A day of Study in Biblical Jerusalem

Today was an amazing but tiring day of study at some of the Biblical sites in Jerusalem. we started at 7 am and we didn't get done till 6 pm, none the less it was an awesome day of study!

We started off heading to what is know as the Broad wall which was put up by Hezekiah and runs through the Jewish part of the old city. Next we went over to the city of David where we spent a couple hours talking about the layout of Jerusalem and why David had the location of the city where he did. It was an eye opening time where we learned just how secure his old city was and then also what he ment when he wrote in his Psalms about looking up to the hills and such.

It was very cool because while we were there we got to look at some of the most recent archeological advances in Jerusalem. In the past 4 years there have been amazing amounts of progress made on the northern part of the city of David. They were said to have possibly found David's palace all the way down on the bedrock of the mountain and also they have found Jebusite walls that would have been there during David's time to help hold up the walls.

After that we headed down to Hezekiah's tunnel and we didn't go in but we talked a lot about it and about the progress of the water being tunneled throughout the last 4,000 years. very cool! After that we took a quick lunch break and then headed out to New Testament remains. We headed down by the Tyropean Road, Robinson's arch, the temple wall, mikvahs, and the southern steps. Although some of us had been there in the past Dr. Wright shared a lot of new information and we all found it very interesting.

Next we headed up to the pool of Bethesaida and an old Crusader church, and after that we finished on top a roof over looking some of the old city.

All in all the day was one of the best I have had here so far. It was filled with a lot of learning and rediscovery of the Biblical text. As my brother Jake would say when you study the Biblical culture and then examine that to the Bible to determine what things were really like your view of the Bible goes from reading a story in black and white to reading a story in color. I have experienced a lot of that over the years but after today its more as if those color stories have now become 3D to me and are jumping off the page, pretty sweet!

The day was also filled with a couple adventures. Chris and I love to explore tunnels and holes that aren't really part of the beaten path, we did this quite a bit by the southern steps and we happened to run into some tunnels, we followed these tunnels of course but they led us out to areas that were chained off. We quickly left the area and went back and while we were waiting to leave a couple police officers came running by and went to the exact spot we were and they came back a minute as if still searching, we couldn't help but think that maybe they saw us accidentally go to places we shouldn't have! Also another exciting time of the day was when mark decided to push an old Herodian stone that was part of Robinson's arch in the temple. He started pushing and suddenly it started to fall backwards onto him, the stone easily weighed 1,000 - 2,000 pounds and thankfully mark was able to escape with only scratches on his hands. The lord was watching him! And somehow i got the whole thing on tape and it has given all the people here at JUC a little entertainment!