Certainly the most valuable real estate in the world is the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The Temple Mount is so-called because that is where King Solomon originally built the Jews' Temple. After the Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians, in 586 B.C., it was rebuilt by the Jews, upon their return from exile in Babylon. Just before the time of Jesus, King Herod dismantled this Second Temple in order to rebuild it on a grand scale. No sooner had it been completed when it was destroyed in the uprising of the Jews against Roman rule, but the artificially-constructed mount on which the Temple was built remains.
What remains of the Temple complex is the retaining wall that Herod had built in order to expand what had been a natural holy mount, referred to as Mount Moriah. This is where, it is believed, Abraham was ready to sacrifice his son Isaac, at the command of God. It was also where, at the time of King David, the threshing floor of Aruanah the Jebusite was located, where God had an angel halt a tribulation sent on Jerusalem. The tradition of a sacred mount reflects back to Mount Sinai, where Moses received the Ten Commandments.
Moslems split from Jews in that they believe that it was Abraham's older son, Ishmael, that he was willing to sacrifice in order to obey God. Moslems refer to the Temple Mount as the Noble sanctuary, and believe that the rock at the top of Mount Moriah, upon which Abraham was willing to sacrifice his son in order to obey God, was also the spot from which Muhammad later ascended to heaven.
The prominent structure over that spot today is the mosque, known as the Dome of the Rock. The rock, within the Dome of the Rock, upon which so much is believed to have happened, is called the Foundation Stone. My understanding is that the Foundation Stone was the top of the former Mount Moriah. There is a cave, next to the Foundation Stone within the Dome of the Rock, known as "The Well of Souls". The Temple Mount, aside from it's importance to Jews and Christians, is also the third holiest place in Islam, after Mecca and Medina.
The New Testament refers to a people called Samaritans. They were a mixed-race people generally disliked by Jews. There were twelve tribes of Israel that had split into two nations. The ten in the north were known as Israel. The tribes of Judah and Benjamin in the south were known as Judah. About 740 B.C. Assyria conquered Israel, and scattered most of the population around the Assyrian Empire. These are known as the Ten Lost Tribes, and were never heard from again. In their place, the Assyrians settled people from elsewhere in their empire. By the time of Jesus, these people had intermixed with the remaining Jews and were known as Samaritans, after the region of Samaria. Samaritans are still around today, and follow what they believe is the real Jewish religion, which was supposedly not contaminated by the Babylonian exile of Judah. Samaritans believe that it is Mount Gerizim, not the Temple Mount, that is sacred.
Let's start by having a look at the Old City of Jerusalem. There is a wall around the Old City, which was not there in biblical times but was built much later, by the Ottomans in the Sixteenth Century. We will start by looking at churches and important locations outside the wall, then we will look at the wall and the Old City within, and finally at the Temple Mount which has it's own walls. The retaining wall around the Temple Mount itself was built in biblical times, just before the coming of Jesus, and is thus much older than the wall around the Old City.
Just east of the walled Old City of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount is the Kidron Valley, and on the opposite side of that is the Mount of Olives that is referenced a number of times in the Bible. To the west and south of the Old City is the modern city of Jerusalem. Here is a view across the Old City, looking eastward, with the golden dome of the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount, and the Mount of Olives in the distance:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_City_(Jerusalem)#/media/File:Old_City_(Jerusalem).jpg
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This is the Chapel of the Ascension, on the Mount of Olives, where Jesus is believed to have left for Heaven:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chapel_of_the_Ascension_(Jerusalem)#/media/File:5035-20080122-jerusalem-mt-olives-ascension-edicule.jpg
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Here is the Church of Mary Magdalene, who was Jesus' foremost female disciple, built by Czar Alexander III in 1886. It is in the Kidron Valley, between the Temple Mount and the Mount of Olives. Notice the resemblance to the design of St. Basil's Cathedral in the Kremlin:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_Mary_Magdalene#/media/File:Church_of_Mary_Magdalene1.jpg
Near the Church of Mary Magdalene is the Church of All Nations which was built on, or near, Gethsemane, where Jesus did his prayers before being arrested. This church was opened in 1924, but there had been earlier structures on the site:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_All_Nations#/media/File:Jerusalem_Church_of_all_nations_BW_7.jpg
The wall around the Old City of Jerusalem was built by the Ottomans in the Sixteenth Century, and is one of the main tourist sights there. There was no wall, where the present wall is now, in biblical times.
