silver.
Speaker 2: No, not at all. You're talking talents, all kinds of talents,
Speaker 2: sometimes fifty, sometimes ten, sometimes way more than that. There's
Speaker 2: one location, like according to this copper scroll that it
Speaker 2: holds nine hundred talents and or roughly eight hundred and
Speaker 2: sixty eight thousand troy ounces of buried gold. That's a
Speaker 2: lot of gold, my friends. Yes, And it is just
Speaker 2: buried in one place. But then there's gold and silver
Speaker 2: buried throughout this entire region somewhere out there, and we're
Speaker 2: going to get into where that is. But it's not
Speaker 2: just precious metals, it's not just talent or gold coins
Speaker 2: and silver coins. It's got it's got religious accouterment too,
Speaker 2: that's just buried out there somewhere.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, tithing vessels, other other vessels that would be
Speaker 1: used in religious ceremonies, right, also priestly vestments.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I want to get back to the vessels.
Speaker 2: The vessels were really fun for me because I'm going
Speaker 2: to read you a quote from one of these, just
Speaker 2: so everybody can hear. Is that okay?
Speaker 1: That's perfect? I forgot this was coming.
Speaker 2: Oh yes, just really quick.
Speaker 1: No, no, please, let's do it.
Speaker 2: Just speaking of vessels. So this is officially column three.
Speaker 2: You can find this online if you want to. You
Speaker 2: can see it in there, and this is just me
Speaker 2: reading it in from an English translation. Dig down nine
Speaker 2: cubits into the southern corner of the courtyard. There will
Speaker 2: be silver and gold vessels given as offerings, bowls, cups,
Speaker 2: sprinkling basins, libation tubes, and pictures. All together, they will
Speaker 2: total six hundred and nine pieces.
Speaker 1: Libation tubes, Hey, Matt, what what's a libation tube?
Speaker 2: A libation tube is anything that you pour some drinking
Speaker 2: to my friend. It could be wine, it could be
Speaker 2: any other libation, as long as you're having fun and
Speaker 2: hopefully doing it in sacrament to some higher deity.
Speaker 1: Libate right, librate to your heart's content. Would you call
Speaker 1: that libyan? What would you call that? Tubin?
Speaker 2: Or leban?
Speaker 4: Liban?
Speaker 1: Tuban Ananberg. Yeah, yeah, yeah, they also these The name
Speaker 1: sounds a bit funny in English, but libation tubes did
Speaker 1: serve an important purpose, right, yeah, absolutely, They were connecting
Speaker 1: the living with the dead and so on. So this
Speaker 1: is incredibly important to point out. Though again, not all
Speaker 1: of the treasure was gold and silver. There were things
Speaker 1: that the community truly believed you could not put a
Speaker 1: price on, right, these priceless objects, and they must be
Speaker 1: hidden from invading forces such as the Romans, who of
Speaker 1: course will show up later. There's another interesting part though,
Speaker 1: that it's towards the very end of the Copper Scroll
Speaker 1: it says there's another scroll out there that has more details.
Speaker 1: It's as if they knew people would complain about the
Speaker 1: directions in the scroll, which we'll get to by the way,
Speaker 1: they're laughable. But that other document, whatever it is, has
Speaker 1: yet to be found. They are experts of plenty in
Speaker 1: this field, like a Theodore H. Gaster. He studied the
Speaker 1: Copper Scroll extensively, and he believed that it was in
Speaker 1: fact alluding to a real treasure, and that this treasure
Speaker 1: could come from one of three sources.
Speaker 2: The first of those would be treasure that was acquired
Speaker 2: by the Kumaran community or the Essenes that we discussed before.
