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Here’s a catechesis I delivered on baptism with Father Ryan Alemao at the Jordan River, while on The Faith Explained Holy Land Pilgrimage. Together we unpack the biblical background and theological meaning of Jesus’ baptism — and our own.

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Filmed live on The Faith Explained pilgrimage to the Holy Land, I explain why the Multiplication of the Loaves should be read as a supernatural miracle in Jesus’ career, and how it relates to the daily miracle of the Eucharist. In light of constant doubts, even by high-ranking prelates and scholars in the Church, this is more important than ever. Join us on our next pilgrimage! Reach out here: www.TheFaithExplained.com/contact.

Note: Spaces in our tours tend to sell out quite quickly. If you’d like some more information, please contact us at www.TheFaithExplained.com/Contact, and we will send you all the details. Sign-ups are handled on a first-come, first-served basis — whoever makes their deposit is guaranteed a spot, until we max out. If you live in the Toronto area, there will be an information session you can attend in person tomorrow night (Tuesday, June 4) at 7:30 PM at St Francis DeSales Parish (1001 Ravenscroft Rd, Ajax, Ontario L1T 4X1.

Every Catholic, if possible, should visit the Holy Land at least once in their lifetime. And I want you to be there with us!

I’ll be leading The 2019 Faith Explained Holy Land Pilgrimage November 22—December 2, together with Father Joe Singh, Pastor of St Francis DeSales parish in Ajax, Ontario, and former Pastor of St Justin Martyr Parish, Markham.

Saint Jerome once called the Holy Land the “Fifth Gospel”. Why? Because, when you walk where Jesus walked, and experience the places where he lived, taught, worked miracles, and rose from the dead, the Bible comes alive in amazing ways! From then on, whenever you read it, it’ll be like going from an old, black-and-white TV with fuzzy reception and rabbit ears (remember those?), to a brand-spanking-new, 4K Ultra High-Definition TV with a curved screen and all the bells and whistles!

I’ve had the privilege of visiting and studying in Israel in the past, and even worked on an archaeological dig in Jerusalem two summers in a row. I can tell you that Israel is a gorgeous, utterly modern country that you’ll fall in love with immediately. But most of all, you’ll fall more in love with Jesus and your Catholic faith in a much, much deeper way. Your relationship with the Lord will never be the same.

Happy Feast of the Visitation! In this teaching, recorded live at on pilgrimage at the Church of the Visitation in Israel, Cale Clarke, Director of The Faith Explained Institute, explains the significance of the site. Learn how the Gospel writers show how Mary fits into salvation history using typology.

Interested in joining us on our 2019 Faith Explained Holy Land Pilgrimage? Drop us a line at TheFaithExplained.com/contact and we’ll send you the info!

Join us for our next Faith Explained pilgrimage! Message us here: TheFaithExplained.com/contact and we’ll keep you updated.

Happy Easter! Christ is Risen!

Hope you enjoy this video we recently filmed on our recent Faith Explained Pilgrimage to the Holy Land. At the most important Church in the world, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, we briefly consider some of the compelling evidence for Jesus’ Resurrection.

Interested in joining us for our next pilgrimage? Reach out at TheFaithExplained.com/contact, and we will keep you updated with all the latest info on our upcoming tours!

(My latest for Catholic Ansers Magazine. Enjoy!  — Cale)

A few weeks ago, while leading a pilgrimage tour to Israel, I couldn’t wait to bring the group to one of the greatest museums in the world: the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. Packed with artifacts from the biblical period, it’s a treasure trove for anyone interested in the material remains of salvation history.

The museum also houses one of the more important archaeological finds of recent years: an artifact that has bolstered our confidence in the veracity of the Old Testament accounts of the kingdom of David, his son Solomon, and their successors.

Biblical “minimalists” had long contended that King David did not actually preside over a kingdom that originated circa the tenth century B.C., as the Bible states. Indeed, these scholars alleged that David, Solomon, and in fact the entire line of Davidic kings chronicled in the Old Testament, are nothing more than fictional characters invented by the writers of the Hebrew scriptures.

