FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

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AND I THOUGHT I WAS WALKING IN THE STEPS OF JESUS!

 

It has been a half century plus since I was led to believe that I was walking the actual paths of Jesus in and around Jerusalem.  I recall our guide pointing out the footprint of Jesus on a large rock atop of the Mount of Olives.  He said that was where Jesus ascended into Heaven and His footprint was still there.  At the time I thought about the TV series of Superman who seemed to stomp the ground when He flew aloft.  But the guide seemed very serious.

 

Not only has the environs changed since the first century but archaeological diggings have brought different information as to how and where Jerusalem’s structures may have been two millenniums ago and that the traditional locations may be in error.

 

I was told that Jesus was beaten and given His death sentence at the northeast side of Moriah’s “Temple Mount” where the Muslim Dome of the Rock rests (today).  I walked west with our guide and group through the current streets from the Moriah site until we reached the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jesus’ traditional burial site.  The Bible tells us that the tomb was near where Jesus was crucified.  John 19:41,42: “Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid.  There laid they Jesus therefore because of the Jews' preparation day; for the sepulchre was nigh at hand.” 

 

HISTORY.  First of all, there appears to be nothing that exists today in “Jerusalem” that was there 2000 years ago.  Even the current walls  around Jerusalem are from the Middle Ages and are neither Jewish nor Roman.  When the disciples were showing Jesus the temple buildings, He gave them a prophecy which apparently applied not only to the temple mount but to the entire city of Jerusalem.   “And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down” (Matthew 24:2).  “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee … Behold, your house is left unto you desolate” (Luke 13:34a,35a).  “And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it, … [saying] And shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another” (Luke 19:41-44).

 

Jesus said that even the removal of the stones would happen and this came to pass within forty years after His crucifixion.  The city was to be “Even with the ground.”  Titus, the Roman army General and to-be-Caesar Vespacius’ successor. would be the chief military leader to lead the siege and destruction of Jerusalem forty years after Jesus was crucified.  Josephus (first century Jewish historian and negotiator for Titus,) records this description, “[Titus] Caesar gave orders that they should demolish the entire city and Temple but should leave as many of the towers standing as they were of the greatest eminence; that is, Phasaelus, and Hippicus, and Mariamne; and so much of the wall enclosed the city on the west side. This wall [section] was spared, in order to afford a camp for such as were to lie in garrison [in the Upper City (west side of Jerusalem)], as were the towers also spared, in order to demonstrate to posterity what kind of city it was, and how well fortified, which the Roman valor had subdued; but for all the rest of the wall [around Jerusalem], it was so thoroughly laid even with the ground by those that dug it up to the foundation, that there was left nothing to make those that any tither believe [Jerusalem] had ever been inhabited.  This was the end which Jerusalem came to by the madness of those…”[i]

The walls of Jerusalem were “dug up” to the foundation by an angry army!  This included both the “original” walls that existed during Jesus’ ministry and the later north wall (“third wall”) added by Herod Agrippa during the days of Paul.[ii]  Only “a few towers” were left along with “some of the western wall” that had enclosed the city.   This was not the so-called western wall of the Temple Mount but was farther to the “west of the city.”  Five hundred years afterwards the Herodian Wall around the traditional “Temple Mount” is thought to have been built by the Emperor Justinian as an earth retaining wall.[iii]    That wall became associated later with the Muslim Dome.  An article sympathetic to the Jewish claim of the so-called “Wailing Wall’s” connection to Herod’s Temple admits that stones of the wall “were placed on top of the layers by Muslims, during different periods of time including the twentieth century.”[iv]   It could not have been a retaining wall that had been connected with the destroyed Herodian Temple in 70 AD.  

The hills of Jerusalem are populated today but when I was there, the “city of David” (Mount Zion) and beyond was barren because of the “no man’s land” proclaimed between the Jewish state and the Palestinians.

WHERE WAS JESUS JUDGED?

FIRST THREE OF THE SIX TRIALS.   Jesus had had three “religious” trials among the Jewish authorities in the southwestern corner of the city.  This was followed by three “civil” trials before the Gentiles.  He was arrested to the east of Jerusalem while on the Mount of Olives. He was taken first to the southwest side of the city and tried in various locations before (1) Anna and (2) Caiaphas and finally (3) the Sanhedrin.[v]  But in order for Jesus to be killed by crucifixion, He had to be judged and condemned by the Roman governor, Pilate.

