Jerusalem Old and New

     The city of Jerusalem sits nicely between two valleys: the Hinnom Valley and the Kidron Valley.  On Monday and Wednesday we were able travel along these valleys seeing several sights just outside of the Old City and a few within.  We started out Monday with a trip to a remnant of the broad wall built by Hezekiah in the time of 700 AD.  Benj read to us from 2 Chronicles 2:5 and Isaiah 22:8, he pointed out that this wall was a good example of how to act in times of trusting the Lord.  Instead of being idle, Hezekiah put his hands to work with the time given to him. From the wall we went over to a museum in the Jewish quarter on the city of Jerusalem in the first temple period.  Our tour guide, Chavah (Hebrew for “Eve”) described to us about how tombs were always built outside of the city walls due to Jewish customs, and depending upon the placement of the tombs archaeologists could determine the boundaries of the city walls at different times. She also taught us a little about the modern and ancient ways of Hebrew writing and we were able to scribble our names using the characters from the Hebrew alphabet.  

    We made our way past a traditional (but unlikely) location for David’s tomb, which was  a room with a modernly decorated casket.  It is more likely that David was buried elsewhere in the City of David  Its location was described in 1 Kings 2:10, and in Nehemiah 3:16.  It also was still known in Acts 2:29 (just a fun fact. :) )

     Interestingly enough, right next to the tomb of David, was a set of stairs, leading up to another "traditional location" of the Upper Room where Jesus had the last supper with his disciples as described in John 13:1-20.  The current room is Crusader built, probably from 1000 AD and holds the oldest tradition.  It does not look like anything spectacular, or probably anything like what it would have been.  But we read the account of the truths Jesus shared with his disciples in that spot.  He shared with them about the promise of the Holy Spirit (John 14:15-30); the obedience of those who love the Lord (John 14:22-17); and the persecution that is to come for those who follow Jesus (John 15:18-15). (Picture to the right is of a stained glass window in the Upper Room.)

     We then ventured into two graveyards.  One was Protestant holding the grave of Sir William Flenders (finder of the Mernepthah Stella which contains extra-biblical evidence for the existence of Israel in either 1406 BC or 1230 BC.) and Horatio Spafford (author of the hymn “It Is Well With My Soul”) The second graveyard was Catholic holding the famous Oskar Schindler’s grave (a man who helped save the lives of 1200 Jews during the Holocaust). 

     After glimpsing at the tombs in the Hinnom Valley, and later the Kidron Valley we made our way over to the famous Hezekiah’s tunnel.  Before descending into the tunnel we passed some ruins of what is possibly the palace of David, as well as some other ruins still under excavation.  We found ourselves spiraling downward into the earth and passed several other tour groups along the way.  We came to Warren’s Shaft, which used to be believed to be where Joab climbed up to attack the city, but has since been discarded as the location.  

     We descended more stairs, past more ruins, and found our selves stepping into a dark enclosed opening in the wall with cold water running along the ground.  We walked single-file down the enclosed corridor with the water rising and lowering.  At one point it was up to my thighs, and another a bit above my ankles. Just as the water rose and sunk so did the ceiling and walls move and morph shape.  At one point we had to bend and crouch under the tunnel and other times turn sideways to follow the path of the tunnel.  This tunnel was believed to have been made to transport water into the city of Jerusalem during Hezekiah’s time, but like Warren’s Shaft had also been put aside.  It does flow out into what is believed to be the Pool of Silom, (John 9).  It truly is incredible! I was with 7 others and we got separated from the rest of our group.  Last we heard was to keep our lights off, (apparently it was only for a short while but we missed the memo when we got separated!) It turned out to be quite a trust exercise in many ways. We could not see our hands in front of our faces.  With one hand on the backpack in front of me, and the other in the air anticipating the sudden lowering of the ceiling I just took step after step.  We helped one another by warning and passing on the warnings of the low ceiling, or sharp turn left or right. It was quite the experience!

      I personally was exhausted from the day’s adventures, and there is still yet a whole other day to describe!  I am not quite certain how we find the energy to go day after day, but sure enough two days later we were on the bus again, this time heading towards the New City, and the Mount of Olives.

