Last few days. NT Jerusalem Model. Random fun. Temple Mount. SIfting for Jewish Antiquities.

This is a model from Jerusalem from around after the time of Jesus, about 45 AD. It's about the size of two tennis courts. In this picture is the pools of Bethesda where Jesus healed the lame man. We visited the real site which still has some remains today. Think there should be some pictures up already. This is what they think it possibly looked like. Possibly a more accurate model, since the remains still stand today.

What they think the Temple would've looked like. The court outside the walls would be the Court of the Gentiles.

We walked up this side of the wall on our OT walk. This is the southern side of the Temple Mount. The Turks built a wall coming out of the gate on the left, so today the wall looks split in two. The buildings in front of it begin the City of David.

The Pools of Siloam. Another place we got to visit, at least what remains of it today. It is pretty much filled in with mud. This is the miracle where Jesus heals the blind man. The pool is right at the exit of Hezekiah's tunnel, which runs under the City of David.

This is what they think Herod's Citadel would've looked like. To the right of the towers was possibly his own personal palaces. This Citadel was my first stop in Jerusalem. Today, only part of one of these four towers remains. The Romans way of saying, mess with us, look what we can do to you.

A view of the whole model. I really wanted to take closer up images, and tell you they've been lying about the temple all these years, that it still stands, as you can see I didn't. Pretty neat though. Unfortunately I forgot to take a place of where they think Calvary is. Oh well, it's only a guess anyways.

Went to the mall. A pretty good size, not as big as a Westfield, and it's more circular. Was pretty tired by this time. Enjoying a McDonald's soft serve ice cream.

Just having some fun. Couple of us walked to Kiriat Jaarim, the local village. Two of the girls wanted to bring back palm branches, so two of the German sisters in our group could recreate a video of the song "Sisters" from White Christmas. Let's just say it was a fun walk. If we don't get honked at enough already, this only helped.

Bill bought everyone some strawberries in the market place in West Jerusalem. This is in a newer part of the city, built up since 1948. They were huge, and good.

First view of the Dome of the Rock. This would've been the Court of the Gentiles, from the time of the second temple period. Gentiles would not be allowed past this court. Further courts would be the Court of the Women, the Court of the Men, the Court of the Priests, and then inside the Temple itself, the Holy of Holies, where only the high priest was allowed.

View of the Temple Mount from the Mount of Olives. I am standing on Jewish graves. Normally this would be considered disrespectful, but in this country, you can't go anywhere without running into a grave. One of the guys actually fell into a Muslim grave, quite funny actually. In order to be buried on the Mount of Olives, one must be very wealthy, or someone of great importance, such as a priest or rabbi. As we were standing here today, Bill had us take a moment of solitude, reflecting on the fact that soon enough, it is likely that we will be like those below us.

Zechariah 14, 4On that day his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem, and the Mount of Olives will be split into two from east to west, forming a great valley, with half ot eh mountain moving north and half moving south. 8. On that day living water will flow out from Jerusalem, half to the eastern sea and half to the western sea, in the summer and in winter. 9 The LORD will be king over all the whole earth. On that day there will be one LORD, and his name the only name.

Jesus was there the night before his death in the garden. He ascended from there, and he will descend back to there upon His return. It's amazing to think that mountain will split into two (fresh water will fill the Dead Sea, the east sea), but even more amazing that He will again stand there.

This is the Western Wall of the 2nd temple of the Jews. This is what remains of the temple, begun by Nehemiah and Exra, finished by Herod the Great, and destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD. Jesus prophesied in Matthew 24:2 that the temple would be destroyed, "not one stone will be left on another." The Jews of his day thought that was inconceivable, but it happened, and today, they still mourn for it's destruction. This wall has also been called the wailing wall. Many Jews pray here, and it's common for people to write a prayer down and put it in a crack in the wall. The wall is also segregated. Kind of funny actually, the men have this huge section of the wall, and the women a much smaller section, but there are many more women than men. The women seem to be very devoted, when some of them pray on the wall, you will see them backing away from it, so as not to turn their backs on it.

A view looking up at the wall. The papers are sticking out of cracks.

We got to help the Temple Mount Antiquities Salvage Operation. In I think 1996, the Muslims wanted to create fire escape exits on the south side of the temple wall. Herod, when he expanded the temple on the south side the mountainside in with arches. The Muslims cleared out the side of the mountain, and used those arches for fire escapes, because under the temple are rooms for Muslims to pray, and there was no way out for them in case of an emergency. In front of those arches they cleared out layers and layers of debris and just dumped it near the City of David.
"The Muslims have always forbidden any archaeological excavation on the Temple Mount, because it is their holy site where Mohamed "descended into heaven." They want to forget, ignore, and pretend that there was never a Jewish temple on the mountain, because acknowledging the Jews were there first would be like saying their god was first, and Allah would not be the only god.
Because archaeologists have never been able to excavate on the temple mount, all the debris dumped in the valley is the opening to a new field in a sense. Debris has been found from the first temple period, 586 BC, to the Ottoman period in the 1500's. Thousands of years of materials have been found.
Basically, to sum it all up, what we did was called sifting. Each of us took a bucket of debris, emptied it onto a holey metal cage, that had a ditch underneath. We rinsed of the pieces, and sifted through them, sorting our findings into different categories; pottery, metal, bones, special rocks, mosaic, coins. We really didn't find anything too special, a couple people found some coins which were, basically, our group lost. Though we did find a piece of mother of pearl which the excavator said was a good find =)