Today, I walked where Jesus walked.

I woke up today, perfectly relying on Amy to plan my life for the day. That's one reason why I love her. She reminds me of Tara, when she would plan our weekends 2 weeks in advance. We got in vans and were dumped at Dung gate. We walked oodles of stairs up to the Wohl Museum. When the city was being rebuilt they wanted to keep all the remains, but there was so many that they decided just to build buildings on top of them. So that means most of the museums are in basements of random buildings. We saw a bunch of remains from Christs time. For example: We were in houses of the wealthy part of town. They have so many ritual baths I can't keep them straight, but we did get to see some pretty cool mosaics. One of them is actually remade on Dr. Chadwicks bathroom floor in Utah. He's truly a nerd of Israel... and we love it! The museum had the pots that Christ would have changed water to wine in. They were made of stone, therefore non-porous so that the liquids wouldn't mix and contaminate the following liquid the jar held. We also saw the kind of basin that Christ would have used to wash his disciples feet in. It sometimes is weird for me to think that people actually lived in these places.

 Wohl Museum
Called the Upper City in the Herodian-NT era, this neighborhood was inhabited by elite priestly families which correlated with Sadducees rather than with Pharisees or Essenes.  Each house had a mikvot (ritual bath), mosaics and frescos with geometric or floral designs (vs. figurative), and stone vessels, which couldn’t become ritually impure like pottery.  Greek architectural styles used in Jerusalem included doric, iconic, and Corinthian styles.  A menorah has 7 branches.  Pharisees clung to Jewish culture, in part by strictly observing the Law.

The Burnt House: We've been there before. It's pretty neat stuff, but it probably didn't get me any closer to heaven by seeing it again. Jordan and I did get some awesome Arabic dancing in line though. Sometimes I love the randomness of music blasting throughout the city. I think some of the shop owners try to lure people in with it... do they really think it'll work? Who knows, but we enjoyed it. Back to The Burnt House, there is a... fantastic (?) movie that we got to see again. 5 star acting for sure. These were the ruins of the Priests house at the time of the first temple destruction.

Right inside of Dung gate there is a MASSIVE excavation sight I didn't really think I knew was there. I really loved this because this is a known place that Christ walked very often. We were at the south-western corner of the temple mount. We saw the Pinnacle station stone that got destroyed after Herods time. This pinnacle had writing in Hebrew that said, "This is the place of trumpeting." It was at the very corner of the mount; for all holidays and Sabbaths there were trumpets sounded AND where Christ gave some of his sermons. This is also the place that Christ was tempted by Satan to jump off of to show the power of God. There was a prophesy at the time of Herod that said, "There shall not be left one stone upon another." He was the one that built up the mount and it was destroyed. This would have taken months to destroy because of the weight of the stones and the immense amount of stones. It was so cool to be standing there looking at the stones that were pushed off 2,000 years ago that caused the limestone underneath to crack and collapse in fulfillment of a prophesy! We've also been reading a whole lot about Robinson's Arch. This arch was a massive staircase that lead up to the temple mount. Thousands took it daily and we got to stand right at the base of what is left! I love history.

This is the Pinnacle, where the priests of Aaron stood. The writing says le-beyt ha-tekiyah "the place of trumpeting." This used to stand at the top of Robinson's Arch.

Where this once stood was one of the highest places on the temple mount over 150 feet high. It is very likely that Jesus stood there as he was tempted by Satan to jump of and show God's miraculous power. It was one of the busiest areas of it's time and therefore more people could see God's power.

Where Jacqueline stands is just a "Valley Street" during the Herodian period.

 This is the top of a HUGE arch that many people would walk under and climb up to get to the temple mount. In the picture below is where i'm actually standing. The arch was GIGANTIC!

 Isaiah 66 engraving on the first block on the bottom. 

There was a prophesy that "there shall not be left one stone upon another!" These are them.

Below is a picture of the Golden Gates of the city.

Below is a picture of the east door of the double gate (exit gate). As you can see above our heads there is a Herodian discharging arch southern wall monumental.

 The seem is explained below!

 A Little bit more information about the dome of the rock!

 This is also the Holy of Holies as in the ancient temple! The black lines below show it... and our professor believes that that square that the arrow is pointing to is where the arc of the covenant was kept??? Pretty amazing. 

