A Cessationist Straw Man

Introduction

The first thing I want to say is that I am a cessationist. I believe that the sign gifts ceased at the end of the apostolic age. Therefore this is an in-house critique. It is an important consideration when arguing our position that we should not use invalid arguments to do so. 

So what is the straw man that has prompted this missive? It is this. The suggestion/demand made to continuationists that if they truly believe that God is really speaking to them they should take what was said, write it down and staple, glue or otherwise affix it to the back of their Bibles. The tacit accusation here is that the continuationist does not believe in a closed canon. While I am sure there are those that believe in an open canon I am fairly certain that if you ask any continuationist if they believe in a closed canon they would answer in the affirmative. I was one and I certainly would have done so. 

This is a rather shallow jibe made by my cessationist brothers and I would respectfully request that they stop saying this. There are good arguments from Scripture against the continuation of the sign gifts, and some good historical points can be made as well. Let us stick to those and cease making accusations that are for the most part untrue and rather disingenuous to those who in many cases are actually brothers and sisters in Christ. 

So why do I think that the continuationist need not add their prophetic utterances (or those of others) to the current canon of 66 books?

The arguments

I have three arguments. 

1. Not all the words of Jesus were written down as Scripture
2. Not all prophecy was written down as Scripture.
3. Modern prophecy does not meet the test for canonicity.

Jesus 

I think it is fair to say that every word that Jesus spoke was from God. Because Jesus is Himself God every word He spoke could rightly have been recorded in Scripture and been considered Scripture. However we can be sure that not everything Jesus did and said is recorded in Scripture. John 21:25 says “Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.”

Only the words the Holy Spirit inspired the Gospel writers to remember and write down became part of the Bible as we know it today. So if many of the words of Jesus Himself were not chosen by the Spirit to be part of Scripture why should the prophecies of, say, Beth Moore be worthy of inclusion? 

New Testament Prophecy

Both cessationists and continuationists would agree that the gift of prophecy and the office of prophet existed in the New Testament church. Acts 21:9 indicates that Philip has daughters who prophesied. Agabus is called a prophet and is mentioned twice (Acts 11:27-30 and Acts 21:10-14) as having prophesied things that later came to pass. No prophecies uttered by Philips daughters were recorded in Scripture. Yet the Scriptures indicate that they prophesied. Two prophecies of Agabus were recorded but I am loath to think that this was the sum total of the prophecies that he made. Thus at least one and possibly more direct revelations from God that were brought through Agabus did not find their way into the canon of Scripture. If genuine prophets in the New Testament did not get all their prophecies canonised why should we presume that modern day “prophets” must have their words added to the canon?

Canonicity 

Anyone who has studied canon knows that the books we accept as Divinely inspired were not picked from a list based on a set of criteria. And no, Constantine had nothing whatsoever to do with the compilation of the canon. What we do know however is that by looking at the books that ARE canon we can see attributes that these books have in common that show their validity in the canon of Scripture. 

Modern day prophecy does not fulfil any of the criteria that are indicate the canonicity of the books we have in Scripture. 

Since there are no living apostles today the prophecy could not have been made by an apostle or someone close to an apostle. 

The prophecy is not widely accepted as from God by a majority of the churches. 

The prophecies in most cases are not widely attested to by the churches. And so on and so forth. So even if you assume that the prophecies are truly from God and are accurate, they fail the test of canonicity and thus cannot be tacked on to the back of anyones Bible. 

Conclusion

So by applying three simple criteria we can safely conclude that none of the prophecies of the so called modern day prophets qualify for inclusion in the canon, and even if they are true and accurate they have only limited temporal application and have no bearing on the body of Christ in general. 

The arguments for the cessation of the apostolic sign gifts are solid. We don’t need straw man catch phrases to ram home our point.

Let us as Christians always take the high road and use the best arguments and catch phrases to argue and illustrate our position and leave the straw man arguments to those who have nothing better in their arsenal to combat the awesome truth that is found only in God’s Holy Word.  

Stop Calling Providence a Miracle

Stop Calling Providence a Miracle 

Introduction

I think I need to leave Facebook. Or at least start unfriending people who post drivel and sensationalism on my timeline. 

