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August 15, 2008
Unearthing the truth
Filmmaker unites Jews, Christians via history.
DAVE GORDON
Joe Amaral believes that both Jews and Christians have misperceptions about the Bible and Israel, and he makes it his mission to bring accuracy to the fore through his films and television program.
Amaral is the host of TV's Unearthed, which reveals historical truths of the biblical era and the impact they have on the scientific, religious and – in some cases – political world. The weekly show is filmed in Israel and airs on CTS, the Miracle Channel, the Christian Channel and VisionTV.
Amaral frequently gets invited to speak to Jewish audiences and to screen his films. "It is really wonderful that a Christian filmmaker can show a film in a synagogue and there's no ulterior motive. It's purely to stand with you, no matter what," he said.
He is thrilled, too, to be teaching Christians about the Jewish roots of Christianity, debunking common myths about both Judaism and Christianity, through his documentaries, group trips to Israel and lectures.
"Some Christians will be shocked to find out how Jewish the Bible really is. What might shock people the most is that Jesus was a Jew, but in the movies he's often got a British accent," he said, adding that the Christian prophet, known to believers as a devout Jew, would have also worn a tallit, yarmulke and tzitzit – things the gentile portrayal leaves out. As a result, and other false reads of scriptures, Amaral said that many Christians have an incorrect understanding of the Jewish people and the biblical era. The accusation of deicide, biblical misinterpretation and erroneous imagery, he contends, has contributed to Christian hatred of Jews, even to this day.
"There is so much anti-Semitism in the church, so much bias against the Jewish people as a whole in Israel. I fight that tooth and nail. Those Semites, the ones they claim to be against, included Jesus!"
So, intent on keeping the precision of faith texts, Amaral is even strict on when he celebrates his holy days. He does not celebrate Easter or Good Friday, as the day the Christian Messiah was crucified. "Jesus didn't die on Easter. The text is clear. Jesus died on the Passover, and they don't always collide. Why would I celebrate it a month before?" he asked.
One of his many documentaries, Israel After the War, is an investigation into the post-Second Lebanon War effects. Filmed mere weeks after the conflict's end, it is part of his mission to educate the public on what they might not know about Israel. "The images from the media were very much one-sided," he said. "They were showing destroyed southern Lebanon and the Israeli Defence Forces marching in across the border." Moreover, the media, he believes, were duped into filming images manufactured by the Lebanese, such as exhumed bodies from cemeteries planted in bombed homes, to make it look like more people had been killed by the Israelis.
The average television-watcher, according to Amaral, drew the wrong conclusions about the war, so he did what the vast majority of people could not - he interviewed people whose homes were completely destroyed by the Katyushas. "Americans and Canadians needed to see what really happened," he said, adding that Israel suffered billions of dollars in damage and residents were stuck in bomb shelters for six weeks.
"Hezbollah fired their rockets from their own communities, targeted the most congested part of the Israeli cities, at the busiest time of day, to maximize death and suffering. Israel responded in a way that minimized casualties."
An upcoming film, called Israel: Land of Destiny, set for release in September, looks at what the original borders of biblical Israel were and what happened to the two Jewish temples. It also asks how the Jews returned to the land after both the Babylonian and Roman exile. Some of the findings include the world's oldest underwater village, complete with human skeletons and artifacts, engulfed by flooding thousands of years ago. The discovery boasts beautiful Roman remains and 26 sunken ancient ships spanning a 4,000-year period. One ship came from the time of King Solomon, another from the Roman and Greek period.
New findings in a forthcoming as-yet-untitled film inquires whether the biblical diet is the reason why people lived longer and healthier lives thousands of years ago. Amaral asks: Is it the perfect health diet? "Pork doesn't necessarily cause cancer, but feeds cancer cells," he said. "We look at the medical effects of the foods in the Bible."
Amaral's father, dying of a brain tumor, is sticking to a "biblical" food regimen, as a result of his doctor telling him to stay off shellfish and pork, and eat only to what appears to be the Mediterranean diet, something akin to what people ate in Israel at the time of the Bible.
Dave Gordon is a freelance writer from Toronto. His website is DaveGordonWrites.com.
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