In favor of the “minimalist” argument was the lack of any evidence of David’s existence outside the Bible.

But here’s where archaeology came to the rescue. During the 1993-94 excavations at Tel Dan, in northern Israel, a stele (a stone slab bearing an inscription) was unearthed. Made from basalt, a volcanic rock plentiful in the region, it bears an account of a military victory. Scholars have postulated that the inscription commemorates an Aramean king’s defeat of Israelite forces. It may have been commissioned by Hazael or Ben-Hadad III, his son (cf. 2 Kings 10:32, 13:3, 22; 2 Chron. 22:5).

The key line on the monument, the stunning find, is the mention of the “House of David.” There it was, written in stone—independent confirmation of David’s existence and of a line of kings so powerful that defeating armies from this “House” warranted a public brag of sorts on this stele, for all passersby to read and marvel at.

Analysis of the stele dates it to the mid-ninth century BC, right around the time when, according to Scripture, David’s dynasty would have been flourishing. It appears that the stele was broken by the Israelites after they recaptured the area some time later, and was eventually repurposed into building blocks for the city wall.

After this discovery, as chronicled by Craig Evans, the minimalists changed their approach. “Okay, okay,” they admitted, “maybe David existed after all. But he was a nobody. A local tribal chief, at best, certainly not the originator of the vast, Iron-Age kingdom described in the Old Testament.”

At this point, faced with what seems like special pleading, one is tempted to respond like Jerry Seinfeld: “Really? Really?”

But don’t despair—again, archaeology is our friend here.

First of all, if David had been merely a small-time local yokel, what on earth were his descendants doing fighting battles all the way up north, near the modern-day border that separates Israel and Syria, far from his allegedly tiny operation in Jerusalem?

Also, a vast, centralized complex of buildings—in all likelihood, a government compound—has been unearthed in the Old City of Jerusalem, and can be seen on tours today. It’s located in what’s known as the “City of David” and dates to approximately the tenth century B.C.; once more, the time when Scripture says that David and Solomon were establishing their empire. Again, this seems fairly excessive if we’re talking about an insignificant tribal chieftain, but it does fit the biblical narrative of David’s expansive realm.

To this our minimalist might say, “I’ll grant you that David existed, and perhaps he did preside over a significantly large kingdom, but we still can’t trust what the Bible says about him. The people of David’s time would not have been significantly literate enough to record his exploits or those of his descendants”.

This last objection is at least partially answered by—you guessed it—yet another archaeological discovery. In 2008, an ostracon (an inscribed piece of pottery) dating to the tenth century B.C. was disinterred at the ancient fortress city of Khirbet Qeiyafa, which was the only fortified Judahite city during the reigns of David and his predecessor, King Saul (in fact, the Qeiyafa ostracon is the only extant relic that mentions Saul).

The famed French epigrapher Émile Puech regards the inscription as the earliest writing narrating the transition of Israel from a people ruled by judges into a kingdom. It shows that the people living around David’s time were literate, and in fact, more than capable of recording (and passing on) the annals of David’s dynasty, such as we see in the biblical books of Kings and Chronicles.

The Tel Dan stele and the Qeiyafa ostracon are just two examples from the multitude of archaeological discoveries in Israel that have bolstered our understanding of, and in many cases substantiated the reliability of, biblical records of history. Since only roughly five percent of all biblical sites have been excavated to date (which is unbelievable considering how much has already been found), It’s truly exciting to think of how many more such finds may be unearthed in the years to come.

Cave 4 (credit- Cale Clarke)

This is an absolute bombshell.

My professor, Dr. Craig Evans, emailed me and some of his other students earlier this week, alerting us about an amazing discovery made in Israel, something he was sworn to secrecy about until the official announcement could be made today. It’s the kind of announcement that biblical scholars and, indeed, anyone who is concerned about the world of Jesus of Nazareth dreams about making: a new cave has been discovered in Israel, most likely containing more of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Dr. Evans, writing for the Logos academic blog:

The last Dead Sea Scrolls cave, linked to the ruins on the marl shelf at the mouth of Wadi Qumran, was discovered in 1956, bringing the total number of caves to eleven — eleven caves containing the famous Dead Sea Scrolls, ceramic jars, and a number of other artifacts.

