Introduction

Modern Jerusalem is a sprawling city with many modern parts which are exciting socially and culturally but most of them have little of historical or biblical interest. The views presented here centers on what is now call the 'Old City,' characterized by the wall built by Ottoman sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. It is round about this Old City that most of what is interesting biblical occurred. We are sorry that the view of the Old City in this photo leaves out a good chunk of the western part of the city; we can only do so much with the source documents we can get. This aerial photograph, however, is of such excellence we felt it worthwhile using it nonetheless.

In locating the places marked in the different views of the city, we have tried to be as accurate as the data available to us permit (and we try hard to keep up with the ever evolving scholarship). This task, however, is hampered by a number of important factors. First is the fact that modern Jerusalem would look, topographically, quite different from the past. As the various site-photographs testify, ancient Jerusalem is now covered under meters of debris. Some famous parts of the ancient city, e.g., the NT pool of Siloam, have only been uncovered in recent years and then—surrendipitously—only by accident. Much of the ancient city remains unexplored: archaeological explorations are hugely expensive and time-consuming, and the process is destructive: removing the layers upon layers to expose what is underneath is a non-reversible process. To discover the true dimensions of the ancient city would require the permanent destruction of an impossibly large number of houses in the city. On the scale reflected in the base-photograph, we can safely say that the sites marked are off the mark by o more than about 50 metres at the most. These short-comings notwithstanding we believe this presentation will provide you with a clearer "geographical sense" of the most important city in the biblical narratives and lead you to a better understanding of the Bible.

Low C.H.
2019