Herbert W Armstrong

   Ancient Rome, triumphal marches, processions, parades, the Emperors and the Generals, tens of thousands of citizens and a huge army, a beautiful column building, lieutenants, chariot races, the coliseum, the grandiose splendor that was Rome, the cities of ancient Greece in the Mediterranean world of that day. The motion pictures of Ben Hur and Cobotis, and the Hollywood extravaganzas that kept alive in our Western world. The idea of all, that Rome was. The idea is correct and the city of Greece were really like that.

   But when you think of Palestine, a city that coexisted at the very same time of Jesus Christ, when Emperor Augustus sent out the decree, you think of a completely different kind of a city, a barren series of Judean hills, a city of rounded domes and nomadic shepherd, a city of dusty streets, a city of maybe one or two or three buildings of well not very fine caliber, but a few buildings, but mostly just about like it is today.

   Why is that when Jerusalem during the time of Ancient Rome was nothing like people think it was? Jesus Christ superstar. Are you really who you say you are? Goes the rock opera. And the question is one that is not resolved yet today. Recently in the Fabulous Rose Parade, there was a figure riding on a float who was supposed to characterize Jesus Christ as he really looked. And the problem with it is they always placed Jesus in a certain setting.

   I doubt very much that people would assume Jesus was a vagabond wearing Japanese shower sandals and a torn piece of burlap. If they had placed him in the triumphal arch of Titus in the Roman Coliseum, visiting the Senate or walking the streets of Rome or Ephesus or Olympus or somewhere else in the Grecian world of that day, anywhere but Jerusalem or Nazareth or Bethlehem of the city of Capernaum in Galilee, but was ancient Judea or the area of Palestine really the way people think it was as a result of Sunday school tradition?

   The answer is absolutely not. And to understand a little bit about the real Jesus Christ of your Bible, you need to understand a little about the setting in which Jesus lived and worked in which Jesus and the disciples grew up. The dryness, the sparseness, the barrenness of the holy land today is nothing at all like it was at the first century, Palestine had suffered from many disastrous wars which had scourged the land and heard of all the various empires that had controlled the area, had never really cared for the land.

   For example, at a time in the past history, there was a moment when the occupier levied a prohibitive tax on fruit trees causing the people to cut them down. Williamson, the translator of Josephus, said that the Palestine of Christ's time is completely different from what most people have learned as a result of the Sunday school traditions and teaching that we have had the environment in which Jesus lived and worked in which he grew.

   The environment that led Joseph to become what we would call a general contractor, not just a carpenter with an environment so completely dramatically different from what most of us have thought, but it's no wonder there exists such a false concept in the minds of people. When they pronounce the name Jesus Christ, they don't think of the land accurately of the cities, language, architecture, music, the homes, the personal lifestyle of people. It's all a sort of a muddy traditional historical fable that people have not been able to get out of their minds.

   In actuality, Jerusalem with the virtual apex and pinnacle and Paragon of Greek civilization, right during the time Jesus was there. Now, Palestine wasn't exactly like Greece or Rome. It was really a mixture of the East and the West. But the overriding influence at that time was Greece or Grecian culture in social custom and civilization the area was what is called Hellenistic.

   Greek was the universal language at that time, Greek culture, Greek civilization and Greek architecture had become the standard of all peoples copied. The Hellenistic way of life was looked upon as the lifestyle to be copied by people then and from Spain to India, from Egypt to Southern Russia. Greek civilization prevailed and Palestine was no exception. In fact, some of the chief exponents of this sophisticated civilization at that time, the classical Grecian and Hellenistic one were found in and around Palestine. Herod The Great the king was mentioned during Jesus' lifetime.

   Well, prior to his birth and until he was a young lad, turned the country into one of the chief exponents of Grecian civilization. Jerusalem architecturally speaking was a prime example of an Hellenistic city. There was an Agora, a marketplace like any typical Greek city which is not found in the Middle Eastern type cities of today, numerous buildings, bridges, gardens, multilevel apartment buildings, private homes, monuments found all of the Greek style of the great love of Corinthian architecture and many of his buildings were supported by huge columns with Corinthian capitals.

