The Wailing Wall November 12, 2009
Posted by Jeff Block in Philosophy and Religion, Travel.Tags: Israel, Jerusalem, Jesus, prayer, Temple Mount, Wailing Wall
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Of course I’ve always known about the existence of “the wailing wall” in Jerusalem, but I confess I never really knew what it was. To be really honest, I think I thought it was a Catholic thing when I was younger. As an adult Christian, the most connected I’ve ever really been to the concept of the wailing wall was in a song by Point of Grace called “You Are the Answer” …
They line the wailing wall
The masses fill up St. Peter’s square
Confessions, emotions
Spill out of desperate prayer
This song is basically about peoples’ desperate needs and God’s abundant provision for those needs. And from even this crazy-limited perspective of this song, I always took the wailing wall to be a place where people gathered when that desperate human need was more pronounced than usual. Turns out, I wasn’t all that terribly far off.
The wailing wall is simply a part of the retaining wall that Herod the Great built to hold up the Temple Mount esplanade in Jerusalem just before the time of Jesus. The section of wall is probably a little more than 100 feet long, on the south end of the western face of the retaining wall. The open section of wall called the “wailing wall” spans between two walls protruding out from the retaining wall which belong to structures that have been built in this area over the centuries. Plus, the level of the ground has risen dozens of feet on this side of the temple mount in that time as well, so the ground people walk on to approach the wailing wall is actually vertically positioned about halfway up the retaining wall compared to where it would have been in Jesus’ day.
What’s so special about this section of wall?
The 2nd Jewish temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD, displacing Jews all over the world. When the Muslims set up shop in the 7th century, they built the Dome of the Rock where the temple used to be. This pretty much solidified the temple mount as a Muslim holy site to which Jews and Christians do not have access.
Over the many hundreds of years since this time, ostensibly because in their eyes God still dwells in the temple, the Jews (and some Christians I’m sure) have sought out places at least close to the old site of the temple to be considered “holy sites”. This section of wall is close to where the temple used to be, so in the eyes of many, it’s the holiest place they can get to. As a result, many Jews and Christians treat the wailing wall with tremendous reverence – as they would have treated the temple, where it still standing atop Mount Moriah. They believe that if they touch the wall, then their prayers will carry special weight. Or, they write prayers on small pieces of paper, which they then roll up and stuff into the cracks in the wall. Also, we had to cover our heads when approaching the wall because it is a holy site.
I felt sorry for the people there. It made me sad to think that people are so unfamiliar with who God really is that they still believe somehow God dwells in those rocks or on that mountain. And they didn’t just believe it a little. I saw people VERY worked up, special apparatus everywhere for confession and prayer, and more than one person in our group talked about how Catholic or Jewish friends had sent prayers with them to be stuck in the wall or relayed to God by the person on our tour … I guess because the person sending the prayer thought the person going to Jerusalem would be closer to God when they got there. Do they think God lives in Jerusalem? … and that He’s hard of hearing?
Touching a wall doesn’t make your prayers special. Being in one place instead of another does not make God hear your prayers more clearly. There is no special power in that span of rock, or any other for that matter.
The Most High does not live in houses made by men. As the prophet says:
“Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool.”
“What kind of house will you build for me?” says the Lord, “or where will my resting place be?”
“Has not my hand made all these things?” (Acts 7:48-50)
Ultimately, I did approach the wall to pray, but I prayed for all the people touching or who would touch the wall. I prayed that the eyes of their hearts would be opened to who God really is and where God really lives (for those who have allowed Jesus’ work on the cross to repair the separation from God our sin has caused).
Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. (1 Corinthians 6:19-20)
The wailing wall doesn’t make God hear you. Jesus does.
The Temple Mount November 12, 2009
Posted by Jeff Block in Bible Stories, Philosophy and Religion, Travel.Tags: Abraham, David, Herod the Great, Isaac, Islam, Israel, Muhammad, Temple Mount
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As I’ve already mentioned in another entry, Solomon built the first temple on the site where Abraham was prepared to sacrifice his son Isaac in Genesis 24 and where David built an altar to God in repentance for his sinful choice to number the fighting men of Israel in 2 Samuel 7. Therefore, thousands of years ago, this place became a place of paramount holiness to the Jews.
In the 7th century AD, after Islam had burst onto the seen and Mecca and Medina had been conquered, From TempleMount.org: Muhammad is fabled to have “mounted on the winged steed called Al Burak ‘the Lightning’ and, with the angel Gabriel for escort, was carried from Makkah (Mecca), first to Sinai, and then to Bethlehem, after which they came to Jerusalem. ‘And when we reached Bait al Makdis, the Holy City,’ so runs the tradition, ‘we came to the gate of the mosque (which is the Haram Area), and here Jibrail (Gabriel) caused me to dismount. And he tied up Al Burak to a ring, to which the prophets of old had also tied their steeds.’ (Ibn al Athir’s Chronicle, ii. 37.) Entering the Haram Area by the gateway, afterwards known as the Gate of the Prophet, Muhammad and Gabriel went up to the Sacred Rock, which of old times had stood in the centre of Solomon’s Temple; and in its neighborhood meeting the company of the prophets, Muhammad proceeded to perform his prayer-prostrations in the assembly of his predecessors in the prophetic office Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and others of God’s ancient apostles. From the Sacred Rock Muhammad, accompanied by Gabriel, next ascended, by a ladder of light, up into heaven; and, in anticipation, was vouchsafed the sight of the delights of Paradise.”
