Day 6 Jerusalem

A long day mostly walking through the old walled city of Jerusalem

We visited many traditional sites of events in the New Testament –
• The healing of the lame man at the Bethesda Pools (John 5),
• The last supper,
• The night of Jesus’ anxiety in the Garden of Gethsemane outside the city walls and across the Kedron Valley.
• The judgement of Jesus by Pilate
• Jesus crucifixion
• Jesus burial and resurrection.

Churches have been built over these sites and destroyed and rebuilt sometimes many times so that the original is only available in the imagination.

But we are very moved to be at each and re-live the event – for us reading the Bible will never be the same again.

At Temple Mount we were where:
• Jesus came when he was a boy
• Jesus threw the money changers out of the Temple
• Jesus challenged the religious authorities.

We also visited:
• The excavated site of a rich Temple official’s mansion.
• The Western (Wailing) Wall. Part of the retaining wall of the Temple which exited in Jesus’ time.
• The viewing platform around the Dome of the Rock Mosque
• A lookout with a panoramic view of Jerusalem.

Security check points with airport style X-Ray machines were set up for access to both the Temple Mount and the Wailing Wall.