New Temple Mount Discovery Brings Acts 2 to Life

Cliff Buell

Download First Light and build a God-first routine by blocking apps until you read your Bible: https://firstlight.onelink.me/tenZ/qtzffd2h   Archaeologists have uncovered ancient ritual immersion pools near Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, offering a fascinating glimpse into the world of the Second Temple period. In this video, I react to the discovery, explore its possible connection to Acts 2, and explain why it matters for Bible readers today.  Are You Going To Heaven OR Hell?👇 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzmENeLZzb4&t=2s  All Important Links: https://linktr.ee/cliffbuell  Become A Channel Member: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3ap1CNrpXD-O0wWPANhQvw/join  Connect With Me: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CliffBuell Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cliffbuell/ Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@cliffbuell  #christian #jesus #god #bible #reaction #archaeology #jerusalem #history #discovery #jewish #temple #templemount  FAIR USE DISCLAIMER This video may contain copyrighted material that has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Such material is used for purposes of criticism, commentary, news reporting, teaching, research, or education, which constitute “fair use” under Section 107 of the Copyright Act. I do not claim ownership of any copyrighted material used in this video. All rights and credit go directly to their respective owners. This content is transformative in nature — adding new meaning, commentary, or context — and does not substitute for the original works. If any copyright owner has concerns or would like material removed, please contact me directly and I will resolve the matter promptly.

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00:00Wow, just last month, September, archaeologists uncovered a new discovery near Jerusalem's

00:07Temple Mount. This is really cool. Let's listen to the breakdown of what this discovery actually is

00:13and how it relates to biblical times in a location that it even possibly could be for something that

00:18happened in the Book of Acts. Before we watch it, though, remember to hit that subscribe button if

00:21you like Christian content. All right, let's check it out. Archaeologists in Israel have uncovered an

00:28absolutely massive discovery in the shadows of Jerusalem's Temple Mount. Well, everyone's

00:33favorite Israeli tour guide, Yoav Rotem, is here. My friend, set the scene.

00:37Go on, Raj. So, yeah, I mean, very exciting. Very, I mean, for me at least, because we have a

00:42lot to

00:43uncover over here. First of all, the location, right south of the Temple Mount, the main entrance

00:48during the Second Temple time, during Jesus' time. You and I have been there many times,

00:53right above it, in the stairs, leading to what's called the triple gate of the Temple Mount.

00:57These gates were used by many, many Jewish pilgrims during the time of the Second Temple

01:01to enter the Temple. This is the entrance that Jesus will enter to the Temple Mount as well.

01:07And we come there a lot with many people to visit. Now, what was found there is something that we've

01:13talked, I think, a week ago, Mikvez, but not one. Actually, we're talking about four and another one.

01:18A very special one. They've been excavating there, I think, for five seasons already. It's

01:22a long excavation site. It's the biggest archaeological park of Jerusalem. Some people

01:27know the center, the Davidson Center, right next to the southwestern corner where the

01:31Robinson's Arch is located. And this is an area that we already found dozens of Mikvaot,

01:36ritual immersion pools. But this time, they found something different. This whole area got destroyed

01:42in the year 70 and covered and was built up by a Byzantine neighborhood. And this is how you

01:47and I have seen it lately when we were there. But now they excavated below the Byzantine

01:51neighborhood and they found a compound of one very unique pool that has stairs from all sides

01:58and around. So they found four Mikvas, which are immersion pools for rituals. These were open to

02:03the public. There's the one he's talking about with the four stairs around it. And since they found

02:07four of them, I believe the other three are right here. One, two, and then three. And then here's a

02:13closer picture of the one with the four stairs on it. But there's also some other really cool

02:17things that they found in relation to this. And I'll show you some more pictures of those as he

02:21gets them.

