Ein Kerem and the Zoo!

Today was awesome as well! Several of us got on a bus and went over to En Kerem-> the place where John the Baptist was born. I’m not sure if that is actually the place but there were like three churches there dedicated to it. Most of them were focused on the meeting of Mary and Elizabeth when they were both pregnant. There was a Russian Orthodox Church that had very new looking decorations (I’m used to really old decorations), a Catholic church with a well in a chapel (apparently Mary and Martha met at a well) on the bottom level and another chapel dedicated to Mary on top. On the bottom there was a group of nuns from Ethiopia singing there, and the top chapel or church had about 12 women from the bible depicted, along with a pretty neat depiction of Mary. The last church supposedly had the birthplace of John with a fourteen pointed star and some neat decorations. One of the girls with us who is majoring in organ performance played the organ there and it was neat. After that we ate our packed lunches or bought pizza and ice cream- which I enjoyed very much. Then a few of us who were going to go home decided to go to the Israeli zoo instead. They call it the biblical zoo but besides from a few scripture verses here and there, the fact many of the animals had lived in Israel, and a “Noah’s Ark” theatre where they talked about conservation, it wasn’t super focused on the Bible. But I really enjoyed it. They seem to let the animals get closer to the people here it seems to me. Maybe it’s because they can use electric fences and don’t worry as much about lawsuits- I’m not sure. It was really fun walking through, looking at Penguins, birds, lizards, tigers, bears, lions (used to be lions and bears in this land) Indian elephants, giraffes, rhinos, hippos, lots of deer-like creatures with crazy horns, etc. etc. Besides the elephants, one of which got down in the water right below us and was playing around, my favorite was visiting Lemur Land! You got to go into a big open area where there were lemurs everywhere and you got to get really close and the lemurs were dancing around playing around. I forgot how cool lemurs were. Well, we took public transport back to Hebrew University (after getting on and off three different buses) and we limped over to the Jerusalem Center, being pretty tired from our whole day.  P.S. public transport is fun, both sitting by different people (there was an Ultra-Orthodox Jew reading the Torah and commentary) as well as a Muslim woman, Orthodox Jews and lots of Reform Jews, but it was most fun to just look out the windows at all the Jewish neighborhoods we drove through in Northern Jerusalem getting from West Jerusalem where we were at, until finally reaching East Jerusalem. P.S.x2; Ramadan is starting tonight- so Muslims fast during the day for 40 days, and I hear things slow down economically and inflation goes up because no one wants to be in their shops. We’ll see if or how it affects our experience here. 

Outside the Catholic Church celebrating Mary and Elizabeth's meeting.

How many worshipers faces can you see?... Nun!

Where John the Baptist was born I suppose.

Me and my feathered friends at the Zoo.

Bears, beets, Battlestar Galactica...

Some mammals.

Some animals getting saved from the flood.

Leaping Lemurs! .

Lemur face-off. Credit for most of these Zoo photos go to Ashley Wilkinson. 

Dead Sea field trip!!!

Yeah! this week, (yesterday) we finished a sweet field trip today in the Rift Valley (the Dead Sea). First we went to see Qumran, which is the area where they found the Dead Sea scrolls. Apparently a shepherd was looking for his sheep, threw a rock in a cave to see if they were there, heard pottery breaking, went to check it out and found the scrolls in jars. At first they used the leather they found on the scrolls for sandals, but eventually someone took the scrolls to a priest- actually from the St. Mark’s Church where we visited last week. Eventually the scrolls were all taken out/ excavated. We didn’t stay at the site too long- now it’s just a couple caves in the middle of nowhere, as well as some ruins from an administrative building. It seems to have been an community where men stayed to be initiated into a group called the Essenes- probably. There were many Mikvehs or ritual baths there, which led early excavators to think they did baptisms there but they were actually doing Jewish ritual baths. Also some have said John the Baptist was related to them-> there isn’t any evidence for that, except that John lived in the wilderness. A better name for the scrolls is the Dead Sea fragments, since they found 15,000 fragments from 200 different scrolls. They had scrolls mostly from Psalms, Deuteronomy, and Isaiah. The community, while copying scrolls, did not show the same precision in copying as did later Masoritic scribes; researchers found that errors or notes were inserted into the documents as they were copied from manuscript to manuscript.

