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Jerusalem at the Time of Jesus

Centuries after the Roman Republic was established, and after the wars with Gaul, the Punic Wars with Carthage (Hannibal), the Macedonian Wars, and other civil wars and revolution, the great Pax Romana ensued, an age of relative peace and toleration. Pompey, Crassus, Julius Caesar, Cleopatra, Brutus, and Mark Antony had passed across the stage of history.

The Roman Empire extended from Britain to Mesopotamia to Egypt, with a population of perhaps one hundred million people. The Roman army at the time of Augustus (27 B.C.-A.D. 14) consisted of approximately twenty-eight legions, a legion being about 1,500 men. A legion was composed of cohorts of 480 men and centuries of 80 men.

In 63 B.C. Pompey marched his Roman armies down the Jordan Valley and up to Jerusalem, entered the Holy of Holies of the Temple, and proclaimed Jerusalem subject to the authority of Rome.

Herod the Great (37-4 B.C.)

In 40 B.C., having stood by the Romans during an invasion of Parthians from the east, Herod was received with honors in Rome. Octavian and Mark Antony persuaded the Senate to appoint Herod king of the Jews. Because the whole of Judaea was in rival hands and most of the populace hostile to Herod, he had to fight for his kingdom. He managed to overcome all obstacles, however, and established himself by 37 B.C. as the undisputed ruler of Judaea, Peraea, and Galilee.

Few in history have been led by their jealousies and suspicions to murder more family members and others than did Herod, and yet there has been no greater builder in the history of the Holy Land than Herod. 1 He built the city of Caesarea Maritima ("on the sea") with its theater, amphitheater, stadium (Greek, hippodrome), marketplace, palaces, underground sewage system, aqueduct, and its incredibly engineered and technologically advanced port facility. He also built the cities of Samaria (Sebaste), Antipatris, and Phasaelis; he constructed the fortresses of Machaerus, Alexandrion, Cypros, Hyrcania, Herodium, and Masada; he erected a white marble temple to Augustus in Caesarea Paneion (NT, Caesarea Philippi) and an impressive shrine over the Cave of Machpelah, the burial place of the patriarchs and their wives in Hebron. 2

Of all Herod's building enterprises there were none greater than in the capital, Jerusalem. 3 He rebuilt the former Hasmonaean fortress and named it the Antonia Fortress in honor of his Roman friend, Mark Antony. He constructed his royal palace and towers, 4 a theater, an amphitheater, a stadium, 5 and monumental gates and staircases to the Temple Mount. 6 His grandest edifice was the Temple in Jerusalem. 7

The Roman Government of JudAea

Before Herod the Great died, he prepared four different wills distributing inheritances to the sons of his ten wives. His final will stipulated, subject to the emperor's concurrence, that his eighteen-year-old son Archelaus become king in his stead and that two autonomous principalities (tetrarchies) be assigned to Archelaus' younger brother Antipas 8 (Galilee and Peraea) and to his half-brother Philip (the newly acquired northeastern territories, today's Golan and beyond). Archelaus was to have the title of king but no jurisdiction over his brothers. 9

The Jewish people, on the other hand, wanted to reinstate the sacerdotal government of the Hasmonaean period and abolish the monarchy. They sent a deputation of fifty persons to Augustus in Rome. When Augustus gave audience to it, eight thousand Jews of the Roman capital escorted the deputation to the temple of Apollo to endorse resumption of priestly rule in their homeland. The emperor disregarded the Jews' petition and honored Herod's will.

Archelaus, who was half Idumaean and half Samaritan (hardly a popular combination with the Jews), was such a brutal tyrant that after ten years Rome banished him to Vienna in Gaul, and in A.D. 6 his principality of Judaea and Samaria came under direct Roman administration. To be governor, a man was chosen from the knights, the equestrian order (not from the Senate, as were most provincial governors), and was appointed by the emperor himself, to whom he was directly responsible. He bore the title of praefect. 10 For the most part, the governors of the new province lacked ability and experience, which was unfortunate because Jewish issues were complex and volatile. Violence often erupted.

The seat of government was Herod's port city of Caesarea. The praefect was commander-in-chief of five cohorts of infantry and a cavalry wing, and a Roman commandant served in Jerusalem with a garrison stationed at the Antonia Fortress overlooking the Temple Mount. 11

Provincial status involved the oath of loyalty to the emperor, permanent military occupation, taxation by Roman officials, and Roman supervision of public order. At the establishment of Judaea as a province, Quirinius, the legate of Syria, conducted a census (see Luke 2:1-2; Acts 5:37). This action reminded the people that they would be paying taxes to the new agents of an old brand of bitter servitude. It was believed that taxation would undoubtedly increase.

The Council of Elders and its successor, the Sanhedrin, ruled as a Jewish law court in matters of faith, manners, and law in which Roman interests were not directly affected. The Council possessed no powers of capital jurisdiction (without confirmation of the imperial magistrate), except against a pagan who trespassed into the inner courts of the Temple beyond the permitted Court of the Gentiles. 12 The Council consisted of members of the Sadducean aristocracy and more moderate Pharisees and scribes.

Jewish religious practices were usually respected by Roman authorities. Jews were exempt from military service, and their privilege of the Sabbath was safeguarded. Jews throughout the empire were allowed to collect and send to Jerusalem the Temple tribute. Jewish prohibition of statues or images in Jerusalem was generally honored. Romans avoided images of the emperor on coins circulated in Judaea, and standards with effigies of the emperor were left in Caesarea when soldiers went up to Jerusalem. Romans (all non-Jews) knew that setting foot in the Temple interior was forbidden under penalty of death, and a warning was inscribed at the inner court in Latin and Greek. 13

Roman governors at first kept charge of the sacred high priestly vestments in the Antonia Fortress, but this was considered interference by the Romans in Jewish ritual matters. It was bad enough when Herod had kept them, but the Roman control was in flagrant violation of Jewish law, which prohibited the robes being taken outside the Temple. 14 This issue was for some years a provocation to Jewish religious leaders.

The First Praefects 15

The governors of Roman Judaea under Augustus Caesar were Coponius (A.D. 7-8), Marcus Ambivious (A.D. 9-12), and Annius Rufus (A.D. 12-15). The next Roman emperor, Tiberius, appointed Valerius Gratus, who served a comparatively long term (A.D. 15-26). Gratus appointed Joseph Caiaphas to the priestly hierarchy, and this Caiaphas, who was son-in-law of Annas, the previous high priest (see John 18:13), cooperated with Annas in laying down religious policy. Caiaphas remained in office through the long rule first of Gratus and then of Pontius Pilate (A.D. 18-36) and was involved in the trial of Jesus. 16

The Administration of Pontius Pilate

The relationship between Romans and Jews deteriorated during Pilate's rule. 17 His was described by Philo as a harsh and corrupt regime. 18 Pilate was widely disliked, was influenced by bribery, and angered the Jews by his extortions and frequent executions without trial. Pilate was supported during the first part of his administration (until A.D. 31) by Sejanus, commander of the praetorian guard and chief spokesman in Rome for an anti-Jewish policy. Upon Sejanus' fall and for the last five years of his rule, Pilate was forced to be more sensitive to his subjects.

Several incidents helped destroy the legitimacy of Pilate's administration in the eyes of his Jewish subjects. The first serious clash occurred when Pilate took a cohort's ensigns bearing the emperor's image into Jerusalem and set them up under cover of darkness, contrary to custom and the policy of his predecessors. 19 Pilate refused to yield, so his infuriated Jewish subjects marched to Caesarea to insist the ensigns be withdrawn. Pilate surrounded the crowd with his men and threatened to cut them all down, but the Jews stood their ground. When he realized they were so dedicated to their belief as to be willing to die for it, he ordered the offense removed.

Another uproar followed Pilate's use of sacred Temple money known as Corbanas to build an aqueduct to Jerusalem. 20 Pilate may have thought he was acting within Jewish custom, because water channels were among those items for which the Temple treasure might be expended. The Jews, however, had another point of view. Corban is the Hebrew word for sacrifice, and some deemed it altogether improper to use funds from this part of the treasury for anything but the purchase of sacrificial animals. Pilate refused to acquiesce, because he was sure of the emperor's backing for the project. This time, during the Jews' public protestation, he disguised his soldiers in Jewish garb and ordered them to attack the crowds with clubs.

Pilate displayed conspicuous disregard for Jewish custom once again when he minted coins with superscriptions showing pagan symbols—something all his predecessors had scrupulously avoided. Even Pilate's harsh successors never dared mint such coins.

During the second half of Pilate's rule, he set up in Herod's palace in Jerusalem some gold shields that had been dedicated to Tiberius. The shields contained references to pagan deities. A cross-section of all Jewish society, including four of Herod's sons, united in protesting this desecration of the Holy City as a straightforward affront to the Jewish religion. Finally, the Jews sent a letter to Tiberius himself, whereupon the emperor ordered the shields removed to Caesarea, where they were placed in the temple of Augustus.

The incident that probably led to Pilate's dismissal was his brutal suppression of a disturbance among the Samaritans, some of whom had followed a would-be messiah to the top of Mount Gerizim, where he promised to show them holy vessels that Moses had allegedly hidden on the mountaintop. Pilate's heavily armed infantry and cavalry blocked the ascent and massacred the Samaritans. The Samaritan council complained to the governor of Syria, and Pilate was removed from office and sent to Rome to answer charges, thus ending ten years of civil disturbance under the most notorious of the Roman praefects of Judaea.

A temporary governor named Marcellus was appointed for Judaea by the governor of Syria. Marcellus adopted several measures to appease the Jews and calm the country. He abolished Gentile supervision of the high priestly vestments and eliminated certain taxes.

Caligula's Attempted Desecration of the Temple

The first two years of Caligula's emperorship (A.D. 37-38) saw continued clemency toward the Jews, but then Judaeo-Roman relations changed sharply with Caligula's attempts to establish a cult of his own divinity. To the Jews, it was shades of Antiochus IV Epiphanes once again. Caligula viewed his own divinity with fanatical belief. Emperor worship was decreed binding on all Romans and Roman subjects as the very expression of loyalty to the imperial state.

The Jews explained to Caligula that their law proscribed sacrificing to him, but they could gladly make offerings for him. Caligula retorted, "What is the good of that? You have not sacrificed to me." He unabashedly pointed out that failing to observe his divinity showed the Jews to be not so much criminals as lunatics. 21

A stone altar constructed by non-Jews in a coastal town to offer sacrifices to the emperor (thus violating the ancient Jewish ban on idolatry in the territory of Judaea) was smashed by Jews. The report of this incident infuriated the emperor, and he vowed he would teach the Jews a lesson: he would forcibly install his cult in Jerusalem itself by erecting a colossal statue of Zeus in the likeness of Caligula in the holy Sanctuary proper. 22 The whole project was to be carried out by Publius Petronius, legate of Syria (A.D. 39). "Petronius now earned a place of honor in Jewish history by risking grave personal danger in attempting to prevent a desecration of the Temple." 23 Petronius stalled. He commissioned the great statue from artisans at Sidon, but they could take their time. He knew—and it was no secret to Caligula either—that a massive revolt of the Jews could follow, maybe even touching off determined assistance by the Jews of Babylon. Judaean Jewry threatened mass martyrdom. Petronius wrote the emperor and urged him to revoke the order to avoid all-out war.