 [vi]

THE LAST THREE OF HIS TRIALS.  I had understood that Jesus was condemned to be crucified at the soldiers’ building the Antonia Fortress located north of the Temple; the guide followed that opinion.    The north Fortress Antonia that housed the Roman soldiers was assumed to be where the governor Pilate would have been when judging Jesus.  The Bible is not specific where but just that Jesus was tried by Pilate.  However, the historian Josephus specifically says that the governor customarily stayed not in these soldiers’ barracks but rather in the Palace of Herod which was adjacent to the west wall of the city and would have been close to Jesus’ Jewish trials.  “King” Herod when in Jerusalem was staying apparently at the Hasmonaean Palace.[vii]  When Pilate delivers Jesus to Herod for Jesus’ second Gentile trial, it would not have been that far.   It was just to the east from the Palace towards the Temple Mount.   I have often thought that it was extra grief and aggravating to have Jesus walk all the way from the eastern wall at the Antonia Fortress down to the west section of the city and then to walk back northeast again.  It is very probable that Jesus’ trials were all here in close proximity to one another.[viii]   Both Herod “Palaces” are here. 

The judgment for crucifixion according to the Bible occurred at the “Praetorium.”   This was thought to mean at the Antonia Fortress.   “And the soldiers led Him away into the hall, called Praetorium; and they call together the whole band” (Mark 15:16).   The fact is wherever the Roman Governor (Pilate) judged was designated the “Praetorium.”[ix]    The “tradition” of the Jesus route with His cross along the Via Dolorosa from the Fortress Antonia at “the Pavement” which ended at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, was not believed until Medieval times.[x]  Also, “the Pavement” identified at the Antonia Fortress is from Emperor Hadrian’s Second Century AD when he rebuilt much of Jerusalem exclusively for the Romans.[xi]    Gabbatha, the raised platform above the “Stone Pavement” and where Pilate washes his hands of the whole affair, is discovered outside of Herod’s Palace.[xii] 

HOW FAR DID JESUS CARRY HIS CROSS?

The question deals more with the distance between Pilate’s judgment and the actual crucifixion.  We are told that the Romans had a Simon carry His cross (Matthew 27:32; Mark 15:21; Luke 23:26).  

The problem for an exact answer is that we do not know where Jesus was crucified.   The guide led us from the north Temple area through the Via Delorosa to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre which was from ½ mile to 2/3 mile.   Helena (“Saint Helen”), the mother of the first “Christian” emperor Constantine (four centuries later), designated where Calvary was located and a “church” was built there.  She claimed to have found three crosses at the site.  But if we consider the distance from the Herod Palace (instead of the Antonia) to the Holy Sepulchre Church it is not as far—just outside the gate and to the north a little ways (A).   But there is an objection to Helena’s choice since some believe it was inside the second wall.    And Jesus was crucified outside the city.   “Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate” (Hebrews 13:12).

The second choice of Golgotha is farther to the north of the city (labeled B on the map).   There is a shape like a skull that the researcher looks for.  That’s also why the third choice (C on the map) outside the gate from the Antonia Fortress has also been considered an appropriate place.   Incidentally, it was in this area “C” that the first Christian martyr Stephen is thought to have been stoned to death.   The C choice would be ideal also IF Pilate judged at the Antonia.

 INTERESTING OBSERVATIONS.  (1) The uncertainty that clouds the locations in no way suggests that the Bible account of Jesus' trials and death did not occur as is written. (2) Rather, the wasting of that powerful first century city of Jerusalem underscores Jesus was who He claimed to be. He predicted the million plus Jewish city being leveled to the ground! (3) The fact that Jesus was able to go the distance to Calvary without being carried Himself is a tribute to God's providence of the best prepared sacrificial lamb. His physical strength and health.  Jesus was not what was often illustrated on the cross as a measly “90-pount weakling.”  But as the prestigious religious philosopher C. S. Lewis has aptly pointed out in his writings, Jesus was the ace specimen sacrificial sheep without spot or blemish physically as well as spiritually the Son of God to be offered for all mankind.

 GAYLON WEST

                                          edited by __JANIE WARD & MARY WEST