DAY TWELVE

7/21

Day twelve we first walked across town to the Garden Tomb.  The Garden Tomb is owned and operated by a group of non-denominational British Christians.  It is one of the sites within Jerusalem thought to be a possible location of the crucifixion, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  This site has many of the features of the garden of Joseph of Arimathea, described within the Bible.  For example, the garden is adjacent to a large hill or cliff of stone having natural formations, which closely resemble a face.  The Bible describes the place of Jesus' death as Golgo

tha, the skull.  The Bible, in the book of John, tells of the tomb of Jesus being within a garden of a wealthy man named Joseph of Arimathea.  There is, in fact, a huge, underground cistern and ancient wine press; which indicate an ancient garden of a wealthy individual... because only wealthy individuals of that time period would have had a cistern such as that for their gardens.  And the tomb... there is a tomb, which archaeologists date to the 1st century.  The tomb was found with no inscriptions or indication of having been used.  The physical evidence of the site, the archaeological evidence found and the Biblical description matching accurately, lead one to wonder if this could actually have been the location of those events.  It was fantastic to visit this place and ponder that.  It was very powerful to enter the tomb and have a moment of reflection to give thanks for what I believe as a Christian to have taken place in such a setting.  To me, it does not matter if those events took place at this particular garden or at the site of the Shrine of the Holy Sepulchre... all that matters to me is that it did in fact happen!  

After our visit to the Garden Tomb, we walked back towards the Old City.  Along a portion of the wall of the Old City is an entrance to an ancient cave/quarry.  Today, it is run as a tourist/archaeological museum called Zedekiah's Cave.  The cave was formed by the quarrying of limestone for the building of the 1st and 2nd Temples.  The cave is a network of passageways and caves extending deep underneath the Old City to a depth of nearly twenty stories underground.  It is obviously manmade due to the chisel marks to be seen on the walls and ceilings.  Legend has it that Zedekiah was thrown in to this cave, as per the Biblical story; hence the name of the cave today.  In recent history, the cave was the site early Masonic meetings and even a sect of Judaism, which believes in worshiping underground.  The cave was also used as a bomb shelter during World War I.  

Then we walked along the Old City wall a short distance until we reached the Damascus Gate.  At the base of the Damascus Gate is the entrance to an archaeological museum beneath theDamascus Gate and portions of the Muslim Quarter of the Old City.  This archaeological museum is the site of the Roman or Herodian period Damascus Gate.  The original paving stones are there with remnants of walls and buildings.  

Later, after lunch, we walked up the street to the office of world renowned architect, Moshe Safdie, for a meeting to discuss some of his current and past projects.  As mentioned several times previous in this blog, Safdie has designed a great many buildings within Jerusalem.  Its hard to walk anywhere within the city and not see his work.  Closer to home, he has designed the new ATF building in Washington, DC at the intersection of New York and Florida Avenues.