Let's start in the northwestern corner of the old city and have a look at the attractive gates, moving clockwise as seen from above.
This is the New Gate, to the Christian Quarter of the Old City, when it was first opened:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Gate#/media/File:Jerusalem-new_gate.jpg
Here is the Damascus Gate, so named because it is toward the road to Damascus:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damascus_Gate#/media/File:Jerusalem_Damaskustor_BW_1.jpg
The Lions Gate is in the east wall, facing toward the Mount of Olives:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lions%27_Gate#/media/File:LionsGate_Jerusalem.JPG
The Dung Gate is in the southern wall around the Old City of Jerusalem:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dung_Gate#/media/File:Jerusalem_Dungtor_BW_1.JPG
The Zion Gate is also in the southern wall:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zion_Gate#/media/File:Jerusalem_Ziongate_BW_4.JPG
The Jaffa Gate is in the western side of the wall around the Old City of Jerusalem. This is not the same thing as the so-called "Western Wall", which is the Jewish site of worship. That refers to the western retaining wall around the Temple Mount, which is within the Old City. The wall around the Old City is different from the retaining wall around the Temple Mount, which is within the Old City. The exception is the east side, facing the Kidron Valley and the mount of Olives, where the two walls are one and the same.
The Tower of David does not refer to the towering structure built near it, which is a minaret from Ottoman times. The Tower of David is the remains of an ancient citadel that dates to long before the time of Jesus. It was named for King David, but was not built until after his time:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaffa_Gate#/media/File:Jaffa_Gate_and_Tower_of_David.jpg
This is the remains of the Tower of David, within the Old City of Jerusalem, with the adjacent Ottoman minaret:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_David#/media/File:Tower_of_david_jerusalem.jpg
The Old City of Jerusalem is divided into four quarters, from north of the Temple Mount to south are the Moslem, Christian, Armenian and, Jewish Quarters. In the Christian Quarter is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_the_Holy_Sepulchre#/media/File:The_Church_of_the_Holy_Sepulchre-Jerusalem.JPG
The present structure of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is about a thousand years old. But a structure on the site dates back to when the first Roman Emperor who was a Christian, Constantine, sent his mother, Helena, to the Holy Land to identify important religious sites. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is so important because it is actually two adjoined churches, one of which is believed to be built over the site of Jesus' crucifixion, referred to as Golgotha or Calvary, and the other over the location of his nearby burial site:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_the_Holy_Sepulchre#/media/File:Golgotha_cross-section.svg
Generally, Protestants do not accept these crucifixion and burial sites within the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. A tomb was discovered, cut into the rock some distance away, which was shown to date from around the time of Jesus, and which most Protestants accept as Jesus' actual tomb. This is referred to as the "Garden Tomb". There is also a nearby elevated area that is believed, by Protestants, to be the site of the crucifixion.
Protestants point out that the Bible gives the site of the crucifixion as "outside the city walls". Catholics and Orthodox Christians, who accept the sites within the Church of the Holy Sepulchre as the true crucifixion and burial sites, counter the Protestant position by stating that the sites in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, now within the city walls of the Old City of Jerusalem, would have been outside the city in biblical times because the present city walls were not built until Ottoman times, after the city had grown. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre was built before the Great Schism of 1054, between the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches, and is thus still a point of union between them.
Anyway, have you ever heard the amazing story of "The Immovable Ladder"? Under the right side of the double windows, in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is a wooden ladder.
More than 250 years ago, someone was doing some kind of maintenance work on the building, and forgot to take the ladder. Now, the church is managed by different groups of monks. For any changes to be made, the monks all have to agree on it. Sometimes, the monks do not do very well at agreeing on how to go about doing things. The result is that, for over 250 years, the groups of monks who run the Church of the Holy Sepulchre have not yet come to an agreement about what to do about the ladder under the window. So, there it remains and has become a legend. The first reference to it seems to have been in 1757. The climate is dry, and so the wooden ladder has been preserved. The ladder has been moved temporarily, on at least a few occasions, so that other maintenance work may be done, but must immediately be returned to precisely it's position because all of the monks would have to agree to move it permanently.
