Maranatha!

5/21/05

Wow! Another packed day! Todd is certainly maximizing every minute of our tour! We barely have enough time to process what we are seeing before we have to rush on to the next spot. So, we’re doing our best to take some pictures, dictate (into the voice recorder), jot a few notes, and try to remember the day enough for a journal entry when we get back to the hotel.

This morning started out with a walk around the Old City Walls. We stopped briefly at each gate, where Todd would tell us briefly about the gate, before moving on to the next one.

It really started getting interesting when we entered St. Steven’s Gate on the northeast side of the city. Here we were shown the Pools of Bethesda, where Jesus healed a lame man. The pools no longer hold water, but it was amazing to see how huge they were! Dr. Wallace gave a little talk, as he walked us through the passage, which I recorded. There is a little church in the immediate vicinity that is the second oldest church in the country, built by the Crusaders in 1100s. This church is gorgeous, an ancient stone building. We went inside, formed a circle and sang some hymns. It was so awesome! When we stopped singing, you could still here the sound of our voices for seven seconds! Kari, one of the girls on our tour, who is also a choral teacher said the longest echo in the world (for a church) is nine seconds, and this is very close! I’ve never experienced anything like it! I wish we could sing all day long! This is definitely a highlight!

We went back outside the city, and continued our walk. Now we were walking along the east side of the city, headed south. We passed through a huge graveyard before we arrived at the Eastern Gate, where some believe the Messiah will enter when he returns. Todd pointed out that the presence of the cemetery, along with the fact that the gate is sealed off, is evidence that the Moslems are doing everything they can to prevent this future event from happening. Obviously, nothing will stop King Jesus when he returns to conquer and reign! We had a uninhibited view of the Mount of Olives, and could see Gethsemane, the Church of All Nations, and a Russian Orthodox church with beautiful golden onion-domes.

Next we crossed the Kidron Valley, and started our trek up the Mount of Olives. The first stop was Gethsemane, where we got to see some ancient olive trees, which don’t date back to Christ, but where impressive none the less (some may be 1000 years old). Inside the Church of All Nations is a large flat stone, that is the traditional site of Jesus prayer in the Garden. The church was an impressive building. The sealing was covered in elaborate mosaic; stunning, and impossible to capture adequately in our pictures.

We continued up the hill, and let me tell you it is a climb! All out of breath, we made our next stop at a place called Dominus Flatis (the Lord Weeps) which commemorates the place Jesus wept over Jerusalem before the triumphant entry. We got some amazing pictures of the city, and a great lecture from Todd about the prophetic significance of the Triumphant Entry.

On up the hill! We arrived near the top for some quick pictures before getting on our tour bus for the trip down the hill, and on to Bethlehem.

Bethlehem is in an area patrolled by the Palestinians. Things take a bit longer, as the Palestinian Police will stop Todd and ask questions. We went to the Church of the Nativity to see the traditional site of the birth of Christ. This is nothing like what you’d expect if you weren’t prepared beforehand with a description. We enter the church (the oldest in the country), and go down these steps at the front into a tiny room where these shrines commemorate the place of birth and the place where the manger stood. Lots of candles, lots of religious stuff. Also in this church, we saw a statue of Jerome, who lived in Bethlehem when he studied the original languages. Jerome is important because he translated the Bible from Hebrew and Greek into Latin. We got an excellent talk here from Dr. Wallace explaining the significance of Jerome to the history of translation, transmission and preservation of the Scriptures.

We had an excellent lunch, consisting of pita pockets filled with meat and vegetables. The economy is poor here, which meant good prices for us. We also picked us some wood carvings (miniature manger scenes) which where rather inexpensive.

Next, we traveled through the hill country on up to the fortress city of Herodium. This was a huge fortress built by Herod the Great so that he could have a place to flee if Jerusalem was ever attacked. He also wanted to be buried there. At the base of the hill is a huge swimming pool that would have had porticos surrounding it. The Fortress was awesome. We drove halfway up, and then hiked the rest of the way. From the top we could see Jerusalem, Bethlehem, the Dead Sea, and Tekoa (the hometown of Amos). We got to climb through the tunnels underneath the fortress, which would have been a complex system of cisterns.

After that, we went back to Jerusalem. Todd took us to an excellent tomb that dates to the first century. The tomb was prepared for Queen Helene of Adia-Baine. He gave us a lecture outside the tomb, and then we got to climb inside. There were several underground chambers that contained two different types of tombs: Chokim (sp?) and Archesole. The type of tomb Jesus would have been buried in was of the Archesole type, where there is a bench for the body, with an arch above. I laid down on one of the benches, for some pictures, however it was too dark for our camera. I’ll have to get the pictures from some of our friends who were able to take pictures.

From there we hiked over to the Garden Tomb, and Gordon’s Calvary. This is like a “rival” site to the traditional site at the Holy Sepulcher. We had a Garden Guide instead of Todd, and he tried to make the case that this is the real site of Jesus Tomb. Admittedly, this is a much more beautiful place than the Holy Sepulcher, a beautiful garden with all kinds of plants and flowers. The main problem with this site is that the tomb probably dates to the OT era, which is a big problem because the text says that Christ was laid in a tomb that would have been first century. Todd said it would have been more like the tomb we saw earlier today. The bottom line is that we don’t know where Christ was crucified and buried, but the traditional site has more going for it than this Garden Tomb.

Finally, after this intensely fun day, we headed back to our hotel for dinner. Exhausted, after dinner we had a two-hour lecture from Todd from 7-9. We’re learning so much! It’s good too, because we have our first exam on Monday.