Speaker 2: It would kind of make sense. Just you know, when
Speaker 2: you're thinking about all the religious accouterment that was buried
Speaker 2: in all of these things, you can imagine that if
Speaker 2: it is a religious community, perhaps a lot of this
Speaker 2: the wealth of the gold and everything came through the
Speaker 2: form of some kind of tithing or donation or some
Speaker 2: you know, you can imagine it was gathered in some
Speaker 2: way like that. It kind of makes sense. The next
Speaker 2: possible source of this treasure would be from the Second
Speaker 2: Temple in Jerusalem. However, we do have to kind of
Speaker 2: point out here that the historical record suggests that a
Speaker 2: lot of the main or the a large amount of
Speaker 2: the main treasure that was inside that Second Temple was
Speaker 2: in the building when Rome came through and sacked all
Speaker 2: of Jerusalem after they breached all the walls. And it's
Speaker 2: a there's a great there's a great article on HowStuffWorks
Speaker 2: dot Com that goes kind of it paints a really
Speaker 2: great picture of what occurred when the Romans sec Jerusalem
Speaker 2: that time. It does not rule out this possibility, though
Speaker 2: there's a significant portion of the treasures that may have
Speaker 2: possibly at least you know. This is it's a belief, right,
Speaker 2: This is where we're talking about. This is a suggestion.
Speaker 2: A significant portion of the treasures may have been taken
Speaker 2: away from the temple because it was known that the
Speaker 2: Romans were coming through for days, right, so there was
Speaker 2: probably preparation to get a lot of this treasure out
Speaker 2: and hide it somewhere before they actually breached the walls.
Speaker 1: And the third idea is that this treasure came from
Speaker 1: the First Temple, which was destroyed by the king of Babylon,
Speaker 1: Nebuchadnezzar in five eighty six BCE. There's one problem with
Speaker 1: that though. The scroll has been dated to as you said,
Speaker 1: earlier man like twenty five at the earliest. So it's
Speaker 1: unlikely that somebody went back and made a treasure map
Speaker 1: centuries later, especially when you see how it's written. You know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But here's the thing I would point out when
Speaker 2: I was reading that too. This is my suggestion, and
Speaker 2: this is there's no weight behind this suggestion. But if
Speaker 2: the treasures were secreted away from either of the temples
Speaker 2: and kept somewhere, right, perhaps this burying them across the
Speaker 2: land and all these varying places that you'd need to
Speaker 2: dig to find them very much buried treasure. It could
Speaker 2: be an interesting strategy for hiding them a second time,
Speaker 2: or maybe a third time, or you know, however, many
Speaker 2: iterations these treasures had been hidden away from popular view
Speaker 2: or from the authorities view.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, that's the tantalizing thing about this, right.
Speaker 1: We we have solid, concrete, tangible proof of something, and
Speaker 1: now it's a herculean mental exercise to try to plausibly
Speaker 1: and realistically connect these dots. You know. But when we
Speaker 1: talk about connecting dots, we're also talking about decoding the
Speaker 1: manuscript itself, because it was written in Hebrew, but it
Speaker 1: was written in a different kind of Hebrew, and the
Speaker 1: chronology makes us assume that this was deposited later was
Speaker 1: possibly from a different group of people. We'll explore more
Speaker 1: of the conundrum of the copper scroll after word from
Speaker 1: our sponsor.
Speaker 2: All right, and we're back. Now. We've been talking about,
Speaker 2: you know, the origin a lot of this copper scroll,
Speaker 2: but we really really want to answer the question, is
Speaker 2: there actual treasure out there that if let's say we
Speaker 2: got on a plane and ended up there in that area,
Speaker 2: could we find some talents underneath the ground somewhere Troy ounces.
Speaker 1: Well, what do you think, Ben, It's possible, But to
Speaker 1: do that we would have to Indiana Jones style decipher
Speaker 1: the manuscript. So, for instance, we set a talent we
Speaker 1: had the equivalent there for Troy ounce. But unsurprisingly, directions
Speaker 1: are not given in kilometers, nor were they in miles.
Speaker 2: Oh yes, oh sure, yes, absolutely. We mentioned this when
Speaker 2: I read column three. It says dig down nine cubits.
Speaker 2: So if you were to dig down nine cubits, what
Speaker 2: the heck would that look like. Well, let's talk about
Speaker 2: it really, really quickly. A cubit is ancient and handy measurement,
Speaker 2: and that is a pun and we'll get to it.
