Old City Walk

So classes have started and things are getting going.  One of the classes that I get to take this semester is Physical Settings of the Bible. We started class on Sunday with a walk in the old city. For each field study that we do we will have to write an 'impression report'. The format is flexible so I thought that I could write it so that others could read it as well.  I have added pictures for fun too!

Walking the Old city gives a completely different perspective from simply looking at the maps and seeing the pictures. Outside the city it looks large, the hills and valleys are still quite visible and the structures are relatively new. Inside the city things change. The buildings look much older and in the Jewish Quarter one ancient ‘Cardo’ has been excavated and sits nestled into the modern market. The Old city is packed together; the streets are built up, down and around everything. Stairs are common in the ‘streets’ to adapt to the steep landscape on which the city was built. Scents from the many small shops mingle together in the street, people come and go from the shops, carts, and the odd truck, squish through the narrow space.

We started off thinking about the rock that we came from.  The study of geography is connected to the Bible in significant ways, the only thing is, is that we do not yet understand the geography. Walking around Jerusalem is the best way to soak in the geography that now surrounds us. Feeling the descent and the rise as we crossed over to the other side of the Hinnom valley was the first part. It brought us to the top of a hill, part of the watershed ridge, from which we could look back across at Jerusalem and the school.

Picking out land marks, and getting our bearings is something that we will have to get used too.  We identified some steeples and the windmill, which we were then standing in front of, that will help us find our way back to where we belong.  It reminds me of something greater, as a metaphor for life, we have land marks; we have things that we look for those bring us back to where we belong. We have traditions, people and events that remind of where we have come from and what direction we need to go to get back home. Yet just like landmarks, they require us to look at them and observe them in order for them to be effective.

After getting our bearing we headed back to the wall, we talked about where cities are built. They are built on a solid foundation, on the edge of a valley so that the rock can help protect them from enemies, and in a place that is connected to other places.

“Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness
    and who seek the Lord:
Look to the rock from which you were cut
    and to the quarry from which you were hewn;

Isaiah 51:1

 

From there we headed into the city, down to the ‘Cardo’, the ancient marketplace. This was the main street of Jerusalem.  Then we went up to a place where we could look out over the temple. The temple mount, not the highest mountain in the region, yet it is the mountain that has been the site for the temple or holy place since the time of Abraham.  On the top of this mountain there used to be a threshing floor which was bought from Araunah the Jebusite (2 Chr. 3:1). Threshing floors and such places were connected with being blessed by God, and this place has been blessed by God.

After looking over the temple we went a little higher onto the roof tops. A couple interesting facts about public spaces and how roof tops are public in the city. Here we further discussed how the rocks we grow up on shape who we are and who we become. Looking back to our own lives, how the places where we grew up have shaped us to who we have become. For me coming from an agricultural community has shaped the way that I appreciate the patterns of weather or noticing or such. My family and community have instilled values and priorities in me both good and not so good.

In the same way Israel was placed in a land, on rocks and that is shaped who they are.  The rocks here produce just enough to live on. Year to year they rely on the rain and the blessings from God to let their crops grow.  But nearby lived the Philistines, nearby was an international trade route where excess was common.  We read Psalm 73 and thought about how it matters where we look. We can look out to the people around us, who seem to have it so easy and good, or we can look the other way, to the rock that God has place us on, to the rock where God established his temple, and remember where God has brought us from and where he is leading us.

One last stop for our afternoon: the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the place believed to be the site where Jesus was crucified and buried. This was fitting for today as early today in church the sermon was about Rosh Hashanah and how we are to remember. There is a tradition that remembers the creation of the world and man on Rosh Hashanah. Inside the church there is a chapel of Adam.  On the orthodox pictures of Christ on the cross always has a skull and cross bones in a hole at the base of the cross. This is to represent Adam who they believe was buried at the same site where Jesus was much later crucified. Whether it is true or not it is a beautiful picture of the second Adam dying to set the first Adam free. (Matthew 27:51-54) There is a crack in the bed rock behind the glass that they believe also came from this event.