Our trip to Israel was truly incredible. I have created a virtual tour re-stepping our journey as if you were one of the 12. This post will seek to deliver a theologian’s skeptical and deep look into the probable path of Jesus. It is a virtual tour of the steps He walked and will serve as a great tour guide to perhaps the best understanding of what really took place 2000 years ago. Blessings.

Qumran Caves and the Dead Sea Scrolls

The Dead Sea Scrolls, also called the Qumran Caves Scrolls, are a set of ancient Jewish manuscripts from the Second Temple period. They were discovered over a period of 10 years, between 1946 and 1956, at the Qumran Caves near Ein Feshkha in the West Bank, on the northern shore of the Dead Sea. Dating from the 3rd century BCE to the 1st century CE,^[3] the Dead Sea Scrolls include the oldest surviving manuscripts of entire books later included in the biblical canons, including deuterocanonical manuscripts from late Second Temple Judaism and extrabiblical books. At the same time, they cast new light on the emergence of Christianity and of Rabbinic Judaism.^[4] Almost all of the 15,000 scrolls and scroll fragments are held in the Shrine of the Book at the Israel Museum located in Jerusalem.

Owing to the poor condition of some of the scrolls, scholars have not identified all of their texts. The identified texts fall into three general groups:

1. About 40% are copies of texts from Hebrew scriptures.
2. Approximately 30% are texts from the Second Temple period that ultimately were not canonized in the Hebrew Bible, such as the Book of Enoch, the Book of Jubilees, the Book of Tobit, the Wisdom of Sirach, Psalms 152–155, etc.
3. The remainder (roughly 30%) are sectarian manuscripts of previously unknown documents that shed light on the rules and beliefs of a particular sect or groups within greater Judaism, such as the Community Rule, the War Scroll, the Pesher on Habakkuk, and The Rule of the Blessing.^[5]

Here is an entire article from our trip on the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The Jordan River

The baptism of Jesus, the ritual purification of Jesus with water by John the Baptist, described in (Matthew, Mark and Luke). It is considered to have taken place at Al-Maghtas, the Gospel of John (John 1:28) states that John was baptizing in “Bethany Beyond the Jordan.” This site was found following UNESCO-sponsored excavations.^[6] I wrote a dedicated article to this as well. The river has always been small… more of a stream than a river and I am betting the baptismal site accessed from both the Israel side and Jordan side has been excavated to be more of a “pond” for baptisms. The bottom is clay muck and is quite dirty. If you approach from the Israel side, you won’t see what was likely the Jordan than John and Jesus used as it is dried up now. If you come from the Jordan side, you will walk past the former path of the river (now hardly a stream) and see the place that was very likely the exact spot. But getting baptized in the actual spot isn’t an option anymore and the place accessible from both Israel and Jordan will be close enough for most.

The Garden of Gethsemane

This is Gethsemane the garden at the foot of the Mount of Olives in East Jerusalem, where, according to the four Gospels, Jesus Christ underwent the Agony in the Garden and was arrested before his crucifixion. Currently, there are several small olive groves in church property that has been upkept by the Franciscans. Mark and Matthew record that Jesus went to “a place called the oil press (Gethsemane)” and John states he went to a garden near the Kidron Valley. Modern scholarship acknowledges that the exact location of Gethsemane is unknown.^[1] I would propose that it was actually slightly higher closer to where we were parked where there is now a gravesite (See photo). Eight ancient olive trees growing in the Latin site of the garden may be 900 years old.^[2]

The Upper Room

The Cenacle, also known as the Upper Room (from the Koine Greek anagaion and hyperōion, both meaning “upper room”), is a room in Mount Zion in Jerusalem, just outside the Old City walls, traditionally held to be the site of the Last Supper, the final meal that, in the Gospel accounts, Jesus held with the apostles.

The Cenacle was a place in which the apostles continued to gather after the Last Supper, and it was also the site where the Holy Spirit alighted upon the twelve apostles on Pentecost, Matthias having been “numbered with the eleven apostles” to replace Judas in Acts 1:25.^[7] The site is administered by the Israeli authorities, and is part of a building holding what is known as “David’s Tomb” on its ground floor, although that may be more controversial.

