Jerusalem: The Temple Mount, Pools of Bethesda,The Golden Gate, The Western Wall

Jerusalem

Jerusalem has always been sacred to the Jew, Muslim and Christian. The Jew venerates this city because it was the site of Solomon's temple. The Muslim claims Jerusalem as the city from which the prophet Mohamed ascended into heaven. And, of course, Christians remember the city as the scene of the Lord's death, burial and resurrection. Only Jerusalem is described as "the city which the LORD had chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, to put His name there: (I Kings14:21).

Inbal Hotel
Our home in Jerusalem was a lovely hotel not far from the Old City and in a lovely area of town.
All of our meals at the hotel were in this beautiful courtyard. Our room overlooked the courtyard so we could always see what was on the dessert table! ;)

They had a beautiful lobby that you could not enter without going through security first.

And the entrance to the hotel was just as lovely as the inside!

The Temple Mount

Today we are headed to the Temple Mount and I am taking pictures out the bus window as I am getting my first close look at the Jerusalem wall. The Jerusalem wall has been totally destroyed at least five times. This uneven rectangular wall which encloses the Holy City is the most striking feature of Jerusalem. Originally all Jersalemites lived inside the wall but today only 5.45 percent of the city lives within the wall.

The wall averages 40 feet high and has eight gates and 34 towers. It is about 2 1/2 miles in length.This picture is of the Ophel Archaeological Garden below the southeastern corner of the Temple Mount. The ancient staircase and the Hulda Gate, through which worshippers entered the Second Temple compound, and the remnants of a complex of royal palaces of the 7th century Muslim period are among the antiquities excavated here.

In the distance, you can see the Jewish Cemetery on the Mt of Olives. Jews have sought since antiquity to be buried on the Mount of Olives, where according to the Bible (Zech. 14:4) the resurrection will begin when the Messiah comes. The cemetery has grown to cover the entire western and much of the southern slopes which makes the slope white due to the grave stones.

Sorry, I blurred the picture but the sign says that you are approaching the holy site of the Western Wall where the Divine Presence always rests. They are asking that you make sure that you are appropriately dressed! We had already been told that on the Temple Mount your shoulders could not be bare (no tank tops) and that your knees needed to be covered. Additionally, the Muslims would not allow men and women (even if they were married) to touch - no holding hands, etc. or you would be escorted off the Temple Mount. We did, in fact, have two women pulled aside and not allowed to enter because their knees were showing.

To go on to the Temple Mount you have to go through a metal detector and have your bag searched. Our itinerary at this point was fluid because of the situation in Israel and because the Temple Mount can be closed at a moments notice. So Precept puts in on the itinerary the first day in Jerusalem and if it doesn't work out that day it can be tried every day thereafter until allowed in.

This is a picture of the Western Wall taken from the bridge we are crossing to get on to the Temple Mount. There is a women's side and a men's side.

Thankfully, it is a quiet day at the Western Wall.

Having arrived at the Temple Mount our guide, Kenny, is waiting for some of our group to clear security. I am discreetly trying to take pictures of what happens on the Temple Mount. It belongs to the Muslims and there are groups sitting in circles studying. Our guide has to be careful because one time he was thrown out for laughing too loud. So my understanding is that you can be thrown out for what you say, how you say it or what you do.

This is the El Aksa, which means the "distant place" (from Mecca), is Islam's third holiest shrine, after Mecca and Medina. It was erected on the foundation of a Byzantine church and still follows the general lines of a basilica. It has been been destroyed and rebuilt on numerous occasions. The Crusaders captured it in 1099 and El Aksa became the headquarters for the Knights Templars. But in 1187 Saladin returned the building to the Muslims.

In 1951 Jordan's King Abdullah was assassinated here. His grandson, who would serve as King of Jordan until his death in 1999, was at his side.

Back and to the left is a part of the Islamic Museum.
This is the only part of the rocky knoll, Mt Moriah, that remains uncovered outside of what is inside the Dome of the Rock mosque.

Mount Moriah is a rocky knoll of Judea that is much like any one of a thousand others in the Holy Land, except that it is much more significant. Abraham was commanded by God to take his only son Isaac to Mount Moriah and sacrifice him to Jehovah (Genesis 22:1-14). This knoll contained the threshingfloor of Araunah, which was purchased by King David. Here he built an altar and offered burnt offering and peace offering to God, staring a great plague in Israel (II Samuel 24:15-25). On this knoll, David gathered the materials for the magnificent temple of God, which his son Solomon built (I Chronicles 21:18-22:5; II Chronicles 3:1-7,11). The treasures of the house of God were taken from Mount Moriah when the temple was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar in 587 B.C., at the time of the Babylonian captivity. When the exiles returned, Nehemiah and the people built a wall around this rocky knoll (Nehemiah 2:4-20; 6:15,16). Here Herod the Great rebuilt the temple.

After the Roman general Titus destroyed Herod's Temple and city of Jerusalem, the Roman Emperor Hadrian paganized this holy mount by erecting a temple to Jupiter. In fact, in A.D. 138 Hadrian rebuilt the city, naming it Aelia Capitolina; and he forbade the Jews from entering the city on penalty of death. In 639, Jerusalem fell in the hands of the Muslims, and Mount Moriah became a Muslim shrine. ~Woodrow Kroll

This is a look at the Dome of the Rock through the Southern Arches
The Dome of the Rock is not a mosque but a shrine built over a sacred stone. The sacred rock was considered holy before the arrival of Islam. Jews believed, and still believe, the rock to be the very place where Abraham prepared to sacrifice Isaac (an event which Muslims place in Mecca). In addition, the Dome of the Rock is believed by many to stand directly over the site of the Holy of Holies of both Solomon's Temple and Herod's Temple.

