It was on a Sunday in Jerusalem

It's heading toward the end of Sunday here, our third holy day in a row. Friday we went through the West Bank along the Jordan river on the Muslim holy day (the Palestinians there didn't seem too bothered--I've only heard prayer chants here in Jerusalem even though Nazareth, Cana, Bethlehem are all Arab cities).

Saturday was Shavat, and I'll reserve a special entry for my venting on the stupidity of fundamentalisms in all three faiths--Jewish, Christian, and Muslim. Just a few simple lessons on hermeneutics explode a ridiculous way of life for the orthodox Jews here.

Then today is the Christian Sabbath. The juxtaposition of faiths in these ways gives us pause. Do I look as silly to them as they do to me? Maybe I don't, but I bet the ones kissing the rock in the church where Jesus was allegedly tempted do. By the way, I actually almost kissed it myself, so I don't mean any of my comments personally.

I'm going to try to catch up while also keeping up with these new days a bit. Today was a great day--immensely helpful in getting a perspective on things. I'll list our pilgrimage today:

1. Mount of Olives--panoramic view of the Temple Mount

2. Church of Tears (whatever it's really called), where Jesus is said to have weeped for Jerusalem. It's right across from the Eastern Gate and quite a good place to do that.

3. Garden of Gethsemane, including cave where they may have hid out from authorities.

All the above are in primarily Palestinian occupied areas and are on the east side of the temple mount. Below the Mount of Olives are cemetaries and the Kidron Valley.

4. We went to the traditional site of the upper room, next to the Church of the Assumption of Mary.

5. We went through the Zion Gate and looked at a road Hadrian made through the city when he conquered and rebuilt it as Aelia Capitolina in 135 after the Bar Kochba revolt.

6. We shopped in the Jewish quarter.

7. We ate in the Jewish quarter.

8. We visited the wailing wall, men on the left, women on the right. Men can only go down with a cap of some kind. Some of the men went into a chamber with the psycho-orthodox praying like crazy and saw a vaulted ceiling I think Herod had built.

I felt bad and angry for the women of our group. I'll save my finger pointing at Christians who divide life between men and women for another blog. Prepare to be compared to the silly Orthodox Jews still waiting for the Messiah and the fundamentalist Muslims here. You're not much better, just as ignorant and displeasing to God.

9. We went to the temple mount. We had to surrender all our "holy items": prayer shalls, mezuzoth, etc... so the Muslims wouldn't be angry to find foreign holy things on their mount. At least that's the way I understood it.

10. We went to the spot Wilbur believes the temple had stood. He thinks the ark of the covenant is buried underneath. The Muslims stopped a dig he was on once. They refuse to believe that any temple ever stood there before the Dome of the Rock. Of course no one who knows anything about anything could make such a claim of utter stupidity. I'll save it for the other entry. I'll just say that you hold the mirror up to many Christians and say, we're not really much smarter with the way we sometimes manipulate evidence and truth. I'm sure this is true of me as well.

11. We went back to get our holy items.

12. We went out the Dung Gate (what does that make us?) and rode the bus to the burial site of Sanhedrin members. We were all very tired by now.

13. But it continues, we drove out north to the traditional burial site of Samuel, which is next to Gibeon where Joshua is said to have conquered some Canaanites and Gibeah, of Saul fame, and of course, Solomon sacrificed a bunch of animals at the Samuel site as well to dedicate the temple.

Did I mention that this was north of Jerusalem, in the West Bank. One of the benefits of going with Wilbur is all these incursions into the West Bank (no pun intended). I asked Wilbur to point out where Ramallah was in relation to the Samuel site (we were way up on top of the building, surveying the kingdoms of the world). It was just over the hill a bit, a little more than five miles according to my map.

Well, that's enough for now. I need a nap...