Mystery of The Man From Nazareth

No other religion is as successful as that of Jesus of Nazareth. Who was this man? With the help of scientists, theologians and skeptics, the two-hour documentary tells the story of the man Jesus. Here, SPIEGEL TV sets out on the exciting search for clues to separate speculation and probability of the life of the religious founder of one another and back ancient traditions in a new light.

“When Jesus come back and some of his biographies would read about his life, he would be pretty shocked,” says Shimon Gibson, an archaeologist in Jerusalem. The biography of the itinerant preacher from Galilee is incomplete: little is known about his childhood and is also on the technique of the crucifixion of Jesus in the Gospels to find anything – a challenge for science.

The method that was Jesus crucified? These ancient scientists Israel Hershkovitz of Tel Aviv University: “If you do not know how to insert the nail, it may be that it stands out only by the soft tissue rather than through the bone How could the Roman soldiers know where. they had to insert the nail? ” The scientist shows by means of a corpse, as is the foot bones by an approximately eleven centimeters long nail from the first century through the first one, then driven through both bones of the foot. He was able to see accomplished in the way the Romans brutal crucifixion.

It can also demonstrate that the crucifixion of soldiers were highly specialized experts, as only the exact knowledge about the nature of the human ankle, it was possible to beat the nails through the feet so that the crucified could not free himself. Similarly paleoanthropologist Israel Hershkovitz shows that specializes in diseases in ancient times, using a skeleton, what different ways there were to mount the arms on the cross: “If the palms would show the Crucified forward, one could easily remove the cross when. the hands are turned the other way around, you lose power, you reduce the muscle strength. “

Miracle or more medical knowledge?

Jesus was known for his miracles. Was it a miracle? How could he make the blind to see, heal lepers? Even today, patients travel to the Dead Sea and there are often healthy – it could be had with the lepers? have had healing powers are also hot springs at the Sea of ​​Galilee, where Jesus preached for years and has performed his miracles. Many diseases could then be cured even with the help of plants. The medical knowledge of Jesus’ day is considered very large.

Jesus, a preacher with great rhetorical talent. A human scavenger? In any case, someone who had empathy, was able to respond to patients. “I always think that I think of myself as a guard in front of modern historians have, that the limits of what I think is possible, the limits of what happened or can happen,” says church historian Prof. Dr. Dr. Christoph Markschies of the Humboldt University in Berlin.

In Saturday’s documentation, the individual stations of life of Jesus are presented. But what is fact and what is fiction? The comment on and analyze TV host Dr. Dr. Michel Friedman, a Benedictine monk Anselm Dr. Green, Prof. Dr. Dr. Dieter View Egger from the German Protestant Institute of Archaeology, in the Holy Land, archaeologist and author, Dr. Shimon Gibson, church historian Prof. Dr . Dr. Christoph Markschies and the Bible researcher Claire Pfann.