Zev Orenstein
Appearances
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
My name is Zev Orenstein, and I'm the Director of International Affairs here at the City of David, which is the biblical site of ancient Jerusalem, the place where Jerusalem began. 2005, all this is underground. One morning, an archaeologist by the name of Eilat Mazar, she comes into our visitor center, says, you need to move your offices. We ask her why.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
She says, beneath your feet, you'll find the palace of King Deid. What do you do with that, right? So, you know, we asked her why. So she shows us something. It's in the Israel Museum today, found 60 years ago. You have over here, Royal Phoenician capital. So if you look at these columns over here, imagine a column. This is sitting on top of the column.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
This proves that where we're standing is the location of King David's palace. What's the connection? In 2 Samuel 5, verse 11, it says, King Hiram of Tyre sent envoys to David with cedar logs, carpenters, and stonemasons, and they built a palace for David. The Phoenicians are the ones who the Bible says built David's palace. We find here the royal Phoenician capital. Why?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
Well, because the Phoenicians were the ones who built David's palace. They start to dig. They find, to the north, to the east, walls about eight meters thick. It's clear there's a massive structure here. The question is, from what time period? They find pottery and other organic material at the base of the walls that Dr. Mazar dates to 3,000 years ago, to the time of David.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
Other people date it to about 100 years after David. So the debate is not what this area was. This was the original Capitol Hill, the royal government viewing center of the Davidic dynasty. And the other thing that we have over here is two clay seals, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
In ancient times, before you had encryption and encoding and whatever, you'd write your letter, then you would roll it up, tie it up, and before you'd hand it to the messenger, you'd take your ring, stick it into the clay, and now on your ring, and now on the clay is your name and the son of your father's name. She's digging here, and she finds two seals just like this one.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
This is what Hebrew used to look like. And on the seals, there are names. Two of the four ministers that made up the security cabinet of King Tzedekiah, the last king of the Davidic dynasty, right before the Babylonian destruction. I mean, these are real people.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
Their seals were found in the royal government center of the Davidic dynasty, where you would expect the ministers of the king to be, right? Not simply as a matter of faith, but as a matter of fact. And a few meters away from here, the same Dr. Mazar finds the seal of King Hezekiah and of the prophet Isaiah. So, I mean, you asked before, how legitimate is this?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
I mean, the seals here are incontrovertible. Was King David here, ruling here, or his grandson? I can't tell you. The Davidic dynasty was ruling from here. This is where it was, not the old city.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
So think about it. Bathsheba, it says, what happened to Bathsheba? Right? It says one night the AC is not working in the palace. He goes out into the balcony and he looks down into the city. What does he see? He sees a woman bathing on the roof. How is it possible for him to see someone bathing on the roof unless he's at the top of the city.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
Now he can look down when you're in the place where the, right. So think about it. When you're in the place where the Bible happened, the words of the Bible come to life.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
And so here's how you'd store water. Now, keep in mind, if we're coming from next to the palace, this is not a private person's cistern. This, you can see, is a massive cistern. So the cistern that archaeologists believe could have been the cistern where Jeremiah was thrown into a pit. Jeremiah was perceived at that time to be a traitor.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
He had said that if the people don't change their ways, Jerusalem is going to be destroyed. But he was a prophet of doom. Nobody wanted to hear what he had to say. And the advisors of King Zedekiah got tired of hearing this guy go around calling for the surrender of the city. And so they throw him down into a pit. Now, can I tell you for sure Jeremiah's thrown into this pit? I can't tell you that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
Right? And if not this pit, one near here like this one. But it says what happens?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
If you're thrown into them. So, but here you say, so what's the plan? He's going to drown, right? It's a cistern. But the Bible makes it clear. There's no water. There's mud. And he's sinking into the mud until a servant of the king goes before Zedekiah and he says, you might not like what Jeremiah is saying.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
it's not him who said it it's a prophet it's a man of god right the words are god's words you can't do this to jeremiah and the king says all right you're right go take 30 people with you and pull jeremiah up out of the pit and then it goes on to say how he you know goes on it keeps true to his message right about what's going to happen to jerusalem right but this is where
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
the back to the last days of Jerusalem before the Babylonians destroy it. You have Jeremiah here sinking into the mud, hearing the destruction, the impending destruction up above. This is where it's playing out. We take for granted today the ability to be critical of our leadership, to hold our leaders accountable.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
But going back thousands of years, there was a position in biblical times, that of the prophet, whose role was to go to the highest levels of society and to hold those leaders accountable and let them know that there are consequences for falling short. There are consequences for making poor decisions, unethical decisions.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
