Human Events Daily with Jack Posobiec - Sunday Special： The Holy Land

00:00:00.000 Ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard for special edition of Human Events, the Human

00:00:06.520 Events special, The Holy Land. Kevin and I are here in downtown Jerusalem and we've

00:00:14.280 just spent one week here in the Holy Land together. Now the rest of the family was

00:00:20.760 with us, the boys, my wife, the beautiful and lovely Tanya Tay, my parents got them

00:00:26.320 out, even got dad, we even got dad off the couch, you know, got him in, he came out

00:00:31.420 and he walked and climbed all over, all over every site we took him to here like

00:00:40.240 a champ, like an absolute champ. Great with the kids, everything else, but we just

00:00:44.920 wrapped that up and before we wanted to go, right, yep, to my sister, and before we

00:00:52.840 wanted to go, we wanted to sit down and really have a discussion for the show,

00:00:59.140 we've been filming things along the way, so we'll be able to show you some of those

00:01:01.960 experiences that we had, but really give you an understanding of why it was that

00:01:06.560 we came to the Holy Land, what we experienced while we were here, some of

00:01:11.440 the, of course, if you remember when we went to Ukraine, I focused more on the

00:01:16.900 political military situation, whereas Kev focused more on sort of what was going on

00:01:22.000 the ground, how are supplies run, how do people live, how are things built and

00:01:27.040 rebuilt and the construction and all of this, and of course, that's still going

00:01:31.300 on as we record this, even the city of Micolaev, where we visited, is still under

00:01:36.940 attack as of right now, but this time around, we had the opportunity, thanks to

00:01:43.060 Turning Point USA, to bring us to the Holy Land, and so I'm so gracious for

00:01:48.620 turning point for having the ability to help us out with that, so essentially what

00:01:53.660 we did was a figure eight, if you want to think of it that way, we sort of did the

00:02:00.680 Dead Sea, then up to Galilee, then back down to the site of Christ's baptism, and then

00:02:08.580 back across to Jerusalem for the end, so let's say, so now I've been here once

00:02:14.120 before, just to set the stage, so Tanya and I did our honeymoon here in Israel, but

00:02:19.700 Kevin, this is your first time to the Middle East at all, so tell me, what was it

00:02:25.160 like, what was it like just getting off the airplane, getting in the car, and

00:02:30.740 driving across the desert that first night, because we drove all the first

00:02:34.400 night all the way from the airport in Tel Aviv, Ben Gurion Airport, all the way to

00:02:38.960 the Dead Sea, and then we slept on the shores of the Dead Sea that first night.

00:02:43.160 Well, I tell you, I mean, we've done so much on this, on this adventure, it's hard

00:02:48.800 to even recall actually, but the trip driving over, like a blur, yeah, like a

00:02:54.080 blur, it feels like I've been here like a month, and a lot of people are actually

00:02:57.380 saying that too, but that's great, I mean, driving over though, it was, it was

00:03:02.480 pretty beautiful, I mean, clear skies, the stars were out, like, and you could tell we

00:03:07.280 were definitely in the desert, not too much light pollution there, no light

00:03:11.040 pollution, nope, but yeah, it was a lot of fun driving over, and of course, of

00:03:15.820 course, I cranked, it felt like when we were in Denver, or like California, like, it

00:03:20.280 wasn't like the Swiss Alps, but you could see like the rolling hills, and yeah, it

00:03:26.360 was nighttime, of course, however, the one difference was that I found whatever

00:03:32.340 Jordanian radio channel I could find, then plugged it in and cranked it all the

00:03:37.280 way to the max, the entire two hours of driving. I had no idea what they were saying, but.

00:03:43.040 I have a theory that it's actually all just one song on a loop, that was my theory, it's

00:03:48.160 like house music, you know, where they just do the one song, loop, loop, loop, loop, loop,

00:03:52.280 loop, loop, loop, and of course, dad's sitting there. You got rhythm, you got rhythm.

00:03:55.040 And we had dad in the car too, but that was the whole experience, what are you, what are you

00:04:00.040 stopping here for, no, turn, no, go this way, no, go that way, what are you doing?

00:04:03.800 The backseat driver.

00:04:05.800 The definition.

00:04:06.800 If any of you guys out there have a Polish dad, or, you know, Slavic father,

00:04:11.920 you'll know exactly what it is.

00:04:13.800 Totally.

00:04:14.800 Like, yeah, no, dad, I'm good, I got, I got, got Captain Google right here is taking care

00:04:19.800 of me, got the SIM card, you know, I've been here before as a matter of fact, so, you know,

00:04:24.840 I have basic idea of my bearings.

00:04:26.920 Stubborn, stubborn as a rusty nail, I guess.

00:04:29.560 Exactly.

00:04:30.560 He just got his, he just got his hip replaced, I'm like, dad, do you want to sit up front?

00:04:33.960 Like, I asked him like three times, he's like, no, no, I'm fine.

00:04:36.240 No, he wouldn't do it, no, he wouldn't do it, he wouldn't sit up front.

00:04:38.160 But he would keep complaining.

00:04:39.560 Yes, oh, my knee, oh, this is so cramped back here.

00:04:43.160 I said, dad, because when we stopped, so we finally stopped, the first place we stopped cutting across

00:04:48.760 the, right, so we finally stopped at Beersheba, the first place, which was, of course, where

00:04:55.560 Abraham dug the well, it was a watering hole back in those times, back in biblical times, 0.97

00:05:01.240 and it, in a sense, it kind of still is today, because that's, that's your main stop while

00:05:05.800 you're going across the desert, so I thought that was interesting.

00:05:08.120 It made me think a lot about how, so when you, when you come to the Holy Land, you actually traverse

00:05:12.920 this terrain, you, it gives you an understanding of the Bible that it's hard to have without

00:05:22.280 having this, this tactile feel of what it actually means to cross the desert of Samaria, what it

00:05:29.160 means to go from Galilee to Judea, to Jerusalem, to come from Nazareth, to, to be in Bethlehem,

00:05:36.920 right, this idea that, you know, when you're, when you're coming through a desert, and there's only

00:05:42.280 one well, you know, of course, everybody's going to be fighting over that, of course, that's going

00:05:47.800 to be extremely important, it's going to be something that it makes sense, right, so it makes

00:05:54.040 sense why that well, or Jerusalem, or some of the other main sites have become so many friction points

00:06:00.760 back then, even as, in a sense, as they still are today, maybe not for the same exact reasons,

00:06:05.880 but early on, you really get that understanding of the whole Jordan River Valley, and then some

00:06:11.320 of these wells, some of these areas where you could have, could have water, could have any, just

00:06:16.520 any kind of sustenance, because you got to imagine, they're not, you know, they're not driving the Mazda,

00:06:21.000 or, I don't even remember what we had, all the way through the desert, they had nothing, they had camels,

