Day 10 Wednesday

Oh no! It's started. 

I promised myself I would do this blog everyday and on Day 10, I went to bed without writing it. Now you probably don't care but for me this is a way of reflecting on what happened for the day and that is important on this trip. Now I have to try and remember.

Yesterday started with our first experience of studying the Gospel of Matthew with our Italian Jesuit lecturer, Dr Pino di Luccio. We will have five sets of three hour lectures on this topic over the next three weeks and I'm not sure this is going to be long enough. After our first 3 hours we only made it to mid way through the first chapter. It was fascinating stuff though. Did you know that the Jewish people were waiting for at least two messiahs ( ...and Brian wasn't one of them Monty Python fans)

The afternoon was free so a few of us decided to go exploring ... We were on the look out for the actual place where Jesus died was buried and rose again. Location 1 ... Outside Old City walls. A place called the Garden Tomb. Hilltop rock face what looked like a face (Golgotha was known as the place of the skull....

and you see the face. Or at least a large left eye.Then tomb of a rich man with a garden

Or at least a wine press from the right period , perhaps.

And then a man carved tomb with a place to prepare the body and a roll away stone.

Convinced? Well believe it or not this is not what 95% of scholars believe is the place. And the guide went to great lengths to say things like .."This may be the place....we don't know .... It seems to fit the bible story"

 Proceed to the Church of the Holy Sepulchure.

 Within the  Old City walls. Busy. People kissing and crying at pillars and stone slabs.

 

Touching stone through special carved holes in the wall ( the crucifixion).

Queuing in the church for ages just to stand in a large wooden box with a lot of candles with out enough room to even take a photo .... Even if I was able to.... before  being "ushered" - a polite way of saying rushed out to wonder what that was all about.

So which one do I believe? I know which one I'd prefer.

The night ended with a few of the group watching " Life of Brian " on the big screen in the classroom when were were meant to be studying the bible. It was instructive.

Signing off now as I need to do today's entry.