Temple Mount
October 10
Itinerary:
Lions' Gate
We started the day with breakfast at the Austrian Hospice. Since we planned to explore the city on foot, we needed a good hearty breakfast. The fresh bread was so good we wrapped up extra sandwiches and filled our water bottles before heading out for a walking tour of the old city.
My first goal was to stand in front of the Golden Gate and see the Mount of Olives on the other side of the Kidron Valley. So we started walking towards the old city walls at the Lions' Gate. But before exiting at the Lions' Gate, based on a vague recollection, I was looking for any signs of the Pool of Bethesda (Wikipedia), where Jesus healed a lame man on a Sabbath in John 5:1-15. We walked into an open courtyard on a small side street, which ended in a Temple Mount entrance guarded by some soldiers.
I asked the guards if they could help us find the Pool of Bethesda, but they couldn't. They told us to head back because only Muslims were allowed to use this gate. If we wanted to visit the Temple Mount, we should go to the main visitor's entrance near the Kotel / Wailing Wall, where Non-Muslim visitations were scheduled for 1 pm this afternoon. Wow that was good information! A Temple Mount visit was not a certainty, but now, very likely.
Golden Gate
We exited at the Lions' Gate and walked along the eastern Temple Mount walls towards Eastern Gate, aka Golden Gate (Wikipedia), it's the only closed-off city gate as prophesied in Ezekiel 44:1-2. This walk along the Eastern Wall is a great spot to visualize where a few days before Passover, on the day of lamb selection, Jesus rode a donkey down the Mount of Olives and then entered the Temple at the Golden Gate in Luke 19:35-44.
The YouTube video below outlines the history of the Temple and its future prophetic significance. It explains how the edges of the original foundation stones, at the base of the Eastern Wall, are embossed differently than the restored stones in the wall above it. Standing close up beside the wall, I verified these facts for myself.
Muslim conquerors rebuilt the Golden Gate on top of the original one. They filled it in with stones to prevent the God of Israel from reentering the Temple via the Eastern Gate, as prophesied in Ezekiel 44:3. Nice try but, Jesus is coming through here (YouTube)
City of David
We continued walking around the southeast corner of the Temple Mount, then down to the City of David. Because it was the first day of Sukkot, the Visitors Center was closed. However, we were still able to walk around open sections. We arrived at a terrace on the east slope, called Millo (Wikipedia). It's referenced in 2 Samuel 5:9, where you can see the ruins of David's royal palace.
Temple Mount
Then we walked back from the City of David, up the hill, to the Dung Gate. This southern entrance to the old city leads directly to the Kotel / Wailing Wall. It was now 1 pm, and as mentioned earlier by the guards near the Lions' Gate, visitors began forming a line to enter the Temple Mount.
After about a 30-minute wait, we went in. I wore long pants and was let in with no issue. However, Blondie, all the other women, and the men in shorts were given extra required coverings to wear. We walked around the gardens at the perimeter of the plaza. We witnessed groups of young boys kicking soccer balls around the flat areas of The Temple Mount. Clearly, the rules for respectful conduct in this sacred place were not enforced for them.
When we arrived at the internal part of Golden Gate, a guard stopped us from going down a staircase to the hallway below. From the top of the stairs, one could see the newer, fake Gate section built on top of the original lower hallway. We then proceeded to a nearby staircase leading to the Dome of the Rock at the upper plaza level.
The Dome of the Rock (Wikipedia) is an octagonal structure with a golden dome located at the center of the Temple Mount plaza. It was on built top of the destroyed Jewish Temple by Muslim conquerors.
Inside the Dome is a display of the original bedrock stone of Mount Moriah. Non-Muslims are not allowed in, but this is where Google Street-View pictures tell the story:
Some scholars believe the original temple might have been located slightly further north, Asher Selig Kaufman - Where Is the Holy of Holies. To see where that might be, I walked toward an open area, about ~50m north of the Dome (street-view), and tried to align myself with the Golden Gate and the Mount of Olives above it.
Church of the Holy Sepulchre
We then headed towards the Christian Quarters to see the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (Wikipedia). This large church supposedly contains the tomb of Jesus and the site where Jesus was crucified.
There was a half hour wait to enter the tomb.
Blondie went in, but I didn't because I felt disillusioned from the embellished artifacts.
So I asked one of the nearby Orthodox priests:
Where is the garden that Jesus was buried in?
John 19:41-42,
and where did Mary Magdalene encounter the resurrected Jesus?
John 20:11-18.
He did not give me a satisfactory answer.
New Friends
After a power nap at our hotel, we got an unexpected message from our Jewish friends back home in NY. They had relatives in Jerusalem who were going to the Kotel / Wailing Wall for evening prayers. We arranged to meet them at the Kotel plaza's wash basin.
We got to know our new brother and sister in Christ, Jacky & Elisheva. They are Messianic Jews who love Jesus. After praying together at the wall, we decided to have dinner in the garden of the Austrian Hospice Cafe (Restaurant Guru).
Our dinner discussions were about God, Sukkot, our first impressions of Jerusalem, and our visit to the Church of Holy Sepulchre earlier in the day. Jacky suggested we visit an alternate burial location: The Garden of the Tomb. It's a garden in Golgatha, next to a cemetery on a hill, very close to the Damascus Gate.