00:06:25.720 they had donkeys, and that's it. Horses? Not really. Probably not. So you're just traveling,

00:06:32.760 you're just traveling through, that's all you got, so it gives you, it gives you more of an

00:06:36.840 appreciation, too, for understanding, for us, it was a long night, but imagine them actually having

00:06:43.000 to sleep out there. But then again, that's where the desert fathers were, right, from the book of

00:06:47.560 Hebrews. Exactly. Where they gained much of their wisdom and experience. Well, you learn a lot,

00:06:54.120 right, and there were some days where, you know, you couldn't even compare it, but just some days where we

00:06:59.400 were out walking a lot and getting up, maybe we should, we should even talk about the next,

00:07:06.760 the next, well, we'll talk about it in a second, but what it was like getting a little taste of that,

00:07:12.920 just a little taste of that, nothing, nothing major, but what was it like when, I remember,

00:07:19.560 because we stayed in that guest house that we found on the Dead Sea, and I don't think you realized how

00:07:24.440 close we were when you woke up. I did. So what was it like waking up, stepping outside the front door

00:07:31.240 of the courtyard, turning right, and then boom, palm trees, the Dead Sea is sitting right there,

00:07:39.800 Jordan across in the mountains. Yeah, it was, it was breathtaking. I mean, honestly, I went out

00:07:46.120 the night. That's right, you went out the night off, right, you're at the night off. It was a full moon,

00:07:50.280 I brought my rosary with me, went out on this little man-made peninsula, watched the guys working,

00:07:55.960 and I got to see all like the calcified rocks along the shoreline. It was pretty moving,

00:08:03.640 and the wind was blowing, it was very romantic, I get a criticism of that, I'm a romantic kind of guy,

00:08:11.160 but the atmosphere was very special and moving. But yeah, I just took my time out there and prayed,

00:08:20.120 and it felt very different. And that's kind of the theme of this whole trip. You can ask the whole

00:08:27.320 group. Everybody is saying like, this is a lot different than any other previous event. There's

00:08:34.040 like a spirit in the air. Absolutely. And you, well, even there, that's the lowest, the lowest point,

00:08:40.840 the Dead Sea, the lowest surface point on the face of the earth that you can walk. And then that sea,

00:08:47.000 of course, doesn't hold anything. But in the southern end, we were staying on the southern end,

00:08:51.480 and they actually have a lot of excavation that goes on there to get the salt out. So that you get it

00:08:57.320 up, and that's what we saw was dredgers and excavators, and they were just pulling the salt out.

00:09:01.080 Yeah. I didn't read too much about that yet. But there's apparently some work being done now to

00:09:05.960 convert it to energy. There is. I forget the name of it, but that came up as I was researching.

00:09:13.000 So they've divvied up with Jordan, who's on the other side. And they're finding ways to actually

00:09:18.360 try to turn that into electric plants. Because of course, energy, just like before, living in the

00:09:26.680 desert has its own set of realities that you have to figure out if you're going to spend time out

00:09:32.920 there. It's unlike any other body of water I've ever been in. I put my hand in and it felt like

00:09:37.960 there's like, there's, remember back in the day, there's machines like you put your hand in and it

00:09:41.880 like covers it in wax? No. Okay. Well, what were you doing covering your hand in wax? Not a lot of things.

00:09:49.400 Oh, okay. But it just felt like oil or like hyssop, anointing oil. What else did you get waxed, Kev?

00:09:58.520 What else did you get waxed? Well, I got something on my shoulder last night. Yeah,

00:10:03.160 I know you got something. Yeah, I heard mom found out about that. You might have to subscribe to get to

00:10:07.320 see that. Oh, subscribe. That's an Instagram exclusive? Yeah. Okay. Did you actually film it?

00:10:12.360 A number of people did. Yeah. Oh, boy. Here we go. Instagram exclusive. Coming out pretty soon.

00:10:19.800 Okay. I've got some new bumper stickers. So, so we're coming through the Dead Sea. You wake up

00:10:27.160 first morning, we're there. And I think we got a great photo actually of mom and dad

00:10:33.960 just sort of walking towards the Dead Sea. And I just thought it was great for them,

00:10:42.360 for everybody. And then I would say this for the rest of the trip, but

00:10:47.880 you got to come at least once. You got to come at least once, see it, experience it,

00:10:53.080 walk those stones, see those places. There's so many variables. Like everywhere kind of is like so

00:11:00.440 close to a border. And it's like, you look across and you see Jordan and multiple times throughout

00:11:08.520 the trip. But there's, yeah, so many moments like that. It's not big. Right. It's not,

00:11:13.560 the whole country is not about the size of New Jersey. Yeah, Jersey. It's not, it's not big. I mean,

00:11:18.200 you can do the whole thing up and down in a week, 10 days, give or take. But then the next,

00:11:24.920 so it was, it was just great to see mom and dad though, being there with them. And Tanya and I had

00:11:30.680 come before. And so going in the, going in the Dead Sea, he's got a story behind that. But yeah,

00:11:37.880 I don't like the Dead Sea. I'm not a fan, not even a fan. The Dead Sea, lots of history, lots of culture,

00:11:44.920 culture, health. I understand. Personally, not a fan, not a fan. We're in here last time,

00:11:55.080 five years ago, never going back. Never, ever. Why? Because I jumped in and everybody said,

00:12:04.680 just go ahead and jump in. And then boom, I had that stuff on me like a chrism for a week, 0.99

00:12:11.800 stinging my eyes. Every little scrape and scratch you have, not a fan, put on the mud, enjoy it.

00:12:19.480 At least they have rinsing stations now. They didn't have that before five years ago. Not a fan,

00:12:25.400 never going back. The Dead Sea, take it or leave it. But the way I look at it is, God said that he

00:12:32.360 doesn't want any living thing in there and we ought to abide by it. I shaved the night before. Not even a

00:12:38.280 little bit of a fan. It was on fire. You shaved the night before you went in. I didn't know.

00:12:42.760 Got our genius over here, folks. Real smart guy. You're supposed to be like his holy and sacred

00:12:47.720 water and soothing for your skin. Everybody sells it at the mall. I was like, yeah, let's do it.

00:12:54.120 Yeah. No, the clay, the mud clay is supposed to be good for your skin. It felt like mace. 0.94

00:12:58.920 But they have, I would still recommend it though. Just don't get it in your eyes.

00:13:05.240 That being said, don't drink it. I don't have any room to speak because the last time that I went,

00:13:10.120 the first time when we were here on our honeymoon, I go in up to my knees. I said,

00:13:14.280 oh, this is great. This is great. It's very rocky. So the stones are all over.

00:13:20.040 And then Tanya, of course, is filming. She goes, jump in, jump in, jump in.

00:13:24.360 Oh, so you started putting it on Tanya. No, no, no. She said, no, hold on. She says it. No,

00:13:29.000 she does. And I have it on footage. Okay. So don't even try to say I'm putting it on her

00:13:32.600 because she had, she said it, but we go through. And of course, me being me, I got to dive in.

