East Jerusalem & The Garden Tomb

In the afternoon on Friday, I left the Old City through the Damascus Gate and wandered into East Jerusalem, and another world. The chaos of the Muslim Souq had prepared me for it a little, very little though. The pace of things was incredible. The thing I noticed right away was that I saw no Jews and no writing in Hebrew anywhere. I guess this is to be expected, since the Palestinians see East Jerusalem and the capital of the hoped for Palestinian state. I wandered up and down the streets for an hour or so, so much in awe of this spectacle that I never even took my camera out- that is truly a rarity for me. I didn't feel unsafe at all, nor did I draw any attention I didn't like. I was stopped by a group of Palastinian young men, seven of them, who looked to be between 10-12. Only one of the boys spoke any English I could understand.

"You American?"

"Yes", I said.

"I know America!"

"What do you know?"

"I know Kobe Bryant", the ring leader said, and did his best impression of a basketball jump shot. The rest of the boys all cheered.

"Very Good", I said smiling. "What else you know?" Sometimes when speaking to people who aren't native English speakers, I fall into this simplified way of talking. I don't mean to, and so far, to my knowledge, I haven't offended anyone with it.

He puffed up his chest and said "I know Lebron James!"

I smiled and nodded, content to let him play to his crowd. I addressed the other boys. "Anyone else know America?"

They all seemed to defer to the leader, and he turned to a smallish boy with a small scar under his left eye. The boy looked embarrassed when addressed, and for a moment I was afraid I had made a mistake in asking the other boys. The leader prodded him some more.

The small boy all of a sudden came to life. "I know Lady Gaga!", he exclaimed, and the began to gesticulate wildly in what was supposed to be an impression. He broke into song- which I did not recognize, but I'm sure was supposed to be Lady Gaga. The rest of the boys broke down in hysterical laughter. The small boy went on for a few seconds longer, then laughed, and took off running. The rest of the boys charged after him.

The boy who originally spoke to me was the last to take off running. He smiled and said over his shoulder, "Goodbye America".

I said goodbye and thank you as he ran off. I'm not sure he knew why I was thanking him, but I knew.

After finishing my wandering, I found my way to the Garden Tomb. The story behind the Garden Tomb is a common one in Jerusalem. Certain protestants groups refuse to accept the Church of the Holy Sepulchre as the site of Jesus' crucifixion. Famous archeologist Charles Gordon located the site of a skull-shaped hill just north of the Old City in 1883. When excavating the site, he found some tomb that generally matched to description of Jesus' tomb from the gospels.

Archeologists have since come up with some evidence (that is refuted by the owners of the site) that the tombs uncovered were from the 5th Century B.C.E., not from Jesus' time. Even with this evidence, it's hard to dismiss the Garden Tomb. The hill (as you can see above) does have a look somewhat like a skull. The setting for the Garden Tomb is also peaceful, where as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is a magnificent structure, it's really hard to imagine the events of Easter taking place there. Lonely Planet quotes a protestant minister as saying "If they Garden Tomb was not the site of the Lord's death and resurrection, it should have been." That really sums it up- it fits the picture you have in your head of the scene- even though that picture isn't necessarily correct. Then again, most of the holy sites in Jerusalem can fall into this category. I'll talk more about this in the next post about the Mount of Olives and my Jerusalem summary post coming in the next couple days.

Here are a couple more pictures from The Garden Tomb.