   There was an exceedingly large Hippodrome just like the one in the picture Ben Hur, a beautiful Hellenistic theater like Greek theaters found everywhere in the Mediterranean world, the temple in Jerusalem had gigantic walls around it with some of its stones weighing more than 60 tons, over 1200 colonnades or columns supporting the four-sided arcades. Josephus said, one of these columns were so large that it took three men linking arms to embrace them. The temple was described as the most beautiful building anywhere in the entirety of the earth. It was described as a glittering gold and white jewel set atop a hill. It took the breath of visitors a far cry from what most people thought. Josephus talked about a mountaintop of glittering gold when he described the hill upon which that temple was. But even Josephus said that Herod's palace even surpassed the temple for its sheer magnificence.

   Jerusalem was a huge teeming city. So large that is awed some of the men from even other areas where other cities were equally well developed where there were multi-storied homes, interior plumbing, fountains, inside homes. Roman baths, mosaic sidewalks, beautiful decorated and finely finished buildings, a completely different view, a different aspect of life, a different form of architecture of different civilization and society than what most people have associated with the times of Jesus.

   When people talk today of Bible times, they usually always think of men and women running around with sackcloth, burlap a rope or a fuzzy piece of hemp to hold it all in place and open-toed sandals. Everybody was cuddy and filthy, everybody was dirty. Nobody ever took a bath. They rode around on donkeys and camels. Well, they don't really think of the Jerusalem during Jesus day the way it really was because tradition, theological tradition, Sunday school tradition is largely buried all that. Some of the motion pictures have at least tended to show a certain mixture of it, but not the way it really was as we're trying to do in these two programs.

   Jesus own disciples told him of the enormity and the magnificence of the temple and of its buildings. You find that in Mark the 13th chapter verse one (Mark 13:1), in the King James version of your Bible as he went out of the temple, one of his disciples said unto him, master see what manner of stones and what buildings are here. And Jesus answering said unto him, do you see these great buildings that shall not be left one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down.

   Jesus described the temple in its buildings as being subject for a future destruction that did occur in about 70 A.D. with the armies of Titus of Rome, the sacking of the city of Jerusalem. Jerusalem was also such a big city that Jesus could easily lose himself in the crowds. The Bible describes that time and again of cases where Jesus was about to be seized in the temple and the buildings of its environs. And he going through the midst of them in a huge crowd, there was able to lose himself in that city of tens, no, hundreds of thousands of people, a far cry from the way most of us automatically seem to think about the times, the setting, the environment of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

   After the time of Alexander the Great the Greeks launched a tremendous building program in which glittering jewel-like cities began to spring up in all parts of the eastern Mediterranean world that we now call Turkey and modern Israel, Lebanon, Syria, and other such countries. The cities were almost endless, Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Ephesus, Sardis, Laodicea, Philadelphia, Chaz cities after the Olympus, the city of Athens itself. But more importantly, what many people do not realize is that roughly two decades prior to the birth of Christ Herod had built from the ground level up a brand new city of Cesarea, Cesarea Philippi was called a place where the Apostle Paul was, a place where Cornelius was, it's mentioned in the 10th chapter of the book of Acts only two decades prior to the time of Jesus Christ.

   The whole city was built in about 12 years. First, Herod the Great made an artificial harbor there, the size of the natural harbor at Athens. His engineers were finally rolling huge rectangular blocks of quarried stone into the water and bringing the underwater wall to the surface. Josephus says, some of those stone blocks were over 50 ft in length and weighed well, more than 100 tons. That's an engineering feat that does not bespeak some primitive camel riding society.

   In the new city of Cesarea, Herod the Great also built a temple in honor of Augustus Caesar, a very personal friend of his and placed in it a statue of Caesar so large that it was said to rival the Olympian Zeus, a huge statue that was called one of the ancient seven wonders of the world that was over 40 ft high. Augustus and Herod were truly close confidant and friends. East and West met in these two men. Herod also built a new Jericho some miles south of the older one. A lot of us heard about the story of the walls of Jericho falling down. And we think of an ancient rebel heap. We don't seem to realize that during the time of Jesus, Jericho was also a glittering city that was decorated fabulously that Herod put in it, public buildings on a grand scale. Notably an Amphitheater much like the Colosseum in Rome.