Case in point. A video was linked to a post on my timeline. The text used to encourage people to go watch the video is this: “Dr from Shofar Worcester prayed for dead patient who came back to life after 50 minutes. Watch her testimony here!”

Now based on the comment what would one logically conclude. This person was dead for almost an hour, a doctor who is part of a church in Worcester prayed for her to rise from the dead and thats what happened! Awesome miracle! Praise the Lord!

Is that what the video interview says? Is that comment accurate as pertains to the facts of the video commented on by the poster?

A disclaimer of sorts

Can and does God still do miracles? I believe, yes! Can and does God do these miracles sometimes in direct answer to prayer? Yes! Is there anything we can extrapolate based on miracles that seem to happen in response to prayer regarding the Charismatic/Pentecostal doctrine of the continuation of the apostolic sign gifts today? No I do not believe so. However for the sake of this article I am going to assume that the doctrine is accurate and the sign gifts do indeed continue and I will even concede that all Christians can have access to these gifts. I do not personally believe this anymore but I will concede it for the sake of the point I wish to make. 

The video

First, watch the video (http://shofaronline.tv/videos/testimonies-20141112-shofar-stories-herma-hugo/)

It is a great story. I do not know this person but I have no reason to doubt the veracity of her testimony. I also have no way to verify it. That does not matter to me. I believe that her retelling of the facts in this testimony are accurate. First a few thoughts and questions. 

1) The doctor starts the video by saying that miracles happen every day but we seldom recognise them for what they are"

• Thus the doctor seems to think that what she is about to narrate was a miracle. Is it a miracle? Or just good doctoring? Or divine providence? 

2) The woman in question was at the hospital. 

• It is a known fact that many, even very serious injuries can be dealt with if the victim can get to a hospital quickly. So it stands to reason that if something happens to you IN the hospital you have a much better chance of surviving. 

3) The woman was being given CPR for 50 minutes by a team of medical staff. 

• This is interesting. I would assume that all involved were properly training in how to do CPR. Why did they keep at it for 50 minutes? I have no idea. A quick search on the internet is inconclusive but there was a WebMD article that gave the indication that 38 minute plus sessions of CPR can improve the patients chances of not having brain damage when fully revived. (http://www.webmd.com/heart/news/20131116/giving-cpr-for-more-than-30-minutes-may-be-worth-it?src=RSS_PUBLIC) Its one article. Is it true? Maybe. Maybe not. 

4) The doctor prayed for the woman.

• She is a Christian. She sees a person in dire straits. It stands to reason that she would pray for her. What did she pray? Please heal her? No. Please raise her back to life? No. The doctor indicates what she prayed for. She prayed for her soul. Since she stated seconds before that what she was unsure of what to pray because she did not know if the patient was a Christian or not, one can safely assume that when she says she was praying for her soul she meant that she was praying for the patients salvation. Yes it is an assumption but I think a valid one. Then she mentions she was praying in her tongue. What does that mean? Well it means that she was praying in her own personal prayer language. I have never really believed in this doctrine of the personal prayer language because it is not taught in Scripture and the verses used to justify it are taken out of context and twisted out of proportion to justify the doctrine. So in layman’s terms she was quietly speaking gibberish that she believes was an angelic language but which does not conform to any definition of a language. Is this a valid reason to infer that her prayer raised the dead? No. 

5) “She had signs she was brain dead”

• What does that mean? I am not a doctor. Could she have been brain dead? I have no idea. Could brain death at that point be a misdiagnosis? Possibly. Is there anything in the video testimony to indicate that the doctor in question or any other doctor involved was SURE that there was brain death. No. There seems to be none. And if there was no brain death, then where is the miracle? 

What is a miracle?

Before I comment further is might be useful to ask the question, “What is a miracle?”. 

