Israel, Day 6

We have been doing and learning so much, I'm having a hard time remembering what we did yesterday. :) We had our first tour day in Jerusalem and saw a wide variety of sites. The first pic is of a tomb similar to what Christ would have been buried in...Dave is sitting on the stone that would have been rolled back and forth to either seal or open the tomb. You'll notice it's kind of like a pocket door and would be very heavy. This was from the tomb of Herod's wife that he killed upon false accusations by his sister.

The second pic is my favorite mosaic so far and it is from the Wohl museum that shows 1st century? houses/areas that were uncovered in the bombing in the 70s, I think. Previous to that time, there were regular homes on that site, but the bombings showed all these very early historic structures.

We also went to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (sp?) where Jesus' body was likely entombed. A handful of different churches/groups own sections of this church so there are tons and tons of people who come here to worship and say prayers in that place. There is even the stone that Jesus was said to be prepared for burial upon and people are sometimes lined up to kiss it and place candles on it. The next two pictures show the amazing ceiling in one section and an incredible wall mosaic in another.

A bit after that we headed over to Hezekiah's tunnel which brought the water supply outside of Jerusalem inside the wall during Hezekiah's reign. It's about a third mile long and you walk through water that begins a little below waist high and generally is about mid calf high the rest of the time. The amazing thing is that different work groups began at opposite sides and met in the middle...there were a couple of mistakes made, but where I'm pointing is the spot that they came together. That area is also accessible by a shaft that goes from the water table into the city which Jehu likely climbed up to begin the defeat of the Jebusites for David. And, lastly, the tunnel ends in the pool of Siloam near where Christ healed the blind man's eyes.

Today we had another day in Jerusalem, but I'll try and write about that tomorrow...