The Wailing Wall (The Western Temple Mount)

The Western Wall is an ancient retaining wall of the built-up hill known to Jews and Christians as the Temple Mount of Jerusalem. Its most famous section, known by the same name, often shortened by Jews to the Kotel or Kosel, is known in the West as the Wailing Wall. In a Jewish religious context, the term Western Wall and its variations is used in the narrow sense, for the section used for Jewish prayer; in its broader sense it refers to the entire 488-metre-long (1,601 ft) retaining wall on the western side of the Temple Mount. At the prayer section, just over half the wall’s total height, including its 17 courses located below street level, dates from the end of the Second Temple period, and is believed to have been begun by Herod the Great.^[10] The very large stone blocks of the lower courses are Herodian, the courses of medium-sized stones above them were added during the Umayyad period, while the small stones of the uppermost courses are of more recent date, especially from the Ottoman period.

The Western Wall plays an important role in Judaism due to it being part of the man-made “Temple Mount”, an artificially expanded hilltop best known as the traditional site of the Jewish Temple. Because of the Temple Mount entry restrictions, the Wall is the holiest place where Jews are permitted to pray outside the Temple Mount platform, because the presumed site of the Holy of Holies, the most sacred site in the Jewish faith, presumably lies just above and behind it. The original, natural, and irregular-shaped Temple Mount was gradually extended to allow for an ever-larger Temple compound to be built at its top.

With the rise of the Zionist movement in the early 20th century, the wall became a source of friction between the Jewish and Muslim communities, the latter being worried that the wall could be used to further Jewish claims to the Temple Mount and thus Jerusalem. During this period outbreaks of violence at the foot of the wall became commonplace, with a particularly deadly riot in 1929 in which 133 Jews and 116 Arabs were killed, with many more people injured. After the 1948 Arab–Israeli War the eastern portion of Jerusalem was occupied by Jordan. Under Jordanian control Jews were completely expelled from the Old City including the Jewish Quarter, and Jews were barred from entering the Old City for 19 years, effectively banning Jewish prayer at the site of the Western Wall. This period ended on June 10, 1967, when Israel gained control of the site following the Six-Day War. Three days after establishing control over the Western Wall site, the Moroccan Quarter was bulldozed by Israeli authorities to create space for what is now the Western Wall plaza.^[11]

The wall and Temple Mount area is 30-40 feet higher than it was during the time of Jesus and has been built over many times. You can still walk the “tunnels” which show you the original wall.

The Pool of Bethseda

I wrote an article on this one here. Here is an excerpt…

In John 5 we find Jesus, the great physician, engaged with a man who is physically unwell. The Pool of Bethesda is referred to in John 5:2 when Jesus heals a paralyzed man at a pool of water in Jerusalem, described as being near the Sheep Gate and surrounded by five covered colonnades or porticoes. I saw this today and it came to life. (It is also sometimes referred to as Bethzatha) ^[12] and is now established in the current Muslim Quarter of the city, near the Church of St. Anne, which was excavated in the late 19th century.

The name of the pool in Hebrew is Beth hesda (בית חסד/חסדא) which is a bit ambiguous and could mean “house of mercy”^[13] or “house of grace” likely due to the invalids waiting to be healed.^[14][15][16]IN Greek it reads Βηθεσδά (Bethesda),^[17] appearing in manuscripts of the Gospel of John, include Βηθζαθά^[18] (Beth-zatha = בית חדתא^[19]) as a derivative of Bezetha, and Bethsaida (not to be confused with Bethsaida, a town in Galilee), although the latter is considered to be a metathetical corruption by Biblical scholars.^[20] Franz Delitzsch suggests this is a Mishnaic Hebrew loanword from the Greek estiv/estava, that appropriately referred to stoa (στοά).^[21] That would seem to fit here. As I mentioned earlier, when you visit this in person you are looking down into a deep hole. This is because over 2000 years nearly 40 feet of fill has been added to nearly the entire Temple mount. Until the 19th century, there was no conception for the existence of such a pool. The Pool of Bethesda almost took on a mystical or magical persona similar to the fabled fountain of youth. However, Conrad Schick in 1872 was permitted to conduct research on the Temple Mount, which was generally off limits to non-Muslims.^[22] He discovered a large tank situated about 100 feet (30 m) north-west of St. Anne’s Church, which he contended was the Pool of Bethesda. Further archaeological excavation in the area, in 1964, uncovered the remains of the Byzantine and Crusader churches, Hadrian’s Temple of Asclepius and Serapis, and the small healing pools of an Asclepeion, the second of the two large pools, and the dam between them.^[23] It was discovered that the Byzantine church had been built in the very heart of Hadrian’s temple and contained the healing pools.^[24] Essentially, when you see this in person as it was excavated, it comes to life. You see the gentle steps for the inflicted, and the way around them. You see how it was likely off the beaten bath and in the bad part of town.