After that we went down to Masada- one of the last holdouts of the Jewish 70 CE revolt, and former hilltop fortress of King Herod. It was pretty huge, to say the least. A roman siege ramp had been built up the side. They had wooden beams supporting the wall during the Roman siege so the ram that they had didn’t do much damage, so the Romans burned the walls with flaming arrows. We took a huge tram up the side of the hill to the location. There were neat “overhanging” palaces meaning they were on the very edge of the cliff. The palaces had with frescos that still held their faded but original color, they also had Roman baths, lots of ruins of watchtowers and walls. Also there were huge cisterns on top that gathered rain water from the rainy season, and during the dry held water. The zealots when they took it had like 3 years of provisions, but since they knew the Romans were coming through the walls, they decided to take their lives and the lives of their families rather than submit to the Romans and become slaves. Josephus reports that the leaders of the zealots drew lots to decide on 10 people who would make sure everyone was dead, then one person would kill the ten, than that one would take his life. Historians thought this was a fabrication until they excavated Masada and they found 11 pot shards with Jewish names on each one in a room! Masada was a symbol of Israeli independence for awhile “Masada shall not fall!” but recently it’s become less-so I think. People killing themselves isn’t a very good patriotic story.

After that we went to Ein Gedi, a nature reserve with caves and natural waterfalls. Joshua took a city there, also David went there and found Saul in a cave in 1 Sam 23-24. The place is also called Wadi David. It was a cool nature reserve and had some neat waterfalls

After that we went and swam in the Dead Sea! I’ve always wondered what it would be like but never thought I would actually go. Since the sea is about 30 percent salt, our bodies are less dense- so we float! It was weird to be standing up strait in the water and have the water go up to the bottom of my chest. It was also weird on my back to just float right on top of the water. Since you floated you could also swim super fast, but if you got any salt in your eyes you were in trouble and it burned like no other. I had a little ballroom dance in the water with someone since our arms were above the water and we floated well anyway. We also covered ourselves with Dead Sea mud since apparently people come from all over for its “properties.”  The rocks on the sea shore are also covered in crystallized salt! We eventually got washed off, and got on the bus to come back home to the Jerusalem Center! P.S. I drank 6 liters of water that day!

Masada and Qumran jokes….

Do you love me? If so will you Qum-run away with me?

What does a Mexican Zealot eat? Carne mASADA!

Did I say something Qum-wrong?

Cave 4 or 5 where they found scrolls: I can't remember.

In one of the Palaces.

Can't touch this... unless you're a Roman Legion!

Cool view.

Waterfall at Ein Gedi.

Ein Gedi with the Dead Sea behind.

Is it the Red? Is it the Med? No it's the Dead Sea!

Salty rocks.

Exit of the Kidron Valley into the Dead Sea. If the prophesy of water coming out of the temple and healing the Dead Sea is a literal prophesy it would come through here.

Talent Show and Garden Tomb

We had a formal talent show Thursday night. Formal because our last one was just a crazy one. The night before I decided to sing “I have often walked” from My Fair Lady. It was a really good experience. I did well, and so did everybody else. Occasionally my mouth dropped open because I found out some of these people I’ve been spending so much time with had absolutely amazing talents and I had no Idea. We had this talent show in the auditorium or chapel where we have church, so we overlooked Jerusalem. At random times throughout the performance fireworks would go off in the neighborhoods surrounding the Jerusalem Center, more so now than usual because Ramadan is approaching. We had had 3 hours of New Testament that day, several hours going out exploring Jerusalem, and now I got to sit and watch my friends perform in an amazing theatre overlooking the city as night approached. It was a super amazing experience. Also, everyone really liked my singing (I did do really well for being so out of practice) and it was one of those experiences I’m going to try and cherish.

On Sabbath three of us walked down to the “Garden Tomb” as it is called. I’ve been there before only I didn’t go into the tomb last time because it was too crowded. This time there was hardly anyone there.  It’s a place familiar to Mormons. However, it was the site of a vineyard at the time of Christ, (as opposed to a garden which means an Olive tree orchard,) and it also there are several other reasons why it’s probably not the place where Christ lived, our professor sent us a big old document saying why, although I haven't read it yet. However, it was still a nice site to visit. Also, the skull where “Golgotha” is may not have looked like a skull in the time of Christ. (P.S. The Gospels don’t mention a hill anyway.) But I got to read the New Testament there so it was a nice Sabbath place to visit.

Earlier last week in the Lutheran Tower.

On the door in the Garden Tomb.

At the Garden Tomb.

Crusader King Sword behind me from last week.

Israeli Museum, Christian Field trip and the day after.