Probably gonna get it good and hard, but that's the... Every single day here in the city of David, we're unearthing antiquities that show not simply as a matter of faith, but as a matter of fact, Jerusalem's biblical heritage coming to life. We are standing right now in the Givati parking lot excavation. Now, you might wonder, why would you name an archaeological excavation after a parking lot?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
Not too long ago, there was actually a parking lot here. And one day we said, we're going to build our visitor center here. And the Israel Antiquities Authority said, well, hold on. Before you build anything, we need to make sure there's nothing exciting beneath your feet. They come with ground penetrating radar. They scan down and they find 10 layers of ancient Jerusalem civilization.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
This is one of the largest active excavations going on in Jerusalem today, going back some 2,700 years, all the way up to modern times, one layer built atop the next.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
So we're about to enter into a compound that goes back about 2,600 years. And the Bible talks about how in Jerusalem you had all these big structures here that when the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem in 586 BCE, they burned all these structures to the ground along with the temple. And if you come in here, you'll see something incredible.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
In the walls, literally, we have remnants of the fire, of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians. That is ash. That is ash from 2,500 years ago, from the actual fires when the Babylonians burned Jerusalem. That's what you're holding in your hand right now.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
It is, yeah. So we're standing on the pilgrimage road. We're about halfway up. It's about a half mile long, right? And what we have here is this is the road that 2,000 years ago that our ancestors, when they would have first gone to the Pool of Siloam, cleansed before making their way up the half-mile journey along the pilgrimage road up to the temple on the Temple Mount.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
These are the original flagstones from 2,000 years ago. Not stones that look like these. These are the original stones. When they first began excavating the pilgrimage road, they found that there were potholes. They said, okay, well, potholes today, potholes 2,000 years ago. But then they found another one and another one and another one, evenly spaced, always in the same spot.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
And someone was deliberately breaking open the pilgrimage road. And the question is why? So they looked at the writings of the historian Josephus, and Josephus says in the year 70, the Romans are destroying Jerusalem. The temple atop the Temple Mount inflames. The last Jews of Jerusalem seek refuge from the Romans where? In the drainage channel.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
beneath the pilgrimage road, the ancient sewer system. Archaeologists find whole cooking pots, meaning the people who were down there were there for days, weeks, months, until the Romans find them all and kill them all. Now, the Romans were so proud of their conquest over Jerusalem that they meant to commemorate a coin.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
Here's the Roman Emperor Vespasian, and on the coin you have a Roman legionnaire towering above, a Jewish woman on her knees crying. On the coin it says, Judea capta. Judea has been captured. And here you have the Arch of Titus in Rome. On the arch you have the temple treasures that were being marched out of Jerusalem and into Rome.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
Now, along this road, along the pilgrimage road here, archaeologists find hundreds, if not thousands, of these small bronze coins dating back to the period from 66 to 70, the period known as the Great Revolt, the Great Jewish Revolt for freedom against the Roman occupation. And scholars have long wondered, why are they minting these coins? Because at that time, the coins were worthless.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
They had no monetary value. And if they really wanted to fight the Romans, what should they have used the metal for? To make weapons. Why are they wasting it on a worthless currency? I want to show you one such coin. This coin here is 2,000 years old. Take a look at this here. 2,000 years old. And that coin... It says, in ancient Hebrew writing, for the freedom of Zion.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
Zion, of course, is another name for Jerusalem. That coin represents a hope, a wish, a dream, and a prayer that one day the Jewish people will return to Jerusalem as sovereign. The words on that coin, for a free Jerusalem, they've come true. It took a little bit longer than they thought it would, but that hope, that wish, that dream, and that prayer is coming true before our eyes.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
And there is a free Jerusalem today for people of all faiths and backgrounds. This is not just another piece of history. It's a continuation of a story that's been going on for thousands of years. The people who will walk this road in the future, it's their ancestors who walked on it 2,000 years ago, who worshiped the same God, had the same language, customs, traditions, and festivals. It's alive.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
It's real. And we're bringing it back here in this excavation.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
a 2,000-year-old ancient soapbox, the only one of its kind found in Jerusalem. And you can imagine when those millions of pilgrims are going up to the temple, you can imagine the likes of whom 2,000 years ago would get up here and preach a religious message, a political message, an ethical message. This is where it's happening, with the shops and stalls all along the way.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
This is the biblical superhighway, the beating heart of Jerusalem, 2,000 years ago.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Jerusalem & the Axis Mundi | Foundations of the West Episode I with Ben Shapiro
Speaker's Corner, the original Hyde Park, right? Mm-hmm. for the Jewish people, for early Christianity. This is where the heritage, the values that have shaped Western civilization in many respects, playing out right where we're standing right here. It's hard to see a soapbox without wanting to climb it.