Monday of Holy Week

Right, Franciscan chapel at the traditional site of Bethphage, Bethany (modern al-Azariyeh) and Jerusalem's Old City. Beyond, atop Mount Scopus, is the tower of the Augusta Victoria Hospital built by Germans in 1910 as a pilgrim hostel and sanatorium; now a hospital maintained by the Lutheran World Federation. Undoubtedly Jesus passed this way any number of times when walking from Bethany to Jerusalem and back again, following the same route as his triumphal entry.

Our first stop in this attempted retracing of Jesus' footsteps on Monday of Holy Week takes us to the "Ophel Archaeological Garden," a series of excavations at the base of the southern wall of the Temple Mount. The name Ophel means hill or hump, and the "hill of Ophel" is mentioned four times in the Old Testament, twice in 2 Chronicles, twice in Nehemiah, while Nehemiah 3:27 has "wall of Ophel." Technically this term refers to the area just outside the southern wall of the Temple Mount, where the City of David, the oldest part of Jerusalem, was once located. Here, scholars have uncovered 22 layers from 12 periods of the city's history; only those related to the 1st centuries BC and AD concern us here.

Entering the city through the Fountain Gate at the extreme southeastern corner, Jesus came the Pool of Siloam (surrounded by porticoes), crowded with many pilgrims who had stopped here to bathe after their dusty journeys from far-off lands. From there a 40-foot-wide colonnaded street of many steps ran along the floor of the Tyropoeon Valley. This deep, north-south, valley divided the two hills on which the city was built—a low eastern hill, a higher western hill. Ahead, Herod's great Temple loomed large; its gold and white contours and those of attendant buildings atop the grand platform of the Temple Mount could be seen from from almost every part of the city. Ascending the slope to his left was the wealthy Upper City, to his right was the Lower City, occupied by the crowded houses of the poor. Further up, on the right, was Herod's Hippodrome, a venue for chariot races built like a Roman circus with one straight and one rounded end. Spectators sat on stair-like seats around a central space; the chariots raced around a center partition (this was the setting for the book—later movie—Ben Hur.)

Right, view of the main north-south street during the Second Temple period, running through the Tyropoeon Valley, alongside the western retaining wall of the Temple Mount. Prior to excavation it lay buried under some 57 feet of debris. The large stones in the foreground and beyond once composed the upper part of the massive retaining wall above. They have lain here for nearly 2,000 years since being deliberately toppled from their original places by the Romans during their sack of Jerusalem in 70 AD, shattering the paving stones of the street below. Both sides of the wide street were lined with shops, but those on the wall side (right) were crushed by the fallen stones. Some of the shops on the opposite side, though, are still intact (doorways on the left). Beside the shops was a mikveh, a ritual bath used by people to purify themselves before ascending to the Temple Mount. Jesus, however, never walked on these particular paving stones! Fresh chisel marks indicate they were laid in the mid-60's AD, some 30 years after the time of Jesus, but just prior to the destruction of the city in 70 AD by Titus' legions.

Continuing north, Jesus took special note of the small, low-ceiling shops lining both sides of the street. Here stood the lower Jerusalem market, where jostling Passover pilgrims bargained furiously with the merchants offering their wares. The atmosphere seemed charged with excitement; the air was filled with exotic fragrances. Here pilgrims could buy anything: souvenirs, silver amulets, sacrificial animals and provisions when they retired to their tents for the night. Did they bring the wrong kind of money? No need to worry: there were plenty of money-changers happy to convert foreign currencies into the acceptable Temple coinage.

Jesus next came to the foot of the monumental staircase at the southwest corner of the Temple Mount leading up to the Temple courts and the Temple itself (now called "Robinson's Arch" (below), but only the wedge-shaped stone blocks jutting out from the western retaining wall remain). This area was the "Times Square" of 1st century AD Jerusalem, with traffic converging from all directions.

Right, the remains of Robinson's Arch—named for American Protestant clergyman, Edward Robinson, who first called attention to it—can be seen jutting out from the western wall of the Temple Mount (you pass near it on the way from the Dung Gate to the Western Wall plaza). In Jesus' time it supported a grand staircase rising from the central Tyropoeon Valley and over the main north-south street running adjacent to the Temple Mount. In the right foreground are, again, the square lintels of shops that served the needs of Temple patrons at the time of Jesus.

Turning right, Jesus stepped toward the plaza at the base of the huge southern wall of the Temple Mount (below), rising to a height of 100 feet from street level. There he immersed himself in one of the seventy-gallon miqvot (ritual bathing pools) at the foot of the steps at the base of the Temple Mount's massive southern retaining wall.

At the top of the monumental staircase, Jesus made his way into one of the two Huldah gates, then up a windowless ramp, emerging onto the splendidly paved Temple esplanade, an area so vast that 20 footballs fields (using a modern analogy) would fit neatly inside.