Have you ever heard a story like that of The Immovable Ladder?
Now, let's move further inward, to the Temple Mount which is at the southeastern side of the Old City of Jerusalem, all within the walls of the Old City.
The place of worship for Jews is known as the Western Wall. Keep in mind that this does not refer to the wall around the Old City of Jerusalem, but to the western retaining wall of the Temple Mount, which is within the Old City. This is a view, looking eastward, of the Western Wall area, in the foreground, with the golden dome of the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount and the Mount of Olives in the distance:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Wall#/media/File:The_Western_Wall_and_Dome_of_the_rock_in_the_old_city_of_Jerusalem.jpg
There was once a fifth quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, the Moroccan Quarter, which was negotiated to be moved, in order to provide easy access to the Western Wall. Notice that this photo was taken before there were many structures on the Mount of Olives, in the distance, and before the gold covering was put on the Dome of the Rock:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moroccan_Quarter#/media/File:Moroccan-Quarter-Western-Wall-Jerusalem-Old.jpg
On the southwestern wall of the Temple Mount, there was once a staircase that was destroyed in the uprising against Roman rule. It's remains are known today as Robinson's Arch:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robinson%27s_Arch#/media/File:The_remains_of_Robinson%27s_Arch_on_the_western_side_of_the_Temple_Mount.jpg
There used to be a Roman fortress, the Antonia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonia_Fortress#/media/File:P8170052.JPG
King Herod, who built the Temple Mount, also used to have a palace in what is now the Old City. Here is a model of that:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herod%27s_Palace_(Jerusalem)#/media/File:Jerusalem_Modell_BW_10.JPG
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This is a view of the Temple Mount from the south. The ruins in the left foreground, around the corner from Robinson's Arch, are that of a Palace built against the Temple Mount by the Umayyads, the first major caliphate of Islam: The Umayyads also built both of the mosques on the Temple Mount, the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Remember that Islam is the youngest of the world's major religions, it began in the Seventh Century and so was not there in biblical times.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_Mount#/media/File:Jerusalem-2013(2)-Aerial-Temple_Mount-(south_exposure).jpg
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On the south wall of the Temple Mount, there is a set of three gates, as well as a set of two, which are now sealed. These gates, which led to the top of the Temple Mount in biblical times, are known as the Hulda Gates:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gates_of_the_Temple_Mount#/media/File:Hulda_gates.jpg
The Book of the Acts of the Apostles refers to "The Beautiful Gate", but there does not seem to be agreement on exactly which gate that is.
The Golden Gate is also in the east wall, but has been sealed for centuries. This sealed gate has very special meaning to Christians, Moslems and, Jews:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Gate_(Jerusalem)#/media/File:Golden_Gate_Jerusalem_2009.JPG
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There are several gates to the top of the Temple Mount. Since 1967, the Gate of the Moors has been the only gate to the Temple Mount that is used by non-Moslems:
Under the southeastern part of the Temple Mount is an underground area, where the roof is supported by pillars. This is known as Solomon's Stables. We could think of Solomon's Stables as the "basement" of the Temple Mount. The Temple Mount, of course, was built by King Herod just before the time of Jesus, which was nearly a thousand years after the time of Solomon. But the crusaders did use this underground area as stables. Solomon's Stables, now used as a mosque, Al Marwani, are under the corner of the Temple Mount facing the camera, and can still be accessed from the Al Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount:
Due to the Temple Mount being very important to three different religions, archeological excavation is an extremely touchy issue. The Ark of the Covenant, the portable shrine carried by the Jews, was likely destroyed in the Babylonian destruction of the Temple, and carrying off of the Jews into exile, in 586 B.C. Nevertheless, there are those who believe that it was hidden somewhere, or escaped destruction, and is still waiting to be discovered. Theories such as this are helped along by the fact that there were tunnels and underground passages built into the Temple Mount, and there are extensive caves in the limestone of the area.
