Old City Day 1

We left early from the BYU-Jerusalem Center and walked down along the Kidron Valley along the eastern side of the Temple mount and west of the Mt of Olives and the Garden of Gethsemane.  Another name for the Kidron Valley is Wadi Joz  or Valley of Jehoshaphat

Hills and Jacksons in Kidron Valley

The Bible calls the Valley "Valley of Jehoshaphat - Emek Yehoshafat" (Hebrew: עמק יהושפט‎), meaning "The valley where God will judge." It appears in Jewish eschatologic prophecies, which include the return of Elijah, followed by the arrival of the Messiah, and also the war of Gog and Magog and Judgment day. According to the prophecies, in the war of Gog and Magog, the two major coalitions of gentile nations will join forces against the Jewish state in Israel. Israel will be overwhelmed and conquered, and the last stronghold will be Jerusalem, which will also be conquered by the gentiles. After the gentiles finally succeed and destroy Israel, God will commence Judgement. God will save Israel and battle "with diseases, rain, fire and stones" against all the gentile nations that set to destroy Israel, and will fill the Land of Israel with their bodies which will take the Jews 7 months to bury all. In the prophecies, it says he will bring the gentiles down to Emek-Yehoshafat (Kidron Valley), and then he will judge all of the gentiles for all of the wrong they have done against Israel since the beginning of time, and only the gentiles that helped Israel will be spared.

Kidron Valley

The Kidron Valley runs along the eastern wall of The Old City of Jerusalem, separating the Temple Mount from the Mount of Olives. It then continues east through the Judean Desert, towards the Dead Sea, descending 4000 feet along its 20 mile course.







 We then made our way to the Western Wall (Kotel)

Kids at Western Wall

Geography.  Around Mt. Moriah’s slope, Herod built 4 retaining walls to support the platform for his temple complex.  The ‘Western Wall’ is the retaining wall on the west side.

History/Archaeology. 

Solomon’s ‘First Temple’ lasted c950-586 BC.  Returning exiles started building Zerubbabel’s Temple, beginning the ‘second temple era’ (c520 BC-AD70).  Modern Jews speak of the ‘Third Temple’ as one yet to be built.

Western Wall

  

        Mt. Moriah was too small for the complex (temple and other buildings) Herod had in mind.  Needing a larger flat surface, he created one by rebuilding around Mt. Moriah 4 retaining walls, moving the S wall further south and the W wall further west.  In this rectangle’s N end earth was packed, while at its S end massive Roman arches and vaults were erected.  A 40-acre platform was then built to connect the tops of the retaining walls; the platform rested on the packed earth (N end) and the arches/vaults (S end).

Boys Touch Wall

        The retaining wall on the west, the Western Wall shows only a few courses of stones above the present ground level–but many more are below it. Herodian stones or ashlars are distinguished by their large size and smooth borders.

        Herod’s Temple was destroyed by the Romans in AD 70.  But the retaining walls and platform survived as repaired by later regimes (Byzantines to Ottomans).  In medieval times, a portion of the Western Wall was accessible to Jews seeking to worship at a place close to the destroyed Temple of Herod.  

       

Scott and Ben placing slips of paper containing prayers in the cracks of the Wall.  A form of Prayer Role

 

 

 Their worship transformed that  portion of the Western Wall into a synagogue.  Because Jewish prayers included chanting, non-Jews referred to this place of worship as ‘the Wailing Wall.’

Torah Scroll

Jn 2:20Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days?

Boys in Kotel Tunnel

John and Scott at Kotel (Western Wall)

Before 1967, access to the Western Wall was by a narrow alley next to it.  After the 1967 War, the Israeli Government removed the houses of the Muslim North African Quarter’ to create the Western Wall Plaza, lowering the ground level by about two yards.  The portion of the Western Wall that was underground until 1967 is darker than the portion above it.

Chris at Calvary in Church of the Holy Sepulcher

 Since AD 325, Christians who consider this
structure to mark the sites of Christ’s crucifixion
and burial have treated it as Jerusalem’s
spiritual center. Roman Catholics and several
Eastern denominations (including Greek
Orthodox & Armenian Apostolic) share the
complex.

Geography. Outside the city walls until AD 41,
this area was a quarry and a cemetery.
Etymology. From Latin sepulcrum, ‘sepulchre’
means ‘grave’ or ‘tomb.’ The ‘Holy Sepulchre’
refers to the tomb of Christ.

Unction or Anointing Stone

Jn 19:40Then took they the body of Jesus, and wound it in linen clothes with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury.

  
The separate Greek Orthodox and Roman
Catholic chapels at this site’s Calvary symbolize
the split between the two main branches
of dyophysite Christianity. At the Council
of Chalcedon (451), a majority of bishops
(the Greek- and Latin-speaking ones) made

dyophysitism (Christ has both human and
divine natures) the orthodox (official) doctrine.
At Chalcedon, the Monophysites churches
(Armeneans, Copts, Syrians) were declared
heretical and excommunicated. But, united as
dyophysites, the Greek and Latin bishops by 451
already disagreed about whether the Bishop
of Rome (later called “Pope”) or the Patriarch
of Constantinople exercised authority over
all Christians. That quarrel festered until the
Great Schism (1054), when Pope and Patriarch
excommunicated each other, formalizing two
separate denominations.

 After some falafel and shwarma we finished our day at Alexander Nevsky Church which has some cool Roman walls and paintings

worshipping

Christine under a Hadrian arch

eye of the needle

Mark 10:25It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.

some paintings from Alexander Nevsky Church