Meanwhile, Agrippa I, grandson of Herod the Great, arrived in Rome. Upon hearing of Caligula's determination to force the issue, he suffered a nervous breakdown or stroke. After recovering somewhat, he listed all his persuasive arguments against such a move in a long, carefully worded appeal to his friend the emperor. Agrippa was in fact risking his own life to avert a Judaeo-Roman clash. His arguments were impressive enough that Caligula canceled his order to have the idol placed in the Temple. There is evidence, however, that Caligula intended to have the statue manufactured in Italy and then surprise the Jews during a visit to the east by placing it in the Temple himself. That was avoided by the emperor's assassination on 24 January, A.D. 41.

Agrippa was in Rome at the time of Caligula's assassination. His intermediary role in preparing the senators for the idea of Claudius as emperor prevented a great deal of potential bloodshed. Agrippa's successful negotiations between senate, praetorian guard, and Claudius himself were rewarded by the new emperor when he was made ruler over the whole of Samaria, Judaea, and Idumaea. Provincial status and Roman praefects were discontinued, and Agrippa ruled a kingdom about equal in size to his grandfather Herod's at its height. Agrippa was elevated to the rank of consul and confirmed by a treaty of alliance in the Forum and by Claudius appearing with him in the Senate. 24

The restoration of the monarchy after thirty-five years of Roman rule was viewed with gratification and pride by most Jews, especially by those the New Testament calls Herodians, who favored the rule of the Herods over Roman governors. Herod Agrippa ruled confidently from Caesarea on the coast. He won the devotion of many of his subjects by such gestures as dedicating a solid gold chain (a gift from Caligula) to the Temple and paying for the expenses of the Nazarite sacrifices from his own purse.

Pharisees and scribes regarded his reign as a golden age. Christians, however, were subjected to some harsh repressions during his short reign. At a Passover celebration Agrippa arrested and executed James the son of Zebedee, one of the First Presidency of the Church, and imprisoned Peter, the chief apostle and president of the Church (see Acts 12:1-19).

Roman suspicions about Agrippa arose when he constructed a new wall (the Third Wall) to enclose and fortify Jerusalem at the north, the weakest point in the city's defenses. 25 The governor of Syria understandably inquired against whom the fortifications were designed. Syria's governor reported to the emperor. Agrippa responded by celebrating Roman victories in Britain with a series of victory games at Caesarea in honor of the emperor. On the second day of the celebrations, while he was presiding over the events in a solid silver robe, he suddenly fell ill and died (at age fifty-four). Christians believed his death was caused by his being struck down by an angel of God and eaten by worms (see Acts 12:23).

The Procurators

Agrippa I had announced that his son would succeed him as Agrippa II, but the suddenness of his death raised questions about whether a young man just turned seventeen could handle the challenge of such a kingdom. Rome remembered what disasters followed when a similarly young son of Herod the Great ruled Judaea. Claudius agreed that Judaea should revert to direct Roman provincial rule. The new procuratorial government lasted twenty-two years (A.D. 44-66), from the death of Agrippa I until the First Revolt.

The first procurator, Cuspius Fadus (A.D. 44-46), encountered frequent political and religious insurrection. Fadus was succeeded by Tiberius Julius Alexander, who served as procurator from A.D. 46 to 48. His chief problem while ruling Judaea was a famine:

And in those days came prophets from Jerusalem unto Antioch.

And there stood up one of them named Agabus, and signified by the Spirit that there should be great dearth throughout all the world: which came to pass in the days of Claudius Caesar.

Then the disciples, every man according to his ability, determined to send relief unto the brethren which dwelt in Judaea:

Which also they did, and sent it to the elders by the hands of Barnabas and Saul. (Acts 11:27-30)

Relief also came from a Parthian country in the east called Adiabene, whose royal house had been converted to Judaism. The mother of the country's King Izates, Helena, made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem to take grain from Alexandria and figs from Cyprus to relieve the grateful Jews. Jerusalem became the family's favorite place of residence. After a twenty-four-year reign, Izates died, and his mother returned to Adiabene. Shortly thereafter she, too, died, and her remains were sent to Jerusalem and buried in what today is misleadingly called the "Tombs of the Kings" in East Jerusalem. 26

The administration of the third procurator, Ventidius Cumanus (A.D. 48-52), was characterized by continuous clashes between Jews and Romans. About this time Claudius felt that some responsibility could now be given to Agrippa II, so at the age of twenty-two he was given the kingdom of Chalcis. In A.D. 50, Agrippa II inherited the rights to supervise the Temple and its treasury and to appoint high priests—hence he often went to Jerusalem.

Cumanus was disgraced and exiled, and Antonius Felix was appointed procurator in A.D. 52. Felix's second wife was the sister of Agrippa II. In A.D. 53, Agrippa II was granted a larger kingdom, including all of northern Transjordan, which he ruled from his capital at Caesarea Philippi. Felix ruled Judaea from Caesarea Maritima on the coast (see Bible Map 14).

During the administration of Felix, the Sicarii, a guerrilla group opposed to Roman rule, caused much violence in Jerusalem. Also, an Egyptian Jew professing to be the Messiah gathered four thousand followers onto the Mount of Olives, from which point he promised to bring down the walls of Jerusalem—as Joshua had brought down Jericho's walls—before their very eyes and deliver the Roman garrison into their hands. Then he would reign as king. Felix's soldiers killed many of the crowd, but the "prophet" escaped. 27

Felix also had to deal with Paul. Rescued from a lynching party of Jews at the Temple by the Roman garrison commander, Claudius Lysias, Paul was protected by his Roman citizenship from being flogged and was instead escorted by four hundred infantrymen and seventy cavalrymen to Caesarea. In Jerusalem Paul had had his famous encounter with Ananias, whom he had called a "whited wall" (Acts 23:3). Three times within twenty-four hours Paul used Roman troops to save his life. Felix deferred judgment, and the apostle remained under house arrest in Caesarea for two years (see Acts 24:27). He later spoke with Agrippa II, who was paying his brother-in-law Felix a visit. A Roman citizen was protected, probably by a law of Augustus, from arrest and trial or summary punishment by Roman officials outside Italy and was therefore entitled to appeal to Caesar for protection from a provincial governor's measures, so Paul eventually sailed to Rome to appeal to Nero (see Acts 25:12).

Felix left Judaea about A.D. 60 and was replaced by Porcius Festus (60-62), who found the country in turmoil because of extremist organizations. Festus died in office in A.D. 62, and before his successor, Albi-nus, arrived, the Sanhedrin carried out some executions without first obtaining procuratorial authorization. James the brother of Jesus, a leader of Jerusalem's Christian community, was one of those taken before the Council and then stoned to death. 28

During Albinus' rule, Nero denied the Jews' demand for citizenship, a decision that led to war. Gessius Florus (A.D. 64-66) was the last procurator of Judaea before the First Revolt, and his administration hastened the rebellion.

The year of Florus' appointment, a young man of twenty-six named Josephus went to Rome as a member of a deputation to secure the release of Jewish priests sent there by Felix. Josephus became a friend to a Jewish actor at the court of Nero. The actor introduced him to the empress, who arranged for the success of his mission and sent him home laden with gifts. Josephus was an aristocratic Jew and a Pharisee, but he returned to Judaea convinced that friendship with the Romans was the only course for Jewish well-being.

Agrippa II ruled through part of the Emperor Domitian's reign (A.D. 81-96). When Agrippa II died sometime after A.D. 93, the Herodian dynasty ended, and his territories were absorbed into the Roman empire.

Summary of Imperial and Local Rulers

Caesar Praefect

Augustus, 27 B.C.-A.D. 14 Coponius, A.D. 7-8

Marcus Ambivious, A.D. 9-12

Annius Rufus, A.D. 12-15

Tiberius, A.D. 14-37 Valerius Gratus, A.D. 15-26

Pontius Pilate, A.D. 26-36

Marcellus, A.D. 36-37

Caligula, A.D. 37-41 Herod Agrippa I, A.D. 41-44

Procurator

Claudius, A.D. 41-54 Cuspius Fadus, A.D. 44-46

Tiberius Julius Alexander, A.D. 46-48

Ventidius Cumanus, A.D. 48-52

Antonius Felix, A.D. 52-60

Nero A.D. 54-68 Porcius Festus, A.D. 60-62

Albinus, A.D. 62-64

Gessius Florus, A.D. 64-66

Jerusalem in the New Testament

The two greatest events in the history of the world took place in Jerusalem: the atoning sacrifice and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. "Jerusalem [was] the city of the great King" (Matt. 5:35). His dwelling-place or meeting-place was there. There he manifested himself to his servants, the prophets. For a thousand years he was worshipped in Jerusalem. His people "looked for redemption in Jerusalem" (Luke 2:38). From Melchizedek to Malachi, the Messiah was anticipated and announced, always looking forward to the meridian of time:

When the time was come that he should be received up, [Jesus] set his face to go to Jerusalem. (Luke 9:51)

It cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem. (Luke 13:33)

Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of man shall be accomplished. (Luke 18:31)

From that time forth began Jesus to show unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day. (Matt. 16:21)

There seems to be constant intentional juxtaposition of Jerusalem and the rest of Judaea in the New Testament. Jerusalem was the capital, the chief and Holy City, and merited preferential status or at least singular mention alongside any other place. 29 Thus, "there went out unto him all the land of Judaea, and they of Jerusalem" (Mark 1:5), "a great multitude of people out of all Judaea and Jerusalem" (Luke 6:17). "Ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea" (Acts 1:8).

Jerusalem was synonymous with leadership. The headquarters of the early Christian Church were centered in the place where centuries earlier God had chosen to place his name, where the Holy Temple had epitomized Judaic life for a millennium. Like that of some of the old prophets, Jesus' most important work was performed and his life was given in Jerusalem. And though nearly all the members of the original Quorum of the Twelve Apostles were originally from Galilee, it was clear to them that the center place of Zion, from which the law and the word must go forth, was Jerusalem. "Ye shall be witnesses unto me," Jesus told them, "both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth" (Acts 1:8). Jerusalem would become the capital of a far-reaching spiritual empire.

Jesus wept over the City as he recalled her past and prophesied her future. Although Herod's Jerusalem must have appeared to any would-be attacker as a high-walled, formidable fortress, Jesus prophesied of war that would destroy Jerusalem not long after he left the earth. Among other things, he warned, "let them which are in Judaea flee to the mountains; and let them which are in the midst of it depart out" (Luke 21:21). At first it may seem puzzling to speak of inhabitants of Judaea fleeing to the mountains when most already lived in the tops of the mountains, but the other side of the parallelism helps: "let them which are in the midst of it depart out." Jesus may have been suggesting that Judaeans flee eastward through the wilderness, the usual course of flight, and find safety in the mountain refuges on the edge of the wilderness where David had hidden from the armies of Saul a thousand years earlier.

Jesus left no doubt concerning the immediate future of Jerusalem. His were vivid prophetic pronouncements about the next generations:

Jesus turning unto them said, Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children. (Luke 23:28)

When ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh. . . . And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles. (Luke 21:20, 24)

What was it all for? Why would Jesus and Jerusalem both suffer indignities and anguish and death? Their end was but a beginning. Both Jesus and Jerusalem would be resurrected and live again. Both had to be buried and brought forth anew.

