The temple mount (Mt Moriah) is actually thought to be the site (the “rock”) where Abraham was to sacrifice Isaac in obedience to God, but God halted him before the act, and provided a goat -caught in some brambles nearby, to be the proxy sacrifice for their sins – hence establishing the covenant between Abraham & his descendents (Israelites/ Jews). This is the where the Holy of Holies was located on the temple mount, where God’s spirit dwelt. The Western wall is the closest that Jews can currently approach this sacred location; hence it’s significance to them.

The interesting parallel for christians is the sacrifice of Jesus as God’s son for all mankind, and as Jesus died the temple curtain separating the Holy of Holies from the rest of the mankind was split from top to bottom – God spirit had left, to return at Penticost. Jesus had briidged the gap between imperfect sinners (us) and the holiest of beings (God). OK, that’s Christianity 101… here ends the lesson!

The original temple was on the Temple Mount, which is the holiest site in Judaism as it is taught as the place where God created Adam. It is also sacred to Islam as the site where Muhammed ascended to heaven.

Conveniently Mohammed never actually had to go to Jerusalem – he did it all in a dream. Handy way to lay claim to the most important city of your two biggest rival religions.

In terms of ancient sites for Christianity – it is pretty much all gone -the Romans *completely* destroyed the city in 70AD, some 40 years after Jesus, and rebuilt a pagan city over what was Jerusalem, so everything you see and walk on is newer – the walls of the old city are Ottoman, the Arab quarter (above the tunnels David walked through) are from the Mamluk era, and the via-dolorosa and other main avenues are from Crusader times. In fact the street level is built up many feet above the 0 BC level. The church of the holy sepulchre supposedly is the site of both Jesus’ crucifixion and his tomb – both at the same site and inside the present city walls (how convenient), but is highly suspect that it is actually what it claims to be. Unimpressed? head for the garden tomb outside the Damascus gate (which makes no claim to being the actual tomb, merely a possibility) to avoid the dingy darkness and overt religiosity of the orthodox church and consider the words on the door to the tomb “He is not here”. Quite so.

By the way, given your views on Imihaera’s plagiarism ( DimPost, as follows), I presume you wouldn’t mind if Lonely Planet lifted your words.

Danyl on Imihaera:”…Personally I think Ihimaera’s ‘crime’ was trivial…”

Danyl went on to reprint accusations of plagiarism against Garth George.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shabbat_elevator

Depending on the peace proposal (I think there were a couple), I think the Old City either remained in Israeli hands, or was neutral territory, with access controlled by Jordan for Arab citizens of Palestine

Either way a fun place to go…. I got great drum lessons from some Arab marketeers, and they enjoyed the Mutton Birds Cassette in my walkman!

a great bar in the Christian Quarter called ‘The Tobasco Tea Rooms’
an Armenian bookseller on the Via Dolorosa that sells cool historical photgraphs of Jerusalem.
A good perfumer near Damascus Gate where you can buy real frankencense and myrhh
an excellent bookstore called Steimastky on Ben Yehuda
The liturgy in the Armenian church is the most interesting of the Christian services.
There are only a few hours/week that non-muslims can visit al-Hiram, don’t miss out.