Paul Calvert spoke with Amer, the manager of the research and curriculum department

Paul: Does all this help you to understand more of the Bible, as you read the word and see what Jesus was talking about?

Amer: Exactly. For example you just asked me about the wine press; in our vineyard here we found terraces around the vineyard and they are from the time of Jesus. We found pottery pieces from the time of Jesus. So we have the vineyard which they had back then and because of the existence of the wine press it tells us that they had grown here grapes, so there was a vineyard here. There was a wall around the vineyard. There was a wine press and a fourth thing that we found is a base for a first century tower from the time of Jesus. Now if we remember one of Jesus' parables, Mark chapter 12:1 Jesus says, 'A man planted a vineyard, he surrounded that vineyard with a wall and he dug a hole for the wine press and he built a watch tower'. This is exactly what was described back then. It's not something that we created; it's just something that we found here which fits exactly the scripture that Jesus spoke about.

What is unique about our land is the fact that it is about 500 metres away from where Jesus lived, so he will have seen this land and would have been speaking about this land or a very similar one.

Paul: I imagine you had to do a lot of research to establish this village?

Amer: Sure, we had started with research and we continue with research. We started with research by doing the research about how life was like in Nazareth and in general in the Holy Land at that time in different aspects; political, religious, social, craft and food and clothing. We established Nazareth Village according to this research and according to the archaeological findings.

Our archaeologists used to go and visit remains of ruins from the first century to build our buildings based on their findings. Now all the time we continue with ongoing research in order to develop this village more and more. A few months ago we have established a new department, which I am the manager of, which is the research and curriculum department. We have started to develop curriculum which is going to go to theological colleges all over the world, so that they can study the parables based on the land and what Jesus and the citizens saw. Also some of the research is going to be published on our website. People who are interested can visit the website and order some of the curriculum.

Paul: Was life difficult two thousand years ago?

Amer: In terms of today yes, with the lack of all the equipment, the machines and everything. They would get up very early in the morning around 4am and then start to work all day beginning with the women grinding grain and making bread and preparing food and going with their families out to the field or to the work that they do. They would stay all day long and come back almost at sunset, so it was a life of work. They didn't have the time just to hang around.

Paul: What's it like for you coming to the village every morning to work; coming to Jesus' time and going back in history?

Amer: I was the first guy who started to work here in the village and when we had just opened to the public the first time, we had the villagers in their homes imitation like the real life and doing things and speaking with each other. I was guiding a tour and I get to one of the houses and I had to choke myself, even though I knew what was going to be there, but for one moment I had a shock and thought wow its real life; it's captured me. It was like me going back to the first century. I have imagined Jesus wandering around here many times in the village.

Paul: How many visitors do you get here a year?

Amer: We have around sixty to seventy thousand people every year, which is not bad but still not enough.

Paul: Do you get many local people visiting?

Amer: Sure we get a lot of local people visiting; also school children, Jewish and Arabs, Christians and Muslims.