City of David

The entrance to the National Park

View of the site of the City of David in the Kidron Valley

Yesterday, was a very long day. It was educational, fun, sore, tiring, and just the surreal-ness of the city. We woke up very early to get the whole day to tour the city, so I woke up at 05:30 to get some hot water. I didn't. The group, Physical Settings class met at the gate at 07:00 for the 10 hour walk of the Old City and the City of David; this quaint little village of two thousand in a valley surrounded by large hills surely gives a visitor a sense of the verse Psalms 121: 1-8, “ I will lift up my eye to the hills; from whence shall my help come? My help comes from the LORD who made heaven and earth. He will not allow your feet to slip; He who keeps you will not slumber nor sleep. The LORD is your keeper; the LORD is the shade on your right hand. The sun will not smite you by day nor the moon by night. The LORD will protect you from all evil; he will keep your soul. The LORD will guard your going out and your coming in from time forth and forever.” This passage shoes just how vulnerable the city was from invaders and other hostile nations. Being that this city was basically in a valley with tall high all around makes it a bad strategic location but since there is a water source from the Gihon Spring this was more valuable for sieges. The part where “He will not allow your foot to slip” shows us how steep the hills were and for a visitor to up walk or down the hill would be difficult.

I was also impressed on how these semi-nomadic peoples, the Israelites, when pressed and scared of death could dig a large tunnel system under the city for water supply. Just the thought of ancients making a tunnel system with no “modern” tools or even advance math to be able to have the knowledge and ability through a hardship to dig and meet the two teams together is amazing.Our group first went to the wall of the Old City near Jaffa Gate, where we learned the three different stone layers of the wall. Also what was interesting was how high the silt was in the past, which basically covered half of the today’s shown walls. The three layers that were showing were from top to bottom were from the Ottoman Turks, the Crusaders, and then the Ancient Herodian Era stones. We could see how ornate and nicely cut the Herodian stones were then the stones became more about utility than about prestige.

Inside the Canaanite Tunnel of the Gihon Spring

After the tour of the Broad Wall, City of David and The tunnel system, we continued our way to the Umayyad Palace of the Ottoman Era at the Eastern end of the Temple Mount where we saw the ruins of the Robinson’s Arch which held the stairs to get to the top of the Temple mount from the market below and the mikveh’s. What I was impressed about was hearing about the purification bath and then stumbling upon it during our lecture I was sitting where thousands of Jews walked in as unclean people before God and came out as purified people, ready to enter the Temple. It might be the place where even the disciples and Jesus Christ, out Lord went in and then out to head to the Temple. And as if that wasn’t cool enough, not more than fifty feet was the street where Christ Jesus walked to buy a sacrificial animal and meet the shopkeepers.

We then walked on to through the Crusader Wall and rested at the Eastern Steps, where Saul (Paul) was taught by the famous rabbi at the time Gamaliel. Where as Dr. Wright states it “Paul’s seminary desk was”, but to also think these steps were probably the same ones that Jesus spoke to the masses, and where the 3000 people were baptized on Pentecost, and the site was quite convenient being that there were a couple dozen mikvehs in this area; the mass baptism seems very possible. Today was truly a very spiritual day to imagine the days  of the ancient City of David and feel the stone that Jesus and Paul might have touched and even stood. My place on those stones is now part of history with Jesus and the other disciples being on top of the long list.

We went around the Temple Mount and went through security to visit the Western Wall. Vistor's could only be in the back second and if one wants to go up to the Wall. They must wear modest conservative clothes and also wear a kippah (yamaka) and the women are separated from the men at the Wall.

Our group then walked on the Via Dolorosa toward the French Basilica of of the Church of St. Anne; this site where the church is, is also the spot where the Bethesda Pool (where Jesus Christ healed the blind man) and also where some pagan cult sites are. We had the opportunity to go inside the Basilica where we sat down and sang Amazing Grace and Great is Thy Faithfulness in this building that is known for its great acoustics. It was really cool, I wished I recorded it. At the end of the tour we had one last place to visit, The Austrian Hospice in the Muslim Quarter. We climbed the stairs to the top and looked out on the roof seeing the whole skyline of the Central Valley with the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on the right, Western Hill and on the left, Eastern Hill, the Temple Mount/Dome fo the Rock. It was cool to see the Church on the higher hill than the mosque, and in this world that means its more important. We did a horizon survey and had time to take pictures and then headed back to campus. Now, back to the Hospice, the Hospice was built in the 1870s by the Hapsburg Dynasty in the Austro-Hungarian Empire after the Unification of Germany and an alliance with German Kaiser Wilhelm I. The inside is very sophisticated and elegant, it had an Imperial -style of decoration and architecture. And the two main languages used are German and English (keeping their history alive). All in all this day was great, learning was awesome from seeing the sites in person and then imagining what it looked like in the past.