Jerusalem and the temple

Today marked our first full day in Israel’s capital, Jerusalem. We woke up at 5:45 and were on the bus by 7:15. Our guide warned us that it would be a rainy day and he was right! Our first site was the Temple Mount, a crucially important area for the major religions of the world. The area is controlled by the Israeli Defense Force and we had to pass through several checkpoints in order to get around the Temple Mount.

Jews believe that it is the location that Abraham climbed to in order to sacrifice Isaac. King Solomon would later build a temple there to worship God, but it was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BC. Hundreds of years later Herod the Great built the second temple, which was subsequently destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD. Jews continue to come to the Western Wall (or Wailing Wall) to pray. It is the only area of the second temple that is still above ground.

Muslims also revere the Temple Mount as one of the holiest sights in the world. They believe that Mohammed miraculously travelled to the Temple Mount from a long distance and ascended to a tour of heaven from that point. Today two mosques sit on top of the Temple Mount- the iconic gold dome of the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa Mosque.

From there we descended into the tunnels that exist under the Temple Mount and Jerusalem (because the city has been destroyed and rebuilt so many times, older parts of the city have been built over which creates tunnels). Our guide told us that they’ve discovered twelve different layers underneath Jerusalem- the oldest layer contains an Israelite dwelling from the 8th century! Along the way we also saw some of the different stones that were used to build the walls of Jerusalem from different time periods. One stone from the second temple (Jesus’s time) weighed 500 tons, which is about 200 elephants! They still don’t know how they would have moved such a large stone back in those times.

After the tunnels we climbed back to find that the clouds and rain had disappeared and the sun was out in full strength. We proceeded to a tour of David’s City, which is the area that would have been Jerusalem during King David’s reign. Again we saw walls from the time before David and ones that were constructed under him. One of the most exciting discoveries that was made in the area of King David’s City was a room full of old seals. In those times people would seal the important messages with wax seals. Archaeologists found a room full of 500 of these seals, and, even though it was damaged by fire, they could read the seals. Two of the seals had amazing names on them- two major advisors of King Hezekiah (mentioned in the Book of Jeremiah). We finished our exploration of David’s City by going under the ground once again. It was very important for ancient cities to have a water supply so that they could outlast an enemy siege. Half of our group travelled through a Jebusite tunnel that led to a spring. The other half of our group traveled through Hezekiah’s tunnel, which was dug for another water source in order to prepare a defense against the Babylonians.

We ended our day by visiting the Israel Museum. They have an amazing Dead Sea Scroll exhibit and an enormous model of Jerusalem during Jesus’s time, which was really incredible and helped some of us figure the big picture of Jerusalem’s geography. We had a chance to split apart and walk around the museum- some decided to check out the art exhibits or a section on Jewish culture; however, most people went to the archaeology exhibit where they had artifacts from prehistory through the Roman period. A person could spend five days in that museum and still not see everything! We got to see many artifacts that had been excavated from sights we have already visited, but were moved to the museum to get them out of the elements.

We finished off our day with another great dinner at the Grand Hotel. And the best part of our day? When we learned that we get to sleep in until 6:45 tomorrow morning!

Chris (M.Div. Student at GRTS)