Did the "Dig" TV Show Get it Right? – Training Temple Priests in Israel to Fulfill Bible Prophecy

"Dig Panel at Comic-Con 2014" by chrisjortiz - IMG_9185. 
Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons  

Have you been watching the new TV show Dig? It airs on the USA Network and the first episode ran March 5, 2015.

I was incredibly intrigued because the previews showed glimpses of Old Jerusalem.  So of course I had to watch and check it out.

Here is the recap of what the show is about from IMDb.com:

Peter, an FBI agent stationed in Jerusalem who, while investigating a murder of a young female archaeologist, uncovers a conspiracy 2000 years in the making.

I can't figure out why the United States Federal Bureau of Investigations, which I though investigated federal crimes here on U.S. soil, would have an agent or an office in Jerusalem, Israel. Don't think he'd have any jurisdiction in real life. Don't think he'd actually be "stationed" there in real life. But anyway, here at my house we watched the first episodes – I believe it was two and a half episodes.*

The opening of the pilot had me thrilled because the show started with what I thought might be little-known facts about the Bible even among Christians (Tweet that!), interesting tidbits that I've run across in my studies. For example these three items were portrayed:

• The training of priests from boyhood in a special location and their feet are not allowed to touch the ground. Ever.

• The extensive tunnels beneath the Temple Mount.

• And the red heifer.

These are things that I believe most people don't know about (especially #1 and #3). I think even most Christians who study the Bible faithfully may not know much about these details. (Tweet that!) So it caused me to wonder who is behind this TV show? It made me want to research that, which I haven't done yet. But I thought it would be interesting to talk a bit about these three items here on the blog, so we're doing that this week in this post and the next two.

I was amazed that the creators of the show had in place the training of a special priest who has been raised from birth to perform a certain function (not yet revealed on the show).  I had heard years ago that there is a school in Jerusalem that is training young boys to be priests and perform all the duties of the Jewish Temple (Tweet that!), should it be rebuilt or when it is rebuilt.

As you can imagine, a lot of training that would need to be done in order to properly perform all the sacrifices and ceremonies properly. These are jobs that have not been performed since 70 A.D. when the Herod's Temple (the Second Temple) was destroyed. (Tweet that!)

I also heard at that time years ago that for at least some of these young boys, and I'm not clear if this was all of them or just certain positions such as, perhaps, the High Priest, that these boys were never to allow their feet to touch the ground. They were to keep themselves that holy. I remember finding and reading an article about it at the time which I wanted to share with you here, but I was unable to find it. Perhaps that is now controversial as it is made to be considered abusive as it is portrayed in the TV show.

As a matter of fact, in the first episode one of the boys so longed to be outside and to walk on grass that he did, and then this young child was ruthlessly shot in the head by the weird, cult-ish, evil, homicidal "Christians." It was extremely sick how Christians are portrayed on the show, which unfortunately is not unusual for Hollywood. But no worries, they have another boy to take the first one’s place – an identical boy, no doubt a clone.

Anyway, back to real life: Here is one article I found about the training of priests to serve in the rebuilt Temple. (It does not mention the restriction from touching the ground though.)

• Hanukkah at Temple Institute: Working to Rebuild the Temple (Nov 25, 2013)

Image from IMDb.com 

At any rate, whoever is behind this TV show has done some deep research which I find fascinating. It's just too bad they are doing so much ugly with it.

*As I said, we watched two and half episodes. I'm pretty sure it was the third episode that opened with a sex scene (not the first one in the series) that was more graphic than we care to watch – between the main character/FBI Agent (Jason Isaacs) and his boss (Anne Heche). We sat through that reluctantly, but later in the same episode there was a short scene in a gay bar (yeah, in Jerusalem) followed by a scene where two men were ripping their clothes off and we didn't stick around to watch any more of that.

So we're done with the TV show Dig at my house and I can't recommend that you watch it. But it opened up a good opportunity to discuss some little known information about Bible prophecy of the rebuilt Temple. (Tweet that!) We'll talk about it more in the next post.