For sixty years archaeologists and looters have been searching for a twelfth cave. Would another one ever be found? Most didn’t think so. This is what makes the announcement from Hebrew University so astounding: A twelfth cave has been discovered!

The cave that has been discovered has been unsurprisingly dubbed “Cave 12” (What did you expect? The Batcave? Already taken, sorry). Here’s what was inside:

Not only were six scroll jars recovered, but small fragments of parchment and papyrus, as well as at least one linen used for wrapping scrolls.

Scientific testing of the ceramic should confirm its link to the ruins and Qumran and to some of the other jars found in nearby caves. DNA testing of the parchment could confirm links to some of the scrolls whose origins have to date not been determined. The presence of the jars and the linen wrapper confirms that Scrolls used to be in this cave (and same applies in the case of Cave 8).

The Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS) are not Christian documents, but they are vitally important for understanding Jesus and his world. They show what many Jews who were roughly contemporaneous with Jesus believed about the coming Messianic age. As Evans notes:

The Qumran Scrolls are also important because they shed a great deal of light on the Judaism of Jesus’ day and a great deal of light on specific teachings of Jesus and his early followers.

For example, an Aramaic scroll from Cave 4 speaks of a coming figure who will be called “Son of God” and “Son of the Most High” who will be “Great” and who will reign forever. The parallels with the Annunciation of Luke 1 are obvious. Another scroll from Cave 4 anticipates the coming of God’s Messiah who give sight to the blind, heal the wounded, raise the dead, and proclaim good news to the poor. The parallels to Jesus’ reply to John the Baptist are quite apparent.

Even Paul’s “works of the law” terminology finds an important parallel in a Cave 4 letter concerned with legal matters.
The Melchizedek Scroll from Cave 11 forecasts the coming of one who seems to be God himself, possessing the power to forgive sin, heal, and defeat Satan. Examples like these — and there are many more — should make it clear how important the Scrolls are.

Dr. Evans and another of his students, Jeremiah Johnston, have also published a piece today on FOX News, arguing that the Scrolls rightfully belong to Israel.

And, just in case all of this wasn’t enough to digest already, there is an extremely strong possibility that a thirteenth cave may also exist nearby! This one is even more promising, because the cave mouth has been sealed over (indicating that it may never have been looted). The coming days and weeks are going to be very, very interesting times for biblical scholars and archaeologists alike.

Share this article on social media and spread the word about this amazing discovery!

IMG_20130621_035724On this Feast Day of St. Mary Magdalene, I thought I’d let you know about the incredible excavation going on at her hometown – Magdala, known as Migdal in Hebrew. In 2013 and 2014, I had the privilege of visiting the work at Migdal, along with Dr. Craig Evans, Greg Monette, Dwight Crowell and Jesse Richards. Migdal, which was built just next to the Sea of Galilee, is an incredible archaeological find – it’s unique in that the entire first-century town has been unearthed.

During the great Jewish War with Rome (66-70 AD), the citizens of Migdal themselves destroyed their own synagogue – literally bringing down the house upon itself. They did this to prevent it from being desecrated by the Roman army, who either slaughtered Migdal’s inhabitants, or carried them off into slavery.

I took this photo of some of the original mosaic tile found on the synagogue’s floor. In all likelihood, Jesus stepped onto this very floor while preaching in Migdal, during his years of ministry in the Galilee. In all likelihood, this is where Mary of Magdala first heard Jesus’ message, and became a disciple of the Master. This is absolutely unique. In Capernaum (Kafir Nahum), the impressive synagogue that can be seen today is actually a fourth-century structure, built on top of the foundation of the original structure (made of black basalt stone, which can still be seen on the exterior) extant in Jesus’ time.

In Migdal, we are truly walking in the footsteps of Jesus.