Baker says “Event which may seem contrary to nature and which signifies an act in which God reveals himself to man.” Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary says “MIRACLES, SIGNS, WONDERS Events which unmistakably involve an immediate and powerful action of God designed to reveal His character or purposes”. Or Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible, "Extraordinary events that manifest divine power, that are wonders to human understanding, and therefore what human beings perceive as signs from God”

So the definition of a miracle is something that God does that are wonders to human understanding. Does this testimony rise to that definition. I would have to say and I hope the reader would agree that it does not. There is good evidence that this lady survived due to good doctoring and all the medical staff involved are to be commended. Could God in His providence have decided to keep this woman alive even though she was so near death? Yes. I believe that is possible. It is clearly a miracle that CANNOT be explained in any other way. Most certainly not. 

When Jesus healed the dead son of the widow, he immediately got up. When Jesus raised Jairus’s daughter the mourners laughed at Jesus for saying she was sleeping for she was clearly dead. When in 2 Kings the men dumped the body they were carrying into Elisha’s tomb the body came back to life. Immediate and unmistakeable. No subsequent period of convalescence until full recovery. There is nothing similar in this testimony. 

Faith or credulity?

Someone might ask at this point, “Where is your faith, man? Why won’t you accept that God has done something miraculous you cessationist, you!”.

I would throw the question back by asking, “Why are you so quick to believe that it is a miracle, in spite of the facts to the contrary?”

I remember being in a church service where a video was shown about the plan to eventually implant everyone with a microchip for buying and selling re. the mark of the Beast from the book of Revelation. I heard later that many in that service were very worried because they thought it was going to happen VERY soon! How many times have we Christians (especially Charismatics) received an email link to an article about some dire threat to Christendom that 10 seconds at snopes.com would have revealed to be a hoax. When it comes to Charismatics and miracles I think the problem is worse. If you believe that God still does signs and wonders like you read in the Bible and you see that they are NOT everyday occurrences you may be temped to see any unusual event as a fulfilment of the belief in those miraculous signs. Faith is not blind. Faith does not ignore evidence. Credulity however believes in spite of the lack of evidence or even in the face of contrary evidence. 

Is the evidence in this specific case enough to warrant the claim of a miracle? No it is not. Should we praise God for this woman’s recovery? Absolutely. Should we praise God for giving us these doctors who performed their jobs admirably? Yes, yes and a thousand times yes! 

Conclusion

I would like to ask simply that we reserve the word “Miracle” for actual miraculous events. Do they happen? I believe they do. To use the word for things that are due to the normal operation of the universe or simply divine providence makes a mockery of the word, our witness for Jesus in the world and most importantly it makes a mockery of the God we serve. When He does a miracle we will KNOW it and even the critics will have to admit it. The Pharisees of Jesus’ day never doubted His miraculous signs. They killed Him anyway. Lets call a spade a spade, and a duck a duck and get out there and actually preach the saving Gospel of Jesus Christ instead of looking under every doorknob for a miracle and then making videos about it to post on Facebook. Lets not follow the sensationalism of our time and rather be known as those who do not color the truth but tell it as it is!

Soli Deo Gloria 

Start spreading the news....

I'll start with the old joke, "I just flew from Cape Town to New York and boy are my arms tired..." Yes its lame and, yes its not my arms that are tired. Everything else is.

For those of you who don't know, I flew Turkish Airlines to New York with a stop in Istanbul. I decided to stay awake the whole flight to Istanbul and only managed to get +- 5 hours of sleep on the Istanbul to New York leg. And that sleep was fitful and uncomfortable. And it was not my width that was the problem. It was my length. Sure Turkish Air is cheaper than the competition but there is reason for that. No legroom at all. Technically its better than SAA because the inflight entertainment is MUCH better than the rubbish SAA delivers for more money, but no leg room is still no leg room. I tried to order a seat with more leg room. No dice. At least Delta lets me upgrade to a Economy Comfort seat which has more leg room. So the San Fran leg of my journey will be much more enjoyable. I hope :)

So can I write a decent blog post while VERY tired? My body is craving sleep but I want to watch the first episode of the new season of Franklin and Bash which is at 10pm New York time so I must wait! And since my computer is telling me that its now 2:48am Cape Town time on Wednesday 6th June you can calculate how much sleep I have gotten over how much elapsed time (Cape Town time) and then imagine how my body must feel about that! Well my dear reader. I will let you be the judge!

