We eventually gather inside the main church and are instructed to go to a courtyard outside. The outside light is dazzling and I reach for my sunglasses to keep from going blind. In a group this size, nothing happens quickly. So I wander around the courtyard while everyone shows up.
We are eventually led down another set of stone stairs and by the grates and locks looks like it is generally off limits.
I have no idea what we are going to see but down I go. Everything is very close, the sides of the stone steps going down are barely wider than my shoulders, the doorway into the rooms at the bottom of the stairs is very short.
The ceiling inside does not allow me to stand up straight. It unexpectedly is well lit. It looks like and feels like a cave that has been chiseled out of solid stone.
Each room has features like tables and sitting benches that were hewn from the stone and are integral to the space. Indiana Jolie would not like that with no way to rearrange the furniture.
The cave begins to fill up with our group. It is a bit claustrophobic as the air grows dense with all of us breathing in there. The temperature goes up with all of us burning our recent lunch calories up in this cramped space. It is about as medieval feeling a place as I can ever imagine.
Our American guide, Dr. Wave Nunally begins to tell us about where we are. It is in this very place that St. Jerome translated the Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek New Testament into the Latin Vulgate!
The very stone table that my hand is resting on is where he sat as he translated! The stone benches are where he would have sat. This was so unexpected I am experiencing this brush with antiquity with an incredulous mind. All of the Bible history classes come crashing back and connecting with this place. The idea that I am not just the general area, but the actual spot is a great surprise. This amazes me. No wonder the access is limited. I feel privileged to have been here.
We have a few minutes and I look about, trying to imagine what might be like to live your life in a place like this. Who knows, maybe in its context these were pretty luxurious digs. All of mankind should be grateful for the man who spent his years translating the Word of God for us to hold in our own hands the Bibles that we too often take for granted.
We reemerge into the bright sun and I go for my sunglasses again. We backtrack through the courtyard, down the block, turn left down the long block passing Stars and Bucks and half a dozen falafal shops. The sidewalks remain crowded, the traffic still has to once again come to a stop to allow all of us to cross over to the mall where we parked the buses.
We are told that we are going to the "best" souvenir shop in Israel. I am mildly interested, I am not the kind of person who needs a lot of trinkets to bring home and set on the shelf. We don't travel very far and we are there. It looks like an inner city pawn shop with an iron bar gate and wall in front of the shop. It is unlocked for us and we all shuffle in. We are asked to all assemble at the back of the shop for instructions.
The proprietor tells us that the quality of their offerings are the finest. He explains in much detail as to why they are the best. For us, since we are the best of friends, a special discount today. After 20 minutes, we are turned loose to make our selections. I am interested. A ram's horn shofar - $500 US. Not interested any more. An olive wood hand carved nativity scene, $1,000 US. Not interested any more. I am done looking around after 15 minutes, yet I am trapped in this shop. Many in our group are filling a shopping bag with their choices. They must have many empty shelves at home. I wander around and around. I can't leave. I can't even get back on the bus since the locked door through which we entered is locked behind us. This turns into a very long wait, so long that I begin reading the fine print on the miniature Greek Orthodox icons depicting the saints of the church. I find a huge bin of replica coins of antiquity that strangely look like coins I was offered just earlier today by the pool of Siloam....
I see someone heading out the door of the shop. I follow. I am now a caged animal in a narrow space between the actual front of the shop and the iron grate locking cage that faces the street. There is a space that is about 4 feet by 12 feet that I can pace back and forth. There are a couple of Palestinian men smoking (lots of people smoke here) at one end of the cage. Just on the other side of the cage are hawkers awaiting our exit from the shop with their wares. I have really had enough of this, I could have been totally satisfied after visiting St. Jerome's digs, yet we are told we have much to see yet.
I reenter the shop hoping that everyone is winding down and ready to check out. Most people have enough for their own empty shelves and most of their relatives. I guess they came ready to spend some money. I am ready to leave.
The doors are unlocked for us. I follow someone out the iron security gate and they are set upon by the hawkers. I take this brief opening to squirt by and on to the bus where I hide for what seems like hours until it slowly starts to fill up with our fellow pilgrims. A hawker follows someone on the bus breaking a taboo for which he is soundly rebuked and shooed off the bus by our American guides.
It is not soon enough for me that we slowly pull away from the best gift shop in Israel. We are on our way to the next interesting site....
We wind our way through the maze of narrow streets and busyness that is Jerusalem.
We are heading to Bethlehem which I did not remember is a Palestinian controlled area. Near the infamous security wall we stop and all of our Israeli guides step off the bus. The Palestinians do not allow Israelis to work in their areas. It is frustrating how unequal and double standard everything is. Palestinians can work in Israeli controlled areas, but not the other way around. In all of this, I never heard any of our Israeli guides ever speak in a derogatory manner about the Palestinians.
