GEOLOGICAL AND TRIBULATION FEATURES ON ISRAELI TOUR PATHS
PART 7A
Dead Sea – Jerusalem and Environs – Normal Seventh Day of Tours
Part 1 of 2 Parts
The first part of the morning is what I must confess I call “the Catholic pilgrimage tour!” The view of Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives starts it off, and then we are whisked from Catholic Church to Catholic Church for the rest of the morning. I think your will find it interesting and informative, but it is not my favorite part of the tour. I will pick up the tour at the Garden of Gethsemane.
Garden of Gethsemane
Gethsemane (Lit. “oil press”) is a garden at the foot of the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem believed to be the place where Jesus and his disciples prayed the night before Jesus’ crucifixion.
According to Luke 22:43–44, Jesus’ anguish in Gethsemane was so deep that “his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.” According to Orthodox tradition, Gethsemane is the garden where
the Apostles buried the Virgin Mary.
Gethsemane appears in the Greek of the Gospels (Matthew 26:36 and Mark 14:32) as Γεθσημανι (Gethsēmani). The name is derived from the Aramaic גת שמנא (Gaṯ-Šmānê), meaning “oil press”. The Gospel of Mark (14:32) calls it chorion, “a place” or “estate”; The Gospel of John (18:1) speaks of it as kepos, a “garden” or “orchard.”
The garden identified as Gethsemane is located at the foot of the Mount of Olives, in the Kidron Valley. Overlooking the garden is the Church of All Nations, also known as the Church of the Agony, built on the site of a church destroyed by the Sassanids in 614, and a Crusader church destroyed in 1219.
Nearby is the Russian Orthodox Church of St. Mary Magdalene with its golden, onion-shaped domes (Byzantine/Russian style), built by Russian Tsar Alexander III in memory of his mother.
The Garden of Gethsemane was a focal site for early Christian pilgrims. It was visited in 333 by the anonymous “Pilgrim of Bordeaux”, whose Itinerarium Burdigalense is the earliest description left by a Christian traveler in the Holy Land. In his Onomasticon, Eusebius of Caesarea notes the site of Gethsemane located “at the foot of the Mount of Olives”, and he adds that “the faithful were accustomed to go there to pray”.
THE POOL OF SILOAM
Excerpt from MSNBC.com
Remains of ‘miracle’ pool identified
Siloam Pool was where Jesus was said to cure blind
The Associated Press
December 23, 2004
JERUSALEM – Archaeologists in Jerusalem have identified the remains of the Siloam Pool, where the Bible says Jesus miraculously cured a man’s blindness, researchers said Thursday — underlining a stirring link between the works of Jesus and ancient Jewish rituals.
The archaeologists are slowly digging out the pool, where water still runs, tucked away in what is now the Arab neighborhood of Silwan. It was used by Jews for ritual immersions for about 120 years until the year 70, when
the Romans destroyed
the Jewish Temple.
Many of Jesus’ acts are directly linked to Jewish rituals, and the miracle of the blind man is an example.
According to the Bible, the man was undergoing ritual immersion in the Siloam Pool for entry into the Temple compound, and Jesus used the occasion to cure his blindness.
‘100 percent sure’
In the last four months, archaeologists have revealed the pool’s 50-yard (50-meter) length and a channel that brought in water from the Silwan spring. In the past week, a section of stone road that led from the pool to the Jewish Temple was uncovered.
“The moment that we revealed and discovered this four months ago, we were 100 percent sure it was the Siloam Pool,” said archaeologist Eli Shukron.
“We know today that the Siloam Pool is connected to the Temple Mount. There is a road that connects the two elements.
The entire system is clearer today,” Shukron said.
Stephen Pean, a Bible scholar, said the pool’s waters were considered so pristine they could purify even a leper.
Pean said Jesus likely chose to cure the blind man using the purest water available, because people with any disabilities were barred from the temple.
“The whole point is that people will not only be healed physically but also healed spiritually,” he said. “This discovery helps bring the Gospel alive in the context of Jewish practice.”
Artifacts confirm identification
The archaeologists excavating the site are with the Israeli government’s Antiquities Authority. They found biblical-era coins marked with ancient Jewish writing, along with pottery shards and a stone bottle cork — helping them confirm the area was the Siloam Pool.
The stone-lined pool has steps leading into it from all sides, said Ronny Reich, a University of Haifa archaeologist.
One side of the pool, two corners, a part of the esplanade around it and the water channel leading to it have been uncovered, he said.
Jesus, according to the New Testament, put clay on a blind man’s eyes and then sent him to wash them out in the pool’s purifying waters, giving him sight.
Jews, who traditionally made three pilgrimages a year to Jerusalem, would immerse themselves in the Siloam Pool before heading down the stone pathway to the temple. They also used the pool for drinking water and camped around it.
“Jesus was a pilgrim in Jerusalem … so this would be a natural place for him to be … enjoying the water supply,” Reich said.
The Israeli Antiquities Authority is negotiating with the Greek Orthodox Church, which owns the land, to continue the dig. Archaeologists believe the pool is under the thick green covering of an overgrown vegetable garden and several large trees.
Nine-foot-tall (3-meter-tall) stone walls topped by old sewage and drainage pipes separate the new discovery and the pool’s stone steps, uncovered in the 1960s.
Now archaeologists hope to remove the old pipes and connect the esplanade and water channel to the steps that lead into the pool.
“Here we can judge and see how large it is — the grandeur of the city in those days,” Reich said.
Church of Saint Peter in Gallicantu
The name given to this church records the episode in which Peter denied the Master three times after the crow of the rooster. The actual church, consecrated in 1931 and belonging to the Assumptionists of Catholic denornination, rises over the ruins of a preexistent Byzantine basilica. Someone has hypothesised that this was the site of the house of the High Priest Caiaphas, but it has not as of yet been confirmed. What has been brought to light meanwhile, is a beautiful street of steps called the Maccabean Stairs, which in the first century A. D. must have joined Mount Zion to the valley of the Kidron.
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