     In the New City we started by going to the Israel Museum.  We walked around a miniature model of Jerusalem before the Roman destruction.  Benj pointed out the particulars of the city, including the three walls, the details of the Temple Mount, aspects of the City of David, possible locations for Roman Amphitheaters and hippodromes, and facts of the model itself.  (phew!) For example the model took five years alone to transport from underground to its current location at the museum.    With just a short walk around the model of the Old City, it felt like we revisited the whole actual city and all its history. 

     From the model though, we made our way to the Shrine of the Book, another exhibit at this museum, it holds pieces and copies of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Aleppo Codex, and artifacts from the Qumran caves.  The Dead Sea Scrolls were found in 1947 by a local Bedouin.  Their content was not really understood until later in November.  There was almost a full scroll of Isaiah as well as extra biblical literature, some of which predated the oldest known texts by 1200 years, a significant find especially for textual criticism. It was incredible getting to see these ancient scrolls and scraps of scrolls.  Someone wrote them down, some one hid them, and God enabled us to find them again and continue to learn and marvel at His word.  One fellow student observed the beauty of the preservation of the book of Isaiah, as it is one of the old testament books with a clear picture of the suffering servant, Jesus. Unfortunately I could not take any pictures inside as the display is set exactly to preserve the scrolls as much as possible- but it was very neat getting to see how the Lord's Word has been preserved year after year!

     We would have liked to spend more time looking at the scrolls but as lunch was approaching we made our way to a Jewish open air market.  There was fruit, dried fruit, chesses, fish, olives, halva, bread, pastries, etc.  The colors, the smells- it all looked so good.  A few girls and I made our way back to the market when we broke for lunch and we bought fresh strawberries, hummus, pita bread, olives, dried pineapple and some dates. It was so delicious!  The price was reasonable and our stomachs were happily satisfied. :)

View of Judean Wilderness and Bethany from Mt. of Olives

     After lunch we loaded onto a bus and drove to the Mount of Olives were we had a nice view of the city of Bethany and the Russian Orthodox Church of the Ascension. We read several different parts of scripture, where Lazarus was raised from the dead in John 11and the ascension of Jesus into heaven in Luke 24:50.  It was not long after Benj started reading scripture when the Muslim call to prayer echoed throughout the valley.  We were overlooking the Judean wilderness and the city of Bethany and there had to have been three or four mosques total that were all a little off on their timing and were praying. 

View from the Dominus Flevit Church

 It was hard to focus on what our professor was saying when the mournful prayers were echoing and clashing with one another.  Their prayers are already a little eerie, but when two combine it creates this dissonant sound that just penetrates the heart.  Nothing compels me more than hearing the lost souls crying out.  Their god can’t hear them, but mine can.  All I could think of was how lost they were, and then in the midst of my musings I heard my professor's voice, steady and unfaltering reading the Word of God. The particular passage we were reading was not directly relevant to my musings, but all I could think of was that in the midst of this loud, clashing, sorrowful noise of hopeless souls, there was a still small voice steadily reading the truth and the light.  One day the Lord will return, and He might even return back on the Mount of Olives the way He left!

     After our look of Bethany we saw another breathtaking view of the city...as well as a camel!  Small and simple, but still exciting.   I was able to ride it and my conclusion was that I should like to own one some day!  After the excitement of the camel died down we made our way to two more churches, one was where the Lord wept, at Dominus Flevit (Luke 19:41-44, and Matt. 23:37-39) where we also stopped and read the Olivet Discourse found in Matthew 24-25.  The second church was the Church of the Nations commemorating the spot where Jesus sweat blood. Inside the church is an actual rock believed to hold be the rock He bled upon. I don’t think that it is the same rock, but I can still appreciate the beauty of the church and the memory that it holds on to of that of Jesus before taking the cross.  He knew what was about to come for Him.  He had the chance to back out but because He loved us He continued with the divine plan. 