We move ahead to the security gates that are flanked by guard towers. As you look up into the tower windows you can almost count the multiple layers of bullet proof glass that is inches thick. Men in uniforms carrying automatic weapons walk about and one of our American guides is negotiating our entrance into Bethlehem.
On the other side of the wall, we get new Palestinian guides that enter our bus. I don't care for the situation as we have already spent days with our Israeli guides and have really grown to appreciate them very much. There is almost a feeling of resentment that they are not allowed to be with us because of the politics that exist.
It is interesting that Bethlehem is not far from Jerusalem. All the little maps in the back of my Bible don't really convey this as seeing it in real time. We enter Bethlehem and I am anxious to see the Church of the Nativity. But first things first, it is lunch time.
If anything, the streets of Bethlehem are narrower and busier. We wind around and eventually drive into a parking garage which looks like the lowest floor of a mall of some sort. All the buses pull in and we ascend an escalator (the only ones we will ever see on this trip). Indiana Jolie insists that we need to take the stairs to get some exercise. At this point we do not know that we are averaging walking 5-6 miles a day as someone with a pedometer will announce at the end of our tour. So, exercise we do. Up a long flight of stairs.
We land on the first floor of this mall and it is strangely vacant of stores, a few Palestinian people milling about and then we take another long flight of stairs to the next floor while everyone else takes the escalator. This second floor of the mall has a few more shops and people but we are whisked down a long hallway toward a very large room.
There are large spacious restrooms just before we get there and they become crowded quickly. Entering the large room, there is a large buffet set up, I quickly spot the falafel and schnitzel options and see that there are other things to try as well. We choose a table to sit at with a couple of our friends. We are soon told we cannot sit there but must sit somewhere else. I don't know how we were supposed to know that, but we relocate and await instructions.
Lunch will be $10 per person, US. This will be the cheapest meal we eat in Israel, or Palestine depending on your politics. We are starved. Eventually we are invited to the buffet and we dig in. It is all very good and a nice change from the usual lunch. We can go back if we like and I do.
This level we are on is level with the street outside. We once again take advantage of the facilities and are instructed to follow our guides outside. Bethlehem is tight, busy, hilly and packed with people. We cross a busy street of traffic (all 160 of us) and get on an already packed sidewalk on the other side. We are heading to the Church of the Nativity. I am excited for this.
On our way up the long hill on the crowded sidewalk, Indiana Jolie spies an American style coffee shop, "Stars and Bucks".
"Oh! We must stop and purchase coffee mugs for the staff guys", she says. Two more women in the group think this is a great idea and the three of them go inside. I stay with them except outside keeping an eye on the group in case they disappear. I don't want to wander Bethlehem lost and looking for our tour group.
The rest of our group obediently follows the guides and I nervously pace outside Stars and Bucks hoping I can keep everyone in sight. Several hundred yards up the hill the group takes a right and heads who knows where. I am hoping the girls are finishing their purchases and we can run to catch up before the last of the group turns the corner. I look inside, they are just standing there, the proprietor hasn't even acknowledged them yet. I mention to them in a way that I hope does not reveal my nervousness that the group has headed around a corner and they will soon be out of sight.
The girls insist this will not take long. I go outside to see the last of our group disappear around the corner. Ok. I wait. I pace. I look in once in awhile. This is taking a long time. I see them talking with the proprietor and there are hand motions. One by one they all take their turn purchasing Stars and Bucks merchandise. After some very long minutes the three ladies emerge from Stars and Bucks with their prizes. All I can think is those staff guys better appreciate me risking my life while they drink coffee out of those mugs.
The ladies ask where the group is. I tell them I have no idea. Only now do they seem somewhat worried. We start up the long street at a pace that we hope does not reveal our fear of being left behind. It takes forever to get to the corner. When we do, we discover that they left someone behind to wait for us which brings a lot of anxiety relief.
We go up another hill for a block and then cross the street to our left. Straight ahead they tell us is the Church of the Nativity.
Not impressive at all. There is a large square in front where we all gather and we listen through our little blue listening devices as our guides tell us what this place is all about.
We get in line and wait our turn to go inside. The door is very short. I am six foot almost six inches. The door is maybe five foot high. I have to bend over quite a bit to walk inside. I am told that the door was once much bigger in past centuries but it was blocked off to make it impossible for people to ride into the church on their horses.
Once inside it takes awhile for our eyes to adjust to the very low light. If the outside lacks inspiration, the inside is where they put all of it. The huge columns, the byzantine artwork, the mosaic floor tiling,
the stones polished shiny by the feet of countless pilgrims over the centuries. Ancient stone stairways leading who knows where up and down. All of it has a melancholy feel to it.