The Mount of Olives

The two-mile-long Mount of Olives range lies east of the most ancient parts of Jerusalem. Its distance from the city is given in the New Testament: "The mount called Olivet . . . is from Jerusalem a sabbath day's journey" (Acts 1:12)—that is, about three thousand feet.

The Mount of Olives may be divided into three sections. The northernmost section was called by Josephus and is still called today Mount Scopus (Greek, scopos, "lookout point"), where Babylonian and Roman armies camped and watched the city they were besieging. The Hebrew name of Mount Scopus is Har HaTsofim, meaning the "mount of watchmen." The whole of the Mount of Olives is certainly a watchtower over Jerusalem, a guardian especially of the holy Temple Mount below.

The middle and southern sections, east and southeast of the Temple Mount, are today called the Mount of Olives, although the southernmost section, directly east of the ancient City of David, was in Old Testament times also known as the Mount of Scandal, the Mount of Offense, or the "mount of corruption" (2 Kgs. 23:13) because of the shrines Solomon allowed to be erected there for his wives' idol gods (see 1 Kgs. 11:7-8).

The midsouthern portion of the Mount of Olives is one of the oldest continuously used cemeteries in the world. Already by Jesus' day thousands of tombs had been cut in the soft, chalky Senonian limestone, which is more easily cut than the harder Turonian and Cenomanian limestones to the west. Hundreds of Old Testament period tombs have now been investigated by archaeologists, and many hundreds of ossuaries (small stone boxes for reburial of bones) have been uncovered from the New Testament period. 30 Presently more than seventy thousand graves are visible on the Mount of Olives. Jewish traditions have encouraged the pious to be buried on the Mount of Olives in order to be part of the first resurrection when the Messiah comes. Indeed, according to Christian scripture, some disciples have already risen from that cemetery: "The graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many" (Matt. 27:52-53).

The Mount of Olives is mentioned in the Gospels in connection with places where Jesus taught and prayed: "And as he sat upon the mount of Olives over against the temple, Peter and James and John and Andrew asked him privately, . . . Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?" (Mark 13:3; Matt. 24:3). "And he came out, and went, as he was wont, to the mount of Olives; and his disciples also followed him" (Luke 22:39). "Jesus ofttimes resorted thither with his disciples" (John 18:2).

Jesus began his triumphal entry into the city from the east, beginning on the eastern side of the Mount of Olives: "And when he was come nigh, even now at the descent of the mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen" (Luke 19:37).

The Mount of Olives is where Jesus descended below all (the Atonement) and where he ascended above all (the Ascension). With his mortal work finished, Jesus departed into heaven from the eastern mountain of Jerusalem (see Luke 24:50). His return in the end of time will be to the same Mount: "And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight. And while they looked stedfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel; which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven" (Acts 1:9-11; see also v. 12; cf. D&C 45:48-54).

The Eastern Limits of Jerusalem

When Jesus went to Jerusalem, 31 he usually stayed in Bethany, which "was nigh unto Jerusalem, about fifteen furlongs off" (John 11:18) on the eastern side of the Mount of Olives range. The fifteen furlongs, or stadia, is approximately two miles. Bethany is likely the same as Ananiah of the Old Testament (see Neh. 11:32), though the names have different meanings (Ananiah signifies "Jehovah covers"—as a cloud does—and Bethany allegedly means "house of dates"). Today, the name of the town is el-Azariyeh, preserving the name of its famous former citizen, Lazarus. Jesus often lodged with his friend Lazarus and his two sisters, Mary and Martha (see John 11:1). On other occasions he stayed with "Simon the leper," that is, a man named Simon who had been a leper but was healed (see Matt. 26:6). The traditional tomb of Lazarus that visitors see today may actually be the tomb from which Jesus' friend was raised.

"They drew nigh unto Jerusalem, and were come to Bethphage" (Matt. 21:1). Two of the three passages referring to Bethphage mention it side by side with Bethany—the two towns were near each other on the eastern slope of the Mount of Olives. Bethphage means "house of figs," and many fig trees grow in the vicinity. Rabbinic literature cites Bethphage as the eastern limit of the city of Jerusalem. 32

Jesus' first coming to Jerusalem as King was from the east, as his Second Coming is prophesied to be. At Passover time, a time of celebrating independence, of triumph over oppressors, and of Messianic expectation, Jesus accepted the acclamation of King and triumphantly proceeded into the city (see Matt. 21). He likely entered the Temple Mount where today's Golden Gate is located and then turned into the Temple, instead of going into the Antonia Fortress to take on the Romans. That made all the difference—it showed that the Messiah was a spiritual, not a political, deliverer.

Pools of Water in Jerusalem

Jerusalem enjoyed highly developed water resources during the late Second Temple period. 33 Wells, springs, cisterns, aqueducts, and pools served the need for water of one of the greatest walled cities in the Near East. Moving water—groundwater and water transported via aqueduct—was the best water, because open pools have the disadvantages of heavy evaporation, silting, and exposure to sewage and other pollutants. Notwithstanding the disadvantages, Jerusalem had at least ten large pools in this period. Two are mentioned in the New Testament: the Pool of Siloam and the Pool of Bethesda. 34

Jesus one day sent a man blind from birth to the Pool of Siloam. He answered the man's plea for sight by making a clay paste, applying it to his eyes, and instructing him to go to the pool and wash it off. The blind man obeyed and was healed (see John 9:1-11).

The Pool of Siloam stands at the end of the ancient City's unique hydrotechnical project: Hezekiah's Tunnel. We recall that in the year 701 B.C., King Hezekiah, encouraged by the prophet Isaiah, prepared for the attack of the Assyrian king Sennacherib's forces by repairing the city walls and carving out of solid limestone an underground water channel nearly eighteen hundred feet long to camouflage the Gihon Spring, the city's main water source, and carry its waters inside the city for safe access. By Jesus' day, the pools at the south end had provided water storage for seven centuries.

The double pool called the Pool of Bethesda (or Bethzatha, possibly Aramaic, "House of Mercy") was situated just north of the Temple Mount gate called in Greek probatike (pertaining to sheep), the gate through which sheep are supposed to have been brought into the Temple for sacrifice. 35 "Now there is at Jerusalem by the sheep market a pool, which is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, having five porches" (John 5:2). Five porticoes, or porches, surrounded the twin pools: four around the sides and one between them. Certain medicinal or curative properties were ascribed to the pool. A superstitious tradition had an angel coming down and "troubling" the waters—probably the result of a siphon-karst spring flowing into the pool, causing bubbling at the surface. At this pool Jesus met a man who had been lame or paralyzed for thirty-eight years. On the Sabbath Day he raised him up, completely healed (see John 5:1-16).

Hinnom, the Valley of Hell

In the Old Testament the Hebrew word sheol is translated grave, hell, and occasionally pit. The scriptural context clearly requires its association with the situation of the dead who have departed the earth. It does not mean the future place of punishment, which is our usual definition of hell. A Greek term often translated in the New Testament as hell is hades, a word with pagan origins. But hades carries the same meaning as the Hebrew sheol: the place where the dead temporarily reside, awaiting resurrection. The hell to which people are cast down or cast out, the place of punishment by ever-burning fire, is represented by the Greek word Gehenna, a Greek transliteration of the Hebrew Gei Hinnom, the Valley of Hinnom (or the full name, the Valley of the Son of Hinnom).

The Hinnom Valley was the designated border between the tribes of Judah and Benjamin (see Josh. 15:8; 18:16). The valley lay to the southwest just outside of the original Zion, the City of David. It lies below what is today called Mount Zion. Centuries before the Roman period, the Hinnom Valley was used for burning incense (see 2 Chron. 28:3) and for burning children as sacrifice to idol gods (see 2 Kgs. 23:10; 2 Chron. 33:6; Jer. 7:31). Prophets warned of fiery judgments upon all involved in such horrendous practices.

The Hinnom Valley was also named Tophet, possibly deriving from an Aramaic term meaning "place of fire" (see Isa. 30:33). The burning came to symbolize in the New Testament the devouring fire of judgment, giving rise to the concept of hell as a place of continual burnings and eternal punishment. The book of Revelation describes hell as a lake of fire and brimstone. There are twelve occurrences in the New Testament of Gehenna, translated hell or hell fire. The most famous is Jesus' teaching in the Sermon on the Mount: "I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca [Hebrew and Aramaic, reyk, 'empty, vain, worthless'], shall be in danger of the council [Greek, Sanhedrin]: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire [Hebrew, esh Gei Hinnom, literally, 'fire of the Hinnom Valley,' or Greek, Gehenna]" (Matt. 5:22).

Another burial place has been associated since at least the first century before Christ with the southern slopes of the Hinnom Valley: "And it was known unto all the dwellers at Jerusalem; insomuch as that field is called in their proper tongue, Aceldama, that is to say, The field of blood" (Acts 1:19). According to Acts 1:18, Judas Iscariot (Hebrew, ish Kerioth, "man from Kerioth," a Judaean village) purchased with his betrayal money a field that was to be the scene of his suicide. Matthew 27:5-7, on the other hand, preserves the account of Judas casting down the coins in the Temple and going out and hanging himself, whereupon the chief priests bought with the money "the potter's field, to bury strangers in. Wherefore that field was called, The field of blood" (Matt. 27:6-8). Greek Akeldama is transliterated from the Aramaic khakel dema ("field of blood"). According to the New Testament record, then, the renaming of this burial ground in or near Jerusalem had its origins in the betrayal of Jesus and the death of Judas Iscariot. 36

The Upper Room

The most important events of the last week of Jesus' life 37 began in "a large upper room furnished and prepared" (Mark 14:15). The longest and strongest traditions indicate that the house containing the Upper Room was on the hill today called Mount Zion (the Western Hill). 38 That room was where Jesus celebrated the Passover meal with his apostles, where he instituted the sacrament of the Lord's Supper (see Matt. 26:26-29; Luke 22:15-20), where he gave special meaning to the washing of feet (see John 13:2-17), and where he revealed who would betray him (see Matt. 26:20-25; John 13:18-30).

In finding the guest chamber, Jesus instructed Peter and John to follow a man bearing a pitcher of water from the Gihon Spring, or the Pool of Siloam. Because women usually carried the water, some suppose that this man may have been part of the semimonastic Essene community known to have resided in that part of the Upper City. The apostles proceeded as Jesus had directed and made final preparations for celebrating the Passover—according to John, a day earlier than the community at large, because by sundown on Friday evening Jesus, as the Passover Lamb, would have been sacrificed (at the same time as the Passover lamb on the Temple altar 39) and would be in the tomb (see John 13:1; 18:28; 19:14).

The Upper Room was a furnished room (Greek, estromenon; specifically refers to a feast or festival setting). The room likely included a triclinium, a U-shaped, low-lying table around which persons reclined with their feet toward the outside. If this Upper Room is the same chamber where the resurrected Jesus appeared to many disciples (Luke 24:36-49) or where the apostles and a hundred others were met to fill the vacancy in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles (Acts 1:13-26), then it may have been the home of John Mark's mother, which served as a meeting place for the followers of Jesus after the Resurrection (Acts 12:12).

When Jesus and the eleven apostles had concluded their early observance of the Passover—the last legitimate Passover in history—and after he had given his farewell instructions about unity, love, and the Holy Spirit to his closest associates, "he went forth with his disciples over the brook Cedron, where was a garden, into the which he entered" (John 18:1). The Kidron (New Testament, Cedron) is a wadi that begins about a mile north of the Temple Mount and turns southward to run between the Mount of Olives and the Temple Mount, continuing past the former City of David, where it joins its tributaries, the Tyropoeon and Hinnom, and then continues southeastward for twenty miles through the Judaean Desert to the Dead Sea.

