city of david

I feel like at this point in the semester everything I say is just going to sound really nerdy and boring because of everything we're learning. But I'll do my best to make it somewhat entertaining. Today we went to the City of David. This is what would be known as original Jerusalem. It is just south of the Old City today.

This would be the millo. It's a step stone structure that helps support the large stone structure that was probably David's palace. Pretty significant when we're talking about archeology. Hence, the picture of Dr. Chadwick teaching.

Standing behind us is the Temple Mount. The place where Abraham came to sacrifice Isaac, the place where Solomon's temple was built, and today where the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque stand. From this small city is what grew to be the Jerusalem we know today. A lot of this was because of what David did as king. Although he made some mistakes along the way, it's remarkable when he was able to accomplish and the life that he led.



I'm still waiting on getting a few pictures of the most exciting part of the day which was Hezekiah's Tunnel! In preparation for attacks from the Assyrians Hezekiah fortified the city by building new walls and by ensuring that the city would have water by creating a tunnel. You can walk in it today for a good 30 min or so and the water is about knee level. It was quite the adventure! It's really dark in there so we had to make sure we had lights and the people I was with had a little bit too much fun so we ended up getting a lot more wet than just to our knees.

 

At the end of the tunnel is Siloam's pool. You may be familiar with the story in John 9 where Jesus meets a blind man at the temple, anoints his eyes with wet clay and then tells him to wash in the pool of Siloam? Yup, this is the place. This was the first time that we really talked about the miracles that Jesus performed since we're still in Old Testament so it was exciting to really dive into his life for a minute. It's actually quite far that the man had to travel which for me shows such great faith!