The most prominent structure on the Temple Mount is the Islamic Dome of the Rock. This is a very old structure, finished in 691, and is one of the oldest examples of Islamic architecture. This is the outside of the Dome of the Rock. The words in Arabic are lecturing Christians about believing that Jesus is the Son of God:
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Inside the Dome of the Rock this is known as the Foundation Stone, upon which so much is believed to have taken place, the stone on which Abraham was believed to be willing to sacrifice his son, the place where the Angel of God called a halt to a plague on Jerusalem and, the spot from which Muhammad ascended to Heaven:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dome_of_the_Rock#/media/File:The_rock_of_the_Dome_of_the_Rock_Corrected.jpg
The Dome of the Rock, which was influenced itself by earlier Byzantine architecture, has had great architectural influence across the world. One building that I have never seen mentioned is the Aquarium building of Niagara Falls, NY. Just as the nearby casino building, formerly the Convention Center, with it's window face on the vertical drop from the structural arch is a reflection of the Hagia Sophia, also constructed by the Byzantines.
The Dome of the Rock, which was influenced itself by earlier Byzantine architecture, has had great architectural influence across the world. One building that I have never seen mentioned is the Aquarium building of Niagara Falls, NY. Just as the nearby casino building, formerly the Convention Center, with it's window face on the vertical drop from the structural arch is a reflection of the Hagia Sophia, also constructed by the Byzantines.
One fact that often gets overlooked is that the smaller dome adjacent to the Dome of the Rock, known as the Dome of the Chain, was constructed as a scale model for the construction of the Dome of the Rock, and left in place afterward:
-Temple_Mount-Dome_of_the_Chain_(south_exposure).jpg){kind=link}
This is the other mosque on the Temple Mount, the Al Aqsa Mosque. When the Crusaders arrived, in the Thirteenth Century, some thought that this was Solomon's Temple:
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Here are some scenes on and around the Temple Mount. There are two levels of the Temple Mount, joined by stairs, with the northern section a little bit higher than the southern section. The gold-domed Dome of the Rock is on the higher northern section, and the Al-Aqsa Mosque is on the lower southern section. The first scene is inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque:
SPIRITUAL THEORY OF ESAU AND THE TEMPLE MOUNT
I have a spiritual theory about the construction of the Temple Mount.
The first Temple was built by King Solomon, on Mount Moriah. That temple was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 B.C. When the Jews were permitted to return from exile in Babylon, after Babylon was conquered by the Persians, they rebuilt the Temple on the same spot. This is known as the Second Temple, or the Temple of Zerubbabal. My understanding is that Zerubbabal would have been in line to be the king of the Jews, except that the country was now ruled by the Persians.
The Second Temple stood for over four hundred years until, near the time of Jesus, King Herod undertook to dismantle the Second Temple in order to rebuild it on a grand scale. To accomplish this, he enlarged Mount Moriah by building a massive retaining wall around it, and then filling in the gap. These retaining walls are the walls around the Temple Mount (not those around the Old City) that we see today. Herod's Temple itself is gone, it was destroyed by the Romans when the Jews rebelled against their rule not long after it had been completed, but the Temple Mount remains.
Jesus had prophecied that the Temple would be so destroyed that "not even one stone would remain upon another", which the religious leaders thought was ludicrous. My understanding is that, during the Jewish rebellion against Roman rule, several decades after the time of Jesus, the wooden parts of the Temple caught fire. The heat melted the gold in the Temple, some of which flowed down amidst the foundation stones. After the fire went out, Roman soldiers searching for gold pried the foundation stones apart so that indeed, "not one stone in the structure remained upon another".
Jesus had prophecied that the Temple would be so destroyed that "not even one stone would remain upon another", which the religious leaders thought was ludicrous. My understanding is that, during the Jewish rebellion against Roman rule, several decades after the time of Jesus, the wooden parts of the Temple caught fire. The heat melted the gold in the Temple, some of which flowed down amidst the foundation stones. After the fire went out, Roman soldiers searching for gold pried the foundation stones apart so that indeed, "not one stone in the structure remained upon another".
