Jerusalem Overlook

Mondays are field trip days, and although it is Wednesday already, I have pictures for you to enjoy. This probably isn't the most exciting field trip we will go on but it was neat to see our surroundings. This tour once again was to get us more familiar with our surroundings and the major landmarks used in the scriptures and location wise in the Holy Land. Our first stop was at the Seven Arches Hotel which gives a beautiful overlook of the land right below the Mount of Olives. As you can hopefully see with my pictures there is a Jewish cemetery right below, than the wall around the Old City which I hope you can see the Golden Gate. This gate is sealed and is Jewish tradition that Christ will come through this gate at the second coming. North of the cemetery you can barely see the Garden of Gethsemane which is beautiful with the many olive trees I have grown to love around here! The Valley right before the wall of the Old City that is immediately west of the Mt. of Olives is called the Kidron Valley. You may also notice the golden dome which is the Muslim Dome of the Rock that was pictured in earlier posts.

We then went to the Augusta Victoria Complex which includes the Lutheran Church of the Ascension with an overlooking tower, a hospital, and originally a pilgrim's hospice. This complex was built in 1910 under Germany's Emperor Wilhelm II and was named after his wife Augusta Victoria. This church has many symbols, murals, and intricate design that all have certain meaning. for example I learned that Lutheran Chapels have 4 mail focal points: an alter as a symbol of Christ, a pulpit to teach the word, water which symbolizes baptism, and Nave which means ship and is said to symbolize "sailing life together". Although this chapel may not be of my faith it was great to sing the appropriate hymns and feel of the Spirit a song can bring. We sang Hymn numbers 100 (Nearer, my God to Thee) and 124 (Be Still my Soul). I loved the sound our group made as we sung and could feel the Spirit so strong. I have attached a video to hopefully show the front part of the chapel and to hear of one of the verses of a song we sang. Hope it works!

Also here are some pictures of the chapel, in case the video doesn't work!

Another place we went was Jabal Mar Elyas of Herodian which was a hill in which we could look over the town of Bethlehem, where we will be going to closer to Christmas. The nambe Jabal Mar Elyas is arabic meaning "Mount of Saint Elijah". I was really surprised to see the city of Bethlehem because it isn't like the song "oh little town of Bethlehem" it is actually quite large and located in the West Bank. Also another interesting fact is to the left of where this picture was taken is the birthplace of Ruth! In this picture from left to right is Me, Lindsey Hawkins, and Lauren Law! 

There was also a very cool Greek Orthodox Monessary at the bottom of the hill where we started our hike. Right behind where I took this picture there was a man who was herding sheep, it really made me feel like I was back in biblical times!

Our last stop took place at Nabi Samwil which translated from arabic means prophet Samuel. This is essentially a cenotaph (almost burial, but the body is actually in Rama) for Samuel the Prophet. It was interesting to know that before the war of '67 this site was predominately a place of worship for the Muslim community and some Jews. Since the war, the Jewish cenotaph was placed in the synagogue for Jews to worship in the actually building (which we got to go into as long as we covered our heads) and Muslims have a masque to perform their ceremonies around the side of the building (we didn't go over there). It was also interesting to know that because of its location, this hill was a major military advantage for planning an attack. This hill provided a water source and also a strategic height over the enemy.  It was interesting to see all the remains of buildings along the sides of this great synagogue. In our reading we learned that archaeologists have actually identified 4 main occupation layers with this one site. First was the Judean water system which stretched from 900-600 B.C., then the Hasmonean structure from 200-100 B.C., the Byzantine monastery and winepress from 400-700 AD, and lastly the Crusader church and cisterns dating back to 1200 AD. These were so interesting and really made me wonder what this hill would have looked like years and years ago! Plus I knew my dad would like these pictures ;)