Michael Tyler

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Or Bet Lehem if you are catching a bus.

This is one of the most sacred cites for X-tians as it represents the spot where Jesus was brought into this world through the virgin Mary.

I travelled up here by taxi which cost 60Nsi.

There are no buses all the way and the taxi driver tells me it’s violent compared with Jerusalem a 10 minute journey away.

History

Again, like the Church of the Sepulcher, this was built in the rule of Constantine.

The site demarks some caves on which the initial basilica was built and further expanded and embellished at the time of the crusades.

Again, like the Sepulcher, it is divided up and in generally poor condition.

Doesn’t stop the tourists.

Downstairs you have a star demarking the actual site of Christ’s birth, then you have a marble shelf right representing the manger where the child was situated.

It’s all very interesting and touching, and after a while of reflection, I make my way upstairs.

The church is situated in the West Bank and is Palestinian.

You will need a passport if you want to travel here.

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Located in West Jerusalem in amongst the government buildings, rose gardens and bird watching sanctuaries, the museum of Israel has a small number of exhibits of particular interest.

Airy breaking up

You could be forgiven for thinking you were in an ornamental gardens for there seems to be a certain pride here for all things green. but the gardens are light and airy breaking up the different sections of the museum.

The ‘all in good time exhibition’ – Art

An art exhibition drawn from private collections and national galleries documenting the ‘all in good time’ .
There are a number of works of art which have looked at different aspects of Israeli life, some videos which you can sit and watch on your own in quite auditoriums, large two story sculpture of Ethiopian Jews to the backdrop of various smaller works on canvas through different mediums and different countries.

Perhaps by selecting the best of Jewish art, a lot of the stuff is ethnic, culturally original and diverse making it easy to wander round without hurrying from piece to piece, perhaps why they called it the ‘all in good time exhibition’.

Live Model of Jerusalem

Model of Jerusalem

A to scale model of the old city of Jerusalem with the important landmarks belie the cities ethnic divisions, Golgoroth the site of Jesus’s execution and other bits and pieces like the Temple and battlements various pools, theatres, houses, stately buildings. Mostly Hellenistic built around the time of Herod.

For this part, you can get an audio guide. Handheld, this can give you some handy information backed up with a map free of charge.

The Dead Sea Scrolls

Probably one of the most important discoveries of the century, parts of dead sea scrolls were available in markets across Asia minor from the periods of the first crusades and before. The old testament is based on them.

The major period of interest was sparked in the discovery of a number of text attributed to the Essenes, documenting the Messianic prophecies of Isaiah, in a cave in 1947, said to be part of true and original scripts of which there were 1,000.

These are the only publicly available exhibits in existence.

The Isaiah Script and the Temple Scroll that lie here in the museum basically talk about:

• The Children of the Light
• The Children of the Dark
• The Son of Truth or Righteousness
• The Wicked Priest
• The Man of Lies

These are excerpts from the original scripts of Isaiah –

“And, on the whole, from among those who profess to be Christians will rise up then false prophets, false apostles, impostors, mischief-makers, evil-doers, liars against each other, adulterers, fornicators, robbers, grasping, perjured, mendacious, hating each other. The shepherds will be like wolves; the priests will embrace falsehood; the monks will lust after the things of the world;”

“For great jealousy will prevail in the last days, for each will say what seems pleasing in his own eyes. And they will set aside the prophecies of the prophets, which were before me and also pay no attention to these my visions, in order to speak forth from the torrent of their heart.”

Of 1,000 scripts found, those scripts that didn’t fall into the hands of untraceable private dealers were governed by a ‘Secrecy Rule’ up until 1991, when Robert Eisenman and James Robinson published a number of documents followed by Dutch scientist Emanuel Tov laying bare 7 of the scrolls, after which the rule was scrapped and those scripts that are available are mostly published in part, or in the case of the Isaiah Script and the Temple Scroll, in full.

Plenty of links out there, use http://www.yahoo.com/