   The materials used in building many of these cities in that Eastern world were so magnificent, so fine basalt, tremendous granites of all different uses and tones, marbles, travertine every precious stone. You can imagine that between the areas of 70 to 200 A.D. they were carted away to be used in building with other cities in the Middle Eastern area. If this carting away destruction and pillaging of these building materials had not taken place. Archaeologists and tourists alike would be going not to some of the areas around Rome and Greece. But to Jerusalem, Jericho and Cesarea. And yes, even Caperna, where Jesus lived and worked to see what would be the greatest examples of Greek architecture even now today.

   Up to the last two decades, Palestine had been considered very poor and even a backward country. But in Christ's time, this wasn't the case at all, just like the huge Coliseum in Rome. So there were other Coliseums, other Palaces and Arenas all over that Eastern world, even at the time, the Roman Jewish war in 66 to 70 A.D. Pattis acknowledged that even the Jews had more prosperity than the city of Rome itself. Herod's dominions were so rich that he was able to distribute his wealth even to foreign countries. These ruins seen in other portions of the Middle East and what is today modern-day Turkey show the ruins of a bygone civilization that was far greater and far grander than what most of us had been taught in Sunday school during the time of Jesus, during the time of heaven.

   This amphitheater in the area of Petra was filled with screaming tens of thousands as they watched one great sports event or listened to one great lecturer or one group of musicians after another. Herod the king during the time of Jesus' birth had a huge foreign aid program especially emphasizing enormous and costly buildings. He built gymnasiums for Damascus, Hartley and Tripoli. He built the entire wall around the northern city of Biggles. Also, he built public buildings and a marketplace in the area of Damascus. He made an aqueduct for the coastal city of Laodicea and that wasn't the only one in Asia Minor for Ashkelon or Ashkelon he built Roman baths, costly buildings and public fountains and the like utilizing the enormous wealth of Palestine because of its tremendous grain output.

   Herod supplied grain to all who needed it. He said as a matter of fact, such huge quantities of money to Rhodes that they were able to build a navy from his own foreign aid as far away as Western Asia Minor over trophies of her generosity in every city. The Herod was mentioned in the Bible. The same one as the Christmas story is told, you know, the one who tried to have and did have many of the babies killed at least in two of the provinces near Jerusalem that Herald also built a marble arcade at Antioch supported by columns that was over two miles long. And then when the Olympic Games were in danger for a lack of funds, Herod contributed such a prodigious amount that he personally because of his own personal contributions kept the Olympic Games alive for years.

   Herod was in fact proclaimed the president of the Olympic Games. All this just a few years before Jesus Christ was born in Nazareth and if Herod could contribute to all these cities and regions, could build all these public monuments and buildings could give this tremendous vast amount of wealth away in foreign aid programs or outright grants and gifts, even as far away as Greece, think then of what his own hometown must have looked like. And the Palace and the home that he built for himself. This wealth of Herod is simply a reflection of what the land of Palestine was producing in agriculture, in engineering, architecture, in building, in quarrying of stones in livestock, in all sorts of produce. During the day when Mary was found to be pregnant as a result of a divine miracle.

   And Jesus Christ of Nazareth was about to be born. To really understand what Jesus Christ of Nazareth was like, what his family was like, what his friends were like, how they dressed, how they looked, what their culture was like, what their society was like. You've got to uncover the real truth about the environment in which Jesus and the disciples were born in which they grew and lived and in which the gospel first began to be preached.

   Why then hasn't much of the rest of the world of professing Christianity really had this concept of Jerusalem, a glittering beautiful example of Hellenistic architecture. But because it wasn't until just very recently that a great big archaeological project began to dig down in the ruins that have been accumulated there for nearly 2000 years in Jerusalem itself to uncover some of the truth of what is lying buried beneath the rubble, human filth and rubble that is collected in this site, which is the temple wall the south temple wall in Jerusalem.

   And it's been accumulating there for nearly 2000 years. This big, dig as it's been called, one of the most energetic archaeological projects of modern time, is in part sponsored by Ambassador College with its campuses in Pasadena, California, Big Sandy, Texas, and Brickwood in England. Past several years, about 50 or upwards of 75 Ambassador students have been helping in unearthing the rubble that has been collected there over these stones that are now emerging as they scrape and brush away.

   The very same stones that made up the part of the temple that was so shocking, so staggering, to those men even from the glittering city of Capernaum, that they told Jesus, look at these fabulous stones, take a look at the marvelous buildings that are here. The big dig is uncovering all sorts of shards, craps, rubble from an ancient civilization that doesn't look anything like the one that Sunday school classes have portrayed.

