sins, trying to overthrow his father. this is amazing. so, how d they build this? well, as you can see, this was built out of solid bedrock about 2,000 years ago. so, jesus would have seen this? yeah, jesus would have seen this prior to his crucifixion. for hundreds of years now, people believed this was absalom s tomb, and what do they do? they stone it. muslims, christians, and jews, pilgrims as they come by here for hundreds of years, this has been a jerusalem tradition. but zias is sure the stone-throwers had it wrong. his proof? inscriptions that suggest it s not absalom but people close to jesus life who were buried here. so, what does the inscription say? above the door, where it should have been, we found an inscription that says, this is the tomb of zechariah, the pious martyr, the father of john. now, who s the john? it s obviously, in this context, john the baptist. the inscription is in greek, and it s dated probably no later than 350 a.d. next to that is t
for 2,000 years, christians all over the world have celebrated the birth of jesus christ with thankful prayer and joyful song. peace on earth, good will to all is a very simple christmas message, and it s at the heart of jesus teachings. hello. i m jon scott. welcome to this fox news channel special presentation. behind me is bethlehem, where jesus was born. coming up on this program, a very special guide will take us on a tour of the church of the nativity. we ll travel to nazareth village to see a re-creation of life at the time of jesus. then to jerusalem. archaeologists will show us how they tell a fake from a find. and we ll find out why many religious leaders are angry about a best-selling book. they re calling it an assault on christianity s basic beliefs. but first, faith and fact. what do we know about the birth of jesus, and how do we know it?
have thought. here now, a look at a day in the life of nazareth at the time of jesus. modern-day nazareth is predominately an arab city. today you d hardly know this as the place jesus grew up. but right in the center of town stands a small village built to show what life was like at the time of christ. this is how, really, the majority of the people lived in palestine in the first century. there was no middle class. you either lived very, very well, like the people in sepphoris or in caesarea or in jerusalem, or else you lived like most of the people here simple peasant existence. anthropologist joe zias is a former senior curator for the israel antiquities authority. he spent the last 40 years investigating ancient life in the holy land. the peasants, which most of the people were, made their living off the things like we see before us the sheep, the goats, the olive trees, the vineyards. growing up nazareth, jesus probably had daily chores to help his parents. kids did
a fake? we found out that the inscription was freshly cut through, though, a general patina. there is, of course, a police investigation. other inscriptions were found in a cave outside jerusalem. the archaeologist who excavated the site claims it was used by john the baptist. i don t believe that there s any connection between this cave, which is a water system from the iron age, with john the baptist. uzi dahari is deputy director of the israeli antiquities authority. there s a face on the wall. there are crosses on the wall. does that does that suggest. no. it s one bedouin or another went there to make this kind of drawing, which can be found everywhere in israel and everywhere in the world. joe zias also took me to a well-known site in jerusalem absalom s tomb. absalom was a son of king david and is infamous for, among other