o
Welcome to Jerusalem Studio!
This time we will discuss the name of our show - Jerusalem,
God's eternal city.
Jesus promised to return to this city one day,
there He was also crucified for our sins.
We will discuss God's eternal city with Pekka Sartola.
- Welcome, Pekka! - Thanks, glad to be here again.
- When was Jerusalem born as a city?
- Jerusalem's history goes back 3000 years.
David moved his first fortress the City of David to Jerusalem.
It happened approximately in 1000 BC.
- So, 3000 years ago? - Yes.
- Who built the first temple?
- David wanted to build it,
but because of his wars, and mishaps that are also mentioned in the Bible,
he could not do it.
He gathered the necessary materials, but only his son Salomon
was able to complete the temple. That was in 960 BC.
- What does Jerusalem mean? - House of peace.
It does not seem so now, but one day it will be.
- It refers to God's words: My peace I will leave with you.
It is from God, therefore peace is important.
- Yes. Jesus promised to leave us His peace,
although He did not directly refer to Jerusalem.
All that happens in Jerusalem - propitiation of our sins, His return,
will be related to it somehow.
Jerusalem will also be the center of the Millennial Kingdom.
- How long was Jerusalem able to enjoy peace after Salomon?
- The city was destroyed in 586 and began to be rebuilt in 445 BC.
Zerubbabel led the reconstruction project
and also the temple was raised up.
After the Maccabean period Jerusalem was taken over by Romans
and Herod the Great began to build the temple.
That was approximately in 10 BC.
- Herod's name bears a bad aura in the Bible,
however he was the architect of quite a few buildings.
- Yes. Inspite of all his negative aspects,
he founded South Jerusalem, filling it with fancy buildings.
Besides Jerusalem also other cities were built.
The buildings of Jerusalem were of course built with Jewish tax money
so Herod was no filantropist.
- How big was Jerusalem at Jesus' time?
- Considerably smaller than today. We can see from the map,
how the modern city covers the area within the Turkish-built walls.
A little more than half of the modern city
existed at Jesus time within walls, including the Temple Mount.
- How many people lived there? - During high holidays
when the Jews came from surrounding countries to celebrate
there might have been even a million but during Jesus time
there may have been up to a 100 000 people in the city
and as many in the surrounding areas.
Numbers differ, it is difficult to say
how many exactly lived within the city walls.
- Jesus predicted that the Second temple will be destroyed.
When and how did it happen?
- The uprising of the Jews began in 66 AD and was crushed.
In relation to that the Romans also destroyed the temple in 70 AD,
which had also been predicted by prophet Micah.
The Jews had to leave, but they came back
and in 135 AD a new uprising was started,
which was crushed during Hadrian's reign.
After that Jerusalem's status was completely changed -
it became a Roman garrison, Temple Mount was leveled
and turned into a dump site together with surrounding valleys.
Romans named it Aelia Capitolina and it stuck for 200 years.
- It was quite a long time.
- Yes, but compared to the history of humankind, still quite brief.
- Were the Jews dispersed around the world then?
- Yes. This was the start of the real diaspora -
the Jews were forced out into the surrounding vassal states.
Diaspora continued until our times.
- At that time Islam was not yet born.
When and how did it happen?
- Islam was formed around 580 AD when Mohammed began to see visions,
and developed till his death in 623 AD.
The visions were later compiled into Koran
and a collection of Mohammed's deeds and words called Hadith.
Jerusalem is also tied to Islam, but no texts mention it anywhere.
- They began to build mosques and other holy places. Which ones?
- Islam's holiest place is Mecca, which was considered holy
already before Mohammed.
Many different gods were worshiped there,
Allah was but one of them.
Mohammed declared all others futile and chose Allah as the only god.
A holy place called Kaaba was raised in his honor in Mecca.
During Mohammed's early years, Islam was a very militant religion,
also Islam was fought against and not accepted at first.
Thus Mohammed had to escape Mecca at one time and he headed to Medina.
This is where the first cradle of Islam was born
and the first official prayer house was built.
Mosque does not mean a building but a place where Muslims pray.
At that time it was a back yard of one of Mohammed's supporters
where Muslims gathered to pray.
It was called Al Aqsa, the furthermost place from Mecca.
- Mohammed had a night journey
that later also affected Jerusalem.
Tell us a little about that.
- Mohammed's Night Journey took place between 620-622 AD.
The story is described in Koran and hadiths as follows -
Mohammed slept in Mecca, in the house of his uncle Abu Talib,
next to his favorite wife of the time Aisha and woke up after a nudge.