00:13:40.040 So I dove in and just rules don't apply to Poso. Total force of habit. Open my eyes underwater in the

00:13:49.240 dead sea. And long story short, I was blind for about four hours after that. Um, Tanya had to drive

00:13:58.920 home. Uh, yeah, that was not a good experience. And I, this time around, I think I put my hand in

00:14:09.080 and that was, that was good enough for me. Yeah. I was fine. No, I didn't do the black face with the 1.00

00:14:14.040 mud or any of that. That did work though. That did work. And they have hoses of like regular water. You

00:14:19.000 could wash it all off too. They didn't have that before. When I was here five years ago,

00:14:23.240 they've actually built up. So we went to, um, Halea beach and we're, we're skipping around

00:14:29.160 a little bit for those of you who know the geography, but, um, they, that wasn't as built

00:14:35.000 up before. And they had already had like the, you know, the restaurants and everything at the top,

00:14:39.640 but the way that it, they had those nice showers and places where you could just wash off. That was

00:14:44.760 not there five years ago. So even like right on the dock. Yeah. Had that, had that been around before,

00:14:51.880 had that been around, uh, that in the first instance, probably would have, would have felt

00:14:56.920 a little better about it. But yeah, I remember I also, um, either, I think I cut my foot on a rock

00:15:02.280 and that thing opened up in the dead sea. And that was, that was an experience,

00:15:07.160 but being able to float on it, check the box, did the dead sea. Amazing. And remember, of course,

00:15:13.160 as we know, connect it back the dead sea. This is also the location, uh, that we are told in the

00:15:21.000 Bible east of Abraham's tent is the location of Sodom and Gomorrah. Correct. Yes. So this, this was the 0.99

00:15:30.120 area where, and there, there is a huge pillar of salt. Um, it's like rock salt at this point

00:15:36.200 that you can go past. I don't think we went there this time, but I was looking it up and they actually

00:15:40.840 refer to it as Lot's wife. It's right there. Yeah. And our, and this is the crazy thing is that

00:15:49.560 archeological studies, this one that just came out a couple of months ago, actually shows that

00:15:55.080 scientifically they've found that there was a city, there was a tell pretty much in that exact

00:16:03.320 location right off the dead sea that about 4,000 years ago was destroyed by a meteor that flew in from

00:16:14.520 the sky and then exploded over the city with the force of a hundred percent with the force of a thousand

00:16:22.440 Hiroshima atomic bombs. So a thousand Hiroshima's that we've actually found evidence that 4,000 years 0.55

00:16:30.520 ago, this event did take place. They call it a cosmic airburst that destroyed an entire city

00:16:37.640 at the, in the, in the exact location that the Bible describes where Sodom and Gomorrah were.

00:16:45.400 Where is this from? What reference is that? This is a new study that just come out a couple of months

00:16:50.520 ago. Okay. And there's been a lot of evidence and a lot of theorizing that this city in the past was

00:16:58.120 the city of Sodom connecting the two. Now the archeological survey that was done here wasn't done

00:17:06.120 from any perspective of trying to connect it to Sodom, but they did say that yes, they're almost certain 0.96

00:17:12.200 that the city that they're looking at was destroyed 4,000 years ago by a cosmic airburst, by a meteor.

00:17:20.520 Yeah. Yeah. Righteous. Yeah. So, and again, it's exactly where the Bible says it was.

00:17:28.840 And so, of course, for the non-believers, they would say, well, clearly the meteor hit the city and then...

00:17:37.400 Which city? Sodom. Okay. Okay.

00:17:40.120 And so, they would say the meteor hit the city and then the story was written after the fact,

00:17:48.840 you know, as a way of explaining what happened. Okay. Okay. Okay. Makes sense.

00:17:51.880 And so, for believers, we would also point, we would point out though that this has been a story

00:17:59.480 that we've passed down

00:18:03.560 for thousands and thousands of years and now science is just catching up.

00:18:07.560 Right. So, why would this one...

00:18:09.640 Like the Dead Sea Scrolls. I mean, we get that later.

00:18:12.360 Which, well, I mean, we were there. So, right before we went into the Dead Sea, because we were,

00:18:17.480 for those following the geography of this, we stopped at the Cave of Qumran where the Dead Sea Scrolls were

00:18:23.000 found. There's various stories about how they were discovered. But the idea was back in the 1940s,

00:18:29.240 they went into this cave and they found that this group of Jewish... 0.99

00:18:35.480 Shepherds.

00:18:36.120 Shepherds. Well, no, no, no. I'm talking about the Essenes. So, the Essenes had preserved these

00:18:41.000 scrolls at this time and did so in such a way on leather so that, and because, and because again,

00:18:49.560 this is right off the Dead Sea, one of the driest places in the entire world. So, because they were,

00:18:55.880 it was on leather, they were preserved in clay jars, and it's one of the driest and most arid

00:19:01.240 places in the world, plus in a cave, so protected from the elements, that these 2,000 year old

00:19:09.640 scrolls were found and to the point where you could even still read them. It's ancient Hebrew,

00:19:15.960 but you could still read them and they contain the oldest copies of the Bible that we still have to have

00:19:21.720 ever been found. Yeah, just to tie in the fact, like, the theory comes out and then about the

00:19:27.320 cosmic air burst, but they find the Dead Sea Scrolls and then bring the oldest translations

00:19:36.360 to the Dead Sea Scrolls, put them together, and the words match exactly.

00:19:41.240 Right, that's exactly right. So, they brought the translations of, you know, the current

00:19:51.000 Bible as we have it and compared it to Dead Sea Scrolls. So, obviously, if there were some,

00:19:55.960 hey, these are receipts, and so we'd now be able to know these are the closest to the actual source

00:20:01.880 writings that exist. And it turns out that, guess what? It was the same writing. So, that means that

00:20:07.640 the process of the preservation of the Bible that went on through the centuries, through the ages,

00:20:14.520 the Middle Ages, and in the Middle Ages, in Europe, for example, I mean, it really was the only people 0.96

00:20:19.960 that were doing reading and writing. That was the priests. That was the monks. That was the monasteries.

00:20:25.880 They were the ones, the Franciscans, the Benedictines, they were the ones that were keeping all of this 0.74

00:20:31.320 going on for hundreds of years in that point and really carried that light all the way through

00:20:37.400 those ages. Yeah. So, you didn't have, you know, printing presses. And this is where you get your

00:20:43.880 illuminated manuscripts and your codexes. Well, illuminated stained glass, too.

00:20:47.880 Stained glass, that's true. For people who were illiterate. Right.

00:20:50.600 And the magnificence of the structure itself, the Gothic architecture, and mostly just the stained glass.

00:20:58.760 I don't want to get into, like, different styles, but the paintings, the large paintings.

