A New Testament Day
Jerusalem Day 2
In planning this trip, I always knew that flexibility would be key and so when I planned the itinerary months ago, I did so with light expectations that we would actually follow the plan.
And so it is.
Days have been shuffled because we are blessed to have a couple of guide on two days, one for Tuesday for the archaeology of OT Jerusalem (and some NT) and then Wednesday a trip deep in the West Bank to Hebron led by a student at Bethlehem Bible College who actually lives in Hebron. So the NT day got pushed back to Monday and ended quite differently that I envisioned it, but in a very good way.
I almost feel angels guiding our paths around.
Originally I had thought we would taxi to the Mount of Olives and work our way back toward the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.
But everybody wanted to walk.
Thus the schedule morphed to this:
Walk through Armenian Quarter and out Zion Gate, visit traditional sites of the Upper Room and David’s Tomb, walk down beside the south wall past Dung Gate to City of David (where we bought national park passes) then down to the bottom of the Kidron Valley where some Hasmonean era tombs rise from the floor (Tombs of Absalom and Bene Hezir), then up a very steep climb through a Jewish cemetery to the top of the Mount of Olives overlook (for a stunning view of Jerusalem), up the hill further for a falafel lunch and the Mosque of the Ascension (Muslims believe Jesus ascended too!) and, then back down to the Dominus Flevit chapel, Garden of Gethsemene and Church of All Nations, then up the other side of the Kidron Valley through Lion’s Gate (at the north end of the Temple Mount) to St. Anne’s Church and the Pool of Bethesda, and finally a trek along the traditional Via Dolorosa to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher (CHS) which encloses both Golgotha and the site of the empty tomb.
Brutal; almost seven miles of walking; but everyone could not have been happier.
What a day.
Now for a couple of comments and highlights:
I mentioned the “traditional sites” of the Upper Room and David’s tomb. Almost every site we visit during the trip must be labeled traditional, because though we know events happened in Jerusalem or Galilee, the exact locations remain unknown for the most part. Not until the fourth century did many of these sites get selected because of the influx of pilgrims after Constantine became emperor. Very few sites have a strong likelihood of being the exact site. In Jerusalem, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher is one of the very few. The rest are “in the vicinity of” or shots in the dark at best. Nonetheless, they are meaningful for contemplating the last week of Jesus’s life and celebrating the resurrection.
The view from the Mount of Olives overlook is always stunning (most photos of Jerusalem you see are from there).
What I love is that the topography of the whole area is easy to see and explain (thank you to Jerusalem University College—JUC— for all the information they poured into my head over seven trips). And of course, this sight (in a much starker version) is what Jesus and his disciples would have seen as they crested the Mount of Olives from Bethany and descended to the Kidron Valley—and when Jesus looked down on the Temple and predicted its destruction in Mark 13.
In each chapel or church along our route (Dominus Flevit, Church of All Nations, St. Anne’s, the Roman Catholic Chapel in CHS) we removed our hats, sat down, and had a few blessed moments of rest, quiet, and time to pray and contemplate.
We will no doubt remember St. Anne’s most vividly.
This church honors the mother of Mary (and this is the traditional birthplace of Mary). Its current building was constructed in the 1130s and has pre-Gothic Crusader architecture. The acoustics are extremely alive and groups will often sing. So the six of us sang “I Love You Lord” very softly in the very middle. The sound went up and around and totally enveloped us.
Heavenly.
Right next to St. Anne’s is the Pool of Bethesda, the site of Jesus’s healing of the lame man in John 5. This is another of the sites closer to certainty than most (on Tuesday we will see a couple more).
The final place I’ll comment on is the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. This site confuses many because it is inside the walls of Jerusalem. But in AD 30 it was outside the walls, just to the north of Herod’ palace (check out another Substack, Approaching Jerusalem by one of my former JUC profs, Chandler Collins, for some great material on the walls and gates of Jerusalem). Very likely Jesus appeared before Pilate in that palace—the Tower of David/Citadel defended the north end of the palace—then he was led out a gate (the Garden Gate?) just east of Jaffa Gate to a small hill, Golgotha, where he was crucified, then buried close by in Joseph of Arimathea’s tomb. So this site of the crucifixion and resurrection is very ancient in tradition and likely correct.
But … the route of the traditional Via Dolorosa has almost no veracity.
Pilate’s governor’s seat was not north of the Temple where the first station of the cross is, but in Herod’s Palace near Jaffa Gate. Nonetheless that route is highly revered by hundreds of years of pilgrims and certainly useful for contemplating those last hours on Good Friday.
An Invitation
Are you interested in learning New Testament Greek? I will be teaching an intensive course with 50 hours of live instruction via Zoom from June to August. Please contact me at jack.painter@gmail.com or go to https://www.rightonmission.org/intro-to-new-testament-greek for more information. I would love to have you!