The Dome of the Rock

The Dome of the Rock is an Islamic shrine at the center of the Al-Aqsa mosque compound on the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem. It has been situated on top of the site of the Second Jewish Temple (built in c. 516 BCE to replace the destroyed Solomon’s Temple and rebuilt by Herod the Great), which was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE. The original dome collapsed in 1015 and was rebuilt in 1022–23.

The Foundation Stone (or Noble Rock) that the temple was built over bears great significance in the Abrahamic religions as the place where God created the world as well as the first human, Adam.^[26] It is also believed to be the site where Abraham attempted to sacrifice his son, and as the place where God’s divine presence is manifested more than in any other place, towards which Jews turn during prayer. The site’s great significance for Muslims derives from traditions connecting it to the creation of the world and the belief that the Night Journey of Muhammad began from the rock at the center of the structure.^[27] It has been called “Jerusalem’s most recognizable landmark”^[28] along with two nearby Old City structures: the Western Wall and the “Resurrection Rotunda” in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

The Stations of the Cross

The Stations of the Cross or the Way of the Cross, also known as the Way of Sorrows or the Via Crucis, are a series of images depicting Jesus Christ on the day of his crucifixion and accompanying prayers. The stations grew out of imitations of the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem, which is a traditional processional route symbolizing the path Jesus walked to Mount Calvary. The objective of the stations is to help the Christian faithful to make a spiritual pilgrimage through contemplation of the Passion of Christ. However, the stations are mainly Catholic relics and aren’t biblical to much if any degree and therefore I cringe even writing this. I highly doubt this was the path of Jesus. But I thought I should show you some pictures.

As I can imagine you’re asking, what was the path of Christ, here is an overview of where he was tried and the likely place of Golgotha which I will get to. If you look at the outer gate where Jesus was tried you can see there are several ways they could have taken to get to Golgotha, none of which line up with the advertised tourism path!

Golgotha

Calvary or Golgotha was a site immediately outside Jerusalem’s walls where Jesus was crucified. The exact location of Calvary has been traditionally associated with a place now enclosed within one of the southern chapels of the multidenominational Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a site said to have been recognized by the Roman empress Helena, mother of Constantine the Great, during her visit to the Holy Land in 325.

Other locations have been suggested: in the 19th century, Protestant scholars proposed a different location near the Garden Tomb on Green Hill (now “Skull Hill”) about 500 m (1,600 ft) north of the traditional site and historian Joan Taylor has more recently proposed a location about 175 m (574 ft) to its south-southeast. There is a bus station there now.

I would propose this to be the actual site, (not the bus station location which looks like a skull in the rocks; but would suggest in was a little farther back than the rock they propose.

The Tomb of Jesus?

The Church of the Holy Sepulcher is a church in the Christian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem.^[29] It contains, according to traditions dating back to the fourth century, the two holiest sites in Christianity: the site where Jesus was crucified,^[30] at a place known as Calvary (or Golgotha), and Jesus’s empty tomb, where he is believed by Christians to have been buried and resurrected.^[31]

The marble covering protecting the original limestone slab upon which Jesus was thought to have been laid by Joseph of Arimathea. This is just one of several arguments supporting the identification of tomb of Jesus at this site.^[32] You can see a photo of Krista and Gabby standing by another tomb (which was close to the site, but we know is NOT the tomb of Jesus. I would propose that the actual tomb was closer to these.

