Beyond the Old City Walls: The Mount of Olives - January 31, part 2

The Mount of Olives is a mile-long ridge of limestone that parallels the eastern wall of Jerusalem and turns west as it reaches the northern corner, partially enclosing Jerusalem. It rises 320 feet above the Temple Mount. The descent to the Garden of Gethsemane is very, very steep. Here at the top, before we journeyed downward, we posed for a group picture. Behind us is the Old City of Jerusalem and you can easily see the Dome of the Rock.


The moment we got off the bus, I was approached by a very persistent young man, perhaps 12 or 13 years old. He wanted to sell me a branch from an olive tree - "Only $1 lady." "Only $1" he said time and time again. Each time I told him NO. I soon learned to say lala which means no. He then walked me down many of the first steps of the decline. His hands were all over me - I'm sure he was trying to find where I kept my money. He gave me a branch for my husband, a branch for my children, a branch for me, a branch for my friends, a branch to remember him, a branch for good luck, a branch for a safe journey. I felt badly not giving him any money. His younger brother was watching him and he then latched onto another woman from out group. I can only begin to imagine what he will be like a few years from now.

It's hard to capture just how steep the path is we walked. At times I felt like my feet and ankles were more than 45 degrees. I was really thankful I had spent the extra money for non-skid shoes. Not everyone walked down the hill, some stayed on our bus and walked to the bottom of the hill. It was hard on the knees. Here are a couple of pictures that suggest the steepness of the path. When you look at the following picture, the building at the top of the hill is near the site where we had the group picture taken.


The following picture is near the bottom of the hillside and is less steep, although still steep.


At one point a man had his donkey and offered people rides - for a price, of course.


When we reached the donkey, there stood his master offering the rides for a price to the bottom of the hill.


The Mount of Olives is frequently mentioned in the New Testament (Matthew 21:1;26:30, etc.) as the route from Jerusalem to Bethany and the place where Jesus stood when he wept over Jerusalem. Jesus is said to have spent time on the mount, teaching and prophesying to his disciples (Matthew 24-25), including the Olivet discourse, returning after each day to rest (Luke 21:37), and also coming there on the night of his betrayal (Matthew 26:39). At the foot of the Mount of Olives lies the Garden of Gethsemane, the site of my next blog entry.

As we progressed down the steep, steep hillside we stopped a Dominus Flevit Church, built in 1955 to commemorate the Lord's weeping over Jerusalem. Dominus Flevit features a beautiful view of the city through its distinct chapel window. Excavations during construction of the church uncovered a number of ossuaries (bone boxes) from the time of Jesus with numerous inscriptions.





Here on the Mount of Olives, overlooking Jerusalem, we heard the passage from Luke 19:22-44 -- After he had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. When he had come near Bethphage and Bethany, at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of the disciples, saying, "Go into the village ahead of you, and as you enter it you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, 'Why are you untying it?' just say this, 'The Lord needs it.'" So those who were sent departed and found it as he had told them. As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, "Why are you untying the colt?" They said, "The Lord needs it." Then they brought it to Jesus; and after throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road. As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, saying, "Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!" Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, "Teacher, order your disciples to stop." He answered, "I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out." As he came near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, "If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. Indeed, the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up ramparts around you and surround you, and hem you in on every side. They will crush you to the ground, you and your children within you, and they will not leave within you one stone upon another; because you did not recognize the time of your visitation from God."

As Pat, the person with whom I shared accommodations, did her storytelling about Jesus weeping as he came near the city, the emotion felt was stirring. Here is Pat's biblical storytelling experience ...


...as we overlooked Jerusalem.



The Mount of Olives was the place of many Biblical events and a prominent place in the prophesied events of the last days. The Domed Chapel of the Ascension on top of the Mount of Olives is the traditional spot from which it is believed Jesus ascended into heaven (Acts 1:9-12).

According to Jewish tradition, the Messiah will appear here and bring the dead back to life. Therefore, the hillside became the most holiest cemetery, and the hillside is covered by thousands of grave stones. From biblical times until today, Jews have been buried on the Mount of Olives. There are an estimated 150,000 graves on the Mount, including tombs traditionally associated with Zechariah and Avshalom (Absalom).

The Mount of Olives has also been a traditional site for messianic expectations. According to the prophet Zechariah, God will personally stand here before entering Jerusalem: “In that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which faces Jerusalem on the east. And the Mount of Olives shall be split in two from east to west, making a very large valley; half of the mountain shall move toward the north and half of it toward the south.” (Zechariah 14:4)

The beginning of the Mount Olives Hebrew Cemetery is during the period of the first Temple, but the tombs seen there today are from the 16th century and on. There are two good reasons to want to be buried here. First, the view to the old city is spectacular. Second, when the Messiah arrives, all the dead will be resurrected, and since the messiah will arrive through the golden gate, then people who are buried on Mount of Olives will be 'First in line' to rise from the dead. Many Jews saw the benefits of Mount of Olives as a burial place, and came here especially to be buried.

During the 1948 war, the cemetery was taken by the Jordanian Legion, together with the Old City of Jerusalem. The stones of the ancient tombs were used by them for construction purposes.

Among the famous people buried on Mount of Olives: Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, Boris Shatz, David Yelin, Rabbi Cook, Yoel Moshe Solomon, Menachem Begin and others.




When preparations were being made for the construction of the church of Dominus Flevit on the Mount of Olives, excavations were undertaken and a number of Second Temple tombs were discovered. Ossuaries were found inside the tombs from the first centuries B.C. and A.D.

Ossuaries are bone boxes, which were used primarily in the Jerusalem area in the late Second Temple period - although they have also been found in other areas of the country. All totaled, over 1,500 of them have been discovered. An ossuary had to be large enough to contain the femur bones and a typical one measured 2 x 1 x 1.5 ft. [0.6 x 0.3 x 0.5 m.]. Most of them were decorated in some way: geometric, floral, and building patterns. Some were inscribed with the names of the deceased.

Normally the deceased was placed in a niche in a tomb. About a year or so after the burial, after the body had decomposed, the bones were collected and placed in an ossuary – so that the kokh could then be reused.



Note that some have flat covers (easy to stack) while others have gabled roofs (imitating dwellings).



This practice seems to have been in use from the second half of the first century B.C. until the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. However the practice actually continued, on a much lesser scale, with less elaborate ossuaries, until about A.D. 250.

When we reached the bottom of the hill there were several taxicabs available to take people UP the path we had just descended. Unbelievably, there was one woman at the bottom of the Mount of Olives wearing heels - she and a friend were talkng about the long walk that faced them up the hill. I can't even begin to imagine what it would be like to walk up, let alone to be wearing heels to do so.

Having arrived at the bottom of the Mount of Olives, we turned the corner to enter the Garden of Gethsemane.