The Garden of Gethsemane

On the slope of the Mount of Olives was a garden area to which Jesus liked to retire for meditation and prayer. "Jesus ofttimes resorted thither with his disciples" (John 18:2; see also Mark 14:32). The Garden was named Gat Shemen, which in Hebrew means "oil press." Just as the juice of the grape or olive is pressed and crushed by the heavy stone in the press, so the heavy burden of the sins of the world that Jesus carried would press the blood out of the body of this Anointed One. In Gethsemane, among the olive trees 40 that were themselves symbolic of the people of Israel, was accomplished, along with its consummation at Golgotha, the most selfless suffering in the history of humankind.

Rather than the small area now enclosed by the walls surrounding the Franciscan property that includes the Basilica of the Agony, the Garden of Gethsemane must have extended a considerable distance up the slope of the Mount of Olives. Upon entering the garden, Jesus left eight of his apostles to watch and pray, and he continued up the slope with Peter, James, and John. He then left those three to watch and pray while he hiked "a stone's cast" (Matt. 26:36-39; Luke 22:41) beyond them.

After Jesus' agony in Gethsemane, a multitude consisting of chief priests, elders, and soldiers arrived to seek his arrest. At their head was Judas, who kissed Jesus profusely (according to the emphatic form of the Greek verb used in Mark 14:45), greatly confusing the emotions of the moment with a false display of affection. When the mob's intention was known, Peter stepped forward, swinging his sword, and cut off the ear of the high priest's servant (see John 18:10). What was Peter doing with a sword? In the darkness of the night, a sword offered some security at Passover time when many tens of thousands of people flocked to Jerusalem, more than could be housed inside the walls. Crowds of pilgrims camped as close outside the city as possible. When the arresting party arrived with "lanterns and torches and weapons" (John 18:3), some disciples ventured, "Shall we smite with the sword?" (Luke 22:49), possibly intending to defend themselves or still expecting Jesus to assume the popular role of the Messiah as the one who would overthrow his adversaries and establish a glorious new Jewish kingdom (cf. Luke 24:21; Acts 1:6).

The Palace of the High Priest Caiaphas

Quirinius, the legate of Syria who had conducted a census at the establishment of Judaea as a province, also established Ananus (Hanan, or Annas in the New Testament) as the high priest in Jerusalem. He and his influential family, including Joseph Caiaphas, his son-in-law (see John 18:13), virtually monopolized that office for the succeeding thirty-five years. The high priests were drawn from the narrow Sadducean circle and were regarded by Roman governors as their intermediaries with their Jewish subjects.

The Palace of Caiaphas was situated either on the summit of today's Mount Zion, just outside the Zion Gate in the Armenian cemetery, or down the slope a hundred yards on what are now the grounds of St. Peter in Gallicantu (Latin, "cockcrow"). At the latter site, excavations uncovered a complete set of Jewish weights and measures, possibly indicating judicial purposes. Also found was a large lintel inscribed with the Hebrew word corban (offering), suggesting that the residents served in priestly functions.

At the palace some of the Sanhedrin convened illegally for the trial of Jesus. Jewish law forbade a court to sit at night and on or before the preparation day for the high Holy Day. In the porch, or colonnaded courtyard, of this palace (see Matt. 26:71), Peter denied knowing Jesus as he warmed himself at a fire during the early morning hours (see Luke 22:55-62; John 18:15-18).

Pilate's Hall of Judgment

Jesus' trial before the Roman governor Pontius Pilate took place on what John called "the Pavement, but in the Hebrew, Gabbatha" (John 19:13). The Hebrew (or Aramaic) Gabbatha is equivalent to the Greek lithostroton, meaning the stone courtyard of the hall of judgment: "Then led they Jesus . . . unto the hall of judgment: and it was early; and they themselves went not into the judgment hall, lest they should be defiled; but that they might eat the passover" (John 18:28; see also 18:33; 19:9; Acts 23:35).

The hall of judgment was also called in the New Testament the Praetorium (Mark 15:16), a Latin term for the palace with its hearing room to which the Roman governor came to transact public business. In the same room was Pilate's judgment seat (Greek, bema), a raised platform resembling a throne on which the governor sat in judgment. "When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he brought Jesus forth, and sat down in the judgment seat" (John 19:13).

Tradition and modern scholarship have identified two main possibilities for the place where Jesus was accused before Pilate: the Antonia Fortress and Herod's Palace.

The Antonia Fortress was the massive governmental and military headquarters at the northwestern corner of the Temple Mount. Originally constructed by the Hasmonaeans and known as the Bira (Greek, Baris), it was reconstructed and fortified by Herod the Great and named after Mark Antony. 41 "It is quite possible to argue that Pilate's seat of judgement was in the Antonia, as is persuasively done by Pere Vincent," wrote Dame Kathleen Kenyon, excavator of Jerusalem. 42 A substantial contingent of soldiers was stationed at the Antonia, the biggest fortress in Jerusalem, to keep watch over the Temple Mount—the soldiers' main reason for being in Jerusalem. 43 Years later, Roman soldiers and then Temple guards took the Apostle Paul down to the Sanhedrin at their meeting place in the Temple and returned with him back up into the Fortress, also called "the castle" (Acts 21:34, 37; 22:24; 23:10).

Some ancient sources and modern scholars propose, on the other hand, that the official residence of Roman governors who came up from Caesarea was at Herod's Palace, on the west side of the city, 44 so Jesus' encounter with Pilate must have occurred there. Without additional evidence, it is impossible to conclusively determine which of the two sites might be the location of Jesus' presentation before Pilate.

The accusation brought against Jesus before some of the Sanhedrin was blasphemy—claiming to be God or insulting or violating the sanctity of God, the greatest crime in Jewish law. Romans cared little about the God of the Jews; they themselves had numerous gods whom they cursed at will. There was, however, an accusation that was serious enough to cause the governor to arise very early in the morning to hear—sedition against the Roman government. In fact, the chief reason Pilate had come up to Jerusalem from his usual residence in Caesarea on the coast was to keep his Roman eyes on the Temple Mount, the traditional focus of would-be insurrection and any initiatives to independence, during the Passover. Pilate had already dealt viciously with several messianic revolutionary movements. Some Jewish leaders, though anxious to see this popular preacher Jesus disposed of, were interested in passing the responsibility for his death to the Romans, so they shifted the charge from blasphemy to treason to bring about a Roman sentence of death (see Luke 23:1-2).

Though Jews would usually not resent active hostility against the Romans, in this case they pressed the charge that Jesus was conspiring to become king of the Jews and was, therefore, a threat to Caesar (as well as to the comfortable position of the Sadducees and high priests who held their positions by the good graces of the Romans). Jesus' Jewish accusers even went so far as to accuse Pilate of being no friend to Caesar if he dismissed the charges against Jesus (see John 19:12). Pilate tried several means to placate the Jews. First he proposed the release of one notable prisoner for the festival: Barabbas or Jesus (see Matt. 27:15-18; John 18:39-40). Barabbas was a revolutionist who may have appropriated a messianic title: his name means "son of the father"; Jesus, on the other hand, claimed to actually be the "Son of the Father." The Jews chose to have Barabbas released. Then Pilate scourged Jesus—flogging him with a leather whip containing jagged pieces of stone, metal, or bone—in the hope of satisfying the accusers (see Luke 23:16; John 19:1-5).

With no reliable witnesses and on the testimony of the accused alone, despite Pilate's inclination to acquit Jesus because of lack of evidence (see Luke 23:4, 15, 22; John 18:38; 19:4, 6), and despite Pilate's own suspicion of the accusers' motives (see Matt. 27:18), Jesus was ordered to be crucified, the usual method of execution for a noncitizen. 45 Tradition claims that Peter later was also crucified; in contrast, Paul, a Roman citizen, was beheaded.

Golgotha/Calvary, the Place of Execution or Burial

The King James Version of Luke identifies the place of Jesus' execution as Calvary, whereas the other three Gospel writers call the place Golgotha: "He bearing his cross went forth into a place called the place of a skull, which is called in the Hebrew Golgotha" (John 19:17; see also Matt. 27:33; Mark 15:22).

All four writers associated the execution site with a skull. Hebrew and Aramaic gulgutha both mean "skull." Luke's Calvary is actually the Latin translation of the Greek kranion, which means "skull." Luke 23:33 reads in the Greek: "When they were come to the place, which is called kranion, there they crucified him."

To what does "skull" refer? The site could have had the physical appearance of a skull, or the name could have derived from the place's long-standing use for executions. It probably involves its being a place of burial. John 19:17 in the Joseph Smith Translation indicates that Jesus was taken "into a place called the place of a burial; which is called in the Hebrew Golgotha" (emphasis added).

The Tomb of Jesus

As with other sites of the events of the last days of Jesus' mortal life, there are two major possibilities for the location of his crucifixion, burial, and resurrection. According to scripture and Jewish customs, the site must have certain characteristics:

1. It must be outside the city walls, "nigh to the city" (John 19:20).

2. It must be near a main thoroughfare (see Matt. 27:39; Mark 15:29; John 19:20).

3. It must be a place of execution (see Mark 15:27; Luke 23:33).

4. There must be a garden nearby (John 19:41; 20:15).

5. The garden must contain at least one tomb (the tomb was near the place of crucifixion—John 19:41-42).

6. The rock tomb must be newly cut (Matt. 27:60; Luke 23:53; John 19:41).

7. It may have an anteroom (a mourning chamber) and several places for burial; in any case, it must be large enough to walk into (Mark 16:5; Luke 24:3; John 20:8).

8. It must have a large, heavy stone to seal the entrance, with a groove or trough for the stone to roll in (Matt. 27:60; Mark 15:46; 16:4; Luke 24:2).

9. The tomb entrance must be small, so that one has to stoop to look inside; a person looking in from the outside could see the place where the body was laid (Luke 24:12; John 20:5, 11-12).

10. The tomb must have someplace where linen burial clothes could lie and where a "young man" could sit (Mark 16:5), or where two angels could sit, one at the head and one at the foot of where Jesus' body had lain (John 20:12).

Let us consider these criteria as we examine the two options for the site of Jesus' crucifixion, burial, and resurrection.

Site one. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre has long been the traditional site of these venerated events. In the fourth century A.D., Constantine's mother, Helena, made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and identified the spot, which had a pagan temple built over it. Recent excavations show that this site, though now within the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem, was outside the walls in Jesus' day. Its location just outside the western city wall could have provided a busy thoroughfare for travelers. There is no evidence that it was a place of execution or that there was a garden nearby. A stone quarry existed at the Holy Sepulchre site in the first century after Christ. Roman period tombs have been discovered in the bedrock below the church. They are kokhim, typical sepulchres from that period, rock-cut burial niches with enough space for a single body. There may have been room for someone to walk into the entry chamber of the tomb. There is no evidence that large stones could be rolled to seal the entrance or that there was a bench or shelf on which a body could be placed or on which someone could sit inside the sepulchre. Two angels could in no fashion situate themselves inside a kokh. 46

Site two. The other possible site is the Garden Tomb, just outside (north) of the Damascus Gate of today's Old City. This tomb, discovered only last century, is now a place of pilgrimage for many thousands of Christians. This site was outside the walls of the city in Jesus' day alongside a main thoroughfare. It appears to have been a place of execution; today's Damascus Gate was called "St. Stephen's Gate" during the first millennium after Christ, suggesting that Stephen was killed in this area. 47 St. Stephen's Church (St. Etienne), from the fifth century after Christ, is immediately north of this site. One of ancient Jerusalem's biggest cisterns and a wine-press identify the grounds as possibly having been a garden at that time.