This is the garden tomb.

For the record, I do not think this is the location of the burial, but it was beautiful, and the gift store is worth looking at as it is Messianic. They also have a wine press (pictured) that is pretty sweet! On the same note, make sure you stop at Zak’s which is close to the garden tomb!!!

Jesus’ Trial

Shimon Gibson was part of a team that excavated the remains of a gate in the western wall which would have led into Herod’s palace complex. He believes it to match the Biblical data and be the place Pilate passed sentence on Jesus. He describes their findings:

“The discovery of a well-defended gateway…which has an inner courtyard paved with flagstones and with a rocky outcrop on one side corresponds perfectly with the situation of the place of the Roman tribunal as suggested by Josephus [in the account of Gessius Florus] and John. Hence, while it is a fair assumption the gate was used mainly as a private entrance into the Praetorium, this does not exclude public activities from taking place inside the gate and within the large courtyard situated between the walls. Indeed, this spot would have been ideal as a place for proclamation and public trials, and crowd control would have been pretty easy owing to the fact that it was so well defended.” ^[33]

Leen Ritmeyer, on the other hand, believes this gate probably led into the soldiers’ barracks, not into the part of the palace where Pilate resided. Furthermore, he points out that the tribunals could be located inside the palace complex accessible from inside the city, where people could witness (or sometimes be forced to witness) the Roman governor’s judgements.^[34] Presumably there would have been an entrance to Herod’s palace inside the city as well. Trials were traditionally done ofr thousands of years in Israel and other cities at the gates. Other scholars have suggested that there was a public square outside the eastern entrance to Herod’s palace. John’s account implies that Pilate went in and out of his residence multiple times (Jn 18:29, 33, 38; 19:4) to speak with Jesus in private and then speak to the Jews who were waiting outside. I think this gate is the most valid option.

Ruins of Solomom Temple

You can see the street where Jesus would have walked and the ruins of Herod’s temple in 70ad. The siege of Jerusalem in 70ad was the decisive event of the First Jewish–Roman War (66–73 CE), a major rebellion against Roman rule in the province of Judaea. After months of conflict, the Romans breached the city’s defenses, culminating in the destruction of the Second Temple, the razing of the city, and the mass killing, enslavement and displacement of its inhabitants. The siege marked the effective end of the Jewish revolt and had profound political, religious, and cultural implications for the Jewish people as well as broader historical consequences.

According to Josephus, on Av 9th/10th (late August), a Roman soldier hurled a burning piece of wood into the northern chamber, igniting a fire that ultimately consumed the entire temple structure. As the temple burned, chaos erupted in its courtyards. The Romans then moved to systematically destroy the rest of the Temple Mount, razing the remaining porticoes, treasuries, and gates. The soldiers carried their military standards into the temple court, offering sacrifices before them. Jesus’ prophecy about the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem was fulfilled at this time. You can still see the huge boulders that are the remains of the temple that once stood on the mount. To be clear all of the temple was destroyed as Jesus said would happen. The mount was left intact. ^{[35-39 summarized]}

The Hulda Gates

The Huldah Gates were one of the Gates of the Old City of Jerusalem leading into the Jerusalem Temple compound in the Hasmonean period and were named as such in the Mishnah.^[40] The steps at the gate were a public forum where Jesus would have taught as a Rabbi.

Close to here is the Ophel Mikveh Trail which was a series of ritual bath stations used before entering the temple. There are also several thorn bushes that still grow.

The Israel Museum

The Dead Sea Scrolls are housed in the Shrine of the Book, which is a wing of the Israel Museum in the Givat Ram neighborhood of Jerusalem. It is also worth seeing the 1/50th scale model of Jerusalem in the 2nd Temple period. This will very much help you conceptualize the steps of Jesus.