I am very excited to be in New York. It has been a dream of many years to come here and now that dream is starting to become a reality. I think some people must have looked at me askance today and I had a smile on my face all the way into Manhattan. Seeing the Manhattan skyline for the first time was truely awesome. What was most fun was that I could even pick out some of the buildings. Not many but a few.

On our way into Manhattan I saw something else I actually had not expected. There is a scene in Men in Black 1 where Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones track a bug alien to Queens. The scene in question plays out when the bug tries to get away in one of the space ships that has been left at the site of a previous close encounter with extra-terrestrial life. J and K as they are called fire their weapons and bring down the ship whereapon it crashes through a huge steel structure that represents a globe of earth. This is what I saw on the way to my hotel. And I liked it. We also drove past Madison Square Garden which was  one of the sets for another New York based movie Godzilla. Caught a glimpse of the building where supposedly Jonah Jameson had his newspaper, the Daily Bugle. It was also the site where Neal Caffree of White Collar base-jumped after replacing a painting he had stolen with a forgery.

I remember someone mentioning (possibly also in a movie) about how there seems to be a Starbucks on every corner in New York. Well I went looking for a DVD this afternoon and walked down one street and saw four Starbucks coffee shops. Four. Two of them were even within line of site. And I only walked about a kilometer and a half. Thats alot of coffee! I also got the very strong impression that these coffee shops are really all about coffee. There really isn't much else on the menu. Our own home grown product Mugg and Bean at least has a diverse menu that allows you to enjoy a good cup of coffee (or used to do so) AND have a meal if you so chose. Not here. I still need to find a place to eat breakfast. I have one option available so far. They do pancakes and potentially other things as well. At least my breakfast needs in San Francisco will be taken care of! More about that later :)

T-Mobile can only give me Edge connectivity on my really cool iPhone 4S ( :( ) but it is much better than nothing. And Google Maps is a Godsend on the iPhone when you need to plan your routes around a unknown town like New York. Well its unknown to me at any rate :)

Well rather than ramble on forever I will close off by saying I am really glad to be in the Big Apple finally and am looking forward to all the sites I will see tomorrow when I venture out on my first unassisted day of touring. Time Square here I come....

Sir, we would see Jesus

Hermeneutics is the study of the rules for interpreting Scripture. The importance of these rules CANNOT be overstated. If you do not have a set of rules or principles for interpreting Scripture how can you be sure that your interpretation is accurate? "Does it matter?" someone may be heard to ask. Well let me phrase the question this way. Does it matter if for us to know what God actually said instead of what we think He said or what we want Him to say? Jesus said "If you love me, you obey my commandments" John 14:15. Well if we don't know what His commandments are, how can we obey them. Which of course implies that if you truly love Jesus you will endever to know what His commands are so that you can put them into practice.

The reason I bring this up is that I heard a sermon recently where a passage of Scripture was used and when it was cited my immediate reaction was "Did this interpretation come from the context?" At that exact moment I was unable to answer this question as I wanted to continue listening and I didn't have all my tools at my disposal. The text in question was Psalm 32:8 and was quoted from the NKJV as follows:

I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;

I will guide you with My eye."

The next verse was also added.

Do not be like the horse or like the mule,

Which have no understanding,

Which must be harnessed with bit and bridle,

Else they will not come near you.

Now according to the preacher, the point of this passage is to tell us that God wants us not to be like the horse or the mule that must have a bit or a harness before you can guide them. Don't be stubborn. Let God guide you with His eye. Be so in tune with Him that He only needs to look in the right direction and you will be off doing what He wants you to do. Sounds good right. Lets look at it more closely. What is the context of the psalm itself.

