"As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death..." - Coolio, 'Gangster's Paradise'

 In this lecture, we learned about the characteristics of a sacred space.  Many things can occur that can lead to the belief that a place is sacred such as trade routes, the belief that something supernatural happened there, or someone was born there. Despite the fact that Jerusalem does not have any major trade routes through it, it is considered one of the holiest cities in the religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. 

We discussed the geography of Jerusalem in detail, using one of my favorite computer programs Google Earth (no, I do not use it to stalk ex-boyfriends). Because it is located on a hill and is surrounded by valleys was crucial to its survival because it made it much more protected and less susceptible to attack. We learned that water, surprisingly, was the biggest problem that Jerusalem had to overcome. Without water, the people could not survive and the population could not grow. In order to solve this problem, they utilized water from the Gihoh spring and built tunnels that led the water to the city. 

Professor Cargill clarified that the Western wall is NOT the western wall of the temple, it’s the western wall of the retaining wall.  It’s the closest you can get to the temple, to the holy of holy’s, without being on the temple mount (going up it).  Jerusalem is known as the Axis mundi, the center of the world.