Tower of David Jerusalem Museum

The Tower of David is worth seeing. The Tower of David archaeological excavations reveal the city’s evolution across 3,000 years. For thousands of years, the city’s rulers resided here. Within these walls, Hezekiah’s soldiers built a wall, the Hasmoneans launched ballistas, Herod erected a magnificent palace, zealots fought during the revolt, a crusader dug a tunnel, the Mamluks built a minaret, and Allenby stood on the citadel’s steps. In every era, the importance and beauty of this place was recognized. As Ronald Storrs, the first British Governor of Jerusalem, put it, “This is the most beautiful spot in the city!”

The dust of the Rabbi – What does all this mean to us?

Follow a Rabbi, drink in his words, and be covered with the dust of his feet. —Ancient Jewish Proverb

The message of Scripture is as relevant to us today as it was when given at the time of Christ. In Christ’s time, the decision to be His disciple meant total commitment. Jesus was with the disciples and asked them to be with Him (Mark 3:13–19, John 13:15). They were to be “with” Him (Mark 3:13–19), to follow Him (Mark 1:16–20), to live in Him (John 8:31), and to imitate His actions (John 13:13–15). All of these descriptions are pictures of deep devotion to Jesus.

Today the best phrase we have for this might be “complete obsession.” We think of this when a young person starts dating someone. At first, they are totally obsessed.

Remember when Peter learned to walk on water in Matthew 14? He wanted to believe that he could be like Jesus, and he could—he just needed to start by holding the hand of Jesus. I love Jesus’s simple response to Peter’s doubt: “Why did you doubt?” (14:31). In other words, “Why did you doubt I could empower you to be like me?” The calling here seems so simple, yet even Peter wasn’t quite there.

Today, we seem to be an entire church that has simply sunk beneath the water. As a communal Christian culture of devoted disciples, we must take on a better mindset of discipleship. We must believe and live out the calling to be a wholly devoted disciples of Jesus, believing that He has empowered and filled us with His Spirit so that we can be like Him and be used as the very image of Christ to the world. We need to passionately ask for the hand of God to pull us into Him; to be mediators to others so they too might receive the hand of Jesus in their lives. Essentially, we need to model what passion in Jesus looks like. Did you ever notice that when something is modeled well, people have a desire for it? You might even find people who begin to be obsessed with things that are modeled well. In many ways this describes our humanity, but this is also a picture of how Jesus meets us where we are and pulls us into Him.

What does it mean to pursue Jesus in an American culture? We must be faithful in His time, in the waiting. We should meditate on His Word and imitate His life. The calling of the church today and the mission of disciples is to fulfill the cosmic calling of priesthood: to bring the people to the hand of God and God’s hand to the people as mediators and pictures of Christ. This is a lifelong investment. Devotion has never meant presenting someone with the plan of salvation in a few easy steps; it means being fully immersed with them each and every day as you disciple them to conform to the image of Christ. It is a commitment to deep, personal mentoring. That strategy, blessed by God’s Spirit, radically changed the world in the first few centuries, and it still has the same power today.

One of the major strategies of Jesus was to transform people from pagan culture to kingdom culture. And that strategy, by God’s blessing, would change the most pagan of cultures. Today, that is still the plan for discipleship. We must be passionate in our devotion by following Jesus’s example. The calling of discipleship wasn’t one of casual Christianity, or even to simply set your firstfruits aside for God: The disciple was all in. A disciple is obsessed with Jesus.

What does this obsession with Jesus look like today in our culture? Is the primary goal of your life to passionately and energetically disciple your own family and then those around you? Do you have twelve or seventy invested in a deep relationship, rooted in teaching? Is your complete strategy in life to bring others into deeper, more fervent discipleship? What would the American church look like if we took on this mindset of deep, passionate discipleship? More importantly, what would your life look like? What would your journey be?

