monasteries in bethlehem and commemorated a sitehere where some would say facts, fiction and faith comere together. the grotto,, a site whereed w tradition says the holy family hid when herod sent his soldier to kill all the babies in bethlehem. according to the first christian belief, while o mary was nursing her baby here some drops of her milk cav fell to the ground. tradition says a miracle occurred in this cave a short distance from jesus alls birth site when the drops to of mary s milk turned theopin walls white and people come. here hoping for more miracles.r because mary s milk fellmi here they ask for the powder of this milk. what do they do with this? with the husband they would put a small grain into milk, water or juice and drink it.t. there is a special devotional prayer if they re catholic. not catholic they pray with faith and from the heart to be healed
village life into jesus time is reenacted in the open air museum on passion farmland on modern nazareth. it was a relatively new town when jesus grew up here. scripture says jesus of nazareth but it also says he was born in bethlehem. jesus of nazareth and jesus of bethlehem. let s bring the two together. almost every christian in the world believes he was born in bethlehem. he is a methodist minister and archaeologist. the vast majority of critical new testament scholars have come to the conclusion jesus was probably born in nazareth. why is that? he is never called jesus of bethlehem. one of the interesting things regarding tradition of jesus birth there is no serious counterclaim among the early christians that jesus was born outside of bethlehem. the old testament includes prophecies that a messiah was
no depictions of people and animals of the out of the fourth century church what we see are pillars and this floor and that s about it. in the late sixing century, a roman emperorrusa rebuilt the church. crusaders expanded it andgs used it for the coronation of their kings.ho others fought at this holy place. the persians, the turks, most recently in april of 2002 when palestinian militants wanted by the israeli defense force built refuge here for 39 days. priests carried bodies ofed ten palestinians who were killed when the church came under fire during the siege. beautiful. it is beautiful. we re walking up to the main altar area of this church from the greek ogt docks tradition greek orthodox tradition. it is decorated in a way unfamiliar to us in the west.
expected to come from bethlehem. there were people who were saved. this is the time we have been counting and calculating worked out from the prophecies when this ought to occur and we think it is pretty much now. in recent years they have found facts to support that tradition. our work in the jewish villages is proving in the time of jesus 80 percent of the jews came from judea. that is bethlehem. we are not only people of faith we are people are line. archeology can t form faith. but archeology is absolutely important for informing faith and we would like to ask every question possible. what we can be certain about is we can call jesus of nazareth. this is where he spent his early youth. the nativity story begins here in nazareth. the gospel of luke says the
not that angels appeared but they believed they had experienced angels and this gave them a meaning in life that maybe we have missed. what do we know about mary? she was living in a patriarchal society where she obtains meaning because men gave her meaning. her dream of course would be to have a man that would love her and help her bring a family into this world. so her dream would be to some day be respected and to have a son. now joseph, we don t know much about joseph. joseph seems to disappear in the midst of history. right nearby is st. joseph the church marking the home of the holy couple. tradition says the structure was built over joseph s carpentry workshop. when we look at the actual trance ligs from the greek bible we discovered something else. this idea of joseph with a saw and a saw horse is probably a row mant sized version of joseph.