Many tombs have been discovered in the vicinity, most of them dating to the seventh and eighth centuries before Christ. The Garden Tomb itself appears to be part of a complex of Judaean tombs from those centuries; most of the complex lies north of the Garden Tomb in what is now the property of the Ecole Biblique, the French School of Archaeology. These tombs, unlike the later kokhim, are chambers with side rooms branching off in several directions. Each chamber contained, usually, three benches on which bodies were placed. Underneath one of the benches in each room was a respository for bones, suggesting reuse of the tombs over many generations.

A "new tomb" could also mean a newly remodeled tomb not yet used in the newly cut form. The Garden Tomb is nearly identical in style to the older tombs but has some features of later styles. There is no repository for bones, no evidence that it was used many times. It does have more than one room and is large enough to walk into. There is no stone at its entrance, but the trough for rolling one into place is clearly visible. The original entrance was short enough to require stooping to enter. And there was a bench or shelf (before Byzantines or others later carved out a sarcophagus) on which burial clothes could have lain and on which angels could have sat, on the right side as one enters the tomb (see Mark 16:5).

Some have objected to the Garden Tomb as the burial place of Jesus because its structure appears to be of the style used seven or eight centuries earlier. There are tombs from the early Roman period, however, that combine both old Judaean and Roman-period styles. At Khirbet Midras in the Shephelah, for example, is a tomb complex dating to the first century before Christ that has the older chambers containing benches but also features the later kokhim, or niches, and sarcophagi and ossuaries. Even the St. Etienne tomb complex, of which the Garden Tomb seems to be a part, has a chamber with sarcophagi quite distinct from the other chambers. While investigating ornate tombs in the Hinnom Valley, Leen Ritmeyer noted that some of the tombs that originated in the First Temple period were adapted and reused in the Second Temple period (early Roman period). "One of [the] side chambers with First Temple-period burial benches leads into an elaborate system of five tomb chambers with kokhim. In this way, too, the First Temple-period tomb was re-used and extended in the Second Temple period." 48

Of the two possible sites, the enduring reverence of tradition favors the Holy Sepulchre site, but the Garden Tomb more completely matches the scriptural description. There is presently no way to know if one of these two sites or yet another site was used for Jesus' burial. Regardless of investigations and evidences and surmises and conclusions, it is not wise to affix faith to a particular site. Belief is beyond physical territory. To the Christian the most important message is, "He is risen; he is not here" (Mark 16:6).

Theological Rationale for Jesus' Burial Site

A more theological or philosophical reasoning may be advanced for looking to the north for the place where Jesus' sacrifice occurred. We recall that two millennia before Christ, Abraham made the long, strenuous trek from Beersheba to Mount Moriah, later known as the Temple Mount (2 Chron. 3:1). He knew how repulsive and foreign human sacrifice is to the true worship of God, yet the command had been given to sacrifice his son. The test was perfectly designed for Abraham, who with Sarah had waited so many years for the covenant son, whom he loved. Now the Lord called on him to sacrifice, to give up, that beloved son. Paul wrote that "by faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son" (Heb. 11:17). Abraham's offering of his son Isaac was a similitude of God's offering his Only Begotten Son. And both may have been accomplished at the same location. By following the hill of Moriah northward to just outside the Second Wall of the city, we see a prominence where the Garden Tomb and other nearby tombs are situated, which was apparently a site of execution and burial in antiquity. 49

When Abraham and Isaac approached Moriah, Isaac reminded his father that they had the wood for the sacrifice but asked where the sacrifice was. Abraham prophetically responded, "My son, God [Elohim in the Hebrew text] will provide himself a lamb" (Gen. 22:7-8). When Abraham's test was consummated, and the angel of the Lord stopped the sacrifice of the son, a ram (not a lamb) was substituted. But two thousand years later, possibly on the northern extension of this same mountain, God did provide a lamb—the Lamb of God was sacrificed. We recall that a lamb slain on the great altar of the Temple was slain on the north side of the altar (see Lev. 1:11).

Abraham knew something of the meaning of his similitude-sacrifice. He had uttered prophetically—not unintentionally or accidentally—that God would provide a lamb as a sacrifice, and he knew that the Son would be that sacrifice, to be made at that very place—the reason for the long trek to Moriah instead of using some hill in the Negev. Jesus said in the Temple itself, "Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad" (John 8:56).

Thus, the Passover Lamb was slain at Passover time on the north of the Altar of Moriah as an atonement for sin, the symbolic and typical purpose of all the lambs slain on the Temple altar over the centuries—those sacrifices all prefigured that greatest Sacrifice. 50

The Temple at the Time of Jesus 51

No single place in all the world was holier to Jews and to Christians at the time of Jesus than Jerusalem's Temple Mount. It was known as Har Habayit, the "Mountain of the House [of God]," and no mountain on earth has such a unique history. To this most sacred parcel of ground the God of all creation could come to converse with his servants, the prophets and priests. "The Temple was the approach of a Nation to their God," wrote George Adam Smith. 52 And Jesus said, "In this place is one greater than the temple" (Matt. 12:6). There is evidence in word and in deed that Jesus considered the Temple to be the legitimate sanctuary of the true God. At one point he called it "my Father's house" (John 2:16); later he called it "my house" (Matt. 21:13).

Jesus' life from beginning to end was bound up with the Temple. An angel of the Lord appeared to Zacharias in the Holy Place, announcing the birth of the prophet who would prepare the way for the Messiah (see Luke 1:5-22). When Mary had fulfilled the forty-day ritual of purification after giving birth, Jesus was taken to the Temple in Jerusalem for the ceremonial redemption of the firstborn, at which the old Temple worker Simeon looked upon the promised Messiah in the flesh (see Luke 2:22-32). At age twelve, he was found "in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, and they were hearing him, and asking him questions" (JST Luke 2:46). 53

Near the commencement of his ministry, "Jesus was taken up into the holy city, and the Spirit setteth him on the pinnacle of the temple" (JST Matt. 4:5), where Satan tempted him. Of the whole length of the Temple Mount retaining walls, the southeast corner is the highest point—two hundred eleven feet, or sixty-four meters. But the distance from the top of Herod's Portico to the bottom of the Kidron Valley was more than four hundred feet. That is the traditional "pinnacle of the temple" to which it is believed Jesus was brought because it is the highest man-made height ever achieved anciently in the Holy Land. The point of Satan's temptation was to entice Jesus into misusing his divine power by throwing himself off the dizzying height and counting on angels to rescue him from the fall (see Matt. 4:6). 54

Some researchers, on the other hand, consider the southwestern corner of the Mount to be a more logical location for the temptation of Jesus. That corner has a much better angle for looking out over the city, and a specially carved platform stone was discovered in the toppled ruins below, the stone indicating by a Hebrew inscription where one of the priests would blow the shofar, or ram's horn trumpet, to signal the advent and the departure of the Sabbath and other holy days. 55

The Gospels frequently note Jesus' activity in the Temple courts and in the Temple itself when he was in Jerusalem during his three-year ministry:

The blind and the lame came to him in the temple; and he healed them. (Matt. 21:14)

Now about the midst of the feast Jesus went up into the temple, and taught. (John 7:14)

And early in the morning he came again into the temple, and all the people came unto him; and he sat down, and taught them. (John 8:2)

And he taught daily in the temple. (Luke 19:47)

And all the people came early in the morning to him in the temple, for to hear him. (Luke 21:38)

I spake openly to the world; I ever taught in the synagogue, and in the temple, whither the Jews always resort; and in secret have I said nothing. (John 18:20)

Jesus routinely adapted his teaching to objects or conditions from his immediate environment, often referring to something appropriate to the place where he taught. On one occasion in the Jerusalem Temple he made figurative use of the Temple. Hebrew literati for ages had metaphorically compared the human body to a temple. "Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days? But he spake of the temple of his body" (John 2:19-21). 56

According to the testimony of John, this was said near the beginning of Jesus' ministry, which would make this declaration the first recorded foreshadowing of Jesus' death and resurrection. Evidently the Jews understood his figurative language, that he referred not to Herod's Temple but to his own body, which he claimed power to raise up again after its death. At his hearing before the chief priests, one of the false witnesses testified, "This fellow said, I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to build it in three days" (Matt. 26:61). At the cross, "they that passed by reviled him, wagging their heads, and saying, Thou that destroyest the temple, and buildest it in three days, save thyself" (Matt. 27:39-40). Nevertheless, through all of this, the Jewish leaders understood Jesus' figure of speech. The following report is preserved of a conversation soon after Jesus' death: "Now the next day, that followed the day of the preparation, the chief priests and Pharisees came together unto Pilate, saying, Sir, we remember that that deceiver said, while he was yet alive, After three days I will rise again. Command therefore that the sepulchre be made sure until the third day" (Matt. 27:62-64; emphasis added).

Jesus further prophesied that not one stone of the Temple would be left standing on another (see Mark 13:1-2; Luke 21:6). The magnificent Temple, the House of the Lord, to which many Jerusalemites must have looked with a confident sense of inviolability, would be leveled to the ground and the Temple Mount plowed! Isaiah had once assured the Lord's people that as birds protectively hovered over their young, so the Lord of hosts would defend and preserve Jerusalem (see Isa. 31:4-5). But with no allegiance and devotion to their God, the leaders of the Jews and many of their followers had abandoned the Hope of Israel. Without faith and faithfulness, the Lord's hand would not be stretched out to protect them or the Holy Temple. The Lord's hand, like his word, could be a sharp two-edged sword, providing either protection or destruction. In this case, the Temple would be destroyed—as foreseen by Daniel, the prophet: "[Then] shall Messiah be cut off . . . and the people of the prince [Latin, princeps, as the Roman general Titus] that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary" (Dan. 9:26, emphasis added).

The largest and grandest of the Temples in Jerusalem would also be the shortest lived. 57

The Temple of Herod

The Temple of Herod was constructed beginning in 20 B.C. with the help of ten thousand workmen. One of Herod's main purposes was to provide greater space for the hundreds of thousands of worshippers who came to the Temple during the pilgrimage festivals and high holy days. One thousand priests who had trained as masons and carpenters helped to build the holiest parts, 58 and a thousand wagons transported materials. The Temple proper was under construction for a year and a half, and the courtyards and porticoes for eight years (though embellishment of the outer courts actually continued for more than eighty years). It was said that whoever had not seen the Temple of Herod had never seen a beautiful building in his life. 59 No other temple complex in the Graeco-Roman world compared with it in expansiveness and magnificence. According to Josephus, the polished white marble exterior of the Temple was covered with so much gold that when the sun shone on it, those who looked upon it could be blinded. 60 Although the architectural glories of Herod's Temple far surpassed those of Solomon's Temple, Herod's Temple had little of its predecessor's spiritual atmosphere. The Ark of the Covenant, the mercy seat, the cherubim, the Urim and Thummim providing revelatory contact with God, and other holy objects were lacking. And yet it was a place of revelation, as seen in the story of Zacharias (Luke 1), and Jesus acknowledged it as the Father's and his own House.

