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Zion & Bethlehem

 

 

Saturday, October 28

The group views the Mount of Olives from atop Mount Zion.

A beautiful morning began with us visiting a gorgeous observation point on Mount Zion near the home of the high priest Caiaphas. The picture above shows the Mount of Olives rising up from the floor of the Kidron Valley. The group visited in the Church in St. Peter in Gallicantu, built near the traditional site of the house of Caiaphas. We went down into the pit under the church which may have been the cell where Jesus was held during his trial. John Slavcoff sang "Were You There When They Crucified My Lord" once the lights had been lowered.Eric Cargal leads the way down the Escala Sacra beside the Church of St. Peter in Gallicantu. From there we went out onto the Escala Sacra, first century steps that connected the upper part of Jerusalem on Mount Zion to the Pool of Siloam in the valley below. 

Our next stop was the Cenacle, a medieval structure that houses a memorial to King David ("David's Tomb") and the Upper Room which commemorates Jesus' Last Supper with his disciples and the coming of the Spirit on Pentecost. The top floor of the building is a mosque, thus bringing the three monotheistic faiths into the confines of a single building.

Then it was off to Bethlehem. The first stop was at the New Bethlehem Store for shopping (you will have to wait to see if anyone brought something back to you). We then visited the Church of the Nativity.The group views the original Constantinian mosaic floors preserved beneath the floor of the 5th century Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. It is the oldest surviving church in Holy Land, with a continuing string of worship stretching back to the 5th century. The site of the original church was identified by St. Helena in the 4th century. The picture shows the group viewing the original mosaic floors preserved beneath the floors of the reconstructed church. We went down into the grotto of the Nativity beneath the church's altar to see the traditional sites of Jesus' birth and the manger Mary used as a makeshift crib.

We finished our sightseeing after lunch with a visit to the Jerusalem model at the Holy Land Hotel. It helped to fix in our minds the layout of the city in advance of our walking tour of the Old City on Monday. Tomorrow we will be returning to the Jordan Valley for visits to Masada and the Dead Sea for a brief dip in its waters (popularly held to have "healing" qualities).

 

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