In the upper courtyard there are trees and birds and kitties once in awhile too. Evan is becoming known as the cat boy because he pets the kitties wherever we see one. That’s my boy! Cool to see the trees on top planted in the terraces. 
Our crew took pictures on the steps leading up to the Dome and ultimately the Holiest of Holies, which is thought to be “somewhere” up there, although the Muslims believe it is inside the dome. The Jews won’t come any closer than the WW because they don’t want to accidentally step on the Holiest of Holies. So the Temple Mount is on Mount Moriah, where Abraham intended to sacrifice Isaac. The rock at the very top was also a threshing floor back then. It is near Mount Zion, and the Mount of Olives is also right across the Kidron Valley to the east. Seeing it in person really helps drive home the geography of the Bible in ways I didn’t expect. Super interesting.
This very expensive monument is thought to cover the place of Isaac’s would-be sacrifice, had the angel not stopped him. It cost an exhorbitant amount of money with no expense spared. There have been incidents up here because of it’s religious importance, so there were armed police around and security checkpoints again. They used to not let people up here for awhile because of an incident, but recently began allowing it again. I was grateful for the opportunity to see it, even though we were not allowed to enter. We could walk all the way around it, though, which we did.
We exited the upper courtyard and Dome of the Rock area through the arches on the east side. Right outside of that was the Beautiful Gate, or the Golden Gate. Also not in use today, but we could see it from the inside.
There were olive trees growing inside this area too, as we made our way north to the north east gate, the Lion’s Gate, called that because it has two lions on it. I also thought it was neat to find out that this was the gate that the sacrificial lambs were brought into the temple through. The Lion and the Lamb. Anyway, here’s where we walked out.
See the lions to the right of the top of the door? There were two just like it on the other side, too. From here we could see the path of the Triumphal entry. This is the ride Jesus took on the donkey on Palm Sunday.
It’s the road coming down the hill to the right of the building. This is the Mount of Olives which also holds the Garden of Gethsemane. The top of this mountain is where we went next. Here is the view from there, from the other side of the Kidron Valley.
Completely different perspective on the Dome of the Rock and the Temple Mount. We were just over there, what, 15 minutes ago? Granted we took a bus and the walk would not have been that easy, even if it were still a mountain covered with only olive trees as it was back in Jesus day. Next blog…