WHILE VISITING Israel week before last, I was–like most everyone else there–doing serious reviews of whether I should turn this corner or that, stay here or go there. Personal security is the big “existential” issue in Israel, and any discussion of that leads naturally to politics, the Palestinians, Arafat, the Iraqi and Iranian threats, the Saudi proposal, the role of the United States, etc. Much of my time was spent conversing about those matters. Still, as I suspect is true of others visiting Israel even now, I also found myself thinking about things biblical. And three things in particular strike me still. First, the layers of biblical history. I say layers, because that is what you find, over and over. One thing happened at a place, and then another thing happened right there or close by, and then, later, something else. Jerusalem is the best example. You can see where David captured Jerusalem, which he made Israel’s capital, and not far from there you can see where once stood the great Temple of Solomon (which the Babylonians burned). A second temple later was erected here, and it, too, was burned, but not before Jesus’ ministry. Jesus was in Jerusalem on numerous occasions, and of course he spent his final week near or in the Old City. You can see many of those places, including the Mount of Olives and the Garden of Gethsemane (both just outside the Old City) and the path (inside the Old City) Jesus took as he carried his cross to the site of his crucifixion, Golgatha (or Calvary, from Latin). That’s where, in the fourth century, Constantine and his mother built the edifice you’ll find there today–the ornate Church of the Holy Sepulcher. As for Jesus’ actual tomb, there is a debate about whether it was at a site inside or one outside the Old City. You can go to both and figure you’ve seen where the tomb was, and thus where occurred, in my view, the biggest event in biblical or any other history–Jesus’ resurrection. Second, the City of David. The original City of David, which dates to 1000 B.C., isn’t inside the Old City but lies to its southeast, not more than 100 to 200 yards away. What surprised me as I looked at the place David chose to locate his original town is its very low elevation. All around it are higher hills. David could have located his town on one of those but instead chose the lowly Hill of Ophel. One reason he did is that at the foot of the hill lies the Gihon Spring, the only good source of water in the area. In 701 B.C. Hezekiah did some amazing engineering when he built a tunnel connecting the spring to the Siloam Pool, the point being to secure for the often embattled city a sufficient supply of water. I was told you can walk the wet tunnel with the help of a lantern–it’s about 500 meters–in about 40 minutes. By the way, Solomon was anointed to succeed David at the Gihon Spring, and it’s to the Siloam Pool that Jesus sent the blind man to go and wash. More layers of biblical history. Third, Capernaum. Capernaum was a town on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee (called the Sea of Chinnereth in the Old Testament). Capernaum isn’t mentioned in the Old Testament, only in the New. For that reason, it may have been settled after the captivity of the ten tribes and of Judah–meaning after 586 B.C. By the time of Christ, Capernaum had become a point of passage for people of all backgrounds traveling from or to Europe, Asia, or Africa. It was just the sort of place to commence a worldwide ministry–as opposed to one addressed only to Jews. Jesus made Capernaum the headquarters of his ministry, performing some of his most arresting miracles here, and you can see the ruins of the ancient synagogue where he so often taught. It is in light of the global nature of his ministry, I think, that the Gospel writers called Capernaum–where Jesus was neither born nor reared–“his own town.” No other city or town is so designated, not even Jerusalem. As great as you might think Capernaum is or should be today, I can report that little of it remains. What happened? You may recall that in the Gospels Capernaum is described as a place where the people, though they had ample opportunity to hear the Gospel message, rejected it. And because they did, Jesus said that, in effect, Capernaum would lie in ruins. Here is what Jesus said (from Luke and also from Matthew): “You [Capernaum] will go down to the depths.” I’d say that in the person of Jesus, the people of Capernaum were faced with an existential issue–one still before the world 2,000 years later. Terry Eastland is publisher of The Weekly Standard.