Speaker 2: So let's do something fun together. Right now, Paul, you
Speaker 2: do this too, just so I can see if I'm
Speaker 2: telling it correctly. Please take your dominant hand and stretch
Speaker 2: it directly out in front of you, right, Okay. Now,
Speaker 2: let's bend your elbow so it's ninety degrees facing upwards. Okay, okay, excellent.
Speaker 2: Now the length from your elbow to the middle finger,
Speaker 2: your middle finger, which is stretched out, by the way,
Speaker 2: I forgot to mention that that is a cubit, not
Speaker 2: a Cubert no, a cubebit. And here's there's a bit
Speaker 2: of a problem here because my cubit is not exactly
Speaker 2: the same length as your cubit. It's going to be
Speaker 2: close ish, yeah, but it's not exactly the same. It's
Speaker 2: roughly eighteen inches somewhere around that length, or about forty
Speaker 2: six centimeters. But this is the measurement that was used
Speaker 2: in throughout ancient history for a long long time. And
Speaker 2: just think about how helpful this measurement is for someone
Speaker 2: anyone who's working on either a huge project or just
Speaker 2: something maybe in their home. You can measure something out,
Speaker 2: be like, I want this table to be about four
Speaker 2: cubits across, and you could measure that as you're going,
Speaker 2: and you know, cut cut wood to an exact measurement
Speaker 2: orright close to exact measurement. And then you could also
Speaker 2: talk with your you know, colleagues, or if you want
Speaker 2: to sell it, you can say this thing is it's
Speaker 2: about three four cubits. Yeah, it's pretty cool to me.
Speaker 2: I didn't know that. I'm just excited to have that knowledge.
Speaker 1: It's a measuring tool that you carry with you at
Speaker 1: all times.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you don't, you don't need a tool right, or
Speaker 2: anything else. You got your arm.
Speaker 1: You are the tool.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're the tool.
Speaker 1: Tell yourself that, say I am the tool in the mirror.
Speaker 1: So this is just one example of the the different
Speaker 1: phrases or concepts that have to be translated to ciphered
Speaker 1: for us to launch an actual treasure hunt based on
Speaker 1: the information we find in the copper scroll. Spoiler alert.
Speaker 1: For some people, what you're about to hear may be
Speaker 1: very disappointing. For others in the audience today, it may
Speaker 1: be quite inspiring. And it is this the treasure which
Speaker 1: was almost definitely real, by which we mean real gold,
Speaker 1: real silver, you know what I mean, the mollah, the
Speaker 1: good stuff, stuff you could trade on a market today.
Speaker 1: This is not like a treasure like oh, the friends
Speaker 1: we made along the way, or you know, ah, this
Speaker 1: is a child's doll that was really important to a
Speaker 1: person who died.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just to point out here, it doesn't make sense
Speaker 2: for someone anyone to take the time and effort and
Speaker 2: resources to inscribe in that copper scroll all of the
Speaker 2: information that is on there, if it's just some mythical
Speaker 2: thing that there's no actual treasure all, Like, why would
Speaker 2: you do that?
Speaker 1: So that's the spoiler alert. This treasure, which again is
Speaker 1: overwhelmingly likely to be a real thing, it has never
Speaker 1: been found, not as far as we know, a single
Speaker 1: piece of it, not even the like, not even the
Speaker 1: idea of a single piece of gold or silver, Not
Speaker 1: a single piece of one of those vessels that was mentioned,
Speaker 1: No libation tube, et cetera.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a there's a guy who allegedly found some tiny,
Speaker 2: little couple of small pieces, but it was not like, well.