00:21:04.600 Or, or at the Vatican, the statue, everything. Everything, yeah. It's the most forged art work

00:21:10.280 in the world. They relied on art rather than literacy. Mm-hmm. And so, the, the point,

00:21:17.720 though, is that they were able to find these scrolls. The scrolls matched. So, the, so it says,

00:21:23.800 hey, the translations were correct. It was handed down to us properly. We can now go back. We can

00:21:29.000 roll back that clock another 2,000 years. They were even scared to publish it. Yeah.

00:21:32.200 Remember you said that, too? For, like, four or five years. Well, that's, that's pretty much any

00:21:35.640 academic study, though. Sure. They'll be that way. But, if the Bible was, had different stories in

00:21:41.880 the beginning, it would change, change the foundation. Well, there is one interesting angle to this, that

00:21:50.200 one of the, one of the scrolls found at Qumran, of course, they had the scroll of Isaiah. They had

00:21:54.360 all the major prophets, but one of the scrolls found at Qumran was the Book of Enoch. You mentioned

00:22:01.000 that. Yeah. And the tour guide said that was a little balagan. Yeah, he said it was a balagan. So, 0.93

00:22:08.760 one of the issues with this, of course, is that the Book of Enoch is considered apocrypha by every

00:22:13.640 major church, every major, um, Jewish sect that doesn't, you know, doesn't consider it to be valid.

00:22:20.360 But, but, except, I believe the Ethiopians is the only one. Ah. But, the Essenes clearly thought 0.97

00:22:28.680 that there was some, there was some importance to it, and so they kept it safe. And one of the

00:22:33.640 interesting pieces of the Book of Enoch, and we can find in the New Testament and Old Testament,

00:22:38.600 there are references and words that seem to have been taken from this Book of Enoch, which,

00:22:46.040 you know, that makes sense. I mean, I've got books at home that aren't the Bible, right?

00:22:49.800 Sure. You know, so it certainly was something that was floating around at this time. But,

00:22:55.640 probably one of the most, um, one of the passages in it that stands out the most, and one of the

00:23:02.200 writings, is the fact that it talks about the dealings of the creation of demigods. This idea that

00:23:11.240 fallen angels were co-mingling, if you will, with human women, and creating a race of 0.99

00:23:23.080 hybrid beings that, and if you go to Genesis 6, Genesis 6 says that these were the Nephilim, 0.79

00:23:30.920 and the Nephilim, or which, which the King James... Not the Anunnaki? Not the Anunnaki, 0.90

00:23:36.040 no. The Nephilim, which the King James Version translates as giants. Yeah. That they were the

00:23:43.560 great heroes and the great warriors of old. And then there's, there's other, you know, versions,

00:23:49.960 there's other sort of divisions of the, subdivisions of the Nephilim. The Rephaim is,

00:23:54.680 is one of these. And there's, there's thought that Goliath was one of the, one of the descendants of the

00:24:00.200 Nephilim at one point. And it says that this was in, in the days before the flood. Hmm. So it could

00:24:09.000 be, and there's a lot of scholarship on this, it could be that one of the reasons of the flood was

00:24:15.560 to wipe out the Nephilim, in the first instance, because of what, because of, because they were never

00:24:22.200 intended to be created. That this was something that was outside of God's creation, that, um, that the

00:24:29.080 angels, and the fallen angels, and humans were creating together. I guess that would fit into

00:24:34.360 the context of, like, the world was, like, covered with sin. Mm-hmm. Like, it's plausible. Yeah, right.

00:24:41.320 And then, so the theory goes a little bit further, even, that the reason that the fallen angels were

00:24:47.320 doing this was because they knew that the Messiah was to come from humanity, and that, to come from men.

00:24:56.040 And that they knew that the Messiah would have domination over them. And so because they didn't

00:25:03.880 want that to happen, because they thought that maybe they could put a, put a wrench in

00:25:12.280 God's design. Because, of course, you can't. It's interesting. If you try, if you want to overthrow

00:25:17.640 God, you want to, they talk about the rebellion of heaven. So, of course. Okay. You can't, you

00:25:23.320 couldn't defeat God, right? No, nothing could defeat. What are you going to do? You got to throw

00:25:28.120 something at him? You know, you know, you can't, but you could come into creation. And, of course,

00:25:34.200 we know the first instance of, of being deceptive, the serpent, tempting you with sin. Of course, these

00:25:40.760 are, these are ways to defile creation and to tempt humans into sin. But another way that, at one point,

00:25:51.160 the Bible says, and this is, Genesis 6 is in the Bible, the Nephilim. And this is referring to this,

00:25:57.880 this idea that a hybrid race was created in order to,

00:26:01.720 in order to try to stop the creation of the Messiah. You keep mentioning the word creation,

00:26:10.920 too, though. But what did Noah bring on the ark? Right. And what didn't he bring? What didn't he

00:26:17.240 bring? Yes. We all know who took out Goliath now, right? King David. Who just got back from there.

00:26:22.920 Who just visited his tomb. That's right. So, so this, this is a connection. This is a connection to

00:26:27.880 some of the stuff that goes even further. I mean, everything here is connected. That's

00:26:32.120 after the flood. That's after the flood. It was after the flood. And so, the theory goes a little

00:26:37.640 bit further, even, that says that if you, that the book of Joshua, if you take this reading of it,

00:26:43.800 then that means the book of Joshua, they're not just fighting other tribes. They're fighting giants.

00:26:49.080 And they're clearing the land of Cana of these giants. And so that, that some had survived and

00:26:57.800 maybe not giants in the, you know, sort of cartoon version, but maybe just larger, stronger, more

00:27:05.080 powerful, perhaps having some kind of supernatural or spiritual. Yeah. Because even in our, our life,

00:27:13.240 not our lifetime, but Andre the giant wasn't even a hundred years ago. So there's two, there's,

00:27:18.680 it's gigantism. There's two translation, like mutation. Even on, on Goliath, there's two

00:27:24.680 translations of his height. One of the translations has his height as about six foot nine. So big,

00:27:33.480 very big. The other translation has his height as about nine foot nine, which would be an actual giant.

00:27:42.760 Yeah. Something not human. And so it's, it's just interesting take. And I don't know that I

00:27:51.160 endorse it, but I'm that that's the explanation of it. But, um, getting back to it. So away from the

00:27:57.560 Dead Sea Scrolls, as we're going through the land, um, by the way, we did go to Mount Bental. So I did look

00:28:03.960 for King Og while I was up there in King Og's bed, another one of the potential giants.

00:28:08.280 The land of Bashan, um, that one of the, so we, we climbed Masada. We did. We climbed Masada. We

00:28:17.160 definitely did. Well, actually that was one of my first reflections of seeing the history of Masada,

00:28:21.480 like, and reading Maccabees along the way is that these people fled from Romans, but they still

00:28:30.280 fought with such ferocity, with nothing. They didn't have cell phones. They didn't have technology.

