Navigating–Old School Meets New School, Visiting the Upper Room and David’s Tomb

This is how we are getting around here–Claire and Graham have wifi on their phones, John has his paper map. I follow them and try to keep up.

The Old City markets are so colorful, fragrant and interesting!

This morning we went through the Jewish Quarter and outside the walls to visit a traditional site of the Upper Room.

The Upper Room site is near the Church of the Dormition, or the traditional place where it’s believed Mary died, or slept. This church is closed now for renovations.

Upper Room

“On the first day of the Festival of Unleavened Bread, when it was customary to sacrifice the Passover lamb, Jesus’ disciples asked Him, ‘Where do you want us to go and make preparations for you to eat the Passover?’ So, He sent two of His disciples, telling them, ‘Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him. Say to the owner of the house he enters, ‘The Teacher asks: Where is my guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’ He will show you a large room upstairs, furnished and ready. Make preparations for us there.’ The disciples left, went into the city and found things just as Jesus had told them. So, they prepared the Passover.” (Mark 14:12-14)

The room where tradition says Jesus had the last Passover is in a 12th century Crusader building on the second floor, above the Tomb of David. The site, also called the Cenacle (“dining room”), is near the Zion Gate on Mount Zion. European knights built the site, so logically this cannot be the Upper Room (archaeological evidence confirms this is not King David’s tomb either). . . . the site itself remains inconclusive as a first-century dwelling where the Upper Room may have once stood. Only ancient tradition says it is the Last Supper location.

From the building where the Upper Room is, looking over at the Church of the Dormition.

David’s Tomb

The traditional site known as King David’s final resting place is often contested, but it is still considered one of the holiest spots in Jerusalem. Located in a medieval-styled building near the Zion Gate, David’s sealed sarcophagus rests in the far back corner of a very busy room (divided for men and women) that is filled with observant Jews praying, singing, or studying. It’s a very moving experience.

Unfortunately, the large sarcophagus is empty, a Gothic cenotaph that the Crusaders put here, and can only serve as a memorial to David (it is still important to preserve his memory). So, who decided that this was the Tomb of David when there’s no body?

The Crusaders, not the Jews, decided upon the site in the 12th century, known today as the Tomb of King David.

By the 12th century, the actual City of David had been buried for centuries, and these Europeans identified the wrong higher western hill as part of that ancient city. They called it Mount Zion. When the Crusaders mistakenly put an empty sarcophagus here, it became an accepted tradition that doesn’t line up with biblical archaeology. King David was buried in the southeastern part of the lower and smaller hill, which is directly south of the Temple Mount, and a half-mile away from the modern Tomb of David.