Day Four - Jerusalem New Testament City tour

I’m still sick so this will be on the short side.

Today we spent most of the day on the Temple mount. In case you are curious what the Temple Mount is, it is the place where the temple used to be and the courtyard that surrounded it. As our teacher Todd said today, it is pretty amazing that we were even allowed onto the temple mount, it is a place with a lot of tension. The Temple mount currently has two major buildings on it, the Al-Aksa mosque and the Dome of the Rock. There is also an underground mosque called the Al-Marwani mosque there. Since it is where the Temple used to be, it is far and away the holiest place in Judaism. There are some Jewish people who will not even go up on the mount to avoid the possibility that they would desecrate the area where the holy of holies of the temple was. They believe that not only is it a the place where the temple was but also that it is the place where Abraham almost sacrificed Isaac.

(the Dome of the Rock)

The temple mount is the third holiest place in Islam, they believe that it is the place where Mohommed ascended to heaven on a horse and spoke with Allah. There is a rock inside the dome of the Rock that they say he ascended from. It is the same rock that the Jews say that Abraham sacrificed Isaac on. It is also the same rock that was probably in the Holy of Holies and the ark of the covenant sat on.

Part of what is interesting about all of this is that the Muslims say that the temple never stood there. They don’t want to admit that the Jews might have a prior claim to the area. They won’t let anyone do any archeology inside the temple mount, you can get arrested for praying inside the temple mount, or having a Bible or a tape measure. It is definitely the most Arab feeling part of Jerusalem that I have been in so far, the dome of the rock is really pretty, but some of the other buildings are more run down, and part of the temple mount has become a trash dump. In fact most of the eastern side of the temple mount, what used to be Solomon’s colonnade, where Jesus met with his disciples and the disciples met after he died is just piles of rubble and trash.

(pile of trash in what was Solomon's Collonnade)

After we were inside the temple mount we looked at some of the archeological digs on the southern end of the outside of the mount (there is some work that is done outside of the mount.) The coolest thing that we saw there were the gates that used to be the entrance to the temple. There were three gates that were the entrance to the temple mount complex, it would take them through and underground tunnel up into the courtyard. The exited through double gates that were further west. The only exception to this is when someone was in mourning, then they came in through the western doors moved around the temple in a clockwise motion and then exited through the eastern doors.

(me standing next to what is visible of the exit gate of the old temple.)

(Apparently Tuesday's and Thursdays are big days for BarMitzpha celebrations here. Underneath the canopy a 13 year old boy is blowing a shophar. a giant horn (musical) made from a giant horn (animal). Then the guys in white start playing drums and singing (he lai, lai, lai, lai...) and march the kid (still under the canopy) up to the wailing wall to read from the Torah and pray. Down in a hidden part of the wall we saw them doing somehting similar for a girl, and she was putting on a phylactry, box on forhead, and then a thing around her arm and wrist. It is usually just resevred for men and they would have done up where they were having the drum-horn party she would have been arrested.)

After that we went and looked at the ruins of a house that is from the same time and is very similar to what the house where Jesus was interrogeted by the Jews after he was arrested (the high priests house) looked like. In fact, since the high priest would have had one of the nicest houses in the wealthiest part of Jerusalem, it could have been the actual high priests house.

After that we went to a place that is called David's tomb, but probably isn't where David is buried, then we went to the traditional site of the upper room where the last supper happened. The building is too new for it to be the actual site, but it our teacher Todd thought that it seems to be in the right area where the last supper took place.

Tonight we went to a tunnel tour of the western wall of the temple mount (the same wall where the Jews pray.) It turns out that a large portion of the Arab quarter of the city has been built on an artificial platform sometime around 1200 (maybe, it may have been the 700's, I'm not sure on that one. The tunnel was really cool, it goes along the western wall, under the Arab quarter of the city.

One more thought for the night.

We spent a lot of time around the temple today, and there was a lot of talk about the holiness of the the temple and the holy of holies. It is something that the religious jews are passionate about. And it is a place where God's presence used to dwell. But in the same way that God's presence dwelt in his temple, it dwells in those of us who are Christians. So as we walked through the temple mount today, God's presence came through with us and dwelt among us as it used to dwell in the holy of holies, and then as we left it was still with us. The access to God that used to come through the temple is available to all of today regardless of where we are.

That's it for tonight. Tommorow we are going out to see the territory of Benjamin, down to Jericho and over into Samaria. Until tomorrow, thanks for reading.