He really got up only after a third nudge.
Angel Gabriel stood before him, the one we know from the Bible.
Angel took him out of the house where a bizarre horse was waiting,
having a woman's face, wings, torso of a donkey and back of a horse
Other accounts describe the back side as belonging to a cow etc.
It seems like a multifaceted creation of Darwin's evolution theory.
Angel put Mohammed on the horse and according to the Koran
they reached the furthermost mosque with three leaps;
from Mecca to the furthermost mosque known to Islam at the time in Medina.
Lots of things happened in Medina.
Mohammed climbed to heaven to meet with Allah.
He found seven levels there and met the Old Testament prophets -
Adam, Abraham, Noah, Jesus and Moses.
Jesus is only a prophet in Islam.
Finally he met with Allah and also had his first Communion,
during which he received behavioral instructions
and prayer customs for Muslims that he later brought to earth.
The horse was supposedly tied to the wall of Al Buraq
and Mohammed supposedly climbed to heaven by an illuminated ladder.
You can either believe it or not.
- Where could this Al Aqsa mosque be located?
- It was located in Medina. It was not a building,
but an Islamic place of prayer in the yard of his friend in Medina.
Mohammed never visited Jerusalem during his lifetime,
as at that time, until Mohammed's death in 632 AD,
Jerusalem was governed by the East Roman or Byzantine Empire.
At that time there were no mosques.
- When was the current Al Aqsa mosque built in Jerusalem?
- It was ready in 712 AD, 80 years after Mohammed's death.
It is not possible that Mohammed visited it during his lifetime.
Dome of the Rock was built a few dozen years earlier.
But Al Aqsa is mentioned as the place from where Mohammed went to heaven.
- Who built it?
- Jerusalem was conquered. The name of the caliph escapes me,
but Al Aqsa mosque was built
by the son of the builder of the Dome of the Rock.
- When did Jerusalem and the Al Aqsa mosque there
become important for the Muslims?
- It did not happen very early. While studyin Islam I discovered
that a couple of hundred years after Mohammed's death
Islam's holiest place was considered to be Mecca, followed by Medina.
In the same context it was said that Jerusalem or al-Quds
was only important for Jews and cross worshippers or Christians.
At that time it was also believed that Mohammed's Night Journey
was only a hallucination or a dream. Everyone can believe what they want.
Only 1000 years later, when the topic of the Jewish state
and the question of Jerusalem in relation to it arose,
after the 1st World War, Jerusalem's chief mufti
suddenly upgraded Jerusalem's status and Mohammed's Night Journey.
It had supposedly happened for real in Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque
that did not even exist during Mohammed's vision.
- Herzl's speech in the end of the 19th century must have hinted
that it is a place Islam should claim as theirs.
- Theodor Herzl's statements at the Zionist Congress
and his writings at the time launched Zionism
and the return of Judaism to its land of origin.
It was also a message to the forces opposing the Bible, Christianity
and Judaism, that it must be prevented.
Here we can see the spiritual conflict again.
- Did Herzl mention that it could happen after 50 years?
- Yes. He wrote about it in his book "Der Judenstaat":
"Not in 5, but in 50 years." And that's exactly what happened.
- It was said in 1898 and Israel was born in 1948.
During 2nd World War hatred against Jews spread even more.
- Yes. The issue of Jerusalem is very important.
Christians consider the city dear due to what took place there.
As the Bible ties Jerusalem to the history of the Jews
as well as the return of the Messiah, the city becomes very important
also to the forces that oppose them.
Islam teaches that Judaism has nothing to do with Jerusalem;
they supposedly never had any temples there.
According to them, Judaism and sacrifices are only related
to Shechem or the modern Nablus where the Jews allegedly sacrificed.
But the Jews only sacrificed in Jerusalem,
at the temple on the Temple Mount, never in a synagogue or elsewhere.
- After Israel's declaration of statehood in 1948
the hatred has been even more widespread.
- Yes. If we could find grounds for it
that would also stand the test of history,
it could be understandable.
But as neither Koran nor hadiths mention Jerusalem anywhere,
instead the Koran says through Mohammed's mouth
that Jerusalem has never been as central prayer place for them
as it is depicted today.
- Jesus promises in His Word to return to Jerusalem.
Doesn't islam want Jesus to return to the Mount of Olives?
- No. That's an interesting situation. Islamic scholars know the Bible.
They know that Messiah will return through the Eastern Gate
or the current Golden Gate which existed in Salomon's temple
as well as in Herod's temple.