So, basically, after 1,000 years of real history, Muhammad (and this isn’t even in the Koran) supposedly rides a magical horse to Jerusalem (for no apparent reason), prays there, and then is taken to heaven on a ladder of light. And with that, the Muslims have claimed for 800 years that this particular piece of mountain is sacred to them too, and therefore endless battle over it.
It was clear that our tour guide deeply resents this entire thing. The Jews discount the Muslim story as a blatant attempt to intrude upon their holy site with the goal of simply being a thorn in their collective side. In other words, the Jews believe that the Muslims created this story and the Dome on the Rock just to piss them off, not because the spot holds any actual historic and spiritual significant for them And I tend to believe the Jewish account more than the Muslim one. (I’m sure you picked that up.)
Anyway, Herod the Great, just before Jesus’ day and long before the Muslims got there, greatly expanded this area. He built a massive retaining wall, and smoothed out the top of Mount Moriah to create a 15 acre temple mount esplanade. Then he greatly enlarged the temple that Ezra and Nehemiah had built hundreds of years before.
That temple – called the Zerubbabel temple – was destroyed in 70 AD by the Romans when they pretty much leveled Jerusalem in general. Interestingly, the Roman commander ordered the soldiers NOT to destroy the temple, because Romans greatly valued architectural beauty. However, because there were rumors that the Jews had hidden massive quantities of gold in the walls of the temple, the soldiers burned it anyway, and then pried the stones apart looking for gold. Hence Jesus prophecy in Mark 13 (and elsewhere) was fulfilled that “Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.”
We had to go through long lines at a security checkpoint to gain access to the Temple Mount. Once through security, we ascended a temporary wooden scaffold that was pretty rickety and actually made me a bit nervous. It didn’t help that on the way up there were stacks of riot shields that looked pretty well used. That took us up onto the temple mount esplanade.
The south end of the esplanade, which was the royal colonnade in Jesus’ day (where Jesus overturned the tables of the money changers in Matthew 21), now hosts a large masque called Al-Aqsa. The Dome of the Rock itself stands in the middle of the temple mount esplanade. It was fairly unimpressive to me. Of course, I’m predisposed against its presence there, so I guess that makes sense. It was obvious that a LOT of work had gone into creating the mosaic that surrounds it, and a big gold dome is also pretty cool. But otherwise, it was very plain.
We were not allowed inside, because we’re not Muslim, which makes sense. And I generally didn’t feel in danger or threatened in any way on the Temple Mount. I was impressed by its cleanness. There were trees planted on the mount, and I saw men sweeping up the needles that fell from the trees to keep the area as neat and clean as possible.
We also saw the eastern gate, which was sealed by the Muslims to be a thorn in the Jews’ side. More on that in my post about the Necropole, if you want to read it. I cover that ridiculousness pretty thoroughly there.
One other interesting thing was that there were natural markings in the marble from which the Dome of the Rock itself was built. One of the sections of marble looks like the following. I’m not into signs and portents, but this looks pretty creepy. What do you see when you look at this picture?
Our tour guide sees a demon and pointed it out to us. I guess a bunch of others do to. You be the judge.
Model of Jerusalem in Jesus’ Day November 11, 2009
Posted by Jeff Block in Bible Stories, Travel.Tags: Israel, Jerusalem, Kidron Valley, Mount Moriah, Pool of Siloam, Temple Mount
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To wrap up day 5 of our tour, we stopped at a museum and saw an amazing 1:50 scale model of the city of Jerusalem during the first temple period. This is how the city would have looked during Jesus’ day. I will include a few pictures, and describe a few key points from the pictures here.
Temple Mount Esplanade
This is the view of the city from the south. The large “building” to the right is actually the esplanade of the Temple Mount. It is 15 sq acres in size, having been extended far beyond its original size by Herod the Great. He created the massive retaining walls you see here, by stacking stones weighing from 5,000 to 800,000 lbs on top of each other offset inward by one inch per layer. And I’d say a layer is about 6-8 feet. The 800k lb stones we saw up close were probably 8 feet tall, 25 feet long, and who knows how deep. I think our guide told us, but I don’t remember. He then leveled off the top of Mount Moriah and filled in the man-made pits created by building the huge retaining walls. But not before using Roman arches to build massive foundations so that he could have store rooms under the royal colonnade and other buildings he intended to construct atop the temple mount. It was unbelievable.
Kidron Valley
The valley to the right is the Kidron Valley, separating Mount Moriah (on which the temple mount is built) and the Mount of Olives (to the right off screen).
David’s City
See the two walls fairly close together running top to bottom (north to south) in the picture. The area between these walls is considered David’s city, the original size of Jerusalem in David’s time.