Herod's rule was not liked by the Jewish people. The country was part of the Roman Empire. Herod had gained power, with Roman help disposing the last of the Hasmoneans (or Maccabeans), who had freed Israel from Seleucid rule to bring about a country that was independent, for the first time in centuries, until the Romans arrived.
The trouble was that Herod wasn't really Jewish. He was an Idumean, which had been formerly known as Edom and which the Hasmoneans had forcibly converted to Judaism. Remember that, in the Book of Genesis, the Edomites were descendants of Esau, who was the older brother of Jacob from whom the Jews were descended. In the famous story Jacob, with the help of his mother Rebekah, had disguised himself in order to trick their father Isaac (the son of Abraham, who Abraham had been earlier willing to sacrifice on the rock atop Mount Moriah in order to prove that he was perfectly obedient to God) into giving him the blessing instead of his older brother Esau.
By the way, the Book of Lamentations, which is a description of the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem and the first Temple, in 586 B.C., indicates that "The land of Uz", as described in the Book of Job, is actually Edom. So Edom, the land to the southwest originally settled by Jacob's brother Esau, is actually where the story of Job takes place. Bad feelings between the Edomites and the Israelites also factored in how they cheered the Babylonians on as they were destroying Jerusalem. This is what the single chapter book of the prophet Obadiah is about.
Herod is the one who is described in the Gospels as massacring young boys because he had heard of Jesus' birth as a king, which he considered as a threat to his own rule. Jesus' mother and father took him to safety in Egypt until Herod had died. After Herod's death rule of his kingdom, which was ultimately under Roman rule, was divided among his sons. When Jesus began his ministry, the Herods mentioned at that time were Herod Phillip and Herod Antipas. Another son, Archelaus, ruled over Judea but had proven to be so inept and antagonistic of a leader that Rome replaced him with a governor called a prefect. At the time of Jesus' trial and crucifixion, that prefect was Pontius Pilate.
By the way, the Book of Lamentations, which is a description of the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem and the first Temple, in 586 B.C., indicates that "The land of Uz", as described in the Book of Job, is actually Edom. So Edom, the land to the southwest originally settled by Jacob's brother Esau, is actually where the story of Job takes place. Bad feelings between the Edomites and the Israelites also factored in how they cheered the Babylonians on as they were destroying Jerusalem. This is what the single chapter book of the prophet Obadiah is about.
Herod is the one who is described in the Gospels as massacring young boys because he had heard of Jesus' birth as a king, which he considered as a threat to his own rule. Jesus' mother and father took him to safety in Egypt until Herod had died. After Herod's death rule of his kingdom, which was ultimately under Roman rule, was divided among his sons. When Jesus began his ministry, the Herods mentioned at that time were Herod Phillip and Herod Antipas. Another son, Archelaus, ruled over Judea but had proven to be so inept and antagonistic of a leader that Rome replaced him with a governor called a prefect. At the time of Jesus' trial and crucifixion, that prefect was Pontius Pilate.
Let's briefly review how spiritual justice works, by reviewing the order of Jacob's own sons. One of Jacob's twelve sons would become the leader over the others, and each one would form a tribe. The oldest son was Reuben. He still formed one of the twelve tribes, but he forfeited his leadership role by later getting together with his father's concubine, Bilhah. Simeon and Levi were the next two in line but they forfeited their leadership roles with their massacre of the town of Shechem, in vengeance after their sister Dinah had been raped there. This left the fourth-born son, Judah, to inherit the leadership. Indeed, Judah became the leading tribe of Israel so that all Israelites became known as Jews.
With this in mind, shouldn't we expect that there would be some kind of spiritual justice brought to Jacob and Rebekah's deception and taking of Isaac's blessing from Esau? The deception may have had God's sanction, but it was still a deception.
Could it be spiritual justice for this deception that the Jews, the descendants of Jacob, were to be ruled over for a time by Herod, who was a descendant of Esau? This included having the Temple dismantled and rebuilt by this descendant of Esau. Furthermore, the enlarging of the sacred Mount Moriah, by Herod, represented the restoration of Esau back to the blessing of the Promised Land. The much-enlarged Temple had to be completed to represent this bringing back of Esau, even though the Temple was destroyed not long after.
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