Jerusalem - Southern Steps, Pool of Bethesda

Other than a few walking tours in large cities, we haven’t used the services of guides on this trip in order to save money.  Due to the wealth of information available on the internet and free audio guides in some places, we’ve been able to research each area we’ve visited, and I’m pleased with our performance as self-guided, amateur historians.  It helps that I’m  a certified history geek, and while I’ve suffered through many an eye-roll while examining two-thousand year old piles of rubble, my dauntless pursuit of the enthusiastic, historical education of my children will not be deterred.  Israel, however, made us a little nervous.  Even though we planned to stay for a month in different areas of the country, we were worried about missing significant locations or stories surrounding famous areas.  The Bible is very important to our family, and we wanted to immerse ourselves in the narrative that shows God’s love for his creation in the land of His chosen people.  We also wanted to find a good deal on an olive wood nativity scene, but we got a good tip about those being less expensive in Bethlehem instead of Jerusalem.

Thankfully, Deena found an excellent website which is an aggregate of videos produced about different aspects of the Holy Land, and they feature three teachers, Todd (Mike) Fink, Ray Vander Laan, and David Reagan.  These guys are great, and they’ve become like members of our family as we’ve watched them every night before visiting a new site the following day.  Combined with our own research, these videos have given us the confidence to visit historical sites in Israel without worrying that we might miss something.  We get a kick out of trying to find the exact locations on which our video teachers stood while filming, and it’s exciting to find the small, historical tidbits they point out while teaching about specific places.  We finally got to visit a site that I’ve been excited about for a long time due to the steeping of rich, Biblical history and the enthusiastic teaching from our video professors—the Southern Steps of the Temple Mount.  

I know, what’s the big deal about a set of crumbling stone stairs that lead to nothing more than an impenetrable stone wall?  The steps are part of a huge excavation of the southern corner of the Temple Mount in the Jerusalem Archaeological Park Davidson Center.  We paid a reasonable admission fee and found our way to the visitor center, which provided an excellent orientation to the site and included a film that chronicled a young man’s journey from his small village to the temple in Jerusalem where he changes money, pays the temple tax, buys a goat, purifies himself in a ritual bath and presents his goat to a priest for his sacrifice—just as it would have been done in the early first century.  There was also a small museum which displayed pottery and examples of coins representing thousands of years found on the site and the tiny, amazing seal of Hezekiah found in 2009 and revealed in 2015.  About the size of a fingertip, the seal reads,  “Belonging to Hezekiah [son of] Ahaz King of Judah,”—a big honkin’ deal since this is the first seal of a Judean king to be found on a scientific archeological excavation providing further validity to to the accuracy of the Bible to those who need extra assurance for whatever reason.

Inspired by that discovery, miniscule in size but huge in impact, we entered the archeological site and wandered around for a couple of hours taking in one amazing sight after the other.  We walked along the first-century street with its massive pavers crushed by the falling weight of huge building blocks hurled down by the Romans during their destructive frenzy.  There were the stone booths of the money changers and shop keepers located near a plaza of ritual baths where we stayed for a long time exploring the dusty paths surrounding the complex.  The air was cooler on this day, but there was bright sunshine that warmed patches of the site that managed to escape the towering southern shadows of the Temple Mount.  We walked across a large plaza paved with ornate marble slabs marking the site of a former grand palace of the Umayyad Caliphate, which was built in the seventh century over the top of a Byzantine compound built in the fourth century.  By that time, I was in a state of history fueled euphoria, and the best was yet to come as we came around the corner and finally beheld the Southern Steps.  

Booths of the money changers

Ritual bath

The Romans were here

Southern Steps

These steps were the main causeway to enter the gates of the Temple Mount back in the first century, and Jesus sat here teaching his disciples as he masterfully answered the questions from the Pharisees, Scribes, and Sadducees as they attempted to trick him with words.  After the Resurrection, the events of Pentecost most likely occurred on these steps. It was here that the Apostle Peter certainly gave his famous sermon which resulted in the baptism of three thousand people probably in the huge complex of ritual baths in front of the steps.  These baths have been excavated, and we could see them right in front of us at the base of the steps.  The steps themselves were purposefully made from stone slabs of random widths and heights so that people entering the grounds of the temple would have to concentrate on their ascent and focus on walking slowly and reverently.  There are fifteen songs of ascent in the Psalms, and many believe that the Levites and worshippers would sing these verses as they made their way up the steps into the grounds of the temple.  We chose Psalm 126 to read aloud as we carefully made our way to the top of the steps and sat for a while all by ourselves looking out over Mount Zion to the south and the Mount of Olives to the east.

Top of the Southern Steps with the 

Mount of Olives to the east

After a long break at the Southern Steps, we took our time walking back to the visitor center by way of the paths winding through the many excavations of Byzantine dwellings.  We still had plenty of time before dark, so we stopped long enough for a falafel pita and walked all the way back to the beginning of the Via Dolorosa and the Basilica of St. Anne, which was closed on the day we came into the Old City through the Lions gate.  The archeological excavations on the grounds here revealed the pool of Bethesda where John’s Gospel gives the account of Jesus healing a man who had been sick for thirty-eight years and asked him the question, “Do you want to be made well?”  Jesus healed the man and told him to take up his mat and walk—an act which was looked upon unfavorably due to the act occurring on Shabbat.  The gardens surrounding the basilica were beautiful, and we stopped for a moment to admire the landscaping before proceeding to the incredible site of the pools.

 

Barrier walls 100 BC

Pool of Bethesda

The excavations here are concise and very deep, revealing construction back to the first century BC.  There are huge retaining walls built around the larger pools that were constructed for the temple water supply.  There is also a large vaulted cistern supported by the original arches from the first century AD, and I was compelled to walk down the steep stairs to check out the black pool of water.  At the back end of the site, we encountered a small bird with an injured wing huddled against a mossy stone.  Deveny was able to coax it behind a barrier fence, and we hoped it would be protected from the ever-present feral cats.  We walked all the way around the excavations and saved the medicinal pools for last so we could spend some time reflecting on the story of the sick man and the penetrating question asked by Jesus.  Even though the excavations here revealed thousands of years, it still had a feeling of intimacy just like the verses in John’s Gospel, and we were thankful to be there together.  We began the long walk to the Jaffa Gate through the Muslim quarter by way of the Via Dolorosa which was not crowded late in the day, and we made it back to the apartment just before dusk.  We did a lot of walking on this day, physically and historically, and while our feet were sore and tired, it was a small price to pay for the deep experiences we were able to share in this mysterious ancient city.