The next day several of us went to the Israeli Museum. They have a ton of stuff there, we were limited by time so (to complete an assignment) we only ended up looking at certain things. We did check out some of the art, however. Maybe we’ll end up going back, I don’t know. Many of the things we’ve studied in class were there, from inscriptions from the 8^th century BCE referring to the house of David, to ivory found in a city described in the Bible as having a palace of Ivory, to seals with important names on them, to a “steel” sword found in the time of when Nephi lived, to buried silver coin caches (probably what Lehi had at his “land of inheritance”) to scripture (Deuteronomy 6) written on tiny metal scrolls on a locket, and many other things. I suppose it was cool to see what sort of things ancient civilizations had, and later that day we headed back home for dinner.

One day this week we had our Christian church field trip. We went through this gate in Jerusalem that I’ve never gone through before, and we first visited Terra Sancta- a Catholic church maintained by the Franciscan order (as all holy land churches are) where monks live. There were some candleholders from the 13^th century there, some hand-made pews and confession booths, and some amazing artwork. Our director talked a little about how churches are made to make you look up toward heaven- and this one certainly did. There was artwork around the sides of the church depicting the last week of Christ’s life. We waited for Spanish monk to come and explain more. Eventually he did and someone translated for him into English as he explained some of the things there. One thing special about this church is there is a good chance Orson Hyde stayed here on his visit to the holy land and his name is in a door where he stayed (Apparently people who stayed there wrote their names on a certain door.) Anyway, it was fun, and he showed us a really old door used to keep invaders out of the church.

Next we went to St. Marks- a possible site for the last supper. The room they believe was the “upper room” is actually down stairs because over time the city has risen so much (each generation builds on another.) The church was a small Syrian Orthodox one. They have a painting there which they believe was painted by Luke, I believe, and people come from all over to venerate the thing. There was this very interesting lady there in charge who was very, er, very brash and loud and apparently you’re not supposed to cross your legs in the church and every time someone did she’d yell at them loudly not too cross their legs. Anyway, she told us about some miracles that had taken place in church since she’d been there: she certainly seemed like a faith filled lady.

St. John the Baptist was another church we went to where the Knights Hospitallers was made. There was the medieval Church on top which was built by monks; several knights traveling to Jerusalem got sick and were nursed back to health there, so they decided to start the Knights Hospitallers and help other pilgrims be nursed back to health. There was a nice lady there who was excited to explain all the many paintings in her broken English. Also, we got the key to go downstairs to the 5^th century Byzantine church built on a 1rst century Roman plaza.

Next we visited the Church of the Holy Sepulture which I’ve visited several times, but this time I had some interesting things pointed out to me by our teacher. Basically all Christian Faiths except for Protestants believe this was the sight of Christ’s death and Resurrection. The church is built over “Calvary” which is in and to your right up the stairs to see both a Catholic and Eastern Orthodox shrine. Down below again strait from entering the doors there is the stone of unction, where Christ’s body was prepared. The stone is about a 7 foot by 2.5 foot stone that people put oil on or anoint as they did Jesus’ body. Below “Calvary” you can go to where Adam’s grave was. According to tradition when Christ died his blood went through the rocks and landed on Adam’s bones, saving him from the fall. So they have that crack and his tomb. We also went down below to a quarry where they found a Roman cross and venerated it as the true cross. There are paintings and shrines all over this very extensive church. We as a class entered into the sepulture where people believe Christ was buried. It sort of looks like a big square mausoleum that you have to crouch down to get in there. There is architecture from all the back to Byzantine times I believe. Also, we got to see the sword of the King who conquered Jerusalem, like 900 years old, in a case in a room where usually only monks or priests go. It was a good experience, and while maybe it’s not the right spot (too close or inside Jerusalem city walls) it is a holy place for millions of believers and it became an important spot to me.

We then went to the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer, although not to the tower or church but to the Cloister to have lunch at lunch. A cloister was where monks lived and worked. WE just had lunch there and rested pretty much. But we came up with some good jokes: Why was the monk scared of the convent? He was cloister-phobic! What do you call a sleepwalking monk? A Romin’ Catholic!

Finally we went to Alexander Nevsky’s- a church with very large paintings depicting the life of Christ. I believe it’s Russian Orthodox. They have a gate in the wall that some scholars in the past said was the eye of the needle Christ said a rich person would have to go though to enter the Kingdom of God. But, they’ve decided the wall dates from after the destruction of Jerusalem, and there really isn’t any evidence for that theory anyway- Christ was actually talking about a needle. Also they had a rock Jesus apparently tripped on. The place was very ornate. There was also a very cute nun there- I don’t know if I’m allowed to say that. This church is also one of last stations of the via dolorosa- the traditional path Christ carried his cross.