Pool of Siloam
In John 9, Jesus restores the site of a man born blind by having him wash himself in the Pool of Siloam. The square pool in the bottom left corner of this picture, just outside the SW-most corner of the wall of David’s city, is the Pool of Siloam. The pool was evidently fed by an underground aqueduct running under the Kidron Valley from a spring on the Mount of Olives. Hard to believe, but that’s what they told us.
River of Gehenna
To the west of the “back” wall of David’s city, behind the Pool of Siloam, flowing south out of the city is the River of Gehenna. Why it’s called that when it’s in the Tyropaeion Valley, I don’t know. Where it originates, I don’t know. Why the pool of Siloam is fed by an underground man-made channel and not this stream, I don’t know. So, it looks like I have some research to do. But for now (while I have very little Internet connectivity), that’s what I know.
Two Socioeconomic Classes
Observe the great majority of the city – from the rear wall of David’s city all the way to the far west wall. Rows and rows of houses, but in two styles. The houses nearest to you (in the south) are the lower of two socioeconomic classes. These are servants and laborers (shockingly, much of the work for Herod the Great’s expansion projects was accomplished by paid, skilled labor, not by slaves – some slaves, but mostly paid workers). The larger structures with red roofs, which occupy the northern side of the city, are for the richer upper class.
Wealthy Suburbs
First, this is a better, up-close view of the northern side of the city and the homes and shops of the upper class.
Unknown Structure
I can’t remember for the life of me what this monument / structure is. I’ll figure it out and update.
The Wailing Wall
Notice the high retaining walls of the Temple Mount esplanade in the background. You’re looking at the southern wall and about half of the western wall at that time. What is now called the wailing wall is a small section of the western retaining wall. The exposed section to which pilgrims now have access is in the middle of what you see of the western wall in this picture, both horizontally and vertically. The section is about 75 yards long north-to-south. It’s in the middle of the wall top-to-bottom, because centuries of layers have filled in the base of the retaining wall.
The Royal Colonnade
On top of the Temple Mount on the south end (to the right in this picture) where the Al-Aqsa mosque now stands is the royal colonnade. This was built by Herod the Great on top of great Roman arch foundations that served as storehouses. These were shops and guest quarters for visitors to Herod’s kingdom. The Temple Mount was an all-around amazing place to visit, which was Herod’s goal. Our guide emphasized over and over again that he was somewhat of a Megalomaniac.
The Temple
To the left of the image, in the middle of the Temple Mount esplanade, is the 2nd temple. More on that below.
Enormous
A picture of as much of the model as I could fit in … to demonstrate just how big Jerusalem at that time really was. It’s hard to see in this picture, but there were actually four sets of walls: the retaining wall of the Temple Mount esplanade, the inner wall, the outer wall, and the walls surrounding David’s city. Seems absolutely huge, in my world.
It’s good to be the king
It’s not really obvious from this picture, but if you look to the far left side of the image, near the westernmost wall of the city, you’ll see three tall buildings that stand above all the homes and shops around them. These are buildings that Herod the Great had built (essentially) to show off. They are places his mistresses might like or that foreigners could stay. They’re the kind of thing you do when you have seemingly infinite resources to build and if you run out of those you just conscript some more slave labor. I guess it’s good to be the king!
The Royal Colonnade
This is the best shot of the model Temple Mount that I got. It shows another (better) look at the Colonnade.
The Temple of the Second Temple Period
In the center of the Temple Mount from north to south is the temple of the 2nd temple period. The first temple (Solomon’s temple) was destroyed long ago from the perspective of this model. Ezra and company rebuilt it in the 1st century BC, and Herod the Great expanded it dramatically. These images depict the temple after Herod had done much of his work on it (which was a never ending project, evidently), and is the way Jesus would have known it. I’ll describe the temple in more detail with the next picture.
The Eastern or Golden Gate
The eastern gate, called the “Golden Gate”, is located at the base of the Temple Mount retaining wall on the east side closest to the camera. This is the gate through which Scripture foretells that the Messiah will enter the city of Jerusalem (see Zechariah 14:4 for the prophecy).
Antonia’s Fortress
The northwest corner (the upper right in the picture) of the esplanade is dominated by Antonia’s fortress. This is where Jesus was tried before Pontius Pilate. He was severely abused and soldiers cast lots there for His clothing. He was then marched out of the fortress on the road leading north from the Temple Mount – you can see the road heading to the right from the Temple Mount on the extreme right side of the picture – and crucified there at the main junction of roads leading east-west to the Mediterranean and north-south from Damascus to Egypt.
The Fenced Area
In the picture, there is a fenced area to the south of the temple (left of the picture). I don’t remember who was restricted to this external area; I’ll have to look that up and update.
The Outer Court
This is the courtyard nearest the front of the photograph (the east side of the temple) was for gentiles, women, lepers, unclean Jews, etc.
The Inner Court
Only priests and cleansed Jewish men could enter the inner court behind the outer court. And the Holy of Holies, all the way to the back of the picture against the west wall, was exclusively accessible by the High Priest, only once a year, and only after extensive cleansing rituals / sacrifices. Even then, he would go in with a rope tied around his waist, so that if God struck him dead, the priests could pull him out of the inner sanctuary.