Verse 1 and 2 talk about how Blessed the man is whom God pardons of sin! In verses 3 to 5 David tells us how when he refused to confess his sin, God's hand was heavy upon him, and then how when he confessed it God forgave him. Verse 6 starts "For this cause..." leading on from the end of verse 5 in which David tells us that God forgave his sin. Then follows prayer and praise in verses 6 and 7. Now comes verse 8. Question one. Who is speaking here? Commentators are divided, on whether David is speaking himself, or if he is quoting the words of God Himself! Of course if David is speaking then the interpretation given above is completely out of court. However the majority of commentators agree that God is speaking in verses 8 and 9. Is the interpretation thus vindicated? Well we haven't exhausted our options for analysis so let's look a little deeper.

Firstly if we look a little bit closer at verse 9 we see something interesting. The bit and the bridle are not used in this context to guide the horse where you want it to go (to do as you command) but simply to get the horse or mule to "come near you". One could interpret verse 9 as saying "Don't be an idiot that I have to drag near me." In the broader context of the psalm which talks about unconfessed sin and the joy of forgiveness at confessed sin it would seem to me that verse 9 is saying that if you hide your sin you are like a horse or a mule without understanding that has to be pulled closer to the master.

Hmmm. Our interpretation is breaking down. And we haven't even brought out the big guns yet. Lets look further. What does the word "guide" mean. No not in the English. In the Hebrew. From the lexicon we see that the word translated "guide" actually means counsel or advise. Now you may say to me, "Dude I don't have all those lexicons. How am I supposed to know what the text means if I don't know the Hebrew?" Good question. However if you had been in my hermeneutics class you would already know the answer. The simplest way to check a translation is to compare it with other good translations.

NASB: I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you should go;

I will counsel you with My eye upon you

ESV: I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;

I will counsel you with my eye upon you.

NIV: I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;

I will counsel you and watch over you.

HCSB: I will instruct you and show you the way to go;

with My eye on you, I will give counsel.

Here are just four examples. Most translations (though not all) render the verse similarly.

Notice the repeated use of "counsel". Also notice the "with my eye UPON YOU" All the commentators I have consulted agree with this rendering of the verse. The Tyndale Old Testament Commentary has this to say about the alternate rendering:

"But the well-known rendering in AV, ‘I will guide thee with mine eye’, which suggests our

responsiveness to his glance, is not accurate, although there is a similar thought in 123:2,

where the servant watches for the master’s signal. The point here is God’s vigilance and intimate

care, … with my eye upon you; our response is in verse 9."

Now if you remove my lexicon lookup and also ignore the Tyndale Commentary reference you still have the argument of context and the argument of parallel translations that even the newest Christian can apply to correctly interpret this passage. And the conclusion is that it does NOT mean what the preacher says it means.

This is one of many errors in interpretation that I found in ONE sermon. Another one was a misuse of Romans 1:21 where the argument was made that it is a lack of thankfulness (in general) that causes our hearts to be darkened. The problem is that the passage is talking about the ungodly who most importantly do not honor God AS GOD! In fact in the original language the emphasis of the verse is not on their thanklessness but on their lack of acknowledgement of God as God!

Now the church that the preacher is a part of does teach Biblical hermeneutics. AND they teach the very principles that I have just used to analyse these texts. So why does the preacher not use them? And more importantly, why should the congregation apply correct hermeneutical principles when the leadership refuses to do so? This is a recipe for disaster! Paul commands Timothy to be diligent to show himself approved of God a workman who need not be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of Truth. Well this preacher OUGHT to be ashamed, because they did not rightly divide the Word of Truth!

Now why would someone who should know better do this? I think it is because they are more interested in what they have to say than what the Bible really says. Instead of getting their truth for the pages of Holy Scripture they get it from their own minds and then use Scripture wrongly to back up their own ideas. I am very concerned for them. James tells us not to want to be teachers because they will receive a harsher judgement. And I would not want to be in this preachers shoes for all the tea in China.

But there is a bigger problem here. The sheep are being misled. They are having bad Scripture

interpretation modelled for them every week. And worse than that, they will then apply that bad method to their own reading of Scripture. Which means that nine times out of ten they will not be hearing a word from God when they read Scripture, they will be hearing a word from themselves. It will not be God speaking to them, but their own hearts. And the Bible tells us that the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.