Speaker 1: He found a rock, right, I think? So there they
Speaker 1: said it was man made.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, people, this hasn't stopped people from searching, of course,
Speaker 1: But why hasn't it been found? That's that's the craziest question. First,
Speaker 1: which you think we mentioned earlier when we were talking
Speaker 1: about the possible origin of the treasure. We have to
Speaker 1: think of the sheer passage of time. It is plausible
Speaker 1: that sometime between modern day exploration and excavation and the
Speaker 1: time that these things were originally written, at the time
Speaker 1: this treasure was originally buried, it's completely possible that any
Speaker 1: number of people looted the Bejesus out of the thing,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but why would you leave the copper scroll behind well,
Speaker 2: the scroll clearly wasn't next to the treasure.
Speaker 1: It's supposed to tell you where to go.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you'd use the treasure, you'd have to take
Speaker 2: it with you.
Speaker 1: Right, Well, what if you just found the treasure and
Speaker 1: you never found the scroll. Oh you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: But this stuff is like nine cubits. You have to
Speaker 2: dig like nine cubits.
Speaker 1: Well, we also have to remember, for instance, that our
Speaker 1: prime suspect for a contemporaneous looting operation would have been
Speaker 1: the Roman community, and the Romans at the time standard
Speaker 1: operating procedure was to torture people to get information so
Speaker 1: they could have found one. I mean, that's also why
Speaker 1: the treasure was not put in one location. Yes, right,
Speaker 1: so maybe it was a situation where outside of the
Speaker 1: authors of the Copper Scroll, most people didn't know. You know,
Speaker 1: they probably have pretty good operational security. Most people didn't
Speaker 1: know where the other sixty four or excuse me, sixty
Speaker 1: three things were.
Speaker 2: That is really smart to split it up as much
Speaker 2: as they did.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, if this was, if this was a treasure
Speaker 1: from the Second Temple, it was very much not the
Speaker 1: first rodeo, you know what I mean. Theo lessons learned.
Speaker 1: So the other idea is that there may have been
Speaker 1: a cover up of some sort that was successful, and
Speaker 1: that the people responsible for hiding the gold and silver
Speaker 1: did a great job. But outside of the copper scroll
Speaker 1: and this other unidentified or undiscovered document, they just never
Speaker 1: shared the information with others, or they passed away, or
Speaker 1: the people they told the secret to at some point
Speaker 1: communication between generations failed. Add to that, the vagueness of
Speaker 1: this scroll can be maddening. This is, if I may,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna read just the excerpt from the instructions to
Speaker 1: one of the treasure locations. We want to see what
Speaker 1: you think. I'm just gonna read it without other than
Speaker 1: saying it's vague. In the salt pit that is under
Speaker 1: the steps, forty one talents of silver, in the cave
Speaker 1: of the old Washer's chamber on the third terrace, sixty
Speaker 1: five ingots of gold. What's the old washer's chamber?
Speaker 2: Huh? You know what I mean, dude, I'm telling you,
Speaker 2: I have such a feeling about this. It was an
Speaker 2: internal document, Yeah, it was. This is what I'm feeling,
Speaker 2: and I remember as I was reading through. You can
Speaker 2: find a couple of places online where you can read
Speaker 2: translations of the full scroll, and it really does go
Speaker 2: on like that, like that's pretty much what Ben just read.
Speaker 2: It's like twelve columns of that. And it feels like
Speaker 2: somebody within a group of people recording with places like that,
Speaker 2: like the old washers whatever, this specific cave that doesn't
Speaker 2: have an exact you know, the name is a little strange.
Speaker 2: It doesn't match up historically with any other. Sure, everybody
Speaker 2: in that insular group knows all these places intimately, and
Speaker 2: they know exactly where to go and where to dig
Speaker 2: and everything. But they're just keeping a record of it,
Speaker 2: or somebody within it is the record keeper of it. Sure, yeah,
Speaker 2: you could it just totally. It totally makes sense.
Speaker 1: I mean that makes yeah, it does make sense. I
Speaker 1: agree with you. The first thing this made me think
Speaker 1: of through analogy was the experience that you have if
Speaker 1: you have ever given or received directions in very small towns.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: You know, you may have something that sounds really clear,
Speaker 1: like take Main Street and then take a left on
Speaker 1: Colquit at the corner of the Arby's, why the Arby's
Speaker 1: or something, but you may also have something like go
Speaker 1: about I don't go a mile till you get to
Speaker 1: where the old mill burn down. Yes, and then you
Speaker 1: know there should be a post office box.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and then.