02:22Four rooms that has bath in them plastered with the stairs fit to a Mikva with a little wall

02:28separation going in and out public. I mean, because many people go in and out, they don't want to

02:32touch each other. And as they go out, because they're already pure. And four of them and one of

02:37them was kept all the way to the ceiling with the vault. The vault was used as the foundation to

02:43the

02:43Byzantine house above. This is what was what was found there. And it's exciting because of the

02:48location and because of the many stories we know that happened there. So this is the one he was

02:51talking about with the vault here that still has that roof. And then if you look here, here's another

02:57angle of that. And then on the top down, you'll see that was the one right there. While I have

03:03you

03:03here, I created an app that blocks your distracting apps until you read your Bible. It's called First

03:07Light Bible and Prayer. You start with a prayer, you read the Bible. When you're finished reading the

03:10Bible, then you check off which book and chapter you read so you can track reading through the entire

03:14Bible. And then it unlocks your apps. This has helped me put God first every single day without

03:18getting distracted by other things on my phone or scrolling for almost five months now. If you think

03:23that it can help you to click the link in the pink comment below or scan the QR code. I

03:26think for us,

03:27it's trying to understand ritual immersion pools. I think maybe there's a misconception that somehow

03:33John the Baptist invented baptism. Walk us through what was happening at the time of Jesus when it came to

03:39these ritual immersion pools. You know, to understand it, we have to go back to the Old

03:43Testament. We have it in Leviticus in a few occasions, the bathing that is connected to your

03:48ritual status. If it's the priests, if it's other people that have been next to things that aren't

03:52clean or unpure, even Neman is going to wash in the Jordan River to be kind of, to be healed.

04:00But

04:00it's also something that is connected to a status of holiness or that's something that we have it in

04:05the second Kings. When we get to the second temple time, we find also these pools that were, were used

04:14to, to take this function of bathing in enter us and help us enter to a status of holy, holy

04:20place,

04:20holy time. And this is the Jewish community in the Galilee, by the way, where John the Baptist is

04:26active, where Jesus is active. We have many of these mikvahot that brings the natural water into the

04:32towns into the place where people were living, and they didn't have to go to the, to the Jordan River

04:37to,

04:38to be, to dip in the water and ritually be pure. So it was created along the pilgrimage route.

04:44Actually, when you get to Jerusalem, and we talk about the temple, we have not only just at home, you

04:49know,

04:49being pure for Shabbat, for synagogue, for God, all the way to Jerusalem, we found this phenomenon during

04:552,000 years ago, of this bath that you can walk down seven stairs, dip your whole body in what's

05:03called living water, water that has been collected naturally, either from an aqueduct or a spring or

05:08rain, rain water are good enough, and, and all the way to Jerusalem. And when we come to the entrance

05:14to the temple, we have a concentration of many, dozens, if not over a hundred of them, south of the

05:21temple mount.

05:23What's fascinating about Jerusalem is not only is the archaeology and the stuff that we find

05:28very logistically and engineering like impressive, but it also has meaning. You know, I think the

05:32fact that there's seven steps, I think if you've been to the southern stairs, southern steps of the

05:36temple mount, you'll, you'll realize it's not a normal staircase. It's like long, short, long, short,

05:40which almost forces you to kind of walk up to the holy temple, you know, bowing more or less. It's

05:45everything, every archaeological discovery find is so utterly intentional. And I think for maybe,

05:50uh, for Christians, you, you see this, uh, applying to somewhere in Acts. Uh, what do you

05:56mean by that?

05:56Definitely. Um, you know, the story of Acts chapter two, and many people refer to the upper

06:01room, which is the former chapter, but in this case, chapter two doesn't, uh, talk about an upper

06:07room. It talks about they were all gathering in one place. Speaking of high holidays, Jewish high

06:10holidays and pilgrimage holidays, uh, we are talking about the Pentecost, that holiday of the week,

06:15Shavuot. And where do you go on Shavuot? You go to the temple mount. You just spoke about these very

06:20interesting steps that not only force you to bow, but also are very easy to sit on, like seats

06:25in a theater. So many archaeologists and scholars will claim that this whole event could have happened

06:31there. Together with what we found now, it's actually bringing it maybe more interesting,

06:36because we knew it was a place with many, many options to get baptized, to, to be washed in water

06:41in, in, in Mikvaot, in the city. But over here, we have a few elements that want to connect together.

