Today, we spent all morning at the Israel Museum, which is over near the Knesset, the “Congress” of Israel. Our first stop was a huge model (1000 meters square) of ancient Jerusalem, as it would have been in 66 CE. The model is a memorial, constructed between 1964-69 by the owner of the Holy Land Hotel, who built it as a legacy. When it was begun, Israelis could not go into the Old City of Jerusalem. This is because it was in the country of Jordan at the time. But, by the time the model was finished, the Six Day War had concluded nearly 2 years earlier, and the city of Jerusalem had changed hands.
The wall of the city was built in three sections. The first section was constructed by King Solomon. Herod the Great built the second section, and King Herod Agrippa I built the 3rd section, which was north and northeast of the Temple complex. When the Romans attacked, they broke through the newest section of the wall, as it was not as well-built as the older sections, despite being newer.
It was great to see in one large model the many places we have visited this week, or the ruins of them, at least.
There are a few inaccuracies in this model:
They have a tomb marked as David’s Tomb and it is not. His tomb would have been in the city of David, not in the upper city. Same with the Tomb of Huldah in front of the Southern wall. Excavations have occurred in that area, looking for a grave, and none has been found. Huldah was a famous Jewish prophetess, who lived in the 7th century BCE, around the time of King Josiah. In Judaism, she is regarded as one of the seven women prophets, and reportedly descended from Joshua as well as being a relative of Jeremiah.
Another error in the model is that one gate of the Southern face’s triple gate is missing. When they made the model, they did not realize that the sacrificial animals went through one of those gates of the triple gate. Archeologists have since learned that this is true.
On the south side there was a single gate in the city wall, the Essene Gate. In 25 BCE the Essenes withdrew from the Sanhedrin, along with the disciples of Hillel the Elder, to Qumran. This coincided with the period that the faction called Shammai took power on the Sanhedrin and enacted the 18 Edicts. We don’t even have a copy of them, but those extraneous “burdens” as Jesus called them, were reviled by the non-Shammai priests as well. Note what He said in Luke 11:46 - - -
“Woe to you as well, experts in the Law! You weigh men down with heavy burdens, but you yourselves will not lift a finger to lighten their load!”
The story of how the House of Shammai took over the Sanhedrin is a sorry tale, and you can find it in the “Shabbat Chapter 1” section of the Mishnah and also in the Tosefta. Those who wrote these documents described that time as “a day worse than the Golden Calf” incident, which is very heavy indictment.
But, back to the model. I’m getting off-track, as usual….
The pools of Bethesda were on the eastern wall near the north, just above the temple complex. The name “Bethesda” means - - house of healing. The infirm could not enter the city walls, and for this reason the pool was outside the original city walls. Many miracles of healing occurred there. The pool is referenced in John 5:2. Just below those miraculous waters was Birket Israel, the Sheep Pool, as both of these were near what was called The Sheep Gate.
Also north of the Temple Complex is where Jeremiah’s Grotto was located in the past. Our tour leader believes this is the location of the Crucifixion. It has also been called Place of the Skull or Skull Hill. This is actually one of the three peaks of Mount Moriah, the other two being where the Temple was located and … well, I can’t think of it right now. I’ll come edit this post and fill it in later.
The Royal Stoa was a portico at the Southern end of the Temple complex although, another inaccuracy, it did not have a tile roof, though it is pictured with one on the model.
Ok, so after we finished outside with the model, we went inside to what is called the Room of the Book, which is where we saw fragments of (replicas) and learned about the Dead Sea Scrolls.
There has been some controversy over the years whether or not they were written in Qumran or if they were written in Jerusalem and brought there? Regardless, they were written in the 2nd century BCE to the 1st century BCE.
The Dead Sea scrolls contained fragments of every Tanakh book, except the Book of Esther. Apparently, it was controversial back then also. There was great discussion, years later, as to whether or not to include Esther in the Tanakh canon.
Fragments from 1 and 2 Maccabees were found there among the caves of Qumran as well. There were some others found, books that did not make it into the final Tanakh, 24 books. Only the Ethiopian Church has included the Books of Enoch in its canon, but it was found as a Dead Sea Scroll.
Before 1947, our oldest scrolls were from the 10th century CE, a Codex (moving from parchment, cut into segments and glued onto actual pages). The Aleppo Codex was the oldest, found in a synagogue in Aleppo, Syria.
The Aleppo Codex is very accurate, down to the vowels, as accurate as humanly possible. This Codex is here at the Israel Museum. The Aleppo is missing some books, because in 1948, the Muslims set that synagogue on fire. Most of the Aleppo Codex was saved, but not all of it.
A second codex, the Leningrad, is slightly younger. This one is in … you guessed it, Leningrad (Russia).
(Andrew Roth shared about a 464 BCE date for an Aramaic scroll that is older than the Aleppo. It contains 4 of the 5 Torah books, but some in the 500s CE fill those gaps. A 550 CE manuscript of 1 and 2 Maccabees was found in Aramaic as well.)
Here is an old article from New Yorker magazine, which our guide said was a great source for the backstory of the Dead Sea scrolls. Many miracles brought the scrolls to light back in 1947 and the years following.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1955/05/14/the-scrolls-from-the-dead-sea
There is also a follow-up article, written a fourteen years later by the same reporter.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1969/03/22/i-the-dead-sea-scrolls-1969
After we left the Room of the Book, we went on a whirlwind tour through another part of the museum. I could have stayed there all day! See all the photos on my Facebook page, Resplendent Daughter Ministries.
We left the museum a little after noon and rode on our bus to the Mehane Yehuda, a large Jewish outdoor market, colloquially called “The Shuk”. This evening Shabbat begins. So, as we were there in the final hours before the market closed for Shabbat, it was VERY busy! We stayed and shopped for about an hour and a half, and then went for a walk back to the hotel.
Despite our excellent guides, the seven of us in our group got lost. We went a little out of our way, but we made it. Surely was a hot walk, however.
Tonight, in just a little while, we will have the Kabbalat Shabbat service, a brief service that initiates the celebration of Shabbat, and then dinner.
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