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WORKS CITED

1. The Complete Gospels: Annotated Scholars Version. 1994, Polebridge Press. p. 108, note on Matthew 26:36
2. Paul Maier In the Fullness of Time
3. Lash, Mordechay; Goldstein, Yossi; Shai, Itzhaq (2020). “Underground-Archaeological Research in the West Bank, 1947–1968: Management, Complexity, and Israeli Involvement”. Bulletin of the History of Archaeology. 30
4. “Dead Sea Scrolls | Definition, Discovery, History, & Facts | Britannica”. http://www.britannica.com.
5. Abegg, Jr., Martin; Flint, Peter; Ulrich, Eugene (2002). The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible: The Oldest Known Bible Translated for the First Time into English. San Francisco: Harper. pp. xiv–xvii. 
6. Staff writers (28 July 2011). “Israel will reopen (Israeli) site of the baptism of Jesus”. AsiaNews.it
7. Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges on Acts 1, accessed 24 September 2016: “The eleven were the tenants of the upper room, to which the other disciples resorted for conference and communion”.
8. Kershner, Isabel (May 26, 2014). “Mass on Mount Zion Stirs Ancient Rivalries”. New York Times.
9. Zivotofsky, Rabbi Dr Ari (May 15, 2014). “Where is King David Really Buried?”. Jewish Press.
10. “The Temple Mount in the Herodian Period (37 BC–70 AD)”. Biblical Archaeology Society. July 21, 2019.
11. Peters 1984 “One of the best documented endowments, one that embraced the entire quarter of Western Muslims or Maghrebis”.
12. John 5:2: Contemporary English Version
13. Easton’s Bible Dictionary.
14. “Bethsaida (the pool)”. Catholic Encyclopedia.
15. International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1995), on sheep gate and on sheep market.
16. D. A. Carson, The Gospel according to John (1991), p. 241.
17. https://skipmoen.com/2009/02/do-you-want-to-be-well/
18. Textus Receptus.
19. Tischendorf and WH.
20. Revised Standard Version marginal note to John 5:2.
21. “Bethsaida”. newadvent.org. Retrieved 6 October 2010.
22. Delitzsch, F. 1856. “Talmudische Studien, X. Bethesda”, Zeitschrift für die gesamte lutherische Theologie und Kirche.
23. August Strobel, Conrad Schick: ein Leben für Jerusalem; Zeugnisse über einen erkannten Auftrag, Fürth: Flacius-Verlag, 1988, p. 44. ISBN 3-924022-18-6
24. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pool_of_Bethesda#cite_note-Rex-18
25. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pool_of_Bethesda#cite_note-Wahlde2006-17
26. Carol Delaney, Abraham on Trial: The Social Legacy of Biblical Myth, Princeton University Press 2000 p.120.
27. M. Anwarul Islam and Zaid F. Al-hamad (2007). “The Dome of the Rock: Origin of its octagonal plan”. Palestine Exploration Quarterly. 139 (2): 109–128.
28. Goldberg, Jeffrey (29 January 2001). “Arafat’s Gift”. The New Yorker. Archived from the original on 14 July 2015.
29. “Complete compendium of Church of the Holy Sepulchre”. Madain Project. 
30. McMahon, Arthur L. (1913). “Holy Sepulchre”. In Herbermann, Charles (ed.). Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
31. “Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem”. Jerusalem: Sacred-destinations.com. 21 February 2010. 
32. https://dannythedigger.com/holy-sepulchre-jesus-burial/
33. Gibson, Shimon, The Final Days of Jesus: The Archaeological Evidence. (San Francisco: HarperOne, 2009) 104-105.
34. Leen Ritmeyer, Personal Communication, April 6, 2022.
35. Schäfer, Peter (2003). The History of the Jews in the Greco-Roman World: The Jews of Palestine from Alexander the Great to the Arab Conquest. Routledge.
36. Schwartz, Seth (2006). “Political, social, and economic life in the Land of Israel, 66–c. 235”. In Katz, Steven T. (ed.). The Late Roman-Rabbinic Period. The Cambridge History of Judaism. Vol. 4. Cambridge University Press. pp. 23–52. 
37. Schaper, Joachim (1999). “The Pharisees”. In Horbury, William; Davies, W. D.; Sturdy, John (eds.). The Early Roman Period. The Cambridge History of Judaism. Vol. 3. Cambridge University Press. pp. 402–427. 
38. Schwartz, Seth (2014b). The Ancient Jews from Alexander to Muhammad. Cambridge University Press. 
39. Sivan, Hagith (2008). Palestine in Late Antiquity. Oxford University Press. 
40.  Encyclopædia Judaica (ed. 1972), vol. 15, pp. 963-4