Today we started with a quick orientation and then a hike along the current wall that surrounds the old city. This gave us views like this:

We hiked along the wall from the Jaffa Gate, passed the New Gate, the Damascus Gate and to the Herod Gate. This wall was built no later than 1538 but some parts of it are older. It is definitely more Turk/Medieval than the wall in Jesus’ time, but still amazing.

We then caught a bus and left the old city to go to the Mount of Olives. We caught glimpses of the desert/wilderness to the East of Jerusalem on our way to the range called “Mt of Olives.” You can see the olive trees and a massive old cemetery that define the hills from the rest of the region. From there, you can get a spectacular view back looking at David’s city (left) and the old city, along with the Temple Mount and the two valleys that make Jerusalem such a valuable asset to control, influentially and defensively.

From there we headed to the Israel Museum in West Jerusalem (Israeli-controlled but disputed by the UN) and it was an archaeological nerd fest (which I loved). Here’s some photos:

The oldest known inscription of David in an extrabiblical text.

The oldest fragments of Scripture we have.

An Assyrian victory motif after a victorious battle against Israel.

Herod the Great’s coffin.

A crucified ankle bone with the nail still intact.

The Moses seat.

They had the most incredible model of Jerusalem circa 70AD before the Romans destroyed the whole city (and temple) which gave tremendous context to Jesus’ last days and Passion Week.

Read about it here.

Today was great. Pray for those in the group dealing with new climate/food stuff. Tomorrow we start with our 11 day chronological walk through of Jesus’ life/ministry accompanied by the study we’ve been doing for the past 10 months and a notebook filled with our trip leader’s life work (Steve Hudson). We start in Herodium/Bethlehem and end at the baptism site. Thanks again for allowing this trip – can’t wait to preach this stuff when we get to Luke in the fall!