06:47First of all, they were all gathered in one place. They were all Jews, and this is the holiday of

06:50Shavuot. They are going, we have elements of fire and wind that takes us back to Sinai. Shavuot is

06:56also the holiday of receiving of the Torah. Where was the Torah or the tablets from Sinai were kept

07:01originally in the temple mount, so there's some connection to that. And then Peter is giving his

07:05speech, you know, and talking, and you can really, from the words, you can really see him pointing

07:10out to the tomb of David that's supposed to be with them. And we know that the time of 2

07:14,000 years

07:14ago, the new word, at least according to Josephus, the new word David was buried in the city of David.

07:18And you know where the city of David is right below us when we talk about this finding, this new

07:22finding. And then at the end of the chapter, what's happening? 3,000 people are being baptized.

07:27Oh, maybe I skipped one thing. I skipped the fact that they were all talking in tongues,

07:31and the entrance to the temple, many, many people, many languages, everyone coming,

07:35and we have evidence, Jewish evidence, of people coming from all around the closed wall to this

07:41area in the high holidays, and then they're getting baptized, 3,000. We have one plus one plus one equals

07:46three over here. Bingo. 3,000 people being baptized. Probably this compound was part of the place where

07:54they could do it. Wow. When you heard of this discovery, as an Israeli, what did you think?

08:00I was excited because I worked for many years in this site as a local guide in the park. And

08:05we

08:05always knew that this is a place that is basically the entrance to actually the end and the beginning

08:12of a journey. The end of a journey coming from North Africa, from Europe as a pilgrimage, but it's a

08:17beginning of a journey, a spiritual journey going into the house of the Lord. And the Mikveh, the

08:26ritual immersion, is basically the part of the preparation that touches all your body, prepares you

08:32into this holy moment to go into God's house. And it's exciting because they just released this

08:38finding during the holiday of Sukkot, which is also a holiday of going to the house of the Lord. I

08:43think a lot of interesting things happening. I think we need to keep on reading our Bibles and

08:48focus on how we can all be better and pray for peace for Jerusalem. And this finding just,

08:54for me, it's exciting again because it brings me back to the reality of everyone looking towards

09:02one house, one place, one God. So, something else that was pretty interesting about these

09:05Mikveh is that they had drains and that is not common because as he said, it had to be

09:11water that was considered holy. And so typically the rain water would come in and that would fill

09:16these baths and they would try to keep them full and they had to be very careful with the water.

09:20This had a pretty intricate drain system. So you see one of the drains here, which is actually

09:23positioned right here to give you a better understanding. It's right here. And then the top down view,

09:28it would be right here. Here is another part of the drainage system here as well on these stairs.

09:35And then here is underneath them, more of the drainage system. And so again,

09:39this wasn't a normal thing for them to have a very in-depth type of drain drainage system here.

09:45This was a pretty cool discovery that they made. Again, here's the top down view to just give you

09:48the entire area that they've been excavating and digging under this area that was covered by

09:53the Byzantine homes and whatnot. So pretty cool discovery, bringing us back to the times of our Lord and

09:59Savior, the times that we read about in the Bible and kind of giving us a glimpse into their world.

10:05You know, we can imagine it one way in our head, but this shows us the reality of what it

10:08actually

10:08looked like and brings the stories that we know are true, but brings them to life for us. So super

10:13exciting news. And let me know what you think about this. If you watched the end of this video,

10:18you're an absolute legend. Remember to subscribe if you like Christian content,

10:21but until I see you in the next one, God bless you. And I love you.

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