Garden tomb and Beit Lehi

We started the day at Golgotha or "the place of the skull" and even today that side of the mountain looks very much like a skull (too bad I'm mostly blocking it). Right down below the "skull" is there Jesus was crucified, it's an arab bus station now, but it's down by the main road, not up on top of the hill like most of us have thought (due to pictures). Jesus was right off the road where everyone could see him.

Right next to Golgotha is a very nice garden, called the Garden Tomb, that was owned by Joseph of Arimethea. He had built a tomb for he and his family, but instead used it for Jesus. The "bricks" you see are a crude repair after an earthquake. Multiple LDS prophets have declared that this was indeed the place Christ resurrected from.

This is inside the tomb at the very place Jesus' dead body was laid and where the angels stood at head and foot when Mary arrived 3 days later. Outside the tomb you can even see the "track" where the round stone could roll in front of and away from the entrance to the tomb.

All of us just outside the tomb. It has been cool and overcast for several days now, our guide says he can't ever remember being cold here before, but it makes for VERY nice touring.

Sadly, I came down with a mortal ailment and died right here at the Garden Tomb.

As all dead people do, you can see my tongue sticking out grotesquely.

Then all of the sudden I was gone! Leaving behind my clothes!

Next we made our way to Beit Lehi. Very few people know this even exists yet, because once it it published, hundreds of thousands of tourists will come (says the Israeli tourism dept). A bunch of LDS folks and college students are excavating under the supervision of the leading archaeologist at the Hebrew University. It is unbelievable. A huge mosaic floor that goes "up" from room to room, it dates back to a little before 600 BC, and is still today called "the place of Lehi). It's arought, unpaved road to get here, but may be open to the public in another year or so, although there is still a lot of excavating going on. These people knew something about boats, these very colorful boat mosaics are on the floors, and we got to walk right on them and brush away the sand to see them and stuff.

On the floor of the first or lowest room there are pictures of plants and stuff.

In the next highest room you see animals fighting! Very interesting eh? Elder Hartman Rector was with us for this visit and he said this is a temple, and very likely Lehi's land of inheritance (jerusalem itself is about 20 miles from here)

These are the steps leading up to the mosaic floor, the mosaics are right behind me.

Right up the hill in Beit Lehi they have just finished excavating the only complete ancient Jewish "wash" house. We piled in here and had a sacrament meeting. They asked me to bless the bread. Possibly the first time an LDS sacrament meeting held in an ancient Jewish site in Israel.

We finshed the day at Sampson's well. Sampson needed water and struck a rock or something and this well appeared for him. The water was was green but clear, you could see way down in there. I thought it would have been funny to push dad in there and take a short video, but I didn't.