Left, view of the southern wall of the Temple Mount, with the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aksa Mosque (dark dome). This area is now part of the "Ophel Archaeological Garden." All the Temple Mount's four retaining walls were constructed without mortar. Each stone was fitted against those adjacent to it so tightly that, even today, neither knife nor a piece of paper can be wedged deep between them. None of the upper walls or buildings along the tops of the retaining walls remain in place, as they were all destroyed and toppled by the Romans in 70 AD.

At the base of the wall is the excavated and restored staircase that once gave access to the Temple Mount from the south via the Double Huldah Gate (half its protruding lintel is visible in the corner formed by the Crusader wall on the left; (see close-up below). It had 30 steps and measured 214-feet wide. Here today's pilgrims can truly walk in the footsteps of Jesus (see drawing below for original configuration of this area).

Left, remains of the western (or "Double") Huldah Gate. The left half of one of its original twin doorways is covered by a later tower-like structure built by the Crusaders (far left side of photo) against the southern wall of the Temple Mount. If you look carefully, you can still see some of its original Herodian stones. Just above the square opening is a decorative Umayyad-era half-arch. Immediately above this is the original Herodian lintel with its typical recessed margin and slightly raised central panel (boss). Just above the lintel are the trapezoidal stones that formed the relieving arch at the top of the doorway, transferring the weight of the wall above down into the doorjambs, relieving the pressure on the lintel.

Left, A 1902 photograph of the underground tunnel-ramp leading up from the Double Huldah Gate. Surprisingly, it has survived intact, despite the various destructions that have ravaged the city. Just inside the doorways are elaborately carved domes and columns, some standing today in their original form. Complex rosettes made with intricate carvings of vines, stylized flowers and geometric designs cover every inch of the domes. No doubt Jesus, his disciples would have entered the Temple precincts through these gates, and marveled at the skillful craftsmanship.

At Passover, the huge Temple esplanade was jammed with ten of thousands of pilgrims; atop the perimeter walls stood Roman troops watching closely for any sign of a disturbance—much like today when armed Israeli soldiers are seen standing watch over the souk (Arab market) below from the roof of the Damascus Gate leading into the Old City's Muslim Quarter.

The east, north and south sides of the Temple platform were surrounded by roofed colonnades (see drawing below) which sheltered the people from the sun and rain, and also served as gathering places before and after worship. The eastern colonnade was called "Solomon's Porch," a nostalgic reference to the illustrious son of David who built the first Temple on this site a thousand years earlier. However, it had no connection whatsoever to Solomon.

Above, Temple Mount and its immediate surroundings at the time of Jesus

Extending along most of the length of the 900-foot southern end of the platform was the magnificent Royal Stoa (Hebrew Hanuyot). This giant basilica-style building was made up of four rows of 40 columns each. The northernmost row of Corinthian columns, each 27 feet high and 4.5 feet in diameter, was without a wall creating an open colonnade through which the people could enter directly into the plaza of the Court of Gentiles. The southernmost row of columns consisted of a set of pilasters (square half-columns) built into the Temple Mount's massive southern retaining wall. The middle two column rows (also Corinthian) flanked a high central hall and were topped by two additional rows of Doric columns to support the upper roof. Soaring to one hundred feet at its highest point, the Royal Stoa was the largest building on the giant Temple Mount. Apparently it served many purposes, including a center for purchasing sacrificial animals, a money exchange, as well as a meeting place for the Sanhedrin. In other words, it housed the law courts as well as all the commercial operations on which the Temple's monetary and sacrificial systems depended.

The Tyrian shekel—the only acceptable Temple coinage

Right, Tyrian shekels, produced from 127 to 19 BC in the Phoenican city of Tyre (located on the coast of Lebanon), were renowned for their silver content (95% pure). Despite their carved pagan images, they were the only coinage acceptable in the Temple or its precincts for buying sacrifices and paying the mandatory annual half-shekel Temple tax required of all men 20 years of age and older—about two day's work for a common laborer. This four-drachmae or "tetradrachma" coin was equal to one Hebrew silver shekel and therefore was acceptable for two payments of the Temple tax. The coin is large and thick, about the diameter of a U.S. quarter, and weighed about half an ounce. (According to one website, the current price charged by antique coin dealers for a Tyrain shekel is $595.00.)

In19 BC Rome closed the mint in Tyre and began to import silver coins from the Far East consisting of 80% pure silver. The Jewish religious leaders realized that the new coinage was not sufficiently pure to fulfill religious obligations, and appealed to the emperor for permission to produce a ceremonial coin of sufficient purity. They received special dispensation on condition that they continue using the motif of the Tyrian Shekel, so as not to arouse objections within the Roman Empire that the Jews were granted autonomy to mint their own coinage. However, this presented a serious problem, because one side to the coin contained the image of the Phoenician god, Melkhart, known to us as Hercules, wearing a laurel wreath on his head; on the reverse was an eagle clutching the prow of a ship in its right claw, with the legend in Greek: "of Tyre the Holy and Invincible," and the date of issue.