Herod nearly doubled the size of the Temple Mount from what it was during the period of the First Temple, making it in Jesus' day approximately forty acres in area (compare with the ten-acre area of Temple Square in Salt Lake City). He had to extend the platform of the mount to the north, to the west, and to the south. He built a massive retaining wall, trapezoidal in final shape, around the entire Temple Mount. That retaining wall alone was the longest, highest, and most impressive around any shrine in the ancient world, and the artificial esplanade, or enclosure, inside is the largest of its kind in antiquity. 61 Below floor level to the north and west was earth-fill, but to the south Herod supported the floor with vaults—twelve rows of arched colonnades with a total of eighty-eight pillars. The area under the floor of the southeast portion of the Temple courtyard, therefore, was hollow. This space is now occupied by a large, columned chamber erroneously called Solomon's Stables. Because it was constructed by Herod, the place did not exist in Solomon's day, though it was later used by the Crusaders for stabling horses.

The Temple Mount was a huge space measuring more than 157,000 square yards (144,000 square meters). 62 The Forum in Rome was only half that size, the Acropolis in Athens one-fifth that size, and the largest temple complex in the world—Karnak, in Upper Egypt, which was two thousand years in the building—is only a third bigger. Above ground on all sides of the Mount were extraordinary colonnaded porticoes, or porches (also called cloisters, that is, covered walkways with colonnades opening to the inside). Each portico had a double row of Corinthian columns, each column a monolith (cut from one block of stone), and the columns rose to more than thirty-seven feet high. According to Josephus, Herod extended the Mount northward, westward, and southward and erected porticoes inside these newly positioned walls, but he built up the eastern portico in the same position as on the previous Temple Mount. This eastern portico was called Solomon's Porch (see 1 Kgs. 6:3; Acts 3:11). There Jesus, having come to the Passover at age twelve, conversed with the learned rabbis; there he later walked and taught at the Feast of Dedication (Hanukkah) and testified that he was God's Son; and there the Jews tried to stone him (see John 10:22-39). Also Peter and John, after performing a miracle at the gate of the Temple, drew a large crowd in Solomon's Porch and preached and called for repentance following the denying and killing of the Holy One. They were arrested by Temple police and Sanhedrin officials (see Acts 3:1-4:3).

The southern portico, grander than the others, is often called Herod's Basilica. The word basilica (from the Greek basileus, "king," and therefore designating a royal portico) meant a public hall that was rectangular in shape and had colonnaded aisles. A similar ground plan was later adopted for early Christian churches. The Royal Basilica, or Portico, contained 162 Corinthian columns. At its foot were ramps leading onto the Temple courtyard from the south.

The eastern gate of the Temple Mount was called the Susa Gate, because it faced eastward toward Susa (Shushan in the Bible), the Persian capital where the biblical stories of Daniel, Esther, Nehemiah, and others in part unfolded (see Dan. 8:2; Esth. 1:2; Neh. 1:1). When this gate was originally built in the early Second Temple period, the memory of Shushan was fresh in the minds of the remnant that returned from Babylon. This gate was said to have been lower than the other gates so that the priests gathered across the bridge on the Mount of Olives for the sacrifice of the red heifer 63 might still look directly into the Temple.

The Courts of the Temple

The outer court was called the Court of the Gentiles, from which Jesus cast out the money changers. Non-Jews were allowed to enter this far onto the Temple Mount. 64 Surrounding the Temple proper was a balustrade (Hebrew, soreg), an elevated stone railing about four and a half feet high with inscriptions in Greek and Latin warning Gentiles not to pass beyond. One of these inscriptions was found in 1935 just outside the Lion's Gate of the Old City and is now on display in the Rockefeller Archaeological Museum in Jerusalem. It reads: "No Gentile shall enter inward of the partition and barrier surrounding the Temple, and whosoever is caught shall be responsible to himself for his subsequent death." 65 Roman authorities conceded to the Jewish religious leaders control of the sacred inner area to the point of capital punishment for non-Jews who passed beyond the stone railing.

A fortified inner wall with towers and gates surrounded the Court of the Women, which all Israelites were permitted to enter. The main gate into the Court of the Women was called the Beautiful Gate because of its rich decoration. At this gate Peter and John, on their way to Temple worship, stopped to hear the petition of a lame man. Peter dramatically healed the man, who joined them in the Temple, "walking, and leaping, and praising God" (Acts 3:1-11).

The Court of the Women was a large space nearly two hundred feet square. In the four corners were chambers for various functions. The eastern chambers served the Nazarites, where those who had made special vows could prepare their sacrifices, and another chamber was used for storing wood. The western chambers were used to store olive oil and for purification of lepers, which required a private ritual bath. It was perhaps to this Court of the Women that Joseph and Mary brought the infant Jesus five to six weeks (forty days) after his birth for him as a firstborn to be redeemed and for Mary to be ceremonially cleansed (see Luke 2:22-23).

This whole court was surrounded by porticoes. Against the walls inside the porticoes, the place called the Treasury, were trumpet-shaped boxes for charitable contributions, where the widow cast in her mites (see Mark 12:41-44) and where Jesus taught during the Feast of Taber-nacles (see John 8:20). In this court stood giant lampstands (menorot), seventy-five feet in height, giving light to the Temple Mount and to much of the City. 66 There Jesus proclaimed himself the Light of the world. There he bore witness of his own divinity, dealt mercifully with the woman taken in adultery, announced his Messiahship, and bore testimony that he was the God of Abraham. Jews tried to stone him again (see John 7-8).

Fifteen curved steps and then the Gate of Nicanor led into the innermost court. (Nicanor was a wealthy Jew from Alexandria who had donated the ornate doors of the gate.) Only priests and other authorized Temple officiators and participants would enter this court. To the sides of its porticoes were the Chamber of the Hearth, where priests on duty spent their nights, and the Chamber of Hewn Stone, where the Sanhedrin met. In the latter chamber, before the council, Stephen was transfigured (see Acts 6:12-15) and Paul later testified (see Acts 22:30-23:10).

On the north side of this court, which was actually a double court—first the Court of the Men of Israel, then the Court of the Priests—was the Place of Slaughtering. On the south side was the giant brass wash basin, or laver, supported on the backs of twelve lions. 67 Millions of gallons of water were brought in from "Solomon's Pools," south of Bethlehem, and stored in a connected series of rock-cut reservoirs, or cisterns.

Near the Laver the great horned Altar of Sacrifice or burnt offering stood, measuring forty-eight feet square and fifteen feet high. Some think that the huge rock mass inside the Dome of the Rock—which now measures approximately forty by fifty by seven feet high—once formed the base of the Altar of Sacrifice. 68 It is clear from scripture that King David purchased the rock to build an altar to the Lord (see 2 Sam. 24:18-25). The altar consisted of whitewashed unhewn stone, and it had a ramp leading up to it from the south that was forty-eight feet long and twenty-four feet wide. The altar either stood off-center in the court or was low enough in the center of the court so that the priest sacrificing the red heifer on the Mount of Olives could see straight into the giant entryway of the Holy Sanctuary, which stood sixty-six feet high and thirty-three feet wide.

The Sanctuary, or Holy Place, was made of marble. Two columns in front were named Jachin and Boaz (meaning "He will establish" and "In him is strength"), after the names of the entry columns of Solomon's Temple. The Temple proper was more than one hundred fifty feet high 69 (today's Dome of the Rock reaches a height of just over one hundred feet) and was surrounded on top by golden spikes to discourage birds from landing on and tarnishing the stone.

Inside the Holy Place was the veil leading to the most sacred chamber, the Holy of Holies. That same veil was torn from top to bottom at the death of Jesus (see Matt. 27:51). Whereas only the high priest once a year could enter the symbolic presence of God, now Jesus, through his death, rent that partition, signifying the accessibility of God's presence to all people (see Heb. 9:11-14; 10:19-22 for Paul's explanation of the symbolism). The rending of the Temple veil may also denote the rending of the Judaism of the Mosaic dispensation.

Overall, the Temple area consisted of a series of rising platforms. From the Court of the Gentiles one ascended stairs to the Court of the Women; from there, one ascended fifteen curved stairs (possibly singing fifteen Psalms of Ascent; see Ps. 120-34) to the Court of the Men of Israel and the Court of the Priests; and a final ascent was required to enter the Holy Place itself. Thus the phrase "Jesus went up into the temple" (John 7:14) is quite literal. The three courtyards surrounding the holiest place where the Divine Presence could be manifest may appropriately be compared to three degrees of glory and three settings for instruction in modern Temples: telestial, terrestrial, and celestial. It is not enough to progress into the third courtyard or heaven; it is incumbent upon each worshipper, now that the Great High Priest has made it possible for all, to actually enter into the highest degree of that realm, to symbolically enter into the Presence of God and be exalted.

We recall again the message of one of the Psalms of Ascent: "I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord. Our feet shall stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem. . . . Whither the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord, unto the testimony of Israel, to give thanks unto the name of the Lord. . . . Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love thee. . . . Because of the house of the Lord our God I will seek thy good" (Ps. 122).

Notes

^1. Herod's building energies carried him all over the Mediterranean world. He erected a gymnasium in Ptolemais and one in Tripoli, a marketplace and temples in Tyre and Berytus, a theater in Sidon, and a gymnasium and theater in Damascus. He erected buildings in Athens, Sparta, Nicopolis, and other Greek cities. He gave gifts to Pergamum, Samos, Cilicia, Pamphylia, and Lycia. He rebuilt the Temple of Apollo on the island of Rhodes, and he repaved the main street of Syrian Antioch with marble along the entire length of the city and adorned it with a double colonnade. He was a generous contributor to the Olympic games and was given the permanent title of Chairman of the Games. See also in Josephus, Antiquities 16.5.1-3 and Wars 1.21.11-12; Anchor Bible Dictionary, 3:166, s.v. "Herod the Great"; Pritchard, Harper Atlas of the Bible, 158-59; Avigad, Discovering Jerusalem, 82.

^2. Many of these building projects are beautifully illustrated in Connolly, Living in the Time of Jesus.

^3. See Aharoni and Avi-Yonah, Macmillan Bible Atlas, Map 221.

^4. The king's palace was built in 23 B.C. on the western side at the highest spot in the city. Three towers were erected to secure his palace, which had a wall on all sides to protect not only the city in general on the west but also the palace from his own subjects on the east. On the north end of the palace complex were military barracks and a camp for his guards; the rest of the palace consisted of banquet halls, guest apartments, baths, and so on—some of which were adorned with lovely mosaics and frescoes. Landscaping included groves of trees, aqueducts, pools, water-spouting statues, and fountains. The largest of Herod's towers at the north end of his palace was named after his brother Phasael (148 ft./45 m.)—some of this tower remains today in the Citadel at Jaffa Gate; another tower to the east was named in honor of a friend, Hippicus (132 ft./40 m.); and a third tower was named after his beloved wife Mariamne, whom he executed because he suspected her of involvement in some treachery (90 ft./27 m.). The towers had elaborate residential quarters in the upper sections, and the Hippicus tower held a deep water reservoir above its base. Outside the palace to the east was the agora (Greek, "marketplace"; Latin, forum), a colonnaded shopping mall with an open plaza in the middle. The area east and south of Herod's palace was known as the Upper City, in contrast to the Lower City on the eastern hill, the ancient City of David. The Upper City boasted a wealthier Jewish housing district with Hellenistic town-planning: well laid-out streets and houses built around courtyards with gardens and cisterns.

