Israel - Day 4

Today we were around Jerusalem again. We first went to the traditional sight for the Upper Room. While it is fun to go to a lot of places like this, they often are constructed with stones from later periods than Jesus. As such, it can be a little anti-climactic to think “this is the place,” and realize that it would have looked quite a bit differently. Nevertheless, there are many things that DO date back to Jesus’ time, which is quite exciting.

After this, we went to the Southern Steps, which is the Southern side of the Temple Mount. Much excavation has taken place here in the last 30-40 years. This excavation reveals some extremely massive stones from the time of Herod the great (just before the birth of Jesus). These stones that form a retaining wall are about 40-50 TONS apiece. To put that into proper perspective, modern cranes cannot even lift these stones!!! What many scholars theorize is that the stones would be cut into cylinders at a quarry and rolled down to the site. At the site, the stone would be rolled right up to where it would eventually be placed. After this, the construction team would chisel off one side to make it flat, leaving three-quarters of the stone round. They would then roll the stone over so that the flat side would fall into place right on top of the stone below it, then shave off the three remaining sides. One of the most amazing things about this is the precision. Between each stone, you cannot even fit a knife blade!

The most exciting thing of the day was to go to the Garden Tomb. This is a somewhat traditional spot for Protestants regarding the crucifixion and the tomb. Though many scholars have shown that this is most likely not the true place, it is great to see what the tomb would have looked like. As the tour guide said at the end, even if it is not the place, it does not change the significance of the tomb—and that is that there’s no body in it! Indeed, this is the most important fact on which our faith rests.

The door outside the Garden Tomb.

A somewhat typical resting place for a body in Jesus' day as seen in the Garden Tomb.

This demonstrates the height of the 40-50 ton rocks that we saw, but in no way demonstrates the length. The length of most of these massive rocks is about 20-30 feet!

A millipede that almost climbed up Michael's leg!

Oskar Schindler's grave (from Schindler's List). If you don't know the story, Schindler saved many lives during the Holocaust and is responsible for the lives of thousands that live in Israel today. Israelis leave rocks as we would leave flowers at a grave--hence all the rocks on top.