First FULL Day in Jerusalem

Today was our first full day in Jerusalem, and I mean FULL! Matt and I got up before breakfast and took a walk part of the way around the outside of the Old City. We got some nice looking shots of the sun rising over the wall.

After a breakfast of hard boiled eggs, yummy croissants, cheese fruit and cereal we headed out for the entire day. Our first stop was the roof of a nearby building to get an overview of the Old City. It was quite helpful as we are trying to learn the layout of the city.

 Looking east... the two gray domes are the Church of the Holy Sepulcher - the site I think I'm most excited about visiting (tomorrow!) which is the church built over the tomb of Jesus...

Also looking east is the temple mount... of course the Jewish temples have long since been destroyed and the mount is now control by the Islamic people who have their shrine the Dome of the Rick and the Al-Aqsa Mosque. We are also going to go on the Temple Mount tomorrow which should also be amazing.

After the great overview of the city, we headed on another walk through the city streets, this time to the Jewish Quarter. It had the newest looking buildings that I've seen in the Old City since most of it was destroyed in by Arab forces during the 1948 war for Israel's Independence. During excavations in the 1970s, a portion of the wall Hezekiah built  in 701 BC (2 Kings 19) was unearthed. It is now called the Broad Wall and it was amazing to see this 25ft thick fortification from that long ago. 701 BC!

Another view of the Temple Mount and the Dome of the Rock

We talked briefly about a group of Jews who are taking an active role in preparing for the restoration of the Jewish temple. They are building pieces that would be placed in the temple such as this 75 kilo golden menorah.

 We then walked down to the City of David which is the place where David first conquered the city of Jerusalem from the Jebusites (2 Samuel 5:6). We saw the remains of buildings and supporting walls for what was likely David's Palace.

An ancient toilet


We were also able to do something amazing... walk through Hezekiah's tunnel. This is a tunnel that King Hezekiah built to transfer water from the Gihon spring into the city when preparing for the city to be under siege. We walked down many slippery steps and rock pathways a long way under ground to reach the tunnel. We wades through the tunnel for 30 minutes to get from entrance to exit. The water was cold and came to our knees at the deepest and our shins most of the time. I didn't take any pictures because my camera was securely in a ziploc bag in my backpack during the trek through the narrow tunnels.
 

Here is our leader, Todd, teaching us about the Pool of Siloam - the place where Jesus sent the blind man to wash after he healed him by spitting, making mud, and rubbing it on his eyes (John 9).

Pool of Siloam (currently dry)

We kept going and going for a truly physically grueling day (we were walking the town from 7:30am until 5pm) but saw one of the coolest, most helpful things yet! At the Israeli Museum is a huge, outdoor model of Jerusalem from the 1st century. Unbelievable. We had been to many of the spots in present day already, but this model really helped us visualize what the sites looked like in Jesus's day. We spent an hour just walking around this model and talking through all of the sections of the city.

A picture of the whole model - look at the people standing around to get the scale of it. Awesome.

 

The temple mount from the 1st century


To end our day, we got to have yet another once-in-a-lifetime experience. We got to see the Dead Sea Scrolls!! These documents so well preserved because of the desert climate were found in a cave in 1947 are over 2000 years old. It was amazing to see the writing of scripture on these parchments and recognize the amazing fidelity of those who have copied scripture through the ages as only minor spelling and other changes were found between the scripture of today and these scrolls. Also so amazing and faith-building is knowing that the whole Isaiah scroll that was found has been determined by all scholars who have dated it to have without a doubt written before the time of Jesus. Knowing all of the prophecies about Jesus in that book truly shows it's divine inspiration.

Spent the evening walking around a local shopping mall just outside the Old City - one of the few modern things I've visited, and got to get a glimpse of how expensive things are in Israel (because of taxes, and lack of competition among other reasons). Prices were almost double the price of similar goods in America.

So today we ended up sunburned, exhausted, but full of so much more knowledge, experience and appreciation for the Bible, the City of God, and most importantly the LORD our God. And it's only Day 1. Off to bed, quite tired from the day and the fact that I woke up at 2:15am last night and couldn't go back to sleep because of jet lag!