We slowly march along in line with people of many different nationalities. We gaze up at the iconic paintings. All of the faces are long and sad. No body smiles in the pictures. The middle ages must have been a very sad time. The adornments of lights and incense burners and beads and brass vessels create an almost carnival appearance in their attempt to venerate the birthplace of Jesus. It is a little odd to see the newish "twisty" style lights in the antique fixtures.
It is too much to take in, there is way too much to see. My inferior little snapshot camera is not up to the task of the darkened spaces.
We are nearing the "grotto" where it is thought the birth of Jesus took place. We begin descending some steps underneath the altar area of the church.
It is strangely familiar as I have seen pictures of this all my life. Down further, we are now under the altar. To the left there is the "manger" where Jesus was laid.
Just ahead the star with the opening in it where some reach their hand down in it to touch the stone beneath where Jesus was born. It is so crowded I wonder if I will even get to see it myself. Then, for just a second, the "grotto" is free of any worshipers and I have my camera ready. I snap what turns out to be a great shot!
The the vacuum of space quickly fills with people again who aggressively move me aside (push me) kneel and bend over prostrate toward the grotto. There is so little room in this area and so many people are here to see what we are seeing. I want to linger and look around and see if I might get a second chance at stooping down to view the birth place. Not a chance. Our worshiping fellow pilgrims aren't giving an inch and the crowd continues to surge in. I am forced out the other side of under the altar and back into the regular church.
It all strikes me so different that I could have imagined. I thought I would be fascinated and in awe. The effect is quite different. I for some reason just can't see Jesus pleased with the falderal of it all. Seeing so many treat the icons and other objects and things to worship (venerate) gives me such a feeling of idolatry. I don't want to sit here and be judgmental so I move on.
The Church of the Nativity is controlled by (overseen? owned?) by three sects of Christianity. The Armeanin Church controls the nativity grotto, the Greek Orthodox Church controls the main church and the Catholic Church controls what we will see next which is more surprising and fascinating than I ever expected.
We travel south through the Lion's Gate and down a steeply downward narrow street (all the city streets are narrow) which could have been a time warp back to the time of the Crusades. We pass beneath the Temple Mount and just above the innumerable graves on both sides of the Kidron Valley. Our destination is the City of David.
We continue to wind our way through the narrow passages as we continue to descend. We reach a very interesting area that looks quite fun.
There are restrooms here and they are soon crowded with our groups. There are little tourist shops with pictures, trinkets, olive wood carvings and ice cream. Someone found a shop that produces espresso and iced coffee. The servings are interestingly small, much smaller than you would expect to receive in most places in the USA for the same kind of money. It reminds we of how accustomed we are to "supersized" everything including ourselves. It is getting warm and we are mostly in the sun. This area is built over some steep ground and we walk on decking the whole time. I duck into some shade areas and wait as our group meanders through the shops. For some reason I have no interest in the kitschy offerings.
We arrive at the City of David. I had always heard that King David was considered to be "legendary" like King Arthur of England, that outside of the Bible, there was no direct evidence that David was an actual person. This is not true. Way back on our first day of our tour in Tel-Dan we have seen the actual antiquity references to David as a real person. We are now going to experience David's Jerusalem, or the city as it was in David's day. Essentially, it extends from the Temple Mount's southern wall and further south until it ends at the Pool of Siloam at the juncture of the Kidron Valley and what is called the Central Valley at the most southern point. There are plenty of rocks that get our attention. Indiana Jolie and I snap away with our cameras. Just wait until we get underground! Many rocks in dim light! It is too much to resist.
Jerusalem has changed sizes over the centuries depending on who was king and what the fortunes of the Jews happened to be at the time. It was usually defined by the wall of Jerusalem which at times included more land and at times less land depending on the situation at the time. Relatively, the size of Jerusalem was quite small in David's day.
Not all of the city of David can be excavated as where the like sites of David's palace and other important locations are presently under some private homes and it would take great cost to not only purchase them but also to excavate them. For budding archaeologists like Indiana Jolie, it is tantalizing to imagine what finds await there.
Our Israeli guide, Eli Sukron tells us that this is his life's work, or at least 18 years he spent being the main archaeologist working on the excavation of the City of David. We are told that the Jerusalem that David knew was originally 24 feet underneath the present level of the unexcavated surface. So much of the archaeology was to remove all of the 24 feet of dirt and detritus of the intervening centuries to get at the level of King David's reign.
To get an idea of what this area might have looked like before excavations began, earlier in the same area, Eli, our guide shows us an area with the same amount of overburden that has not yet been excavated and at the bottom are some Roman era (1st century) steps going to who knows where.
