Temple Beth Zion/Westminster Presbyterian Church Travel'Blog'
January 20, 2010 – Greetings from Old City Jerusalem
(Tel Aviv, Sea of Galilee, Mount of Beatitudes, Jerusalem, Yad Vashem, Masada, Yad Vashem, Ben Gurion Airport)
Our remarkable guide Julie led us today from the Garden tomb to the Tower of King David and many, many sites in between. As you may know the locations of Jesus’ crucifixion and burial are topics of debate and tension here in Jerusalem. In 1908 a British military officer who was also an amateur archeologist “discovered” a tomb just outside the walls of the Old City that fit the New Testament description and requirements of the tomb in which Jesus was buried, including a rock formation that fit the description of Golgotha – the scene of Calvary. Starting here early in the morning we heard the argument for these sites which are maintained by a consortium of Protestant denominations. But inside the Old City is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre – owned and operated if you will by the Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Armenian churches – where it is believed Jesus was crucified and buried. The tension between all of these groups staking their claim for authenticity and ownership is a commentary on the dark side of organized religion – but the sites themselves are fascinating to visit. Our Jewish friends were equally curious and asked several of us which site we believed to be the “real” location. It provided interesting conversation as we walked through the narrow streets of the Old City.
Next stop was the south western corner of Herod’s expansion of Solomon’s Temple – an imposing wall that still stands almost unbowed by the ravages of time. Julie explained in great detail the Temple at the time of Jesus and how and why Herod expanded it, including the location of the market and money changers where pilgrims bought ‘souvenirs’ of their visit to the Holy City and animals to have the priests sacrifice in homage to their faith. Because the temple is so massive we walked to various points of the wall including the steps Jesus surely walked entering the Temple himself as well as the underground tunnels excavated by archeologists that reveals the earliest construction of the wall as it runs northward to the portion known as the “Wailing Wall.” We stopped here to pray at the wall and join those millennia of pilgrims who still come to pray. The book of Kings says that God was so pleased with Solomon’s accomplishment that he would always have his eyes upon the wall and listen to and answer the prayers of the Jew and of the foreigner who is not Jewish. Many of us were deeply moved as we inserted our prayers into the wall beside Hasidic Jews and others from all over the world. (Ed's note - if you are interested in learning more about Herod, and seeing some amazing images of the Temple, visit National Geographic's Slideshow on this amazing structure.)
After a wonderful lunch of St. Peter’s fish (it is excellent by the way) tabouli, humus and falafel in the Jewish quarter, we toured the quarter then walked through the Arab and Christian quarters with Julie pointing out differences and factoids of this ancient city first built as a citadel by the Canaanites. At the museum of King David’s Tower, Julie used the displays at the museum to recount the history of Jerusalem – from its first strategic advantage on a hill surrounded by three valleys to its expansion to include Mt. Moriah where Abraham brought Isaac for sacrifice to its existence today as a shared holy city.
Dinner tonight was in a trendy restaurant with Rabbi Harry and Michele and an old friend of theirs – a rabbi here in Jerusalem where we met Dominican and Jesuit biblical scholars there to celebrate the visit of a well known bible expert. The evening was ‘typical’ Harry said of the kind of meetings among religious folks in Jerusalem. Tomorrow the Holocaust museum and what we were alerted would be a more somber day.