The next day we had a free day and me and some friends went to Damascus gate where down below they’ve excavated a Roman plaza that existed shortly after Christ’s time. It was neat but not super big. Later we went to The Lutheran Church of the Redeemer but this time climbed the big tower and visited the chapel. It was beautiful but not nearly as ornate as other churches because it was Lutheran. Also climbing up the tower gave a great view of Jerusalem. After that we went to the Olive wood carving street again.

Huge Temple of Herod Jerusalem model.

Inside a convent where Orson Hyde probably stayed.

Knights Hospitallers Church

St. Marks "Upper Room"

5th Century Church built on Roman Plaza.

Church Of Holy Sepulcher

Eye of the needle? Probably not, but still a good pic.

Terra Sancta

Outside Damascus Gate with some friends.

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.

What Happened Last Week; Harry Potter, big bridge, Temple Institute, Olive wood carvings

Well, as many of you may have noticed, the last harry Potter Movie has come out in theatres. I found myself with a free day here in Jerusalem, and a lot of students wanted to go see it, so we went to a movie theatre in West Jerusalem and watched the second part of Harry Potter 7. The theatre was a little ghetto, and they do intermission here, which basically means they stop the movie at a random scene (right in the middle of a climax) and give you a ten minute break. They stopped ours in the middle of a spell. Also the film was just slightly out of focus on certain parts of the screen. In retrospect I probably could have spent my time a lot better, but at the time I was kind of concerned I hadn’t been social enough while here, and it seemed like a really good idea at the time since we couldn’t think of anything else that would take up a large amount of time (lack of planning.) The movie was good; I didn’t like the last book, so they did a pretty good job of entertaining me anyway. 

After that we went and walked towards this really big thing that we thought was a big piece of art but it turns out it is a really big bridge called David’s Harp as far as I can tell. We then walked by the Jerusalem main bus station, did some more walking, walked to an Armenian Church which was closed on Sunday of all days, then we decided to go to a place called the Temple Institute.

There are many types of Judaism today. Many Jews refer to synagogue as “temple” because the synagogue has replaced the temple in their minds and theology. Some Jews believe in a temple will be rebuilt at the site of the old one, but God or the Messiah will be the one to do it. Others are getting ready already to build the temple. These are the people we visited at the Temple Institute. They’ve basically made all the implements/ vessels that will be needed for a third Jewish temple, according to specifications in the Bible as well as Jewish traditions and writings. It was pretty cool to go in and see the priestly robes, levers made of copper, cups made of Gold or Silver to catch blood or pour water, huge meat skewers, the menorah and table of showbread, harps and horns, and even a long explanation of how Jews have been trying to recreate the same shade of blue color which existed in ancient times. There were also twelve stones of the proper type in a breastplate or what they call the Urim and Tumim. Apparently they believe that the Hebrew alphabet was written on the stones representing the 12 tribes, then someone would ask the priest a question and light would shine on the letters spelling out your answer. Mormons have a different, but similar view of the Urim and Tumin; we believe that it was used by seers or prophets to receive revelation in ancient times. The whole thing was very interesting: unfortunately, they did not allow us to take pictures, which really would have made the experience worth it. I guess I’ll just have to try and keep in my brain what those things looked like. 

After that we visited some of the three olive wood carving shops which cater to LDS people specifically. How do I know they do? Probably the Olive wood carvings of Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, even carving of popular depictions of Jesus, Nephi, the first vision, and several other carvings. One shop just has a couple, another has more, and a last one had a ton. Of course, they also have lots of nativities, flight to Egypt scenes, Jesus face carvings, and a lot more. I bought only the cheapest stuff. Some of those things cost a LOT of money. Apparently Glen Beck ordered one that cost 20,000 dollars that was a large recreation of Herod’s Temple (some Jerusalem Center students went to see it before he sent it off.) The last guy we visited had a big BYU flag in his shop as well as pictures with several church presidents. Hehe. Apparently his kids went to BYU as well (although he’s not a member of the church). Funny the imprint the church has made in some people’s lives here.  

In Preparation for Harry Potter the Movie.

"David's Harp" bridge

Jaffa Gate with friends

Omar the olive wood guy.