The great golden dome that crowns the Dome of the Rock was originally made of gold, but was replaced with copper and then aluminum. The aluminum is now covered with 24 K gold leaf, a donation from the late King Hussein of Jordan.

I took this picture to give an idea of the size of the Temple Mount Plaza.

The Golden Gate

The western side of the golden gate is visible from the temple mount. A large gate house, dated to the end of the Byzantine period, protects the gate.

This was my first encounter with the Golden Gate. Later from the Mount of Olives I became obsessed with taking its picture. From the outside of the Old City and particularly from the Mount of Olives the gate makes for a beautiful picture and holds an even more incredible picture of future events.

The Golden Gate is also known as the Mercy Gate.

"Then he brought me back the way of the gate of the outward sanctuary which looketh toward the east; and it was shut. Then said the LORD unto me; This gate shall be shut, it shall not be opened, and no man shall enter in by it; because the LORD, the God of Israel, hath entered in by it, therefore it shall be shut. It is for the prince; the prince, he shall sit in it to eat bread before the LORD; he shall enter by the way of the porch of that gate, and shall go out by the way of the same". Ezekiel 44:1-3

This text refers to the ancient tradition of the gate in the second temple, dated to the 6th C BC exile in Babylon. According to Ezekiel, God's spirit left the city through the gate, but will return after the Messiah will return through it.

The Golden Gate is the most important and most impressive gate in Jerusalem, and the only visible entrance to the city of Jerusalem from the East. This oldest of all the gates to the city was the only one not rebuilt by Suleiman the Magnificent in AD 1539-42. Monolithic stones in the wall just above ground have been identified as 6th Century BC masonry from the time of Nehemiah, (Biblical Archaeological Review [BAR], Mar/Apr 1992, p40).

Pools of Bethesda

Ruins of twin pools in the north side of the old city, close to the Lions gate. These pools supplied water to the temple during the times of the first and second temple (until Herod). There are references in the old testament to the "upper pool", which may have been the name of the northern pool.

Adjacent to the pools were baths and a healing center. These baths are the site of the healing miracle of Jesus in the pools of the sheep market, which was also called "Bethesda".

Later, a Byzantine basilica was built over parts of the pools. The Crusaders built a small chapel over its ruins, and later a larger Basilica nearby called St. Anna.

The south-western side of the Byzantine church was located in the south pool, seen above. It was supported by seven arches, three of them are visible. The tall base of one of the arches is seen in the center. Bob is reading the following passage...

"Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?” “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked. The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, and so the Jewish leaders said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.” But he replied, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’ ” So they asked him, “Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?” The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there. Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.” The man went away and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had made him well. " John 5:1-15

St. Anne's

After the Crusader conquest of Jerusalem, church buildings were rebuilt on a smaller scale with a new church erected nearby the Bethesda pools. This new church, named for Saint Anne and completed in 1138 AD., was built over the site of a grotto believed by the Crusaders to be the birthplace of Anne, grandmother of Jesus.
The church is open to anyone who would like to come in and worship. When we entered there was a group of Chinese singing Amazing Grace. The church is known for their acoustics and I must admit it was breathtaking to hear.

Our group chose to sing "Holy, Holy, Holy". This trip was filled with precious moments!

We are walking through the Islamic Quarter of the Old City to depart through the Lion's Gate.

Lion's Gate derives its name from the double pair of lions (which are actually panthers) engraved on each side. The gate, built in 1538 by Suleiman the Magnificent, is known as Stephen's Gate by Christians who believing that the saint was stoned to death here (in the Byzantine period, Damascus Gate was thought to be the site).

The Western Wall

We are entering Dung Gate on our way to the Western Wall. This gate is set in the Old City's southern wall, that provides the most convenient access to the Western Wall, and it is the only gate which leads directly into the Jewish Quarter.

In Hebrew it is called Sha'ar Ha'ashpot (Garbage Gate), a reference to a Biblical gate in the same area through which the refuse of the Temple (which was the same as the refuse of a butcher shop, only consecrated) was carted outside the city to be burned.The gate was widened by the Jordanians during their tenure in the Old City to accommodate vehicular traffic, one of only two such gates in the Old City. We have stopped just inside the gate to allow Kenny to point out a few things to us.

And, of course, I am as interested in the people around me as I am the antiquities.

One of the things Kenny was pointing out to us was "Robinson's Arch".
Robinson's Arch in the yellow circle.

The Western Wall (Ha-Kotel Ha-Ma'aravi) in Jerusalem is the holiest of Jewish sites, sacred because it is a remnant of the Herodian retaining wall that once enclosed and supported the Second Temple. It has also been called the "Wailing Wall" by European observers because for centuries Jews have gathered here to lament the loss of their temple. At the prayer section of the Western Wall, grass grows out of the upper cracks. The lower cracks of the chalky, yellow-white blocks have been stuffed with bits of paper containing written prayers. Orthodox Jews can be seen standing at the wall, chanting and swaying. Some Jews visit the wall daily to recite the entire Book of Psalms.

I was standing in the women's section with my back facing the wall to get a sense of the buildings that overlook the Western Wall Plaza. The dark brown lamp in the left of the pictures is the way we entered the Temple Mount.

This is the divider that seperates the men's from the women's section.

The Western Wall Plaza is quite large and apparently if you are a dignitary of some sort you can be driven right up to the Wall.

I think some young boys were about to have a special event. The arch in the left of the picture is called "Wilson's Arch" and inside it serves as a place of prayer, study and cabinets for storage of the Torah.

"Great if the LORD, and greatly to be praised in the city of our God, in His holy mountain. Beautiful in elevation, the joy of the whole earth, is Mount Zion on the sides of the north, the city of the great King." Psalm 48:1,2