Speaker 1: You go, I think you go for about three miles
Speaker 1: until you get where the Tillmans used to live, and
Speaker 1: then you take a right there.
Speaker 2: See for us, just we're been and Nolan, Paul and
Speaker 2: I live. It's so much easier to give directions to
Speaker 2: anyone because you can just pinpoint different waffle houses and
Speaker 2: you can just once you know where the waffle houses are,
Speaker 2: then you can tell anybody how to get anywhere.
Speaker 1: It's very convenient reference point. But our point is who
Speaker 1: can guess if it is indeed an internal document? Who
Speaker 1: has the foresight to say, thousands of years ago the
Speaker 1: old washer's chamber. I mean, clearly where else would you
Speaker 1: put a washer's chamber?
Speaker 2: But in you know, in what I was saying this
Speaker 2: last thing, yes, you'd have to prove that the old
Speaker 2: washer's chamber existed somewhere near where the scroll was discovered,
Speaker 2: rather than maybe where the scroll was written or originally
Speaker 2: you know, the area that it's speaking to.
Speaker 1: It still may you know? It still makes me think, though,
Speaker 1: of modern English has ruined my understanding of these sorts
Speaker 1: of translations yeah, because in American English, whenever somebody throws
Speaker 1: the phrase the old in front of something, it sounds
Speaker 1: like a euphemism, the old washer's chamber, You know what
Speaker 1: I mean? Is this some sort of strange metaphor for
Speaker 1: the old washer's chamber? Is that like a move? People?
Speaker 2: Do I think it is the old washer?
Speaker 1: Well, it sounds it does sound.
Speaker 2: Like a place. Well, maybe it was just written by
Speaker 2: an old prospector maybe.
Speaker 1: It was written by the original foghorn Leghorn. But despite
Speaker 1: this vagueness, people have insisted on searching. Why would you not?
Speaker 1: You know, you could be a part of one of
Speaker 1: the greatest discoveries in history scrolls. Right in nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: two we saw one of the largest, most extensive hunts
Speaker 1: for the treasures of the Copper Scroll was led by
Speaker 1: a man named John Allegro. He followed some of the
Speaker 1: places listed in the scroll and did their best. He
Speaker 1: and his team did their best to figure out where
Speaker 1: they would be in the modern day. They excavated a
Speaker 1: ton of potential burial places, but eventually they gave up
Speaker 1: and they returned empty handed. There was a more recent
Speaker 1: excavation or exploration attempt by a man named Jim Barfield.
Speaker 1: And Jim Barfield is interesting because he doesn't he believes
Speaker 1: that the treasure was not actually gold and silver. He
Speaker 1: believes that the primary quote unquote loot of the treasure
Speaker 1: would be the vessels and utensils of the Lost Temple.
Speaker 1: And so he did something interesting. He applied triangulation techniques. Right,
Speaker 1: He was kind of cross referencing these ancient texts and
Speaker 1: the references that the copper scroll made in different locations
Speaker 1: because they're all kind of in the same area.
Speaker 2: So smart, right, yeah, absolutely, it's very smart, and it's
Speaker 2: the way that I would do it. And the reason
Speaker 2: why it's interesting that this guy, Jim Barfield did it
Speaker 2: is because he doesn't speak Hebrew, he's not Jewish. He's
Speaker 2: just a guy who's essentially like a treasure hunter or
Speaker 2: you know, someone with an interest in this who had
Speaker 2: some time and resources and just used a technique that
Speaker 2: like an investigator would use. Basically really really cool stuff.
Speaker 2: And so he thinks he actually found some of these
Speaker 2: locations in the surrounding area in Kumran. And there's this
Speaker 2: breaking news Israel.
Speaker 1: Report that which is not the best source.
