Jerusalem. The Biography

give slightly different versions of what happened in the next three days. ‘All this was done’, explains Matthew, ‘that the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled’.
    The Messiah was prophesied to enter the city on an ass, and as Jesus approached, his followers laid down palms before him and hailed him as ‘Son of David’ and ‘King of Israel’. He probably entered the city, like many visitors, through the southern gate near the Siloam Pool and then climbed to the Temple up the monumental staircase of Robinson’s Arch. His Apostles, Galilean provincials who had never visited the city, were dazzled by the grandeur of the Temple: ‘Master, see what manner of stones and what buildings are here!’ Jesus, who had often seen the Temple, replied, ‘Seest thou these great buildings? There shall not be left one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.’
    Jesus expressed his love for and disappointment in Jerusalem but he foresaw the abomination of desolation. Historians believe that these prophecies were added later, because the Gospels were written after Titus had destroyed the Temple. Yet Jerusalem had been smashed andrebuilt before, and Jesus was reflecting the popular anti-Temple traditions. * ‘Destroy this Temple and I shall build another not made by human hands,’ he added, echoing his prophetic inspiration, Isaiah. Both saw beyond the real city to a heavenly Jerusalem that would have the power to shake the world, yet Jesus promised to rebuild the Temple himself in three days, perhaps showing that it was the corruption, not the Holy House itself, that he opposed.
    By day, Jesus taught, and healed sick people at the Bethesda Pool just north of the Temple and at the Siloam Pool to its south, both crowded with Jewish pilgrims purifying themselves to enter the Holy House. At night he returned to his friends’ home in Bethany. On the Monday morning, he again entered the city but this time he approached the Royal Portico of the Temple.
    At Passover, Jerusalem was at its most crowded and dangerous. Power was founded on money, rank and Roman connections. But the Jews did not share the Roman respect for military kudos or cold cash. Respect in Jerusalem was based on family (Temple magnates and Herodian princelings), scholarship (the Pharisee teachers) and the wild card of divine inspiration. In the Upper City, across the valley from the Temple, the grandees lived in Grecian-Roman mansions with Jewish features: the so-called Palatial Residence excavated there has spacious receiving-rooms and
mikvah
s. Here stood the palaces of Antipas and the high priest Joseph Caiaphas. But the real authority in Jerusalem was the prefect, Pontius Pilate, who usually ruled his province from Caesarea on the coast but always came to supervise Passover, staying at Herod’s Citadel.
    Antipas was not the only Jewish royalty in Jerusalem. Helena, theQueen of Adiabene, a small kingdom in today’s northern Iraq, * had converted to Judaism and moved to Jerusalem, building a palace in the City of David, donating the golden candelabra over the doorway of the Temple sanctuary and paying for food when there were bad harvests. Queen Helena too would have been there for Passover, probably wearing the sort of jewellery recently discovered in Jerusalem: a large pearl inlaid in gold with two drop pieces, each with an emerald set in gold.
    Josephus guessed that two and a half million Jews came for Passover. This is an exaggeration but there were Jews ‘out of every nation,’ from Parthia and Babylonia to Crete and Libya. The only way to imagine this throng is to see Mecca during the haj. At Passover, every family had to sacrifice a lamb, so the city was jammed with bleating sheep – 255,600 lambs were sacrificed. There was much to do: pilgrims had to take a dip in a
mikvah
every time they approached the Temple as well as buy their sacrificial lambs in the Royal Portico. Not everyone could stay in the city. Thousands lodged in the surrounding villages, like Jesus, or camped around the walls. As the smell of burning meat and heady incense wafted – and the trumpet blasts, announcing prayers and sacrifices, ricocheted – across the city, everything was focused on the Temple, nervously watched by the Roman soldiers from the Antonia Fortress.
    Jesus now walked into the towering, colonnaded Royal Portico, the bustling, colourful, crowded centre of all life, where pilgrims gathered to organize their accommodation, to meet friends,