Day 7 Part 3

We board the buses which now take us deeper into Jerusalem.  I am so turned around and there are no landmarks by which I can identify our location.  All the buildings in Jerusalem are required by law to be faced with sandstone.  I do not know the reason for this, but it makes all the buildings blend together in a way that one street very much looks like another and one place like the place you just left.  We wind around the narrow streets until we can see part of the wall of Jerusalem.  I have a little idea of where I am now.

We pull up to a long series of stairs (surprise!) that lead up to the wall of Jerusalem.  We all disembark from our buses and begin the ascent of these stairs which lead us to "Jaffa Gate".  I love the Jaffa Gate area.  

It is a significant place in the history of Jerusalem.  The main sea trade route from Joppa, which is how Jaffa is spelled in our Bibles, ended here.  It is also where Dr. Marc Turnage believes Jesus was actually crucified on the cross.  There is a number of reasons to believe this.  First, Jaffa Gate was probably the busiest gate in Jerusalem traffic wise.  The Romans wanting to make maximum impact with a public execution would choose a location like this.  It is also close to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre where Dr. Turnage also believes the actual tomb of Jesus is (was) located.  There are other reasons as well, but it is a fascinating idea.  Once again, the Jaffa Gate we walk through is from much later times, the one Jesus walked through is many feet below us.  

Jaffa Gate opens to the "Jewish Quarter" of Jerusalem.  In the next couple of days this area will be one in which we will spend some time and get to feel like we "know" it a little bit.  There is a bustling market, little restaurants a large open square and lots and lots of people walking back and forth.  I don't know how they found them, but there are restrooms just inside the gate and up a very narrow set of stone stairs that turns a couple of corners.  Two people across pretty much fills the stairway.  Those going up and those going down the stairs have to do a dance as nobody seems to get the idea that those going up stay to their left and those going down stay to their left.  It must be a foreign concept.  The restrooms are not the best public restrooms I have ever been in.  I don't think the people who clean them have been here yet this year.  Once again, it appears that it never entered the minds of those who designed the restrooms to use angles and corners for privacy.  There is too much openness for my comfort.  Getting everybody in and out of the restrooms takes a lot of time. 

I took my turn at the restrooms early so once I danced my way down the stairs I had a little time to look around.  The buildings of course are faced with sandstone which is pockmarked up and down the street.  

These are the reminders of the 6 day war that Israel fought for control of Jerusalem in 1967.  The pockmarks are bullet holes.  Right where we are standing was a battle front.  Hard to imagine with all the people walking back and forth at the moment.  

There is a wagon wheeled cart full of all kinds of bread, all kinds except bagels.  I was hoping for a bagel but there are none to be found.  There are a lot of people setting up speakers and music equipment in the square.  As we walk around later we will see this kind of activity all over old Jerusalem, there is obviously some kind of music festival about to take place.  It would be fun to hang around and take it in, but we have an agenda so off we go.  

To say we take a circuitous route would be a huge understatement.  We plunge into the Jewish quarter market which is crowded beyond belief.  The space between the two sides of the market is maybe ten feet wide where people walk.

There are thousands of people some going uphill some going down.  The wares of the merchants spill into the narrow street making the going even more narrow.  Add to that, the occasional delivery person making deliveries by a push cart four feet wide, piled high with more wares and it is a crazy, crowded, loud, jostling plunge of culture that was exciting and fun.  

In spite of the crowded conditions, we are trying to follow our guides through this market.  We take what seems like a random right turn and then a random left turn.  We go up stairs, we go down stairs.  Some streets are covered, some are open to the air.  It is a maze and I am lost beyond any sense of direction.  We come to another covered section of street that is for the moment a little less madly busy somewhat off the main areas of travel.  In the middle of this street are what look like two "wells" that are covered with plexiglass and lit by bulbs descending down about 20 feet.  

 What we are looking at through these two portals is what would be the actual street level that Jesus would have walked upon.  There is nothing really to see other than the rock surface at the bottom.  

Not far from here is a broad staircase that descends about the same distance down to a landing from which you can stare into the darkness at a stone "gate" with a round top indicating it is of pre-Roman construction.  This also dates from the 1st century - from Jesus' time.  The connection of being present at an actual place where Jesus could have been, likely could have been is significant.  To see an actual surface that Jesus saw makes you feel a little like a time traveler.  

In the same area was an exposed portion of Hezakiah's "broad wall" that still survives and would have been the wall of Jerusalem that Jesus would have seen.  

Such antiquity is amazing on one hand and so business as usual on the other.  Having been in Israel for seven days at this point and having seen so many amazing archaeological wonders, it is still a little overwhelming.  We aren't done with the overwhelming part of the day as we come to the museum of the "burnt house".