^5. For details of other monuments and structures in Herodian Jerusalem, see Ogden, Illustrated Guide, 32-33.

^6. On the west side of the Temple Mount a bridge built by the Hasmonaeans connected the Mount with the Upper City (the Western Hill); it is now named after its nineteenth-century discoverer Charles Wilson, thus, Wilson's Arch. A monumental staircase projected from the southwest corner of the Temple Mount. The beginnings of the staircase is now called Robinson's Arch, after the nineteenth-century American scholar and explorer Edward Robinson, who stood at then-ground level and examined, measured, and postulated over the purpose of the arched bridge. Though once it was considered another bridge spanning the valley to the Upper City, it is now known through excavation that the bridge was in fact an arched stairway, the largest known anywhere in the classical world, conducting pedestrians into the twelve-meter-wide street of the Central (Tyropoeon) Valley. See Mazar, "Herodian Jerusalem," 230-37; Ben-Dov, Shadow of the Temple, 120-33; New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations, 2:740-41; Ben-Dov, Ophel Archaeological Garden; a painting of the staircase may be seen in Connolly, Living in the Time of Jesus, 4-5. The main entrance and exit to the Temple Mount were the two sets of gates, called the Huldah Gates, leading in and out of the Temple Mount from the south. Through the one on the right a person would enter to perform the holy work in the Temple, after having gone through ritual washings or cleansings accomplished in small pools or fonts (mikvehs) outside the retaining walls of the sacred enclosure. Through the gate on the left a person would exit following the Temple work or service. Now partly visible after recent archaeological restoration is a beautiful stone staircase leading up to the wall. The elaborate stairway was originally two hundred ten feet wide. There are thirty steps, alternating steps and landings—conducive to a slow, reverent ascent or descent. From here rabbis sometimes taught the people. Jesus could have taught on this stairway also, at one point in his scathing condemnation of hypocrites even gesturing eastward over the Kidron toward the city's necropolis and comparing hypocrites to whited sepulchres, radiant and impressive on the outside but on the inside full of dead men's bones and corruption (see Matt. 23:27-31). On the Huldah Gates and the monumental stairway, see Yadin, Jerusalem Revealed, 25-30; New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations, 2:739.

^7. According to Broshi, finances for Herod's extensive building projects came from heavy taxes and duties, agriculture, exports, transit trade, and donations to the Jerusalem Temple (half-shekel dues, etc.). "Role of the Temple in the Herodian Economy," 31-37.

^8. Herod Antipas reigned longer than any other ruler in the Second Temple Period: forty-three years. He is the Herodian administrator most often mentioned in the New Testament. Jesus referred to him as "that fox" (Luke 13:32). Antipas beheaded John the Baptist.

^9. See Aharoni and Avi-Yonah, Macmillan Bible Atlas, Map 222; Bible Map 14; Bible Dictionary, 701, s.v. "Herod."

^10. See Bible Dictionary, 644-45, s.v. "Chronology—New Testament."

^11. "Clearly the fortress was strategically located to accomplish Herod's purpose of dominating the temple through a garrison which could readily allay any disturbance that might arise in the temple precincts." Anchor Bible Dictionary, 1:274, s.v. "Antonia, Tower of." "A Roman garrison was permanently stationed in the city, based in the Antonia Fortress, which controlled the Temple area." New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations, 2:719.

^12. Compare Talmud, Sanhedrin I, 18a, and Shabbat 15a.

^13. Josephus, Antiquities 15.11.5 and Wars 5.5.2; 6.2.4.

^14. Talmud, B. Yoma 69a.

^15. During the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius, the governors of Judaea were equestrians with the title praefectus. Later, probably beginning in the reign of Claudius, the title procurator was used. See Anchor Bible Dictionary, 5:473-74, s.v. "Procurator"; Finegan, Archeology of the New Testament, 139.

^16. In 1990 archaeologists discovered a burial cave in the Peace Forest in south Jerusalem that contained several ossuaries, or burial boxes. One of the ossuaries has two inscriptions bearing the name Caiaphas; it is generally agreed that this refers to the same high priest involved in securing the death penalty for Jesus. See New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations, 2:756; see also Greenhut, "Burial Cave of the Caiaphas Family," 29-44, 76.

^17. An inscription mentioning Pontius Pilate was found in 1961 in the stage area of the Roman theater at Caesarea. The inscription refers to some edifice named in honor of the Emperor Tiberius and indicates that Pontius Pilatus was praefectus Iudaeae. See Anchor Bible Dictionary, 5:473, s.v. "Procurator"; Finegan, Archeology of the New Testament, 138-39.

^18. Philo, Embassy to Gaius, 301.

^19. Josephus, Antiquities 18.3.1.

^20. The aqueduct carries water from Arub Springs near Hebron to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem through an open canal and several tunnels for forty-two miles (sixty-eight km., though only thirteen miles, or twenty-one kilometers direct). Josephus, Antiquities 18.3.2 and Wars 2.9.4. See also Encyclopedia Judaica, 9:1540; Yadin, Jerusalem Revealed, 79-80.

^21. Philo, Embassy to Gaius, 353-67.

^22. Philo, Embassy to Gaius, 199-206. See also Josephus, Antiquities 18.8; Wars 2.10; Tacitus, Histories 5.9.2.

^23. Avi-Yonah, Herodian Period, 137.

^24. Josephus, Antiquities 19.4-5; Wars 2.11.

^25. This is apparently the Third Wall Josephus refers to in Wars 5.4.2. The wall runs north from the northeast corner of the Temple Mount and then west; it was begun by Agrippa (A.D. 41-44) and finished by Jewish zealots during the First Revolt, just before the Romans destroyed it. The northeastern gate traditionally called St. Stephen's Gate, now called the Lion's Gate, was part of this work of Agrippa about a decade after the Crucifixion; the gate was not there yet when Stephen, a short time after the Crucifixion, was stoned to death (see Acts 7:58-59). An older tradition suggests Stephen's martyrdom took place outside the northern gate of the city—today's Damascus Gate—where there was an execution place and where Jesus had also been martyred. For more on the Third Wall, see New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations, 2:744-45.

^26. Josephus, Antiquities 20.2 and 4.3; Bahat, Illustrated Atlas of Jerusalem, 53; Yadin, Jerusalem Revealed, 18-19.

^27. Josephus, Antiquities 20.8.6; Wars 2.8.5; Acts 21:38.

^28. Josephus, Antiquities 20.9.1.

^29. During this period Jerusalem covered approximately three hundred acres and had one to two hundred thousand residents. See Edersheim, Life and Times of Jesus, 115; Ben-Dov, Shadow of the Temple, 75. Jerusalem was the largest walled city in the Holy Land and one of the largest in the entire Near East. The importance of Jerusalem is demonstrated in the writings of Philo, an Alexandrian philosopher contemporary with Jesus, who issued a veiled threat to Caligula (who wanted to set up his own statue in Jerusalem). Philo wrote that the holy city of Jerusalem was "the mother city not of one country Judaea but of most of the others in virtue of the colonies sent out at diverse times to the neighbouring lands Egypt, Phoenicia, the part of Syria called the Hollow [Coele-Syria: that is, the Beq'a] and . . . Pamphylia, Cilicia, most of Asia [Minor] up to Bithynia and the corners of Pontus, similarly also into Europe, Thessaly, Boeotia, Macedonia, Aetolia, Attica, Argos, Corinth and most of the best parts of Peloponnese. And not only are the mainlands full of Jewish colonies but also the most highly esteemed of the islands Euboea, Cyprus, Crete. I say nothing of the countries beyond the Euphrates. . . . So that if my own home city is granted a share of your goodwill the benefit extends not to one city but to myriads of the others situated in every region of the inhabited world." Philo, Embassy to Gaius, 281-83.

Jerusalem was an international city, and Jerusalemites could expect to see travelers from all parts of the Roman world. One of the most comprehensive lists of place names in the Bible recites the origin of those attending the Shavuot Festival, the day of Pentecost, shortly after Jesus' departure into heaven: Luke reported "Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven . . . Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judaea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretes and Arabians" (Acts 2:5, 9-11).

^30. Of interest to students of the New Testament are inscriptions found on ossuaries at Dominus Flevit, the place where Jesus is traditionally believed to have looked out over Jerusalem and wept. The inscriptions include the names Yeshua (Jesus), Mary, Martha, Salome, Sapphira, Jonah, Simeon, Zechariah, John, Joseph, and others. See New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations, 2:753; Finegan, Archeology of the New Testament, 370. For further information on early Roman-period burial practices and on such famous burial monuments as King Herod's Family Tomb, the Uzziah Tomb inscription, Absalom's Pillar, Tomb of Zechariah, the tomb of the priestly family of Hezir, Tomb of the Kings, Sanhedrin Tombs, and others from the first century before Christ to the first century after, see Bahat, Illustrated Atlas of Jerusalem, 50-55; New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations, 2:714-15, 747-56; Ogden and Chadwick, Holy Land, 328-31; Connolly, Living in the Time of Jesus, 60-61; Finegan, Archeology of the New Testament, 292-318.

^31. The Gospels record seven visits Jesus made to Jerusalem:

1. At forty days (see Luke 2:22-39), likely in the Court of the Women with Simeon and Anna; 2. At age twelve (see Luke 2:41-50), teaching in the Temple (Court of the Men of Israel?); 3. Overthrowing money changers (see John 2:13-22) in the Court of the Gentiles; 4. Healing the paralyzed man (see John 5) at the Pool of Bethesda; 5. Teaching at the Feast of Tabernacles (see John 7:1-10:21) "in the treasury" (John 8:20) and healing a blind man and sending him to the Pool of Siloam (see John 9:1-7); 6. Teaching at the Feast of Dedication (see John 10:22-42) in Solomon's Porch; 7. Week of the Atoning Sacrifice, the Triumphal Entry through the eastern gate of the Temple Mount. See Aharoni and Avi-Yonah, Macmillan Bible Atlas, Maps 234, 235.

^32. See Danby, Mishnah, 500, n. 11. See also Finegan, Archeology of the New Testament, 163.

^33. For descriptions of Jerusalem's waterworks during this period, see Yadin, Jerusalem Revealed, 79-84; Bahat, Illustrated Atlas of Jerusalem, 48-50; New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations, 2:746-47.

^34. The other eight were the Pool of Israel, the Pool of St. Mary, the Struthion Pools, the Leger Pool, the Pool of Amygdalon (Hezekiah's Pool), the Serpent's Pool (or Sultan's Pool), the Mamilla Pool, and Solomon's Pools (with water conducted via aqueducts to Jerusalem). For details, see Ogden and Chadwick, Holy Land, 321-26.

^35. "The lower of the two pools was probably used for washing sheep, which were then sold for sacrifices at the nearby Temple." Encyclopedia Judaica, 9:1539; see also Bahat, Illustrated Atlas of Jerusalem, 57; Ogden and Chadwick, Holy Land, 322.