00:28:37.480 Like, they barely had water. Um, they had food, they had family, and they had traditions.

00:28:46.280 And that's all what Maccabees is about.

00:28:48.360 Like, defying the king. Let's explain what Masada is for people who don't know what it is.

00:28:53.240 So Masada is this huge castle fortress. Um, it's actually a resort of King Herod the Great

00:29:00.040 that was built on the banks of the Dead Sea. It was built just after, or, well, I should say it was

00:29:06.920 built just before the time of Christ. So it's about 2,000 years old. It's concurrent with Christ.

00:29:12.200 But this revolt that Kevin was talking about took place just after about 70 AD, one of the Jewish 0.99

00:29:18.760 revolts. And this is, of course, when the temple was destroyed by the Romans. First temple was

00:29:23.640 destroyed by the Babylonians. But during this time, um, King Herod had built a giant palace

00:29:32.920 on top of a mountain, all the way out in the desert, all the way overlooking the Dead Sea.

00:29:37.320 And it's this huge, and it's still there today. The ruins are still there. You can go, you can visit.

00:29:43.240 There's a path on the way up that you can climb. It's called the snake path.

00:29:46.760 We did it. We walked it. We did the snake path.

00:29:48.840 The pilgrimage.

00:29:49.640 There's another, there's another path that's even longer. It takes like three hours to get up.

00:29:53.720 And then, then there's the Roman ramp, which is around the backside. So when the Romans attack,

00:29:57.640 they built this ramp. You can still see it today. And there's a cable car, of course, for the kids.

00:30:02.440 But, um, what did it, and, and so when, when the, the zealots who were, who were there

00:30:11.800 essentially staying away from the Romans, they were able to hold out for three years,

00:30:19.480 three years under siege from the Romans in this palace on the top of a mountain in the middle of the

00:30:27.560 desert, middle of the desert with nothing other than the supplies that they had brought with them.

00:30:33.560 So they had a cistern up there, but no, no running water. Keep in mind, just on the top of Masada.

00:30:43.880 Yeah. It just, it just brought this up too. Like this was from the tomb of King David, um, just to like

00:30:50.440 emphasize like how they fought, but it says, and I should merit to be bold like a leopard,

00:30:58.760 light as an eagle, run like a, like a deer and strong as a lion to do the desire of our father in heaven.

00:31:06.200 That's, I don't know if that's, is that from Maccabees, but it's from, from this prayer. They give it,

00:31:11.640 to give it to everybody that enters. But comparatively to the United States of America,

00:31:17.640 and like, if we had an enemy force, like attack us, we kind of mentioned it in the last podcast, but

00:31:26.280 like, where's our unity? Where's our like pride? And if anything, it's a fantastic example.

00:31:34.760 You probably have half the people in the U S basically say, oh, well, it's probably better than 1.00

00:31:39.080 our stupid racist, uh, anti-immigrant, anti-woman, uh, capitalist government. And they, 1.00

00:31:49.480 you'd almost think that some of the people in the U S today might, might welcome a change of government.

00:31:54.920 Right. Right. Which of course is, as you go through the Holy land, you, you find out that 0.69

00:32:01.800 one of the pieces of history here. And then, and obviously gets into the current situation is that,

00:32:09.080 you know, we are, or this land has gone through so many changes in terms of who's in charge of it,

00:32:15.080 whether it be, whether it be the Israelites, whether it be, uh, the Babylonians, whether it be the

00:32:20.600 Neo-Babylonians, whether it be Rome, whether it be Byzantium, whether it be the Ottoman Turks,

00:32:25.160 the British. Okay. And now it is a sovereign state again. And so it's, it's really a story that,

00:32:33.000 of just constant cycles of change. It's an example of having faith and your traditions till the end,

00:32:42.280 like how, how the battle ended, even when the Romans came, they did not surrender.

00:32:47.880 No, they did not. And so at the end, rather than surrender, rather than being taken into captivity,

00:32:54.040 they did, they decided to take their own lives in Masada. And it was, I think there were some,

00:33:00.520 some women and children were the only ones at the very end who were left when the Romans came up.

00:33:07.320 So we climbed it and we made sure that we weren't, we weren't taking no cable car. That's for sure.

00:33:15.640 And that being said, we took the snake path. Honestly, snake path wasn't that bad. I didn't

00:33:20.840 do you think it was that bad? No, it was easy. It was about a mile or, but maybe half a mile up and

00:33:26.440 it took us 35 minutes, I believe. 35 minutes. Yep. It was fine. I think I would say it was hot.

00:33:33.560 Wouldn't have, wouldn't take the kids and they say do it in the morning. We did around 8am.

00:33:37.880 Um, I don't know that I would have taken the kids, even Jack Jack at age four. Yeah,

00:33:42.040 though I did take him through Hezekiah. We did take both the kids through Hezekiah's tunnels. Yes,

00:33:46.040 we did. That's here in Jerusalem. Just an amazing experience. This ancient aqueduct under this,

00:33:54.520 under the old city of Jerusalem. But that's part of like actually doing a pilgrimage too. It's like

00:34:00.680 walking and that's kind of lost in the modern day, but like working and sacrificing as like a way of

00:34:07.720 penance and like a prayer to God, even without your words, without all like your beautiful phrases or

00:34:13.880 Instagram posts or whatever, just like just walking, you know, as like an offer to God,

00:34:20.280 like up the mountain and doing things like that. Hezekiah's tunnel, by the way,

00:34:25.800 the water comes up to your waist just about. Without accolades, right? Without accolades.

00:34:32.760 So I felt like it was, it was pure. And the kids loved it up there. They loved the,

00:34:39.800 they loved the castle. They loved the ruins. They were having a great time.

00:34:43.880 They loved Ein Gedi a little better. They did. And so after that, we went to

00:34:50.520 the beautiful and very special Oasis of Ein Gedi. And if you have time, if you're visiting the Dead Sea,

00:34:58.600 do not skip Ein Gedi. This was, so this was, by the way, the Oasis where King David hid out after King

00:35:07.560 Saul was going after him. And it's this gorgeous Oasis right off the, essentially the side of the Dead Sea,

00:35:16.040 about halfway down from the northern part of it. And you walk in and you climb through. It's, it's some of the most

00:35:22.760 pure fresh water that you'll ever see. And it's coming through the desert. It's filtered all the

00:35:32.040 way through, through the sandstone and it's fresh. So it's not like the salt water of the Dead Sea.

00:35:39.560 It's all fresh. I think it's the closest large fresh water source to anywhere near the Dead Sea.

00:35:45.000 And so there's trees there, there's plants and it's, and you walk up and there's a series, Ibex, that's right.

