Archives For holy city

The Temple Mount—An Ordinary Hill Made Holy

Abraham saw the acreage. David bought the lot. Solomon built the house.

Nebuchadnezzar tore it town. Zerubbabel rebuilt it. Herod the Great expanded it. Titus flattened it. Before these temples stood on Mount Moriah, it was nothing but a hill used for threshing wheat.

Hardly worth noticing.

Temple Mount aerial from north bb00040095 2 The Temple Mount—An Ordinary Hill Made Holy

(Photo: the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, courtesy of Pictorial Library of Bible Lands)

But today, the Temple Mount remains the most precious piece of real estate in the world. And the golden shrine that graces its crest has become the icon for the Holy City of Jerusalem itself.

How did this ordinary hill become holy? Not through battles or land bartering or by popular vote.

God chose it.

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The 4 Quarters of Jerusalem United One Day?

Whenever I visit the ancient Cardo street in Jerusalem, I like to look at the replica of the Medeba Map mosaic.

It depicts the Holy Land as it looked in AD 580 and shows Jerusalem sectioned by crossroads. The divisions paved the way for the four quarters of today.

Medeba map replica © Stiles The 4 Quarters of Jerusalem United One Day?

Photo: Replica of the Medeba Map mosaic, showing the Cardo street. The Greek letters read: “Holy City of Jerusalem”

The annual celebration of Jerusalem Day, or Yom Yerushalayim, reminds me of the T-shirt my grandmother bought me when she went to Jerusalem in 1987. I think I still have the shirt. (Some of us men keep clothes way too long.)

Printed in English, Hebrew and Arabic, the shirt celebrated “The 20th Anniversary of the Reunification of Jerusalem.” But can we really call the city unified?

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