They have walled the Golden Gate up
and turned the area in front of it into a graveyard.
They think that as Muslims cannot walk over graves
neither can the Messiah and thus His return will not happen.
They are attempting to materialize spiritual realities.
- You talked about Mecca and Medina that are in Saudi Arabia
where Sunni Islam reigns. Where is the Mecca of the Shiites?
- The holy place of the Shiites is Karbala, located in modern Iraq,
the place where Mohammed's son in law Ali was killed.
Shiites make pilgrimages there.
We've seen on TV the great masses of people whipping themselves
in an attempt to identify with Ali's sufferings.
Jerusalem is also important to Shia Islam,
but only because it is important to the Jews and Christians.
Hatred against the West, Christianity and Judaism
is their common denominator.
- Jerusalem and its division have been on the table a lot lately.
Jews got East-Jerusalem back in 1967.
How has the situation developed lately?
- It is moving in a worrisome direction.
The Western world that sees Jews as part of the Christian world
considers Jerusalem closer to Islamic mentality.
A couple of years ago the Catholic Church
took a negative stand again
and the wise cardinals discussed at a meeting similar to a conclave
the status of the Promised Land, Judaism and Jerusalem.
The former Pope John Paul II was still alive then.
The conclave issued a statement that caused an outrage
among the Jews at the time.
The cardinals decided that the Promised Land no longer exists,
wherefore there is no longer any promised or chosen people,
and Jerusalem is only a political city,
which must be divided equally between all religions.
They hinted that Jesus' crucifiction 2000 years ago
cancelled all God's promises regarding Judaism,
the Promised land and Jerusalem.
It was quite a topic in Israeli press for several months.
- The world's media reflects Antisemitism
and opposition against Jews is on the rise.
It also involves the endless argument over the borders.
- Looking at Jerusalem from a materialistic perspective,
the UN nor UNESCO have not interfered in the actions of the Muslims
who have built a huge mosque under the Temple Mount
and have destroyed masses of archeological evidence in the process
from the 1st and 2nd Temple era; they've poored cement over things
in order to hide any evidence as to the connection of the Jews
with the Temple Mount.
When I was in Jerusalem at the time
we found archeological evidence from the dump site
where the muslims took their construction debris.
There were heaps of ground dug up from the Temple Mount
and many evidences were found
that testified to the facts that Islam tries to deny.
- In recent years many archeological finds have been discovered
as to the reliability of the Bible and the events described in it.
- Yes. They are found constantly. Putting a shovel to the ground
in Jerusalem and the whole Israel you always find something historic.
They all testify undeniably that Jerusalem was an important place
in the history of the Jews
and do not support the Islamic way of thinking.
- Today there is a lot of talk about borders and ownership.
I heard that at the London Olympics
Jerusalem was written as the capital of Jerusalem
and Tel Aviv as the capital of Israel.
- Yes, that's true. This practice has lasted for quite a while already.
When participating at the fairs in the Middle-East
the Palestinians always mention Jerusalem as their capital.
Not many other Jewish towns participate.
I am perplexed how chairman of the Olympic Committee
walked around wearing a scarf with Palestinian flags on it.
That was a clear stance in sports politics.
He has the freedom to do it, Palestinian athletes were there too,
but based on the Olympic ideals,
political and religious issues should be avoided at the games.
- What does Jerusalem mean for you?
- It is a hook I have been caught by.
I would love to spend a whole month on the Temple Mount
and in the Old City and explore it all as a historian.
Spiritually it means a place
where the sins of the humankind were reconciled;
where our Redeemer suffered in Gethsemane; died on Colgatha;
where He was resurrected and where He returns to one day.
From there will one day begin the Millennial Kingdom of Peace;
this is where all the nations of the world will come and look to,
as Isaiah prophecied.
- My wife had a dream about all of us going to Jerusalem one day.
It is no ordinary destination but holds many values in it.
- All those understanding spiritual things
get a spiritual culture shock there.
You cannot remain unaffected by it.
There is some great whirr of the wings of history in Jerusalem,
a great holiness.
We know by the Wailing Wall that Jesus touched the same stones,
walked on the same stones, and the Bible becomes closer.
- We await Jesus' coming. We do not know the day nor the hour
but we have the promise that one day He will come.
It means that everyone's affairs with Jesus should be in order
and their destination clear.
- Yes. The most important duty of Christians is to spread the news
so that as many as possible would be ready to meet Him.
- Thanks for today's discussion!
Thanks to our viewers! We will continue in four weeks.
Translation: Monika Jaaguri