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Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus

Luke 19 · he beheld the city, and wept over it

    Jerusalem in the Time of JesusThe city of the Passion · c. AD 30. Every line on this plate is a reconstruction: no survey of Herodian Jerusalem exists. The drawing follows the published scholarship of the Temple Mount and city-wall excavations — the tradition of Avi-Yonah’s model and Leen Ritmeyer’s architectural studies — held against Josephus (War 5.136-247) and the Gospels. The First Wall rings both hills, from the three towers by Herod’s palace to the Temple platform. The Second Wall is drawn on the minimal course most reconstructions share, from the Gennath Gate to the Antonia; its true line is the most disputed on any plate here, and on it hangs the Golgotha question — the knoll of the old quarry northwest of the Gennath Gate, marked as a hill, lay outside it, near the road and the garden tombs (John 19:20, 41). Agrippa’s Third Wall, which would later enclose Bezetha, was not yet built. The Praetorium of the trial is not marked: scholarship is divided between Herod’s palace and the Antonia, and a dot would decide what the evidence does not. The Upper Room and the house of Caiaphas are the traditional sites on the western hill; the palace of Antipas, where the Lord was sent on the morning of the Passion (Luke 23:7), is the old Hasmonean palace west of the bridge. The theater and hippodrome are Josephus’s (Ant. 15.268) and their sites approximate. Bethesda’s twin pools by the Sheep Gate are John 5:2 and Siloam, at the Tyropoeon’s mouth, John 9:7; the Towers’ Pool and the Serpent’s Pool, out in the Hinnom’s western arm, are Josephus’s. Gethsemane lies across the Kidron at the foot of Olivet (John 18:1), about three hundred meters from the Temple’s east gate. The brooks are drawn as the winter streams they were, the Kidron down the east and the Hinnom around the west and south, meeting at En-rogel below the city; Hezekiah’s tunnel, unmarked, carries Gihon’s water under the eastern spur to Siloam. The Mishneh is the Second Quarter of Zephaniah 1:10, inside the Second Wall; the Ophel is the rise between the Lower City and the Temple; the Mount of Offense, south of Olivet, is 1 Kings 11:7. The gates carry their attested names — Gennath and the Essene Gate from Josephus (War 5.145-146), the Sheep Gate from John 5:2, the Fish Gate from Zephaniah 1:10, named in one breath with the Mishneh it opened into, and the Water and Fountain Gates from Nehemiah (3:15, 26) — but every gate’s site here is approximate. The Temple Mount’s gates are the five of Mishnah Middot 1:3: Shushan east, Tadi north, Coponius west, and the twin Huldah Gates south, up whose ramps the pilgrims came. Golgotha UPPER CITY LOWER CITY BEZETHA MOUNT OF OLIVES KIDRON VALLEY HINNOM VALLEY TYROPOEON OPHEL MISHNEH MT OF OFFENSE BETHESDA SILOAM The Temple Antonia Herod's Palace The Three Towers Gethsemane House of Caiaphas The Upper Room Gihon Spring Gennath Gate Sheep Gate Essene Gate En-rogel Absalom's Pillar Shushan Gate Theater Hippodrome Palace of Antipas Fish Gate Water Gate Fountain Gate Tadi Gate Coponius Gate Huldah Gates City wallSiteGateHillPoolRidgeA reconstruction · c. AD 30 2500250500METERS

    Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus

    The city of the Passion · c. AD 30

    Every line on this plate is a reconstruction: no survey of Herodian Jerusalem exists. The drawing follows the published scholarship of the Temple Mount and city-wall excavations — the tradition of Avi-Yonah’s model and Leen Ritmeyer’s architectural studies — held against Josephus (War 5.136-247) and the Gospels. The First Wall rings both hills, from the three towers by Herod’s palace to the Temple platform. The Second Wall is drawn on the minimal course most reconstructions share, from the Gennath Gate to the Antonia; its true line is the most disputed on any plate here, and on it hangs the Golgotha question — the knoll of the old quarry northwest of the Gennath Gate, marked as a hill, lay outside it, near the road and the garden tombs (John 19:20, 41). Agrippa’s Third Wall, which would later enclose Bezetha, was not yet built. The Praetorium of the trial is not marked: scholarship is divided between Herod’s palace and the Antonia, and a dot would decide what the evidence does not. The Upper Room and the house of Caiaphas are the traditional sites on the western hill; the palace of Antipas, where the Lord was sent on the morning of the Passion (Luke 23:7), is the old Hasmonean palace west of the bridge. The theater and hippodrome are Josephus’s (Ant. 15.268) and their sites approximate. Bethesda’s twin pools by the Sheep Gate are John 5:2 and Siloam, at the Tyropoeon’s mouth, John 9:7; the Towers’ Pool and the Serpent’s Pool, out in the Hinnom’s western arm, are Josephus’s. Gethsemane lies across the Kidron at the foot of Olivet (John 18:1), about three hundred meters from the Temple’s east gate. The brooks are drawn as the winter streams they were, the Kidron down the east and the Hinnom around the west and south, meeting at En-rogel below the city; Hezekiah’s tunnel, unmarked, carries Gihon’s water under the eastern spur to Siloam. The Mishneh is the Second Quarter of Zephaniah 1:10, inside the Second Wall; the Ophel is the rise between the Lower City and the Temple; the Mount of Offense, south of Olivet, is 1 Kings 11:7. The gates carry their attested names — Gennath and the Essene Gate from Josephus (War 5.145-146), the Sheep Gate from John 5:2, the Fish Gate from Zephaniah 1:10, named in one breath with the Mishneh it opened into, and the Water and Fountain Gates from Nehemiah (3:15, 26) — but every gate’s site here is approximate. The Temple Mount’s gates are the five of Mishnah Middot 1:3: Shushan east, Tadi north, Coponius west, and the twin Huldah Gates south, up whose ramps the pilgrims came.

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