     What I think is most interesting about these places is not so much the place itself, I have quickly discovered that the sites are mostly rocks, or “traditional rocks”.  But what is unique about the Bible and my faith is that these stories did not just happen “once upon a time” but that they did occur in real places.  I saw where Bethany was, I have seen the Mount of Olives, waked the city of Jerusalem, etc.  It might not be the same street or building at the time of the Bible, but it is the same general location where these stories took place.  As we say here at IBEX: “Real people, Real places, Real events.”

    

View of Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives

The Old City of Jerusalem

"Give thanks to The Lord for He is good, His loving kindness endures forever." These were the English words to a Hebrew song we learned on the bus as we drove up to Jerusalem. We were about to spend a day in the very city that I had read so much about in the Bible. So much history in such a small place. We stepped off the bus and started our journey through the Jaffa Gate into the Christian Quarter to Petra Hostel's roof where we got our first glimpse of the Dome of the Rock and the Old City of Jerusalem. We learned that there were seven different gates and four different quarters (Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and Armenian).

After gaining a bit of our territory from the roof we made our way to the first protestant church in the Middle East, Christ's Church and then the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the traditional location for the death and burial of Christ.  There are supposedly two possible locations for the burial of Jesus, this was one, and the second is at Gordon's Calvary, the Garden Tomb. Our tour guide and professor Benj, believes that the Church of the Holy Sepulcher is more probable because the tomb is a 1st century AD tomb, it has the oldest tradition, and he argued that there really has never been an opportunity for Christians to forget where the sites were. 

He also touched on the aspect of its location. Where it stands right now, the site is inside the Holy City. According to the Scriptures, Jesus was crucified and buried outside of the city. What Benj noted was that the modern walls that we see today were different than the walls of Jesus' day. According to models and ruins, the site where the church is located would have been considered outside the Jerusalem walls in Jesus' day. We did not get to go and look at "the tomb" but we did get to see an authentic shaft tomb in the walls of the church, where a body would be laid in an opening in the wall.

We then made our way through some shops and were introduced and greeted by the famous Shabban of Israel. He is a shop-keeper and money exchanger who has been friends with the IBEX groups for many years. His shop was small, but full. Everywhere your eyes went there was a new treasure to behold: purses, bags, scarves, knives, mugs, stuffed camels, menorahs, magnets, earrings, teapots, silver trinkets, wooden candlesticks, Jerusalem and Israeli memorabilia, etc, etc! 

We came out through the New Gate and walked along the wall. Near the Muslim quarter almost by the Damascus Gate was where we stopped and had our first shawarma of the semester. It was like a party in my mouth! One bite had onions, the next had tomatoes, one was pickled something, another curried chicken (or so it seemed)-the pita bread was packed full of so many things each bite had a different flavor!

After savoring the Middle Eastern goodness, we walked by a few gates, Damascus Gate and Herod's Gate and found ourselves in the Muslim Quarter.  Benj led us to a view point outside the city walls so that we could catch a glimpse of the Mount of Olives.  We took a moment and read about it in Zech. 14:1-11.  It was neat getting to go from location to location in Jerusalem, stop and open our Bible to read the story that took place there!  Another location near this Mount of Olives perch as the Lion's Gate or Stephen's Gate, believed to be where the first martyr took place. Again, another Bible story come to life. 

At some point when we were by this gate we heard a Muslim call to prayer.  We made our way from the cobblestone streets into a walled church-like fortress. The call to prayer sounded louder there as it was echoing off the rock walls. So sorrowful, and so lost. It turned out, once the call stopped, that Benj had taken us to the traditional location of the pools of Bethesda in John 5. It was here that Jesus healed a man on the Sabbath!  I love this story, and was able to study it this past semester in a Bible class.  After studying it, it was neat to actually be there and walk around!   The original pools seemed to be gone, but there were many ruins. Apparently church after church had built on the spot. What I loved about this place was that it was like an ancient ruin playground. We could go down into the ground and look at the Roman cisterns, climb the ruins, explore the hallways and passageways, etc. 

We traveled through the Muslim quarter, the Jewish quarter, saw the Via del a Rosa, an old map of Jerusalem and some more Roman cisterns, we saw many sights, and there are still more sights to see.  We closed the day with a visit to the Western/ Wailing Wall. I did not know this until we got there, but we had to go through security before approaching it, as well as segregate by gender.  On the women's side there were many women praying and crying and trying to retrieve for themselves pieces of the wall.  I am not certain of all the history that occurred there, but it was definitely neat observing the Jews as they prayed and gathered together.  These are God's people, His chosen people.  I can't wait to learn more about their culture and their language this semester! 