On the south side of the City of David is more privately owned property so the excavation is actually squeezed in between these two areas. We are on top of all of this so we get in line to walk down innumerable stairs that begins outside and then enters the earth where the excavations have taken place. It is cooler and dark underground.
There is some lighting that allows you to see massive stones that formed some of the walls of David's Jerusalem. It is amazing to see all of this that was buried for centuries.
We enter "Hezakiah's Water Tunnel" which our Israeli guide tells us was not actually Hezakiah's water tunnel, but the water shaft by which David's men were able to enter the city of the Jebusites and defeat them (2 Samuel 5:6-8).
It is a long, dark, narrow and short passage that is extremely interesting to experience. The Gihon Spring still holds water which would have fed the Pool of Siloam which we will talk about later.
We spend a lot of time underground and descend many, many stairs of which I know we will have to ascend eventually. It is worth it, after the confusing and disappointing experience on the Temple Mount, this is thrilling and absorbing.
No religious ideology here to spoil things. There is so much information being disseminated that I have no chance to preserve a fraction of it. Hopefully the pictures will do some justice to the awe and excitement of this very ancient place.
We do eventually begin to climb the hundreds of stairs on our way back up. Still so much to see. We end up where we started in this little village of shops on the decks overlooking the Kidron Valley on top of the City of David. I would suggest "googling" City of David and especially see the "Images" section to get an understanding of my tepid descriptions.
Now we "get it" a little better and for the first time, I enter the City of David gift shop with some interest. There are two pictures that are of special interest. One of them is a picture of our Israeli guide, Eli's hand. The first is a small gold bell, about the size and shape of a hazelnut. This bell would have belonged to the High Priest and would have been fastened to the hem of his priestly robe. It is a unique find of Jewish related archaeology. The other picture is also of a unique find. It is what Eli calls a "temple ticket".
It has some very small Hebrew writing on it that is translated "pure to God". This ticket was given to a Jewish pilgrim who was going to the temple to offer their sacrifice. Before he would be permitted to enter the temple, he would have to wash in the Pool of Siloam to cleanse himself ceremonially. When he had done so, he would be given a "ticket" to present to the priest at the temple. Indiana Jolie purchased a necklace that was made in the size and likeness of this ticket at this gift shop. It is a nice memory.
We descend another flight of stairs to go to the road that continues our journey south, away from the Temple Mount. There is a jumble of what looks like homes, walls, power poles, hedges.
We walk past a small group of young men dressed nicely, Palestinian is my guess. They are very friendly and one tells me he attended school in the US. I think to myself, hmm... very nice people. Our guides tell us to turn right into what the signs tell us is the Pool of Siloam.
This is a relatively recent discovery. Once again, our guide Eli Sukron made this discovery. There were plans to turn this area into some kind of development, but as is quite common in Jerusalem anytime they stick a shovel in the ground they find something. Such was the case. Eli was called to supervise the excavation of the area. On the first day, the bulldozer was skinning off the top layer of dirt and the blade struck a stone. It was obviously a paving stone so Eli called a halt to the excavation and they eventually began a dig here which Eli identified as the Pool of Siloam.
There are step like stones here which provide ample seating for our group. Once again, it is hot and there is very little shade. Having to wear long sleeves and pants make this additionally uncomfortable.
This place too is fascinating. In excavating the pool, they also discovered a tunnel that was once the Central Valley. It was once open to the sky but over the years numerous bridges over the valley (it wasn't a big valley, more of a big ditch) finally connected and the valley became a tunnel.
When they discovered this, there were still cooking pots and artifacts left from Jews who used this place as a hiding spot when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem in 70 A.D. It was a literal time capsule from that terrible time. This tunnel was the path that Jewish pilgrims used to go to the temple after their cleansing so they could avoid being defiled on their way.
We are allowed to look around a bit but the heat is persuading me toward the bus. As I leave the Pool area, that nice young Palestinian man engages me. Would I like to purchase some ancient coins? he asks. I inwardly groan, I was a sucker. He set me up. I cut to the chase. "How much?" Only $200 US is his answer. I tell him there is no way I can buy his coins. I walk with determination toward the buses which are not far away. He cuts me off. The new price, $190 US. I say, I do not have $190 to buy his coins and move toward the buses. It is a series of being cut off, offered a lower price until it is $40 US as I am boarding the bus. There is no way to tell if the coins are genuine. I am not interested in buying coins on the street from a Palestinian young man. He does not hide his disgust of me refusing his coins. "I have a wife and young children to feed! He tells me. I need to buy my babies milk, we have no milk in the house." I get on the bus which is an understood safe haven from hawkers. He leaves me to offer his coins to someone else. I really don't like getting hawked on the street by these aggressive salesmen.
The buses load and we are off to Bethlehem. That sounds like an exciting prospect. But before we see anything else, it is time for lunch. I like that idea.