What do I want? I want the people of God to hear a word from GOD! Not me. Not the preacher. From the God of the universe. That is why I harp on hermeneutics so much and that is why I am so critical of preaching that does not apply those basic and simple rules. I heard a story of a pulpit in a church where a sign was hung that only the preacher could see before he ascended to give his sermon. It said something to the effect of, "Sir, we would see Jesus" And that is my prayer. That preachers would wake up and let the congregation see Jesus, hear from HIM, and put HIS words into practice in their lives. That they would thus learn to know Him more and love Him more for the marvelous work He did on Calvary.

Preacher! Let them see Jesus!

Please be patient, we are attending...

You may be wondering where's the jolly blog today. Well my usual blog time was spent packing so no blog at present. I will see how the day goes. If I can't get to it before I will write on the 9 hour trip home. Then I can upload the result with my Vodacom sim when we reach Joburg.

Good night from Israel.

-- Post From My iPhone

Coming to a close...

Yes one is beginning to feel that the tour is reaching it's conclusion. That and one of my roommates keeps reminding me.


Yes this was our destination for the day. The Israel museum. And the Shrine of the Book. At least I can now say I have been inside. Not being able to take pictures is annoying. Something I just realised now is that there is no justification for preventing photo's in the museum except for greed. You must buy the book. No you say, the flash might damage the documents. Not actually. Most of the documents there are copies. Faximilies. Fakes. So no damage would occur. And if it did it would be easy to fix. The model of Jerusalem they had just inside the entrance was very good. The model was of Jerusalem in the second temple period just before it was destroyed by the Romans in 70AD. The temple conpound is huge. It takes up a significant portion of the city. Herod's palace was on the other side of the city and one theory puts Jesus' trial before Pilate there. This would mean that they would have only needed to march Jesus across the courtyard to take him to Herod instead of across the city. They had an arrow on the wall to indicate where the modern Western Wall where the orthodox pray is. Isn't that nice of them :)

Was able to pick out the name of God from the Isaiah scroll. Facsimilie. Fake. Yes I am just a little annoyed. I bought a book at the shop called "The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English" with not a biblical scroll in sight. Not one of the biblical scrolls are included. Fortunately I bought a critically marked up version of the biblical scrolls in English. So it was not a total loss. I am more offended over the title than anything else.

Our next stop was the Anglican International School in Jerusalem.


It was a hospital first. But as in Zefat the Jews did not want Christians ministering to sick Jews so they built their own. So it was changed into a school. There was a pulpit in the waiting area of the hospital and people who came in got to listen to a gospel presentation while they waited. Much better than the usual magazines I think :) We were given a short message on evangelism to the Jewish people with a few moving testimonies by the head of Shoresh tours. He was also so kind to give me back my baggage tag. So considerate of him. Thanks we have done all we can now it's your problem. Not that it's actually their fault. They did what they could and technically it was above and beyond so I guess I can't complain. Guess I'll have to put in an insurance claim. See if this global travel insurance is all it's cracked up to be. They had better not want to take anything from me at the airport this time. You will be reading about me in the news if that happens. Nuff said.

I guess shopping was not completely banished from the menu for this trip. The bus driver had the rest of the day off and so we had to walk back to the hotel. Not too far but we had two shopping options. Didn't want either but had to choose one as I would be walking either way. Had food at MacDonalds again. Actually tried Burger King but the service sucked so badly that I rather went to Mickey D's.

Took a leisurely stroll back to the hotel.


Took a short detour into the Jaffa gate as you can see :)

The longer the tour continues the more I realise going on your own, even when part of a tour group, is not for me. It's not that the other group members are nasty to me but there is a distance. Each person has someone close to them experiencing the tour with them. I feel like the extra wheel. It is a feeling I am very familiar with but it still sucks. And no Terri that doesn't apply when you are with me, just in case you were wondering. ;) Next time I take a cheaper ten day tour and bring someone along. Even if I have to pay. It's worth it :). Well enough pity parties. No one likes them anyway.

After that it was a beer at the hotel and a very insightful article about the whole Ergun Caner debacle that is about to break. Ask me later.

