Israel Day Two - Overveiw of the Old city

Ok, this is a long post and I need to go to bed before the hotel lobby clerk kills me. Sorry but these first three pictures aren't in order, I'll just label them and you can read about them below. I also apologize for any spelling or grammer errors, no time to proofread tonight.

(the via dolorosa and the ecco homo this is the man arch - arch dates to 130 AD, not the time of Jesus)

(Pools of Bethesda, I think I forgot to mention this, where Jesus healed the lame man)

(The dome of the rock on the temple mount.

Jerusalem, a city full of surprises. Sometimes there are surprises like: "Remeber how we were awake all night long because of the construction working yelling and using jackhammers until 5:00am? Turns out our window wasn't closed right." Or, "You guys have been working on this preview homework for an hour and a half? What page are you on? Oh...you guys are doing the wrong stuff, you need to do this stuff, it's way shorter." (and it was) Then there are surprises like, "We are about to go into the church of the Holy Sepulcher, this is probably the place that Jesus was not only buried, but also crucified." All of those things happend today, as well as a few other surprises that I will mention later. I will try to do my best to fill in the highlights of our travels today, but it is pretty late (working on the wrong preview work threw me a little behind) and the jackhammers did keep me up most of the night (I am confident tonight will be better), so this may be a little short or incoherant or maybe both.

(Belltower and entrance to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher)

Today started with a pretty good breakfast and a lecture on the geography of Jerusalem (you might not believe it, but it was awesome). Then we headed out to the city. Our first stop was the Chruch of the Holy Sepulcher, which is the church of the holy tomb. Back in the day, wherever Christians thought that Jesus had done something awesome in a place, the built a church over it. This changes what some of those places look like (you'll see with the pictures of the Holy Sepulcher), but it is a good thing in that the locations of a lot of these sites were preserved because they had churches sitting on them. There are six different Christian sects that control part of the church of the Holy Sepulcher (from here on I'll abbreviate it CHS). They have so much trouble getting along with each other it is a regular thing during Easter to read about fistfights between priests and monks of different sects (Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Syrian Orthodox, Coptic, Armenean, and Etheopian) because they were getting in the way of each others celebrations. The relationships between these Christians is so contentious that none of them actually have a key to the front door of the church. A muslim family has had the key to the door since the 12th century, and they come down and unlock it every morning and then relock it every night. Part of the sad thing about this is that this is how the Muslims and Jews in Jerusalem see Christianity. The Jewish tour guides talk about how this is the holiest site in Christianity, this is the Christians wailing wall.

The difference (in how I see it) is that the Jews see the wailing wall as all that remains of the temple where God's presence dwelt (and they stay still dwells). The site of Jesus death and ressurection is a very special place, but is not a place that we think God's presence is manifest in any way different than any other places. Jesus is God, he did amazing work at the site of CHS, but it is still not the same as the wall.

I think I am going to go back to the CHS at some point this week when I have free time. I was still in, "hold on, this is probably, the place, where Jesus died and was buried?" mode when I walked through it. I knew that it was a possible site for his tomb, but I was blown away by him being crucified there as well. I wasn't really able to process that this was the place where Jesus paid for the sins of mankind on the cross and then defeated death. I would like to go back there and spend some time reflecting on that.

(Side note, currently it is about 11:00pm in the hotel, I'm the last guy in the lobby working on his computer. Around the corner is what sounds like a guy trying to impress a girl with his Arabic guitar and singing. I don't know if she is impressed, but I thought I was listening to a cool cd until I heard them start talking to each other. Pretty awesome.)

Here are some pictures from the CHS, I guarentee that they look different that you imagine them.

(The site of Jesus Crucifixion, you can see rocks from the hill in the glass cases to the sides of the giant crucifix.)

(Inside this building is Jesus' tomb. There is not much to see there, the tomb was completely destroyed by an Egyptian kalif in 1000 AD. (or something like that, i don't have my notes with me) He was the guy who created the Druze religion.)

(Guitar side note, the guy has moved into somethink like an Arabic version of Bron ayr Stomp.)

I have more to say on the CHS, but I still need some time to process that place and go back to it again. I'll try to say more about it later.

