Hezekiah's Tunnel and City of david

So since the last post ran way long i will make a new one for Jan. 5th

Today we traveled down to Hezekiah's Tunnel and to the City of David. We first traveled and stopped at the City of David, all of this in walking distance mind you, and it was really cool to see the history here. The City of David is said to have been located on the very tip of the eastern ridge, right off the Kidron Valley. The City of David is something that we don't actually know a lot about. Many believe that it was a big city with a major King David and had power, but some believe that this wasn't even a city at all, and it was almost just a settlement in the hills of Israel. Now the things that I saw today at the site were pretty amazing, we first stopped and saw a rounded steps made from rocks. This dates back as early as 1300 BCE. and it could of actually been a place where at the top held an amazing building built for someone of great importance like a King, David perhaps? We don't actually know for sure and my professors believe that David's palace was in a different place as well. We then made our way down to a pretty entertaining 3D movie about the land itself. It was 15 minutes long but it wasn't filled with historical information, kind of cheesy, but hey that is always the best right? Yes!

Okay, moving on, from the City of David there is a very significant piece of history just below it. under all the rubble and rock there is a tunnel, this is called the Hezekiah tunnel. It is called this because during the reign of Hezekiah, he built a stream leading up to and from the Gihon Spring to bring water to his people. Now this Gihon Spring is at the bottom of the Kidron Valley and off of the Eastern Ridge there is a HUGE drop-off so to defend such a prominent water source in a good location is very hard to pull off so Hezekiah built huge towers to defend this spring because of its importance. Back to the tunnel, the tunnel itself is about 1400 feet long, give or take, and it was dug out from both directions so there are two sets of people digging this out in the 8th century BCE and they are trying to get to each other so there are some mistakes but pretty good overall. This tunnel was very small and narrow and had to duck a lot of the time. It used to be that people couldn't go in it because of it flooding when people were in the tunnel, FREAKY!!! So here we are, 27 Bethel Students, walking through this tunnel that has water up past our shins and half of us in sandals and the other in socks. It was a great time. I absolutely love that kind of stuff. Walking through tunnels and actually living out history by doing it and not just hearing about it. Then at the end we come to the pool of Siloam, now the pool of Siloam as some may know, is used in the Biblical text from the New Testament when Jesus heals the blind man with mud and spit and then goes and tells him to wash his eyes in the pool of Siloam. It was really cool to see a portion of this because it is like WOW Jesus healed someone around here! He was HERE!!!!! The rest of the pool is under a garden owned by some dude who has yet to accept an offer from the government to excavate, LAME!!!!!

Well we also visited some cool tombs today of some super old people from a long long long time ago. I really liked the tombs too, it is just one of those things where you are living history and not just hearing about it. I took a picture of a friend laying down in an actual grave. Thats just wrong and creepy, but also awesome!

Well there is so much more to say and more to talk about but I will have more to tell you tomorrow as i travel to the wailing wall again and then on to the Mount of Olives. So stay tuned!!!

This land is your land this land is my land from the Watershed Ridge to the Mount of Olives, from the Kidron valley to the Old City, This land was made for you and me! That was epic! All land features of Jerusalem. Look it up!