24 HOURS-Week 3: Pictures

Posted by Randy | Labels: , , , , , , , , , | Posted On Saturday, March 20, 2010 at 7:05 PM

In Week 3 of our series, "24 HOURS That Changed the World," the settings and key players (besides Jesus) are the home of the high priest, Caiaphas, the Fortress of Antonia and Pilate, the Roman governor, and Herod and his palace. All these locations are in Jerusalem. My first post from Week 1 of this series includes a map of this area, with these locations marked.

We have no pictures of Caiaphas' house, but we know it had to be large to provide a meeting place for all seventy-one members of the Sanhedrin on the night Jesus was tried. Most likely, it was an opulent place befitting the high priest of the Jewish faith. We do, however, have a couple of pictures of a cell that Jesus was probably kept in at times during the night and his trial.



It is also believed that there was no opening at the floor level of this cell, so Jesus was lowered through a hole in the ceiling, as seen below.



After spending most of the night in the home and prison cell of Caiaphas, Jesus was taken to Pilate, the Roman governor. Pilate usually lived in Caesarea, a Roman-built city on the Mediterranean coast. However, for special religious feasts, such as the Feast of the Passover, Pilate would often come to Jerusalem, usually staying at the Fortress of Antonia, built on the southwest corner of the Temple Mount. (The fortress, built by Herod the Great, served as the base for a legion of Roman troops.) The Feast of the Passover, in particular, stirred up feelings of Jewish nationalism as this feast remembered God leading the Israelites out of Egypt to freedom. It was also a time when as many as two-three million Jews were in the immediate area of Jerusalem for this feast, raising tensions even more. Below is a 1/50th scale model of what the fortress was believed to have looked like in the time of Jesus.



The Gospel of Luke tells us that Pilate, on discovering Jesus was from the region of Galilee, sent Jesus to Herod Antipas, who maintained a palace in Jerusalem, just northwest of the Temple Mount. Herod had been hoping to meet Jesus and see him perform a miracle. When Jesus refused to cooperate or respond, Herod and his court ridiculed Jesus and then sent him back to Pilate. Pictured below is a 1/50th scale model of what Herod's palace was believed to look like at the time he met Jesus.