Then a trip to the turkish bath. Big mistake. It's unisex. So lots of barely clad young ladies pouring water on themselves and rubbing themselves down with some weird sponges. I felt similarly when I went to Clifton beach for the first and last time. Decided the empty jaccuzi was a much better prospect. Which it was!

Supper and then bed!

Tomorrow is a church day so lots of walking and covered knees.

-- Post From My iPhone

Tunnels

Here we sit in traffic in Jerusalem. We have had a very early start. I am not completely awake yet. We are headed for the Western Wall tunnel. And we seem to be taking the long way round.



This is the view of the Mount of Olives from the bus.

Time warp. We are at the end of the day. I sit here on my hotel bed listening to some music and feeling my legs. Boy did we walk a lot today. But I am sure you want to hear all about it :) Well at least I hope so. However once all is told you will understand why a blow by blow option would not work!

Back to the bus. Early morning traffic. Well fighting that meant we got to the Dung gate early. The line to enter the Kotel was very short and we got to the Western Wall without much of a fuss. But that was not our destination yet! We were going under the ground. The Western Wall tunnel. I am still amazed at how Herod managed to get those stones in there. Inside the first building we looked at a model of the Temple Mount. The mount was then modified to show what Herod did to expand the hill itself. The temple was then placed on the platform. Then of course it was removed and replaced with nothing to indicate that it had become a rubbish dump. And then last of all the Dome of the Rock was placed on the model. Now we had a view of how the temple mount had changed over time. Then as is common in Jerusalem we began our descent. I can never get over the fact that to see back in time to what was built in a previous era we have to dig. And not a little bit either. We looked at a few underground arches that had been above ground once. We went down to Herodian times and even lower to the time of the Hasmoneans. Who were they you ask. They were a Jewish kingly dynasty that was set up for a time after the Maccabean revolt. So they predate Jesus.


We were shown to a model of the temple mount that was more ornate than the one at the entrance. It had a remote that controlled the lights so that one could light up sections of the mount to point them out. Yes the area we were in at the time was a little dark. So some creative tricks had to be pulled to get decent photos. Which of course explains why there are no iPhone shots. Not enough light for the poor camera. :( One particularly interesting thing we saw before reaching the tunnel was a mikva that was two small for anyone to wash in. They suspect it was a ritual bath for dishes. Weird huh?

Now it was time to face the tunnel. It took us all the way along the wall away from the Kotel. There were some places where it was fairly low and the authorities had kindly provided cushioning so that one would not hurt ones head. We headed for the surface through what looked like a water cistern. We heard how the Muslims had kicked up a fuss when the extention was build claiming that the Jews were trying to undermine the foundations of the mosque. Which was nowhere near the tunnel. But it started riots that ended in many deaths. Which were reported as "Those horrible Israelis suppressing the peaceloving Muslims" Yeah right.

Our exit was surprising. It was surprising because I recognized where we were. Outside the entrance to the Church of the Flagelation on the Via Dolorosa. Since it was still early we encountered little pedestrian traffic in the city. Heck most of the shops hadn't opened yet. One Arab seller who didn't buy our excuse that we were coming back later (we were in a hurry) started to say that "all South Africans are liars" I called back to him that he wouldn't get much business from us by calling us liars. Anyway. We did a quickstep all the way back to the Kotel. Through the metal detectors yet again! :). Now we had twenty minutes to look around before our next stop. Since today was not the Sabbath I could take photos for which I am very grateful. I think I got a few good ones. It was very special for me to wear Dad's kippur on the temple mount. I wish he could have been there with me! Even now I cry just thinking about it. I think he would have really liked being there. Today was a special day as many boys were having their Bar Mitzvas. So there was a lot of rejoicing and singing and dancing and such. Quite a few broadcast quality video cameras on the scene too. All the moms were at the dividing wall between the men and women looking over the partition watching their boys go through the motions. I even took some video. I'm sure you will want to see it :) In many ways this iPhone really has been useful for this trip. Will have to upload all these videos to Youtube as well. Just need some editing. I also got the priviledge to go into the synagogue at is right at the wall. Got a few pictures there too.