Speaker 2: It's not I will give you that, but Let's just
Speaker 2: give a quote from that article about his investigation. It says, quote,
Speaker 2: in two thousand and seven, he Barfield went to Kumaran
Speaker 2: and actually found those locations. In one case, the scroll
Speaker 2: describes steps forty cubits long heading east. Barfield did indeed
Speaker 2: find stares conforming to the description. He also discovered the
Speaker 2: remains of a pool precisely forty cubits long, exactly where
Speaker 2: the scroll said it would be. However, there is always
Speaker 2: a twist here or reason why we couldn't fulfill what
Speaker 2: was going to occur finding all this treasure quote, but
Speaker 2: lacking government permission, he could go no further.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yep. So those are the two most prominent expeditions,
Speaker 1: and they both didn't produce anything that was universally agreed
Speaker 1: to be the treasure. That's the best way to say it.
Speaker 2: Well. Yeah, and we humanity, at least to our knowledge
Speaker 2: that has been recorded, has not recovered anything material right
Speaker 2: from any of these Right.
Speaker 1: I believe in one of Barfield's investigations he found a
Speaker 1: rock that was provably man made. So at his at
Speaker 1: this point, he's focusing on matching up physical locations and
Speaker 1: structures or ruins, yes, right, And so he's not immediately
Speaker 1: going after Golds because again he thinks the treasure quote unquote,
Speaker 1: is a different thing. But all this together, as do listeners,
Speaker 1: you'll notice that the last line from Barfield was he
Speaker 1: could go no further because he lacked government permission. This
Speaker 1: brings us to the possibility or the proposed possibility of
Speaker 1: a cover up, because you see, there is no secret
Speaker 1: that there is a war over history in the Middle East.
Speaker 1: Given the historical tension and volatility of the region, the
Speaker 1: government has been very careful about who they allow to
Speaker 1: search this area and when and how. You know what
Speaker 1: I mean, like, if you bring in a potentially damaging equipment,
Speaker 1: you could lose humanity's one shot to figure out some
Speaker 1: of the mysteries here.
Speaker 2: Now. And imagine that you're a treasure hunter who doesn't
Speaker 2: live in the area, and you find a treasure and
Speaker 2: you want to take it out of that area, and
Speaker 2: you're going to go through customs or something, or you know,
Speaker 2: you're going to claim that it is a treasure, and
Speaker 2: you have to claim that it's a treasure in order
Speaker 2: to establish where you found it, when you found it,
Speaker 2: that you're the one that found it. How important it
Speaker 2: is that it's real and authentic. You have to say that.
Speaker 2: You have to raise your hand and say, hey, I
Speaker 2: found treasure.
Speaker 1: Unless you want to go into the illegal.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know, which is something you can do. However,
Speaker 2: it's it's difficult because then you're getting things verified, you know,
Speaker 2: after the fact, which is a whole it's a whole
Speaker 2: different animal. I'm big in black market antiquities.
Speaker 1: I'm always grateful that you're here when we're doing these
Speaker 1: shows because you know, a lot of a lot of
Speaker 1: the lessons you've learned, You've learned the hard way.
Speaker 2: I really have, Oh my goodness. But we can't get
Speaker 2: into that for legal reasons. So let's okay, let's just
Speaker 2: say it would be difficult because if you do find
Speaker 2: something in this region, you raise your hand and you say, hey,
Speaker 2: I found treasure, then there it's not just going to
Speaker 2: be the local authorities, you know, that are going to
Speaker 2: play ownership over this.
Speaker 1: Now, it'll be academic institutions in this case, will be
Speaker 1: religious institutions as well. Barfield said that he believes he
Speaker 1: clearly believes he was on the right track, and he
Speaker 1: clearly believes he was being stymied in his search, but
Speaker 1: he thought there was a good reason. He said, if
Speaker 1: he discovered anything of value, it would lead to what
Speaker 1: I would call a real ship show because we're family broadcasts.
