Mount of Olives, Cats, and Tombs

OK. Some of our posts have been a bit heavy because quite frankly, Israel is a place of depth.
It is also a place of cats.
We have not gone anywhere where we have not seen feral cats. 

At every hotel including wandering the dining rooms, sleeping on a patio chair, and waking us up in the night with their cat fights.

on the roads and even on the wheel of a stopped tour bus we walked past

 

and in a first century tomb we looked at.

Speaking of this tomb... this was fascinating for me. It is not at all what the Bible pictures I have seen portray.

Looking at a first century tomb minus the roof. It would have been a cave

In the Old Testament, the tombs would have had the bodies stacked up on top of one another. In the first century, there was a family tomb which you see here. But, in each tomb there are these nicches ) the holes in the walls). This is where bone boxes would be put. Sounds all dreary and gross but wait.
First, they lay the body in the tomb wrapped in clothes and spices. On the third day they would normally come back to check on the body and make sure the person was really dead. Think Lazarus. Dead for four days. Very important because they would have already checked to make sure he was really dead.
Now think Jesus. The women come back on the third day as is custom to check that the body is dead. And it is gone!
But also think Jesus. Not having the family tomb.
Just as a PS, the body then stayed in the tomb for one year, then once decayed, the bones would be put in a bone box into one of the niches.
Our guide tells us we can tell a lot by a culture by their burial customs.
As Greek mentality came into this area, the wealthy started to get their own coffins and become more separate from family.

We were up on the Mount of Olives today with lots more teaching, however here is a quick taste of some of the sights.

We don't have a sign like this outside our church! But here, signs like this are common.

Line up for garden tomb view. Not the tomb of Jesus though. In case you think no one is coming to Israel because of the "situation." We have seen tours from Florida, Nigeria, Switzerland, Austria, Norway, Italy, France....

Devotional time with Alan Gilman, our tour leader, at the Garden tomb location.

View of Old Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives

There are 8 gates in the Jerusalem wall. This is the Eastern gate - the only one that is closed.

 Anna-Lee is feeling pretty sick tonight with her cough and aches and exhaustion so she is unable to blog tonight.

The weather changes, from warmish in the sun, then it clouds over and the wind picks up and rains. T-shirts, to sweaters to jackets and raincoats...