8 March 2009

It was completed in 691 and is the holiest site in Islam.

The exterior detail is incredible.

I need to go back to this beautiful place, although it is lovely seeing it from my bedroom view everyday.
Muslims are so dedicated. They pray five times a day. They stop whatever they’re doing when it’s prayer time and they all pray, facing Mecca. They also have a month where they fast all day everyday. They can only eat while it’s dark and they do it for an entire month called Ramadan. They also give a lot of money to the poor around them. They ideally want equality between them too, because during their feasts and stuff they share a lot with the poor. And during the Pilgrimage to Mecca, they all wear similar clothing so you can’t tell any difference between wealth status. There are so many Muslims around here and I have gained such a greater appreciation for them. As a religion, they are so dedicated. It’s wonderful.

Today I walked where Christ walked.

We went on a field trip and saw what Jerusalem was like in Herod’s time. We saw the walls of the temple mount, and saw structures that are around 2000 years old. Everything is so old here. Isn’t it amazing? Christ and the apostles and lots of people would’ve walked on this exact path to get to the temple.

The temple was destroyed in 70 AD and I don’t know how the Romans did it. There are these humongous stones, that you can see behind Jessica and I, and they hurled them off the top. I don’t know how they would’ve or could’ve destroyed the temple, but they did, and we saw the remains today.

As you can see, the road was paved with these huge, thick stones, and when the giant giant stones were pushed off the top, they caused so much damage to the road. It is incredible how they destroyed the temple, and even more incredible how they built it.

Behind Kara and I is what I like to call a giant catapult, but Brother Skinner informed us that it wasn’t so. That thing was used to move stones and place them I think. We can still pretend its a catapult though.

We were at the retaining wall around the temple, which is the same wall at the Wailing Wall, just at the southern end. Since that wall is closest to where the Holy of Holies and the Ark of the Covenant would’ve been, people still put their petitions into the wall. 

Christ and the apostles walked up these steps 2000 years ago to go into the beautiful temple. I walked up them too.

Being in Jerusalem, I see a lot of old things and a lot of stones, but the ones I saw today were especially amazing. I was actually walking on the exact same stones and saw the exact same structures that Christ would’ve walked on and looked at 2000 years ago. I love being here.