After all that writing one would think we were done. It's only 9am. So we leave the Western wall plaza to climb temple mount. Problem. By this time the line to go to temple mount has gotten rather long. We enter that line but before long Shela our guide is jumping out of line. As David one of my fellow travellers noted later, one hour in a line is a really bad idea when you are on a schedule. So we changed our plans and went to the excavation museum


( I forget the name) and check out some of the excavations made at the one corner of the Western Wall. Here again there was violence in the past as the Muslims maintained that the work was undermining the Al Asqua mosque although it is more than 70 meters away. John told us that he was at that stop when an Al Jezeera reporter was telling lies about the site while looking at it and knowing she was lying in front of all the other media outlets. He called her on it and her attitude was how dare you tell me what to report. Anyway we see again an example of how the land has risen over time. After much digging they actually found rubble from the Romans destruction of the temple. It was depressing to look at actually. Here was visible proof of the fullfillment of Jesus' prophecy. Here was something of interest. High on the wall there was some Jewish graffiti from the Byzantium era. One problem. There was no Jews allowed near Jerusalem at that time. Except for two years when one of the emperors who hated Christians tried to encourage the Jews to rebuild their temple which would prove a prophecy of Jesus false. Poor bastard. He was assasinated and the next guy in charge was not anti-Christian but anti-Jew and the window was closed. They think the graffiti happened in those two years. Near the corner you can see what is left of Robinson's arch. It must have been magnificent when whole but there is little to see now. It led to one of the entrances to temple mount that was closed up. Following along the wall we came to a set of steps on the south side of temple mount. There were two entrances to the mount here. It is believed (And I concur with this idea) that the pouring out of the Spirit at Pentecost happened here on these steps. The street below the upper room would not accomodate 3000 people let alone more but the steps outside the temple would. Also it says they were in the house and one name for the temple was "The House" Possible. I think so :) We then went to the museum on the site which houses old coins, ancient artist impressions of what they believed the temple looked like and another model of Jerusalem.

Lunch was now fast approaching so we left the museum and walked up to the Jewish Quarter and made use of the excellent options there. I settled for a burger chips and a coke for R108. It was a big burger :) Kosher pizza didn't appeal to me as that means vegetarian pizza. Remember that kosher means no meat and dairy and cheese which is an integral part of pizza is dairy. Found some free wifi which was handy for downloading a few things. Checked out a bookstore but there was little that appealed to me so I didn't buy anything.



Guess where I was. :) yes I was on Temple mount. We waited in a much shorter line after lunch and made it to the mount. This is where I received a most unwelcome phone call informing me that El Al cannot find my stuff. So that is a flash and battery charger down the drain. I am really angry about that. Not sure where to go from here.

So we explore temple mount, get a view of the mount of Olives and discuss various possible sites for the temple. Now we have to rush to make our next appointment at the City of David site and we exit the Temple Mount from a different place to that which we entered it from. Again we find ourselves in the heart of old Jerusalem and again we hurry. :) We end up back at the Kotel, cross it quickly and exit at the dung gate. We pick up our wet gear at the bus and walk a block to the City of David excavation. This is on the site where Davids original Jerusalem was outside the walls of the city of today! We look at various ruins but are distracted by a rowdy bunch of school kids. They make it reaaly hard to hear our guide and so we miss much of what is going on. The wet gear was for Hezekiahs tunnel. Boy was that a long dark walk. That place was not made for someone as wide and tall as me. But I got through ok. Where we finally exited the tunnel we reached the Pool of Siloam. This was where Jesus told the blind man to wash the mud off his eyes. I really enjoyed seeing and photographing the pool. This concluded our day in Jerusalem. On to the bus and back to the hotel.

Here since my legs were really sore I decided to make use of the jaccuzi and a massage. Both felt wonderful. Then to dinner and to bed. I finished the last few drops of my wine tonight. Ah well, it was good while it lasted!

Now with sore legs I will bid you all good night and look forward to seeing the Dead Sea Scrolls tomorrow. Sweet dreams.

This is Robert le Clus reporting from Jerusalem, Israel!

-- Post From My iPhone