David, Hezekiah, Jesus, and Jerusalem

The rain has stopped for a while now and the sun is shining. I've been able to get out a bit more, so I have some stories to tell.

For Physical Settings last Sunday, we did a walking tour thing of Jerusalem and looked at different sites within the context of the Old and New Testaments.

We went to the City of David on the eastern side of Jerusalem. An archaeologist there believes that she might have found David's tomb. Pretty neat stuff. Anyway, this is the place where Assyria tried taking over Jerusalem, but Hezekiah stopped him. Hezekiah's tunnel is there also. The Gihon Spring is here, which is where Solomon was annointed. David's palace (duh). Cool stuff.
Hezekiah's tunnel empties out into the Pool of Siloam. It doesn't look like much now, but this is where priests would gather water to annoint the altar of the Temple. It's also the place where Jesus healed the blind man. You know, the one where he rubs the spit-mud in his eyes.

<-- That's the Huldah Gate. This would have been the southern entrance to the Temple Mount. There is a big, grand set of steps that lead to this gate and history has it that great teachers would sit out there and lecture to their disciples. We know that Gamaliel used to teach there often.



Lastly, we went to the Pool of Bethesda and the church of St. Anne. The Pool of Bethesda was where many went to be cured from ailments through the blessing of a particular Roman god. Jesus comes here to find a lame man trying to throw himself into the deep, deep pool. Jesus heals him, no one drowns, and everyone is happy. According to some traditions, the church of St. Anne was Mary's home before she met Joseph (St. Anne being Mary's mother). The story goes that Mary essentially became a nun at the temple, Joseph came up for the sacrifice, and Mary's mentor told her to go marry him. It's a beautiful building. Nice acoustics.

So that was pretty much my last Sunday. I'm getting a little bit more comfortable here although I'm still pretty homesick. I have a ton of work for a couple of my classes, so I'm pretty much bound to the library, but I'm thankful for our weekly field studies which get me out a bit. I'll explore some on my own once I get a chunk of my work out of the way.

-Daniel