Burnt House, South Temple Mount Excavation, Rockefeller

The next day we visited two museums as well as Excavations done on the southern end of the Temple Mount. The first was called the “burnt house.” When Israel captured the old city of Jerusalem in 1967, before rebuilding the Jewish quarter they did some excavations back to the time of the second temple period. Particularly they excavated houses destroyed around 70 AD by the Romans. The “burnt house” was a house, probably belonging to a rich priestly family (they found stone utensils used for ritual cleanliness only a priest family would use- probably Sadducee). The house was burnt down when the Romans wrecked havoc on the city. In one room the arm bones of a girl was found near the end of a spear point- testifying the brutality of the conflict. We watched a little movie about how the whole ordeal could have played out. The movie emphasized that maybe Jerusalem would not have been destroyed if the Jewish people were more united. Indeed, our teacher talked about secret combinations that existed at this time, where each Zealot group had its own hand signals and secret signs, each group using what it had to gain more and more power, assassinating many priests and leaders and having much infighting between groups-> a story you don’t hear much about. We also have learned about Masada where zealots took their own life rather than give into the Romans. Basically I haven’t gotten the greatest view of political groups existing among the Jewish Groups at the time of Christ. Anyway, the house was very large and must have belonged to a very wealthy family.

After that we went over to explore some South Temple Mount excavations. There was a museum made in the remains of an Umayyad Palace I believe (from like the 11^th century). Later, a really neat part we visited was where they’ve excavated the stairs right next to the temple mount; the same stairs that Jesus definitely would have walked on to access the temple. Neal Armstrong (first man to walk on the moon) went to Jerusalem and asked his guild if there was a place where it was certain Jesus had walked. The guild brought him to these steps because they were defiantly used by the Savior. Neal Armstrong said that walking on those steps were more meaningful to him than walking on the moon. Visiting those steps was also important to me. I suppose that is really why I came to Jerusalem; to be able to walk where the Savior walked and learn more about the scriptures. It’s one of those places I wish I could have stayed forever but of course our group needed to move on.  There are the remains of where the double gate was, although only a small potion sticks out, and the gates have been rebuilt. Same with the triple gate that entered from the south: they’ve been rebuilt but are in the same places.

Further on we got to visit some Mikvehs (ritual cleansing baths) where people went to purify selves before entering the Temple; much like Mary did after having Jesus. Apparently at this time people went into them naked; I didn’t know that. We also watched a video that explained what it would have been like for a pilgrim to enter the temple, exchange his money, buy animals for sacrifice, take a ritual bath, etc. Jesus overthrew the moneychangers and shopkeepers tables in the temple, which is interesting because shopkeepers and moneychangers are really needed for the things that happen at the temple (sacrifice). However, perhaps these shops at festival time had spilled over into the temple grounds, or perhaps the corrupt priestly class of the day had simply set up a system to extort more money than was needful and Jesus was fighting against that. We actually went to where these ancient shops were! They have cleared away a ton of rubble, but they have left piles of some to demonstrate how the Romans destroyed the temple and threw the rocks off the edge onto the streets and shops below. There are large craters where the street collapsed. The Romans must have really hated the Jews to go through all that effort of pushing those stones off the temple (they are huge). Another item of interest is the Herodian builders placed the temple stones a little in each layer so that the base is slightly bigger than the top. This way the temple actually looked like it was going straight up: If they hadn’t done this there would have been an optical illusion of the temple looking like it was tipping over if you were standing at the bottom.

After our Temple mount field trip a few of us headed over to the Rockefeller Museum. There were some bullet holes in the courtyard from fighting in one of the wars here. There was lots of cool stuff there, although I didn’t spend a lot of time on one thing, they had archeological finds from all over the Levant there, from Paleolithic to the middle ages. 

Burnt House Excavations

Portable foot washing basin- probably what Christ would have used to wash his disciples feet.

View from South West to Temple Mount. It's really bright and my inner Asian is coming out.

Same steps Christ would have walked to access temple mount. Yeah!

They used some huge stones to build the place.

So, this stone has written on it: here is where the trumpeter stands. Bible says Christ was taken to the pinnacle of the temple: if it was referring to this high traffic spot on the South-West Corner he would have been standing right where my foot is. The Romans threw this off the top of the temple and excavators have recently found it below.

Overthrowing some hard-to-see tables of a wicked money changer, where shops actually were directly below the temple mount. Don't want no house of thieves!

Triple Gate.