00:35:51.320 And there's a series of about, what, about like a dozen waterfalls as you go all the way up. And then

00:35:57.160 the final waterfall you arrive at is King David's waterfall. Yeah. And so we went through. It was fit

00:36:03.800 for a king. We went, it was fit for a king. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Quite majestic. So we went through

00:36:08.520 and we saw, we took the kids in and we, oh yeah, we went in the water. We did all of it. Yeah. And drank the

00:36:14.760 water and it's like bushes. I had like growing over the stream and they like cut through.

00:36:20.600 It created basically like a natural cave almost, like a natural cave and a tunnel that at some

00:36:25.800 point you had the, I was glad I had my waterproof boots, that you walk through the natural tunnel.

00:36:31.480 And then at one point, of course they, there was two routes and it said, one was the wet route,

00:36:36.440 one was the dry route. Yes. And we took Jack, I took Jack Jack on the wet route all the way up the

00:36:43.640 waterfalls. And then to the point where you actually had to use handholds just to climb up the face of

00:36:49.960 this waterfall. And I had him holding onto me like a spider monkey. Really? Yeah. I didn't go that path.

00:36:55.160 Yeah. You didn't go that path. I didn't. That's right. I didn't. That's all right. You know,

00:36:59.720 some, some of us go a little, a little extra, but you know, it's okay. It's okay.

00:37:07.560 Well, we're both pretty extra.

00:37:11.640 I, yeah, I really enjoyed that. And, and to speak to just like nature and the desert fathers and having

00:37:18.360 nothing, like you still cannot escape the spirit. It was a quiet place. It was a very

00:37:24.520 spiritual place and you could just get in touch, get grounded. Um, you could easily pray. No,

00:37:32.840 no cell phone service, any of that stuff. So we finished up there. We, so King David's Oasis

00:37:43.000 hit the Dead Sea and then drove up through the night all the way north to

00:37:48.600 the Sea of Galilee. That we did. We get up to the Sea of Galilee. And of course, well, I guess we

00:37:57.960 stopped in Nazareth first, didn't we? Yeah. I was getting confused with Bethlehem.

00:38:01.320 In Nazareth, they have a, they have a great, um, sort of recreation. We had a cool recreated experience

00:38:07.880 of what it would be like to walk around the village in the biblical times, to eat a meal that would be

00:38:13.560 similar to Christ's meal. But then we went to really, I think the first holy site in Christianity

00:38:22.920 that we visited on this trip. And it is, when you pray the rosary, it's actually the very first one,

00:38:29.560 the very first mystery. First joyful mystery. First joyful mystery of the rosary. St. Gabriel.

00:38:34.120 The annunciation of Archangel Gabriel to Mary the handmaiden at a little, a little stream, a little

00:38:43.240 well, and they have Mary's grotto and where she said yes. So how did that feel? Actually knowing that

00:38:51.880 you were standing on the very hill where that took place? Where the word was made flesh? So in Latin,

00:39:00.520 it has the entire, the entire piece there. It was moving. I was beside myself. I couldn't help it.

00:39:09.320 I kneeled down and started, just started up the rosary and, uh, yeah, it just got really welled up and

00:39:18.760 I just stayed there. It's like sometimes, I don't know from my personal experience, but time stops and,

00:39:26.600 uh, you kind of feel like a weightlessness to you. I actually felt it earlier today too at the Western

00:39:32.120 Wall, um, which is interesting. But, uh, yeah, it was amazing. And then to have you guys come and join

00:39:41.320 me too, that was like a very, a very special moment for our family. Pray the rosary

00:39:46.840 right there and beautiful basilica, by the way, very completely international. Um, almost every

00:39:56.920 country of the world had a mosaic or a fresco that was, that's true of Mary, of Mary that was a

00:40:03.800 blessed mother. That's, um, that's shown there. So it's just incredible to see in a complete

00:40:08.680 outpouring of actual globalism. Yeah. That's the, that's the other kind of globalism. That's not

00:40:17.240 globalism. That's universalism. That's right. That's right. That's the difference. And so

00:40:21.640 put that in your pipe and smoke it. Fealty to the king of the universe and his mother. And so,

00:40:28.440 so after that, that was when we went to Galilee afterwards. Yeah. Yeah. And visited, did some

00:40:33.320 political stuff as well, went to, you know, political historical stuff, met with some IDF

00:40:37.960 soldiers. If anyone do something serious, we are the one who will take him down. We just, we don't just

00:40:44.840 go to the fence with a tank. I see. We had our grandfather, he was, he worked on American tanks

00:40:53.640 in World War II. Oh. He was a mechanic and part of a scout. So he would go out and, uh, help clear the

00:41:00.920 land, make sure the maps were correct. Uh, first armored division in North Africa during World War II.

00:41:07.480 Yeah. So I appreciate what you do. Got to, got to see one of their newer tanks, uh, Malkia tank,

00:41:14.040 got to go to the Golan Heights, which was, of course, obviously a highly disputed area, something

00:41:20.440 I'm very familiar with. We got to an outpost. Um, that is, so the Golan Heights, for those who don't

00:41:26.440 know, uh, Syria considers it occupied land. Israel considers it their land, having been won in the

00:41:31.960 Six-Day War, 1967, that it's right on the border, but the borders between Israel, Lebanon, and Syria.

00:41:40.440 So you look over one side, you see Lebanon. You look over the other side, you see Syria. It's right 1.00

00:41:44.920 there. Syria, of course, considers it to be occupied by Israel. And Megiddo, who stopped by too. We also

00:41:51.320 stopped by Megiddo. That's right. So Megiddo, of course, the site of Armageddon. So Megiddo is the

00:42:00.040 place of, in Revelation, where we are told will be the area where the armies of demons meet with the

00:42:09.160 armies of the Lord. And we're told that in the final days, that's where it will come.

00:42:13.640 It's intense. Great book to read about just the archaeological background on Megiddo because people 0.84

00:42:24.760 have been living on that hill for something like 10,000 years. And it goes all the way back to the

00:42:30.360 Stone Age. So there's a great book on it called The Source by James Michener, which I read. My mom

00:42:36.680 read as well. Mom read that actually on the way here. And it goes back and it's, it's a great narrative,

00:42:42.920 but it also kind of, so it's this, it's a book with an overall overarching narrative. The same

00:42:48.920 author who did Poland and Alaska and Texas, a bunch of South Pacific, a bunch of books.

00:42:55.800 You gave me a one. Yeah, I gave you this Poland one. That his, so the story starts with three 1.00

00:43:04.600 archaeologists who are working on the dig, but then it goes through and it tells you the story of one

00:43:10.040 family all the way back in the Stone Age. Then it cuts back to the archaeologists. Then you pick up

00:43:15.720 the family again in the Iron Age, the Bronze Age, biblical times, and it just kind of goes all the

00:43:21.640 way through following this one family all the way through into the 1970s, basically. Right. And so it's,

00:43:29.400 it's really interesting read. Highly recommend. And it's fun. It's a good, it's good read. It's long,

00:43:35.000 you know, that's probably the only issue. Audiobook, if you do audiobooks like I do,

00:43:38.200 is a good way to find it. But that was, uh, Tell Megiddo is essentially what, what he's talking

00:43:42.760 about in the book. We call it Tell McCore. And to add like, this whole time I've been like,

00:43:48.680 trying to figure like, what I can take away from this trip and what I can do as a contributor to

00:43:55.000 bring like my experience back to the United States. And one of the things I observed was

00:44:04.840 they take care of their, their river border, their border crossing.