^36. According to recent investigation along the southern shoulder of the Hinnom Valley—traditionally called Akeldama—these tombs are far too elaborate to be burial places for the poor and strangers. They are more likely the burial places of the high priest Annas and his family and of other prominent citizens of Jerusalem. See Ritmeyer and Ritmeyer, "Akeldama—Potter's Field or High Priest's Tomb?" 22-35.

^37. Just as there were seven major visits of Jesus to Jerusalem, so were there seven major events in Jesus' final days: 1. The Last Supper in an upper room, apparently on what today is called Mount Zion; 2. Atonement for sin in the Garden of Gethsemane, on the Mount of Olives; 3. The "trial" before Jewish leaders at Caiaphas' Palace, on today's Mount Zion; 4. The "trial" before the Roman governor in the Praetorium in the Antonia Fortress or Herod's Palace; 5. Execution on Golgotha/Calvary, just outside the city wall; 6. Burial and resurrection from the tomb in a garden near Golgotha; 7. Ascension into heaven after the forty-day ministry, from the Mount of Olives. See also Aharoni and Avi-Yonah, Macmillan Bible Atlas, Map 236.

^38. The word Zion, in biblical terms, originally referred to the Eastern Hill of ancient Jerusalem, the City of David. The name then shifted to the Temple Mount. Since the Second Temple period, and since Josephus so labeled it in his writings, people have called the Western Hill "Mount Zion" because they supposed that this hill was the original City of David. Thus we have David's Tower at Jaffa Gate and David's Tomb on the Western Hill. See Pixner, "Church of the Apostles Found on Mt. Zion," 16-35, 60; Ogden and Chadwick, Holy Land, 331-35.

^39. Harper Atlas of the Bible, 166.

^40. Concerning Gethsemane's ancient olive trees: "Carbon-14 tests on roots from the trees show that they are 2300 years old. Such dating is notoriously flexible, but the antiquity of the trees is also supported by Prof. Shimon Lavi, director of the Orchard Department of the Volcani Institute, who estimates that they are between 1600 and 1800 years old, but quite possibly more." "Gethsemane's Ancient Trees," 50; Bahat, Illustrated Atlas of Jerusalem, 56.

^41. See New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations, 2:742-43; Ogden and Chadwick, Holy Land, 336-38.

^42. Kenyon, Digging Up Jerusalem, 226. Under today's Sisters of Zion Convent may be seen some large Roman flagstones from the time of Hadrian's Aelia Capitolina, nearly a century after Jesus but probably similar to what must have existed nearby in Herod's former fortress.

^43. Avi-Yonah (Aharoni and Avi-Yonah, Macmillan Bible Atlas, Map 236 and text) argues that Pilate's praetorium was set up in the Antonia. See also Josephus, Wars 5.5.8: "There always lay in this tower a Roman legion . . . in order to watch the people, that they might not there attempt to make any [insurrection]. . . . The tower of Antonia [was] a guard to the temple."

^44. Philo, Embassy to Gaius, 299; Harper Atlas of the Bible, 166-67; Yadin, Jerusalem Revealed, 55, 87; Anchor Bible Dictionary, 5:447-49, s. v. "Praetorium." Finegan presents the case for yet a third candidate for the Praetorium—the old Hasmonaean Palace—but in the end he, too, sides with Herod's Palace as the most likely possibility. See Archeology of the New Testament, 249-53.

^45. Many thousands of crucifixions were carried out by Romans in the first century after Christ. Many of those crucifixions used metal spikes or nails. In 1968 the bones of a crucified man were found in a tomb on Givat HaMivtar, a housing area in north Jerusalem. The large iron nail, which was normally pulled out following the crucifixion and reused, had imbedded in a knot, so the man's leg bones were cut off and buried with the large nail still in position through the bones of both feet. See illustrations in Connolly, Living in the Time of Jesus, 51; see also New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations, 2:754.

^46. Nor, for that matter, could angels have sat, one at the head and one at the foot, inside an arcosolium, a bench or shelf carved along a chamber wall that featured a shallow arch for a ceiling. See New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations, 2:749.

^47. For more on St. Stephen's Gate, see note 25 above.

^48. Ritmeyer and Ritmeyer, "Akeldama—Potter's Field or High Priest's Tomb?" 34.

^49. For references to sacrifices on the north side of the altar and the topographical and geological connection between the Temple Mount and its northern end, the place of execution and burial, see Smith, Jerusalem, 1:33ff. See also Simons, Jerusalem in the Old Testament, 25.

^50. "The ongoing cycle of sacrificial offerings and especially the annual sin offering were epitomized and fulfilled, once and for all, by the sacrifice of Jesus' life. Jesus' entry into the eternal Temple on behalf of humanity ruled out forever the need for further sacrifices at either an earthly or a heavenly temple (see Heb 8:10). The crucifixion of Jesus in association with the Passover meant an understanding of his death in terms of the slaughter of the Paschal lamb and, by extension, in terms of the full sacrificial component of the Temple." Anchor Bible Dictionary, 6:367.

^51. Sources for particulars about the Temple Mount during the late Second Temple period include Josephus, Antiquities 15.11 and Wars 5.4, and the tractate of the Mishnah called Middoth ("Measurements"). See also Bahat, Illustrated Atlas of Jerusalem, 42-43; Yadin, Jerusalem Revealed, 14-20. For visual illustrations and reconstructions, see Ogden, Illustrated Guide; A Model of Herod's Temple (slide set), circulated internationally by Ritmeyer Archaeological Design, York, England; Connolly, Living in the Time of Jesus.

^52. Smith, Jerusalem, 2:522.

^53. We wonder, as we did with Solomon's Temple, what ordinance work would have been performed in Herod's Temple. The only clarifying scriptural passage on this subject is D&C 124:38-39. Elders Joseph Fielding Smith and Bruce R. McConkie supposed that Peter, James, and John received their endowment on the Mount of Transfiguration. See Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, 2:165; McConkie, Doctrinal New Testament Commentary, 1:400. Such sacred ordinances would not have been available in the Temple in Jerusalem because it was operating without the Melchizedek Priesthood—although it may be instructive to compare Luke 24:49 with D&C 95:8-9. Baptisms for the dead at least could be performed after the Savior's preparation for such work in the spirit world (see D&C 138) and after his resurrection. Truman Madsen wrote: "There is some evidence, in addition to the statement in 1 Corinthians 15:29, that proxy baptism for the dead was practiced among and by early Christians. Indeed, in the iconography, in the typology, and in the baptismal instruction of the early church fathers one may discern at least two different sorts of initiation: one through water baptism, and the other through certain initiatory oblations and anointings and baptism for the dead. That men and women are privileged to 'go through' each and all of the patterns and ordinances for and in behalf of their deceased families and others is unusual in contemporary religious practice. But, again, the proxy and representational ideas are not at the periphery of early Jewish and Christian practice; they are at the core." Madsen, Temple in Antiquity, 12. See also Adams, "Iconography of Early Christian Initiation"; Nibley, "Baptism for the Dead in Ancient Times"; Foschini, "Those Who Are Baptized for the Dead," 328-44.

^54. See Finegan, Archeology of the New Testament, 203-4.

^55. The inscription reads: "Leveit hatekiya lehakh . . ." (to the place of trumpeting to [announce?] . . .). See illustration in Bahat, Illustrated Atlas of Jerusalem, 44; Yadin, Jerusalem Revealed, 27; New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations, 2:740.

^56. Some Jews saw in Jesus' remark an irreverent slight of their holy Temple. Later, Stephen and Paul were denounced for their seeming disrespect for the Temple. False witnesses accused Stephen: "This man ceaseth not to speak blasphemous words against this holy place" (Acts 6:13). Stephen was killed. Paul was censured for allegedly taking a Gentile into the sacred precincts of the Temple (Acts 21:26-32); enraged Jews sought to kill him, too.

^57. See Anchor Bible Dictionary, 6:365. Jesus' prophecy was fulfilled literally—not one stone was left standing atop another of the Temple itself; what is left standing to this day is the retaining wall around the hill of the Temple.

^58. Herod was aware of the Jews' distrust of him and their sensitivities regarding their holiest place. Before he began the actual reconstruction of the Temple itself, he had all the stone and other materials cut and prepared and in place. Then the demolition of the old Temple and rebuilding of the new proceeded. See Josephus, Antiquities 15.11.2. We note that the use of priests as masons gave rise over the ages to masonry—temple workers who were also builders.

^59. Talmud, Succah 51b, and Baba Bathra 3b, 4a.

^60. Josephus, Wars 5.5.6.

^61. Ben-Dov, Shadow of the Temple, 78. See also Bahat, Illustrated Atlas of Jerusalem, 42-43; Anchor Bible Dictionary, 6:365; Broshi, "Role of the Temple in the Herodian Economy," 31-37. Of the Western Wall of Herod's Temple Mount, popularly called the Wailing Wall, only a middle portion is visible today. Fourteen courses (fifty-two feet) of beautifully carved stones with Herod's characteristic marginal dressing are now underground. The top portion of the Western Wall is also not to be seen today, having been destroyed by the Romans, though the Ottoman Turkish ruler Suleiman in the early 1500s restored the upper courses of stone along with the ramparts. Suleiman's work is quite inferior to the work of Herod's engineers more than fifteen hundred years earlier. The original retaining wall was some thirty yards above the paved road (as high as a modern ten-story building) and the towers were thirty-five yards high. The prodigious undertaking of bringing into position all of Herod's massive building stones is evidenced by the finding of one stone measuring more than fourteen yards long, three yards high, four yards thick, and weighing about four hundred tons. See Ben-Dov, Shadow of the Temple, 88; Bahat claims that the largest of these stones could weigh 570 tons. See Geva, Ancient Jerusalem Revealed, 181; Bahat, "Jerusalem Down Under," 39. At the southeast corner of the Temple Mount, about one hundred feet (thirty-two meters) north of the corner, is a "seam." An obvious difference in the cut of the stone is visible. To the north, stones were left rough on the exterior and to the south, very smooth. North of the seam is pre-Herodian work; the extension south is definitely Herod's addition to the platform of the Temple Mount. See New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations, 2:743.

^62. Avi-Yonah, Herodian Period, 215; Yadin, Jerusalem Revealed, 14; New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations, 2:737; Ben-Dov, Shadow of the Temple, 77.

^63. On the sacrifice of the red heifer, whose ashes, mixed with water, were used to represent purification from sin and were symbolic of the Savior's atoning sacrifice, see Num. 19:1-10 and the Mishnaic tractate Parah. See also Heb. 9:11-16; McConkie, Mortal Messiah, 1:136, 152.

^64. Similarly, non-Latter-day Saints and Church members without temple recommends are allowed onto Temple Square in Salt Lake City to within a certain proximity of the Temple.

^65. See Bahat, Illustrated Atlas of Jerusalem, 44. Another warning inscription was discovered earlier, in 1870. See New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations, 2:744; see also photo in Connolly, Living in the Time of Jesus, 36. Josephus mentions the partition wall with warning inscriptions in Antiquities 15.11.5 and Wars 5.5.2.

^66. Succah 5:2-3.

^67. Edersheim, Temple, 55.

^68. Anchor Bible Dictionary, 6:354, s.v. "Jerusalem Temple"; New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations, 2:736; Kaufmann, "Where the Ancient Temple of Jerusalem Stood," 40-59; Ritmeyer, "Locating the Original Temple Mount," 24-45, 64-65; New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations, 2:743.

^69. Encyclopedia Judaica, 9:1398.