New Testament - A Day Late

My apologies to those of you that are reading the blog on a daily basis. We are packing so much traveling into our time here that it leaves little time to tell everyone about it and wouldn't you prefer that we live the trip rather than writing about it all the time?

Yesterday afternoon was our day to experience New Testament Jerusalem. Jerusalem University College is located just outside of the modern city walls of Jerusalem on the traditional site of Mount Zion [side note: there are two Mount Zions that are recognized by archaeologists and residents of the city - historical and traditional. Historical is where the archeology shows a location was and traditional is where people say that they are]. We walked across the top of the mount to a church compound that contains the traditional site of the Upper Room and the last supper. As is true with many of the sites in the Holy Land, the Crusaders would make an important site very Christian, the Turks would take over and make it highly Muslim, Christians would take over again and make the site Christian again, and so on. The upper room is no exception. It was interesting to see the patterns of how these changes were made. For example, the niche for the imam to lead prayers toward Mecca was later made into a fireplace. From there, we walked to the Zion gate (currently under construction) and down around the outside of the city wall to the Southern Excavations near the Temple Mount.

The excavations are amazing! The remains of the Roman round that ran alongside the temple has been discovered and you can see where the road was damaged by the stones that were falling from the temple during its destruction in the 1st century. Don't think of Michigan potholes. Think a Roman road equivalent of the Grand Canyon. The road surface was just destroyed and the bed was highly compressed underneath. It just shows what happens when multi-ton stones fall down and go boom! The archaeologists have also discovered some of the stones that fell and they have piled them in the area so that you can get a sense of just how immense and magnificent the temple must have been. They have also found remains of various staircases, shops, arches, houses, etc. From the demolished road we walked along the side of the Temple Mount (while remaining in the archaeological park) to the south staircase. It was on these steps that rabbis would teach their students and anyone else that was interested in hanging around to listen. It was here that Jesus taught on several occasions. It is also very likely that he taught on these steps during the Passover celebration immediately preceding his arrest and crucifixion. We sat there. We were taught by an instructor. It's an amazing experience to sit in that place and look out over the hills and valleys that surround the city.

The archaeological park, being alongside the base of the Temple Mount, is also adjacent to the Western Wall (you may also know it as the Wailing Wall). We stopped at the wall, but this time there were no prayers to be said at the wall. It's a very busy site and it is challenging to keep a group together in the large, open square so we stopped, saw, discussed, and then moved into the Muslim quarter of the city. At the edge of the quarter, well past many of the stations of the cross on the Via Dolorosa, is the Church of Saint Anne. The church is a crusader era church that was the quietest spot that we visited all day. It is also the site of some of the best acoustics that I have heard anywhere. Behind the church are the pools of Bethesda (refer to the story of the healing of the lame man in the book of John). It is likely that Jesus healed the man at one of the upper pools that were much shallower than the 100 ft + deep main pool. We walked around the pool complex and marveled at how many spots you could still clearly identify before heading into the church. It was so peaceful in the church. It was also surprising that the open stone doors somehow still managed to keep out the sounds of the Muslim call to prayer that was ringing through the quarter at that time. A smaller group of the larger group that we are traveling with sat in the simple wooden pews and sang praise and worship music. It was really special.

We followed a section of the Via Dolorosa and then avoided the tourists by jumping onto a parallel road that led to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. There are three main sites within the church - the site of Jesus' crucifixion, the slab on which his body was laid after he died, and the tomb. The site of the crucifixion is treated as a historical site because there is evidence of pilgrims traveling to the site as early as the first century. The slab is clearly a traditional site because there are several records that refer to the current slab being placed inside the church doorway within the last two hundred years to replace the previous slab that was damaged. There are two tombs within the church. One is the very ornate (and busy) traditional site of Jesus' tomb. Behind it are 1st century tombs that don't have the lines and are not as ornate where we could clearly see how Jesus' tomb probably looked. The JUC trip focused on these latter tombs. Some of the members of the Ashland group remained at the church to visit the site of the crucifixion. The hard limestone of Jerusalem is naturally rough. There is one small section of the crucifixion stone that can be touched. Over the years, this one small spot has been worn smooth to the texture of polished marble or granite. It's amazing.

We were let loose after the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Our small group went into the Christian and Armenian quarters in pursuit of lahmahjoon (Armenian Pizza). The owner of the restaurant where we had eaten the night before remembered, after talking with Dr. Pardue, that they had once served lahmahjoon. We stopped in for directions to discover that they had made a fresh batch of lahmahjoon with the hope that we would return. It was another very tasty meal and an evening to remember. The group wandered (and shopped) its way back to the University where we all fell, exhausted, into bed.

Today we studied the approaches to Jerusalem. We spent the entire day in the field. I would tell you more, but there is another sojourner writing that story as I write this one.

God Bless!