00:44:09.080 Well, all their borders. And they have, they have a really nice wall on the other side.

00:44:13.480 Yeah. I mean, here's the thing, right? When you're, when you're talking about borders and border security,

00:44:18.120 go look at the way Israel takes care of their borders, both externally and internally,

00:44:22.200 because of course there's a massive wall that we drove past between, um, the Israeli controlled

00:44:29.080 territory and the West banks of this Palestinian, the Palestinian territories. And we're not talking 0.76

00:44:33.480 about this thing with like the slats and the little stuff, concrete barbed wire, watchtowers,

00:44:40.440 spotlights, the whole nine yards, this country, they're not messing around when it comes to that

00:44:45.480 stuff. Iron dome is another part of that, of course, for anti air defense or air defense.

00:44:52.280 But same deal with their Northern borders, their Southern borders, it's militarized. There's military

00:44:57.960 outposts on all of these things, no jokes when it comes to that stuff. And so when you're a country

00:45:03.240 that wants to defend its sovereignty, or a country that's wants to defend its nationalism, it's kind

00:45:07.080 of interesting how totally fine when it's a country like Israel, but, or, or Ukraine. But when we come

00:45:14.760 back to the United States and say, I want, I want to be able to defend my country that way, suddenly you get

00:45:20.600 labeled every name under the sun, you get all sorts of crazy things said about you and you're

00:45:26.760 wondering, wait, I'm, I'm confused because you said those things were good in those places. But now

00:45:32.600 I come back home and say, I want that and I want to defend my border and I'm not allowed to.

00:45:37.400 Yeah, that's what I wanted to highlight. And so Sea of Galilee, incredibly moving experience, just to

00:45:46.840 cut back to that. Town of Capernaum, Peter's home. Yeah. They, they have a church built over directly.

00:45:54.520 Yeah. What they believe was Christ's room in that church. And they have the beach that's right there.

00:46:01.640 The synagogue he went to. The synagogue he went to where he taught. And they have the beach right where

00:46:07.000 Jesus met St. Peter and St. Andrew. In fact, when he was still Simon, of course, when they were mending

00:46:13.640 their nets. Yeah. And he said to come and follow him, be fishers of men. I know. And dad was just

00:46:20.600 like, where's the poles? Like, I want to go, I want to go fishing. I wanted to go fishing. We're like, no,

00:46:24.440 no, no, no. Of course. It's not yet. It's a different, this is a different bank. We're

00:46:30.760 to be fishers of men, not fishing with the men. I definitely felt something walking on that beach.

00:46:35.880 And of course the water's still there. The sea's still there. Um, we, you know, archaeologically

00:46:40.840 speaking, some of the stuff is disputed. I get that. But you know, you're on the Sea of Galilee

00:46:47.240 when you're there, you know, that's the spot, you know, that's where it is. Yeah. And so,

00:46:53.160 yeah, I'm so grateful to just have a bit of the experience. And everybody has shared, like,

00:47:00.680 having moments at these sites. Um, it's very spiritual. So the one thing that, the one thing

00:47:09.720 to understand is that about 70% of the gospels actually takes place right there on the banks of

00:47:18.280 the Sea of Galilee. Yeah. And so going around the various towns, going around the various, uh,

00:47:23.240 settlements, of course, walking on the water, calling, quelling the storm, calming the storm,

00:47:28.520 that's all right there. So you got that got to me because that's one of my favorite pictures of

00:47:32.840 Jesus is from Peter's perspective where he's underwater. Of course. And Jesus is reaching

00:47:37.560 down. Yes. I don't know. I don't know who the artist is, but I would, I would, that'll always be

00:47:43.880 in my house. And that's all of us. That's all of us. There's still time for you. Oh, right. That's the

00:47:50.200 caption. There's still time. Yeah. Well, that's, that's what I wrote. Right. But I like that caption.

00:47:57.720 All sacred ground. You might, when, so for those times when you feel like you're

00:48:03.240 completely underwater, you're done for, Christ is right there. Yeah. Speaking of which, how about

00:48:09.400 those group baptisms and the, we got to, we got to go visit the actual site. So

00:48:16.680 coming down a little bit further, we, we hopped in the cars, we drove about two hours straight

00:48:23.640 through the desert and maybe about an hour, hour 45 from the Sea of Galilee down alongside the

00:48:29.320 river bank of the Jordan river, which is the border between Jordan and Israel, even today.

00:48:35.400 And we went to the actual site of Christ's baptism. And when you go there, it's still an international

00:48:42.440 border and it's not a border crossing. So you're not supposed to obviously cross the river, but it's,

00:48:47.400 it's not a wide river. It's probably, if you've ever been to the Rio Grande, it's about the same as

00:48:51.800 that, except here it's palm trees and reeds and going through the desert. But you see the Israeli flag

00:48:57.080 on one side and the Jordanian flag on the other soldiers here, soldiers here armed. But then you see

00:49:02.840 pilgrims, Christian pilgrims on both sides going in. And of course we went into the water there,

00:49:07.720 um, brought the family in, brought the kids in, set a prayer, set a blessing and, and beautiful

00:49:15.640 crusader churches right on the banks as well. Yeah.

00:49:22.440 Yeah. It just said every, every, every stop is just like something else. Like we even had like,

00:49:28.520 didn't you see, yeah, I was going to say, I was just sitting there waiting for you guys. And then

00:49:33.480 all of a sudden there's like, and these doves, white doves landed on the column next to me and

00:49:41.480 white doves, lo and behold, you know, what a coincidence, right? Just like in the gospel.

00:49:48.360 And you have really got a sense driving through

00:49:50.440 son with whom I am well pleased. Really got a sense driving through the desert there that just

00:49:57.560 another example, by the way, of connecting

00:50:02.840 a book that you've read, a story that you've known from childhood, both childhood, both our cases,

00:50:09.480 obviously of John the Baptist. So this is where John the Baptist was, was preaching and conducting his

00:50:15.000 ministry that they said that he lived out in the desert, eating nothing but locusts and

00:50:20.200 honey and wearing sackcloth. And when we were driving through some of those,

00:50:25.560 those desert hills and mountains, it, it was not hard for me to picture a guy living out in the

00:50:31.720 middle of the wilderness, because that's exactly what it looks like today.