   As the rebel is taken up, it is carefully washed and scrubbed after being screened to see that anything that is of any value is retained, it's washed and then carefully cataloged pieces are compared with artist renderings of known periods of various cultural civilizations and then identified as were these olive oil lamps a very common usage or this little brass household God or the thousands of coins bearing inscriptions and dates usually.

   So, the foundations emerging are built, right atop the rubel of the city of David that was there during David's Day are giving us for the first time in all of history. Authenticated archaeological information about the fabulous guttering marble collineated city with its arches, walkways, fountains, multi-story apartment buildings and complexes.

   It's public walks, its triumphal arches, its fabulous Corinthian columns that was there when Jesus, James, John, Bartholomew, when Matthew and Mark and Luke and John and when Joseph and Simon and Paul, yes and Herod and the Romans, such as the men that you read of in the Bible, all walked those streets. What a completely different point of view people would have if they at least had the knowledge of the setting in which Jesus lived and worked and didn't have the idea of a rebel strewn, dusty, barren, eroded series of, of ageless hills.

   The little round domed buildings made of hastily thrown together rubble or rock or stone. And then of course, a lot of Arabs tents made out of goatskin hide with little children, herding goats and sheep and camel, caravans wandering by. Palestine was really more of a Greek country Hellenistic to be exact during that time than at any other time in all of its history. It was incomprehensibly greater in every respect than it had been over the past previous 500 years of Turkey's rule.

   Hero really was more Greek than he was Jewish. He said that of himself. He was a close friend and confidant of Augustus Caesar himself. It is no coincidence. But during, as we say Bible times, Jerusalem was chosen as the place where the gospel would begin to be preached because God Almighty determined that he was not going to have the gospel begin in podunk in some tiny little town where it would be handicapped because of the area in which it began.

   His plan was so important. He wanted it to begin when it was not in a corner but in a place of great cultural advancements, the crossroads of communication, the crossroads of literature, of art, of music, the area where East met West, the very fulcrum of the balance of power in the world of that day, a place that was the most wealthy and the most fabulous of all of the areas under possession of the Roman Empire.

   And that's what Jerusalem really was. It was the most cosmopolitan, the most cultural and the most universal period of the history of Jerusalem. When Jesus walked the stones of those streets. In fact, God saw Jerusalem so important to his plan that he caused the beginning of the gospel to be preached there. That's where it all began and it was to spread from there to the rest of the world.

   If you turn to Luke 24 verse 47 in your own Bible, I'm reading now from the Moffette version (Luke 24:47. It said that repentance and remission of sins must be preached in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem, the city of Jerusalem, it said in the Bible was soon filled with the doctrine of Christian belief, not the way we think of it today. What was said then what was taught the way Jesus lived it, the things that he said were so completely different from the way we've heard it today.

   You would scarcely recognize the two when you superpose one atop the other. Just as I am showing whether you look at it historically, archaeologically, whether you look at it, doctrinally, you are going to be shocked and dumbfounded to discover that what is really there. Yes, buried beneath the rubble of nearly 2000 years of history is so different from what most people have thought. There is simply no comparison.

   The same thing holds true, not only for the environment in which these things happen, but for what took place. What was the message of Jesus Christ? What he looked like? How he dressed, what was his lifestyle? What was his personal background, his family history? What were his friends like? What kind of clothes did they wear? What about their hairstyles? How did they look?

   That's why I have continually said when asked about the modern Jesus people movement, which Christ? Which one are we talking about? The traditional picture of the Jesus Christ, the Jesus of the Jewish persecutions, the Christ of the crusades? Are they talking about the man in a bedraggled torn piece of burlap? The way the fellow was riding on the float in the fabulous New Year's parade in Pasadena, California.

   Viewed by perhaps a million and a half people along the parade route and viewed by maybe 50 million more people on television at home. Maybe you saw that one man. He was pictured in a traditional guise of Jesus Christ brown torn. I thought that was interesting. Burlap or some other material for a robe. Now, that's strange. Strange, isn't it that Roman soldiers with their glittering brass breastplates, their short swords, their toga their helmets, their horses to ride, found the clothing of Jesus so valuable that they gambled for it, including his undergarments at the time of his crucifixion.