Davidson Archaeological Park
The area below the south wall of the Temple Mount occupies the upper, northern end of the Ophel Ridge.   Along the western (retaining) wall, the Herodian-era street passed under Robinson’s Arch, that supported a stairway, and under Wilson’s arch that supported an aqueduct and a priestly access. A bordered Herodian building stone is called an ashlar.  On the Herodian street, archaeologists found stones fallen from the wall in the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. An inscription suggested that the SW corner of the Temple Mount was the “trumpeting place.” Mikavots (purification fonts) below the S wall were for the general public.  The entry gate took temple-goers up to the Court of the Gentiles.

They had an interesting museum with a video. Our "tour guide" looked exactly like the ape man on the Geico commercials, thank goodness for Geico because we could enjoy our video.  We wandered over to a massive stair case. This was the main entry way to the temple mount. It is a known fact that Christ walked these steps... Can you believe that? Today, I walked where Jesus walked. We had a devotional that definitely put this field trip into perspective. This is the place where Christ would heal blind men. I could just see the wall he would have been sitting at begging for money, like many people do today in the old city.

Small tender mercy- A man was playing the Saxophone in the street today! I am absolutely in LOVE with the saxophone. One day i'm going to learn to play it. That just made my day THAT much better.

Amy, Megan Hansen and I took off (so many Megans!) We started wandering to Saladin street to get money from Alladin (the money changer) when we found a quote on the wall:

"So you see money isn't everything and it often causes pain and suffering. I tell you this because I am your friend And as your friend I want to take away your pain and suffereing! So send me all your money and I will suffer for you!" I thought it was great, especially In Aladins store. I love the relationships we build with the store keepers here.

Brother Chadwick told us about his favorite Schwarma place and we had to try it... MMMMMM!! It was so tasty. I just found it interesting (again) how many looks we get. It was mostly women in there and I just wish I could hear what they are thinking about us. I wish so so badly we didn't have the language barriers, I would love to talk to each and every one of these people.

Tomb of the Kings next. We have heard some pretty crazy stories from this adventure. This was one of the best parts of the day. It has completely weird hours (pretty much whenever the owner wants people to come) and it was sooo confusing to actually find the opening of the tomb. It was just a bunch of stairs then an opened rock court yard. There was scaffolding everywhere and we wandered on the opposite side of some rock something. (I know that doesn't make sense, i'll post pictures and it will) Luckily some of our people were already in there and left their water bottles outside. We had to squish past a wooden crate, of which i have no idea what purpose it serves, then headed into the first tomb. First off, I am a wimp. Always have been, always will be.  The second I got in the cave someone screamed in the dark ahead of me and I almost booked it out. The crate stopped me and I knew i'd regret if I didn't go in. Megan had the inspiration that morning to bring a flashlight, and I am SO grateful. Everyone was playing and dilly dallying in the dark while we climbed to the lower cavern and took a couple pictures. We heard synchronized blood curdling screams for about 15 seconds. I completely panicked. We were farther away from the entrance than they were... They started yelling at the boys and laughing, which calmed me down just a bit. I still got out of there as quickly as I could. The other group told us about a bunch of secret tunnels that went back for a while, no way I was doing that. It was so so super cool to see though.

We were talking to Brother Chadwick at dinner and he said that it was the biggest tomb in Jerusalem. I wouldn't have ever guessed, but I think it made the experience tons better being that no one knows about it. He told us that Queen Helene of Adiabene was burred there with all of her family. Some early explorers believe that if housed members of the dynasty of David. So cool!

 We planned a couple other events-- they failed so we headed to the Church of the Dormition. This was a beautiful church! They had some really cool murals and pictures. One of my favorites was the nativity scene in a 3-d-ish gold, but it was of Christ when he was a toddler, like the story really was! In the basement there was a statue of Mary on top of a coffin. It was interesting, I wish I knew more about it.

Next was David's tomb. It was a quick one because we wanted to get home... The walk home was great. Much longer than expected, but it was a blast. We came home to hear everyone's experiences of the day. The one that takes the cake... Andrew fainted at the Museum. Dangerous/hilarious story.

We were walking through the old city and there are random things everywhere. One of those random things are piles of bras. Megan Hansen whispers under her breath, "I thought those piles of bras were kippas..." 

absoloms altar!