(Guitar guy is now playing Neil Young, Heart of Gold)

After the CHS we walked through a good chunk of the Arabic Quarter of Old Jerusalem. There is something about this city. By lunchtime I was pretty sure that Jerusalem is far and away the coolest city I have ever been to. That may still be true, but as the day went on we learned and heard more about the tensions and conflicts that exist in the city (mostly Jew and Arab). Serious business, serious tension. At the same time, walking around Jerusalem it is hard to imagine that this is a city where people hate each other and kill each other. This is a special city, a special place. I have felt it walking around. This is God's holy city, the place that he chose to dwell in and the place that he will reign from, and I really felt some of that as we walked around.

( I should note here that when I say Jerusalem, I mean the old city. It is where we have spent all of our time and will spend all of our time. the new city is about 110 years old, sections of the old city and the area south of it are closer to 4000 years old.)

We left the Arab Quarter through the Damascus gate to the north and then climed up the ramparts and walked along the old north wall east, and then south along the east wall.

(View of the Arab quarter of Jerusalem from the Old wall. The gold dome in the background is the Dome of the Rock, the muslim shrine that is built on the temple mount. This (unlike the Christian and Armenean quarters is mostly residential. Jews try to buy the land from the Arabs so they can control more of the old city, they do this buy working through middle men that keep the identity of the buyer secret. If an Arab realter sells property to a Jew, on puropse or on accident, he is killed.)

Walking along the old wall, Jerusalem had two more surprises in store for me. The first I didn't get a picture of but I wish I did. I was walking up to an arrow slit on the wall (the walls are from the middle ages), looking though my camera lense when all of a sudden my right foot stepped into empty space. There was an square hole on the floor of the wall, about 18" by 18", that dropped all the way down to the next level, about 20 feet. As I stepped through the hole my right elbow caught me on the edge of the wall right in front of the arrow slit and my left foot was on solid ground, so I wasn't hurt and my camera was ok (which is what I was really worried about). All in all it was pretty funny, but I didn't get a picture of the hole. I have been very careful to look where I step since then though.

(uh, the american girl is trying to impress the arab guy by singing Alanis Morriset now but she can't remember all the words. bad move)

As we walked along the top of the eastern wall (Suprise!) we had a great view of the Mount of Olives. Mountains in Israel aren't like they are in the US, they aren't peaks like Pikes peak or Mount Shasta where you can see them and say "here it is" they are more like ranges that run for a few miles. The mount of Olives is a small range that runs for about two and half miles. We'll talk about it more when we go and visit is, but today we did read about the Day of the Lord in Zecheriah 14. I was going to copy and paste the sections from the Bible, but apparently blogger isn't too fond of copy and paste so I'll just say grab a Bible and read chapter 14. It talks about the Lord descending onto the Mount of Olives and vanquishing the enemies of Israel. I think (it's getting late and my minds getting fuzzy.) it's also the place where Jesus ascended to heaven will descend again from heaven.

(The southernmost part of the Mount of Olives. Everything that is white and looks like it could be a building is a grave. Try to look and see that there is a hill that descends from Jerusalem (where this picture is taken) then meets a valley and then the Mount of olives begins. All the little white things on the mount are Jewish graves, they believe (according to that Zechariah passage) that this is where the ressurection will take place, and if a body isn't here, then it will have to burrow underground to get to here and be ressurected. You have to be a very rich or very important Jew to be buried here, sometimes both. The white things on the Jerusalem side of things are Arab graves. Graves are a good way to hold property (it's hard to move a graveyard) and the area behind some of these graves is the golden gate, where the Messiah is supposed to enter into Jerusalem by. If he has to walk through a graveyard to get to the gate he will be ritually defiled and not be allowed to enter the city. Did I mention that there is Arab Jewish tension in this city?) The garden of Gethsemene is also in this picture, a building with a cool mosaic at the base of the mount of olives.

Whew it's getting late, the guitar folks are gone and the guy at the front desk is tapping his foot waiting for me to leave. So...after that we went to a roman fortress (name escapes me) where the Roman soldiers lived, tradition says Jesus was scourged (tradition is wrong on this one) and the via doloros began (place where Jesus walked his cross to golgotha. I'll explain another time but...Jesus probably didn't walk the via dolorosa, it was likely that Pilate wasn't staying at the fortress but at Harods Palace which is on the other side of the city. From this fortress we were able to have a good view of the temple mount and the dome of the rock and then we walked along the via dolorosa back to the CHS and then to our money changer and our hotel. all in all another good day, another long day, but I am looking forward to tommorow.

Tomorrow we will still be in Jerusalem, we will do an Old testament tour of the city. As always, thanks for reading.