Both images, a foreign god (or any human likeness) and an eagle, were prohibited by the Torah. But a careful reinterpretation of the law swayed authorities—the Jews themselves should never make carved images, but if they were made by Gentiles and not worshiped by the Jews, then they were permitted. The Jewish authorities decided that the importance of the giving of the half-shekel superseded any technical violations incurred from using the Tyrian coins. Thus you have the irony of coins with pagan imagery filling the vault of the Temple treasury inside the sacred Temple precincts where no Gentile was permitted to enter.

As on previous visits to the Temple precincts, Jesus took note of the all the activity—the clanking of coins, the haggling, the pens of struggling sheep and lowing oxen, the pigeons beating their wings against their cages. The stench from the animal droppings assaulted his nose. On one side he watched an old man, nearly blind, purchase a lamb. When the merchant realized that the man could hardly see, he put the fattened animal back into its pen and, instead, gave him a malnourished ram. Jesus glared at the tables of money-changers stacking coins and spotted another man exchange his Roman coins for the equivalent in Tyrian shekels. He watched one money-changer slip a coin off the bottom of the stack of proper change into his pocket. With that, Jesus gave vent to the righteous anger that had been brooding at least since the previous day (probably even longer). Well aware that he was tampering with a well-protected institution, Jesus "overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons." He stopped those who were using the Temple courts as a shortcut to carry goods from one section of Jerusalem to another:

---

"Is it not written: 'My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations'? But you have made it a den of robbers" (Mark 11:17).

---

This was a very blunt statement by Jesus. Here, the word "den" is a translation of the Greek spelaion "cave" or "grotto." Caves could serve either as shelters or homes, or hiding places for thieves. Jesus was really saying, "How dare you turn God's house, my house, into a haven or hideout for injustice and oppression." He was not staging a protest against paying the Temple tax or the Temple rituals themselves. Responding to a question by tax-collectors as to whether Jesus paid his Temple-tax, Peter replied, "Yes, he does." (Matthew 17:24-25) Jesus likely carried out this attack against the money-changers and animal sellers because of the system of selling sacrificial animals and exchanging money had become so corrupt that the cost of making the sacrifices required by the Law had become prohibitive for the poor. Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims came to Jerusalem for Passover and other major festivals. Some exchangers profited greatly by loaning money and making investments, charging exorbitant interest rates. The opportunities to siphon off the profits from the hundreds of enterprises associated with the Temple greatly enriched the former high priest, Annas, his son-in-law and current high priest, Joseph Caiaphas, and their fellow Sadducees, not to mention their Roman cronies. It is no coincidence that the long tenure in office of Caiaphas (18 years) coincided with most or all of that of two prefects, Valerius Gratus (11 years), and his successor, Pontius Pilate (10 years). Caiaphas and his father-in-law, Annas, were the "Godfathers" of Jerusalem and greatly profited from kick-backs on Temple transactions. The Temple was the city's main industry. Literally and figuratively it had become a safehouse for robbers, and the chief robbers were high Jewish officials whose monopolistic control generated hundreds of thousands of shekels annually (the equivalent of millions today). For all practical purposes the Temple had become a worship center for the rich.

But there is another, more compelling reason for Jesus' actions, and it is seen in the words "for all the nations" recorded only in Mark (11:17). The money-changers stationed themselves in or near the Court of Gentiles; they did not conduct their business in the Jewish-only inner precincts—the Court of Women, the Court of Men and the Court of Priests—immediately surrounding the actual sanctuary. The noise of bleating sheep, the stench of animal droppings, the clinking of coins and the constant din of conversation was confined to the only area of the Temple precincts where non-Jews could participate in worship. In essence they were saying that Gentiles were relegated to second-class status in God's kingdom, and this rightfully angered Jesus.

Not only did Jesus disrupt the business and profits of the Temple, he caught the attention of the Roman soldiers stationed in the nearby Antonia Fortress who did not take kindly to political disturbances right under their noses. But, Jesus' actions proved especially popular with the people, and children in the Temple area began shouting "Hosanna to the Son of David." (Matthew 21:15) The Temple officials, however, were indignant. Jesus, they decided, must be removed from the scene before he could do any more damage. But, they were afraid the people would turn on them if they arrested him, so they bided their time and continued to plot against him:

---

"The chief priests and the teachers of the law were looking for some sly way to arrest Jesus and kill him. 'But not during the Feast,' they said, 'or the people may riot'" (Mark 13:1-2).

---