00:50:34.600 It's the last gospel at the end of every, every Latin mass, you know, they say, I'm gonna 0.99

00:50:40.200 not butcher it, but it's like, I, I am not the light, but I came before the light to like show

00:50:46.520 who will come after me. His cousin. Right. At the end of every Latin mass, they said.

00:50:55.160 And so following that site of Christ baptism, we made it all the way into the city, the holy city of

00:51:06.040 Jerusalem itself. And so the very first morning, we are downtown. That's where we still are. And so the very

00:51:13.400 first morning of that, I, I woke up early, grabbed the kids and grabbed mom. And we walked all the way

00:51:21.240 down from where we're staying into the old city. And it was open already. It's about maybe 7 45 AM.

00:51:28.120 You know, no tourists were around and we got to have some quiet alone time in the church,

00:51:33.160 the Holy Sepulchre. And so the church, the Holy Sepulchre for folks who don't know

00:51:37.240 is the spot, the church that was built is it's a massive church complex, which is venerated and

00:51:46.680 recognized by both the Catholic church, the Orthodox church, as well as the Coptic church. And

00:51:54.120 as the site of the crucifixion and the resurrection of Christ, this was the church that St. Helena, who was

00:52:02.200 the mother of Emperor Constantine founded all the way back in 300, in the 300s AD. Then in 1000,

00:52:11.720 1006 AD, the caliphate came, the Muslim caliphate came and attacked the church of the Holy Sepulchre.

00:52:19.240 So they built this giant church over the site, over where the cross stood, the rock of Golgotha.

00:52:24.600 And then you can, you can walk up even today and there's an altar on top of the rock of Golgotha

00:52:31.720 that you can put your hand under, touch the rock, touch where the cross stood, then come down on the

00:52:36.520 other side. You walk across, you see the slab in the middle, and then the actual tomb of Christ is

00:52:42.840 still there. Then in the word sepulchre means tomb.

00:52:46.120 And this was the church that in 11 or 1006 AD, that the caliphate attacked, sacked the church itself,

00:52:56.920 and led into motion the events that would later be called the Crusades, when all the Christian soldiers, 0.94

00:53:07.080 the knights, and the kings came from Europe from all across Christendom to return to Jerusalem and

00:53:13.880 retake the Holy Land. Amen. Amen.

00:53:18.920 And as well, we did the Via de la Rosa on the way, and the Stations of the Cross.

00:53:24.600 That's right. So later on, you and I went and we did the entire Via de la Rosa. So the Via de la Rosa is

00:53:33.240 the way of suffering, Dolores. And on that, it is the 14 Stations of the Cross. One through 10 are

00:53:40.520 outside on the street, and then the last four, 11 to 14, are all within the Church of the Holy

00:53:46.680 Sepulchre itself. And so the last four Stations, of course, where Jesus is nailed, where Jesus is

00:53:53.960 crucified, Jesus is laid, and then where Jesus is entombed. And we did, I don't think I've done an

00:54:01.960 actual Stations of the Cross and said it all the way through since Confirmation.

00:54:07.800 Family that prays together, stays together.

00:54:09.640 Family that prays together, stays together.

00:54:11.000 Patrick Payton.

00:54:11.800 Patrick Payton.

00:54:12.520 Amen.

00:54:13.560 But yeah, I mean, that was...

00:54:15.320 And the full Stations of the Cross like that.

00:54:18.280 That was, that was, that was the whole shebang. 0.99

00:54:20.920 I mean, mom was, mom was, mom was ballin', dad was crying.

00:54:24.280 Dad was ballin'.

00:54:25.320 Dad, when dad got in and saw the slab, he just started...

00:54:28.920 I couldn't even, I couldn't even look at dad. I was gonna lose it, but...

00:54:31.320 Yeah. Cause you could, cause dad, our dad is, he comes from that generation that you don't, 0.99

00:54:38.040 you don't let your feelings out. You don't let your feelings show, you never show weakness,

00:54:43.000 you never show hurt, just keep it all, you keep it in. You don't...

00:54:48.920 He just had hip surgery.

00:54:50.120 Yeah.

00:54:50.760 Like, to see him get down on the stone, no cushion.

00:54:56.120 He knelt down in front of the Slab of Christ, the 13th station, and was just, just bawling.

00:55:07.160 And I could tell that it had come over him at that point, that he knew where he was.

00:55:14.280 He knew exactly where he was, and the power of that church

00:55:17.240 because of what Christ did there for us.

00:55:21.800 Yes.

00:55:22.760 And each of us as individuals just hit him directly. And the fact that we were able to be there,

00:55:29.640 and I, of course, had done it before with Tanya, but...

00:55:31.960 What he continues to do.

00:55:34.520 That's right.

00:55:35.320 He exists beyond space and time.

00:55:38.120 With mom and dad, with you, with the kids.

00:55:44.200 That was very special.

00:55:45.160 The Bible is not just a book.

00:55:48.120 And if you think it is, then you're missing half the story.

00:55:54.280 In fact, you're missing the large part of the story.

00:55:56.760 And I would say this as a message to even folks out there who are agnostic or even atheists and

00:56:04.200 non-believer types that, look, you know, not everybody's going to be like Kevin and I,

00:56:12.680 kneeling and praying in Latin inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

00:56:16.440 Although you should be, but just understand that you can't really understand Western civilization,

00:56:25.960 Western society, our history, our institutions, our way of life, unless you understand all of this.

00:56:33.560 Because this has been a massive part of the creation of Western society and Western culture.

00:56:39.480 Whether you want to believe in the supernatural, metaphysical aspects of it or not,

00:56:46.680 that you have to at least acknowledge that this is a major, major part of what got us to where we are now.

00:56:56.440 What is directing us still as we're going.

00:56:59.240 There are traditions that are being passed on certainly from father, son.

00:57:03.480 And in this case, I was able to take my two children to all of those sites along with us.

00:57:10.520 Some cases, literally carrying them on my back if I had to.

00:57:14.440 Actually, many cases carrying them on our backs.

00:57:17.400 But the point being that that's something for the sake of the pilgrimage,

00:57:21.560 that's something that hopefully that one day they'll be able to do with their children.

00:57:27.240 When I'm older, and my knees are getting bad, and I'm complaining in a back seat, that they're taking their kids as well.

00:57:35.000 My final thought is, this is my second time in Israel, just come.

00:57:39.640 Just come. Just hop on the plane and come.

00:57:41.480 Just come do it. Visit the Holy Land.

00:57:44.920 You will not regret it.

00:57:46.200 And you will always be able to say that every time that you turn a page in the Bible,

00:57:50.040 you'll realize, wait a minute. I remember exactly what that was like because I was there.

00:57:56.360 Amen.

00:57:57.240 Amen.

00:57:57.560 Amen.

00:57:57.960 Amen.

00:58:20.040 Ladies and gentlemen, as always, you have my permission for the issue.

00:58:32.040 Thank you.

Human Events Daily with Jack Posobiec - October 02, 2022

Sunday Special： The Holy Land

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