Day 3 Adventuring

Today was a very eventful day to say the least. We started the day off at 7:30am at Dormition Abbey, what used to be co-German Lutheran/English Anglican but is now Benedictine. It was built on the ruins another abbey and was recently renamed after that one, the Hagia Maria Sion Abbey. This started our first excursion to the Christian quarter. Next we went to the Tomb of David, which is currently venerated by Jews but used to be a Christian church and at another point an Islamic mosque. It is really uncertain whether or not it is really David buried there but most archaeologists would say no. After that we went to the Upper Room. Unfortunately the building was built in the 13th century by Franciscans so it is probably not the actual Upper Room. However, like many holy sites here, it doesn't really matter to the people worshipping at holy places that the historicity of the site is maintained as much as the veneration of it. Bear in mind that these places are all within a few blocks from each other.
Next we went to the platform the Dome of the Rock and the Masjid el Aqsa, a mosque, are on. It was incredible being up there. Where the Dome of the Stone (as I like to call it) now stands the Jewish Temple used to stand way back in the day. Just imagining there it was so ethereal, so abstract. Like it takes every bit of my imagination to work up a mental picture of it there.  It was funny that there was a man exerting his authority over us by getting in a fuss about girl's shirts not covering their shoulders enough (I let a girl borrow a buttoned shirt I was wearing) and while we were still there a high-school aged guy who had a shirt that had "Pornstar Queen" on the back tried to sell us postcards. Really? Modesty? Some people did speak English that worked there so I'm still trying to figure out what happened. Like I said, it is funny.
Then we went to the pools of Bethesda where Jesus healed the paralytic and the Churhc of St. Anne, a crusader-built church, next to it. There was a Byzantine chapel built on top the place where it is likely Jesus healed the paralytic, as there were 5 small ritual cleaning pools at the time. A crusader chapel was built atop the ruins of that and was in ruins by the time I saw it today.
Later on a few of us stopped in an antiques store our program director knows the owner of. We talked with him for quite some time and he told us of how difficult it is being a Christian Arab. He is Palestinian and is not a citizen of Israel but is such a great guy. I don't know if I've ever heard firsthand of affliction bore so well by someone. Some of us then stopped in the Holy Sepulchre down the road but didn't know what anything was and they were kicking us out as they had to close up for the night, so we left at 9pm. We are definitely going back.