   Now traditional Bible. Well, Sunday school, not Bible, but the way they perverted the Bible, the traditional stories that you have been taught since childhood are completely backward from the real story. You want to read it for yourself and see it with your own eyes. You will find that not only would you be shocked at the fantastic difference between the environment, the culture, the buildings, the appearance of the very country, its output, its productivity, its greenness, its lush fields, it's many trees, its orchards, not only was all of that completely different from the way you'd imagine it.

   But so is what Jesus taught. So was how he looked. So was the way he dressed. So was the length of his hair. So was his personality. So was the message that he bought from God the Father. Did you know Jesus had brothers and sisters? Did you know that he was a man who labored alongside his father in engineering? Yes, that's right. Engineering and contractual responsibilities. Finishing as well as lifting huge stones and beams in the place for 18 years prior to the beginning of his ministry.

   Did you know that Jesus had short hair and you can prove it? Did you know that he paid taxes? That he may have owned, not one but two homes? Did you know that Jesus walked on mosaics that he saw indoor plumbing and fountains that he was able to live in a home where he could take a shower? The chances are, I doubt it. I doubt if you knew that, but you can prove it to yourself.

   You write for these booklets. They'll have a great deal to do with what's happening in our lives right now today. The Modern Romans, and the one on, The Real Jesus, the real Jesus booklet goes into the question of what Jesus looked like, whether or not he had long hair. What were his personal tastes, likes, dislikes and habits? Did he live in a home or did he always camp out of doors? Was he a vagabond and the world's first hippie or did he dress rather neatly? And was he clean?

   Did he at any time come head to head with the establishment? The answer is no, and the proof is there. Did he break any laws? Did the incident of plucking corn on the Sabbath day and giving to his disciples break a law as one young man active in various hippie organizations alleges and wrote me a letter about, did he when he cast out the money changers at the temple that's in the song, you know, put your hand in a hand and when the buyers and sellers are no different fellows from what I profess to be and so on.

   It's sung a great deal by the young people today. Did Jesus break a law when he cast those people out of the temple? That's in this booklet too, The Real Jesus. What was he like? Was he an average Jew of his day or what tribe was he? What color was he? Everything is all here in this one booklet. It's a very controversial booklet, a much needed booklet in this day and age. When Christ himself said the one major message you will be hearing about him is merely the story that he is the Christ, that Jesus is the Christ. And he said, even preaching that message, they shall deceive many.

   So that book of The Real Jesus is free of charge. It does not ask you to join anything, there is no requests for money. There is not even an envelope or anything of the kind in here that even politely or subtly urges you to do anything of the kind, but it is very valuable information. It's right out of your Bible. I challenge you not to believe one word of it. Until you look it up in your own Bible and prove it to yourself. It will have some colorful illustrations. It's got a blue cover with this kind of an institutionalized box here, it's called The Real Jesus. It is free of charge and no price and be sure to request the booklet.

   Just what do you mean the Kingdom of God? Is the Kingdom God, something within you. Maybe somewhere on your religious experience, you've heard someone say that, maybe you even thought it was in the Bible. Did Jesus actually say to a group of carnal minded Pharisees the Kingdom of God is within you? There's a scripture in the Bible which people seem to think says that you read that in this booklet. Can the Kingdom of God be a nation on this earth? Take a look at Great Britain no longer great.

   Can anyone who formerly espoused the idea that the British Empire was virtually the kingom of God on earth, still believing that today? Did Hitler believe that he was a, would be Messiah, and ushering in a kind of a German millennium, a Kingdom of God with Hitler himself of the obvious helm. What make out of Him? Some kind of a would-be messiah, no doubt. Well, the Kingdom of God has been grossly misunderstood. This booklet goes through the scriptures on that subject and shows you as no other booklet we have, exactly what is the Kingdom of God.

   It is free of charge. There is no price for it. Just what do you mean the Kingdom of God? And all you need to do is to request it by sending a letter to post office box 345, Sydney, New South Wales. Be sure to tell us the call it is of your station, we need that, that's all. There is no cost. But tell us the name of the radio station in which you've been listening, the call letters and then send your letter to Box 345 Sydney, New South Wales. Until next time. This is Garner Ted Armstrong saying, goodbye friends.

   You have been listening to the World Tomorrow. If you would like more information, write to Ambassador College Box 345 GPO Sydney, New South Wales. That's Ambassador College Box 345 GPO Sydney, New South Wales.