Devotional Trip – Day 6, Site 3 ... The Israel Museum

Read: Nehemiah 6:15–7:3 (www.biblestudytools.com/nrs/nehemiah/6.html)
Sing: Shalom to You, UMH 666
 
The Israel Museum is the largest cultural institution in the State of Israel and is ranked among the world’s leading art and archeology museums. Founded in 1965, the Museum houses encyclopedic collections, including works dating from prehistory to the present day, in its Archeology, Fine Arts, and Jewish Art and Life Wings. The museum also features the most extensive holdings of biblical and Holy Land archeology in the world.
 
Model of 1st Century Jerusalem
Construction of the Model of Ancient Jerusalem was undertaken in the 1960s by Hans Kroch, owner of the Holyland Hotel, in memory of his son Jacob, who was killed in Israel’s War of Independence. Originally in the grounds of the hotel, it was transported in 1,000 pieces to its present site at the Israel Museum, three miles away, in 2006. The model covers about 43,000 square feet, using a scale of 1:50. A human figure on this scale would be about one and a third inches high.
 
The time is 66 AD, the fateful year the Great Revolt of the Jews against the Romans erupted, resulting in the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple. This is also the time when Christianity was in its formative stages and the Dead Sea Scrolls were being created. The crucifixion of Jesus was only 36 years before, and the mound of Calvary can be seen just outside the Second Wall but well inside the new north wall begun by Herod Agrippa I. The ancient city was then at its largest, spreading over 440 acres – more than twice the size of the present Old City.