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The Promised Land.
乐土，福地，希望之乡。
This is the view from Mount Nebo in Jordan.
这是约旦的尼波山。
According to the Bible, this is where Moses died after leading the Israelites for 40 years through the wilderness, on the very threshold of the God-Promised Land he was never actually allowed to set foot in.
据圣经记载,这就是摩西耗费40余年带领以色列人穿过茫茫荒野后来到实际上他从未允许涉足神所应允的乐土前就死去的地方。
You don't have to accept the Bible as literal truth to believe that, 3,500 years ago, something extraordinary and fateful in world history did happen over there on the other side of the Jordan Valley.
你不必对圣经的一字一句锱铢必较,早在3500年前,世界历史上意义重大的事情的确发生在约旦河谷的另一边。
Trying to understand what remains as urgent and necessary for me as it once was for Sigmund Freud.
对我来说试图了解残留下什么才是当务之急,因为对西格蒙德·弗洛伊德曾经也是如此。
But the first people in the modern era to actually go there and explore the history of the Jews from the ground up weren't Jewish at all.
但在现代实际上第一个前往那里探究犹太人的历史的并不是犹太人自身。
They were evangelical Christians, Victorian scientists, surveyors, clerics and military engineers, funded by bishops and philanthropists.
这些先驱是由主教和慈善家所资助的福音派基督徒,维多利亚时代的科学家、测量员、神职人员和军队工程师。
150 years ago, the Palestine Exploration Fund despatched a series of expeditions to the place its supporters called the Holy Land.
150年前,巴勒斯坦探索基金会派遣一系列考察队前往称为圣地的地方。
They wanted to prove the truth of their Christian faith by discovering the Jewish foundation stones on which that faith stood.
他们想通过找寻犹太人信仰的基石证明基督教信仰的真理。
Equipped with the latest in technology that Victorian science could provide, they sought nothing less than the precise grid references for the places where the miraculous events described in the Book of Exodus actually took place.
配备了维多利亚时代的科学可以提供最新的技术,他们仍然找寻不到在《出埃及记》中所描述的神奇事件实际发生的精确网格坐标地点。
That's a lovely one, isn't it?
这很可爱,不是吗?
That's just beautiful!
太漂亮了!
Felicity Cobbing, curator of the PEF collection, showed me the fruits of their labours.
PEF收藏馆的馆长向我展示了他们的劳动成果。