Speaker 1: And here's what he said. He says he predicted that
Speaker 1: Jordan would claim the land used to belong to them
Speaker 1: if there was something of value discovered. He said, Palestinians
Speaker 1: will claim they were here before this other group, so
Speaker 1: that therefore they'll say whatever they found belongs to us,
Speaker 1: and then the world will believe them. According to Barfield,
Speaker 1: he says, you know, Egypt will come along and say
Speaker 1: that there was a treasure that was taken from the
Speaker 1: land of Egypt during the Exodus, and he says, ultimately
Speaker 1: by keeping it in the ground, the Israeli government is
Speaker 1: protecting it. It's a very interesting way to allege a
Speaker 1: cover up.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it's certainly interesting. So I don't know, should
Speaker 2: we do we need to get into anything else, Ben,
Speaker 2: I just kind of want to talk a little bit about,
Speaker 2: like what what you think person about this thing? Can
Speaker 2: we get into opinion?
Speaker 1: What I think about the the treasure?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that the scrolls? Like the treasure? What do you
Speaker 2: what do you think it might.
Speaker 1: Still be out there? You really think so quite possibly.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's possible that it was all looted.
Speaker 1: It's it's it's not plausible to assume that all of
Speaker 1: these different locations survived. It is possible that a few did, yeah,
Speaker 1: because the only way they would all they would all
Speaker 1: have been found were if they were eventually all sixty
Speaker 1: four were. First off, we're assuming all sixty four actually exist,
Speaker 1: if all sixty four were found one by one, or
Speaker 1: if somebody found that second, more detailed document and then
Speaker 1: went through and somehow did all of this in secret
Speaker 1: and it was forgotten. You know.
Speaker 2: This is my is what I put to you. I
Speaker 2: like what you're saying there. I think I think that
Speaker 2: that copper scroll where was was essentially just discarded there
Speaker 2: or just left there for record keeping at some point.
Speaker 2: Just we've got this collection of scrolls, here's another one.
Speaker 2: It's just gonna be there. This is where it lives
Speaker 2: now because we've already used it to find everything, we
Speaker 2: don't need it anymore. And that second document, like you said,
Speaker 2: was kept by the people that recovered all of the
Speaker 2: treasure because it was I believe that it was from
Speaker 2: probably the Second Temple.
Speaker 1: And you think it was an inside job.
Speaker 2: No, I think I think it was just I think
Speaker 2: we essentially got it's a receipt or it's the the
Speaker 2: old instructions of like, Okay, we've we've accomplished this, we've
Speaker 2: collected everything. We don't need it anymore. We'll just leave
Speaker 2: those instructions there. Doesn't matter if anyone finds any of
Speaker 2: these by burial places anymore, because we've already recovered everything.
Speaker 1: And then, yeah, I could I could see that. I
Speaker 1: could definitely see that. But I do like the idea
Speaker 1: that was an inside job and that there were two documents,
Speaker 1: two scrolls, and then one person totally betrayed everybody. It
Speaker 1: took the second stroll AdPT. I doubt that. I doubt
Speaker 1: that's the case, but it would make for it would
Speaker 1: make for a compelling narrative. This is also taking We
Speaker 1: have to realize too that anything of this age is
Speaker 1: it the value we ascribe to it is only partially financial,
Speaker 1: and it's only a very small part of it. The
Speaker 1: real value becomes an historical value, and that's where we
Speaker 1: see the import there. It can prove, confirm or debunk
Speaker 1: things that we believe about history today, and it could
Speaker 1: also provide evidence of various various stories that have been
Speaker 1: traditionally told, and that that treasure, any treasure, if discovered,
Speaker 1: would immediately become significant in the in the war over history,
Speaker 1: you know, the war over who gets what when? And
Speaker 1: this you know this continue across the world, but the
Speaker 1: Middle East especially has a it's such an ancient land.
Speaker 1: It's been home to immense conflicts over historical claims, religious sites,
Speaker 1: who has the right to go where, when and so on.
Speaker 1: And that's our classic episode for this evening. We can't
Speaker 1: wait to hear your thoughts. It's right let us know
Speaker 1: what you think.
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