There were so many sights, so many sounds, so many stories, so many smells, the day seemed like it would never end, (in a good way).  Though we did not get to make it into the Armenian quarter, we did do a lot, and it is still hard to realize and grasp that I was just there. I have heard of Jerusalem my whole life, This little place is the center of so much history. God used it in the past, and He is going to use it in the future too!

Shalom!

Greetings from Yad HaShmonah, Israel!  I and the 29 other college students made it safely to the IBEX campus yesterday afternoon.  We were pretty tired from the flight, and are still suffering a little from the jet lag.  Most of us were wide awake by 5am this morning!

We were able to get a little tour of the countryside connecting Tel Aviv to Yad HaShmonah.  Upon arriving to the campus we were given rooms and roommates and got to move in! My roommates are Ann and Grace and so far it has been splendid!  The rooms are not as bad as I was anticipating, nice and spacious (considering we are living out of suitcases) and currently really cold!  As I sit here now I can see that the heater is "on" and "running"  but it sure does not feel like it!  Each dorm holds 10 students with two toilets and one shower.  So with 10 girls, we shall see how that turns out!

Last night a few of us got to explore the campus a little bit, the staff encouraged us to stay up as late as we could.  We got to walk through the Moshav's Biblical Gardens which is full of paths and trails that lead to different statues, replicas, models, and ruins of, well, biblical things.  There was a milestone, a watchtower, a synagogue ruin, tomb, etc.  It will be a fun place to explore a little more in the day light!


The first full day of IBEX stated with a little devotion with my roommates. We read Psalm 1 this morning as well as the Puritan prayer, Belonging to Jesus from the Valley of Vision (Redemption and Reconciliation Section) and some of John 15. We got to see the sun rise and it was lovely!  We read about being a tree by springs of water, and being a branch in Christ and it was neat because later on in the day one of our professors showed us an Olive tree and explained the concept of grafting branches in!


Our professors gave us a tour of the campus, we did some "get to know you" games, and then after lunch we went on a 3 hour walk to neighboring cities.  Right next to our campus is Kiriath-Jearim, the place where the Ark of the Covenant used to rest.  (1 Samuel 6 and Judges 18 mention this location).  We were able to see a Catholic church built on the top of the hill there and catch our first glimpse of Jerusalem.  (It is behind the hills on the left side on the horizon!)  We next walked over to Abu Gosh and saw a Crusader Church and a cistern that it had inside- it was really neat looking- almost like a castle!



Along our walk we were able to try some ripe dates, figs, strawberries, and some freshly baked pita bread with Oregano.  It was delicious! So far I have been enjoying the food.  I just need to make sure I don't eat too much of the same thing too soon! Most of the group took a bus back home but some of us decided to try finding our way back by foot!  Along the way we explored an abandoned British Fortress and saw the sunset.  It was not too bad, but my body is definitely tired from the walk. But it is good for me to start getting used to the physical activity!  Right now most of us are enjoying a few free minutes moving in, resting, and catching up with the reality of the semester that lies before us. my roommates and I might get an early start on homework too.  Until next time!

P.S. My heater still does not quite feel like it is on, but in contrast to the freezer hallway, it has started to make a difference. :)

FUN FACT:  "Boker Tov!" means "Good Morning!" in Hebrew

24 Hours

There are about 24 hours left until I sit on the plane flying from LA to Israel!  For a visual image here is a map.  I have heard rumor that with our layover in Philadelphia it should be about a 24 hour trip.

I can't believe that the time is almost here!  I was talking with one of my friends about how these past few days feel like a dream.  It is still hard to realize that in a matter of 48 hours I will finally be there.  I know it is going to be a fun semester, hard semester, and a growing semester.  What the Lord teaches me while I am there I hope to share with you all, and that as I learn about the land, people, and character of our God that you will be equally encouraged by His goodness!