Following Morning Prayer we heard a breath-taking presentation from Dr. Ali Qleibo, a Muslim anthropologist about the different religious narratives that overshadow Jerusalem and the Holy Land.
Then it was off the the Temple Mount where (after standing in one of the many lines we encountered) we met Dr. Ali again and he shared some of the history of this remarkable site where the First and Second Temples were built, and where the Dome of the Rock Mosque now stands. It is the only part of Jerusalem that Israel still recognizes as being a part of Jordan, a kind of Muslim Vatican City.
We then walked the short distance to St. Anne's Crusader Church, a building with some of the best acoustics anywhere, and sang from the Hymnal 1982 three hymns, the most moving being "Jesus Christ is Risen Today".
A group of pretty hungry pilgrims then headed back to St. George's for lunch! An hour later we were off again, this time to the Israel Museum to view the stunning scale model of 1st Century Jerusalem. Seeing the model helps understand in much greater detail the Jerusalem of Jesus' time, and especially what the Temple looked like (see picture below).
It seemed impossible, but our experiences continued to deepen - we walked through the "New Gate" into the Christian Quarter of the old City and down to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.
We began in the depths, in the ancient quarry which contained both the bad rock left by the quarry owners that formed Golgotha, the skull-shaped rock used as an execution site by the Romans. We then followed this seam of reject rock up to Golgotha itself. We ended our day entering an area at the rear of the Sepulcher containing a traditional 1st century tomb - exactly the sort of tomb that would have belong to Joseph of Arimathea....!What a day!
Tommorow - because it is the last day of Ramadan (and thus Jerusalem is largely closed) we
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