Palm Sunday celebrates the beginning of the week in which Jesus made his final visit to Jerusalem. Take a look at the map of Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives shown below, which I drew for my novel Son of Mary. I’ve added three arrows to mark important points along the path Jesus followed: Jesus came up the Jericho Road from the east and passed by the villages of Bethphage and Bethany. I’ve added a red arrow at the location of a modern-day lookout point, just across from the modern 7 Arches Hotel. This is a very popular tourist site, …
Jesus and Jerusalem
Jesus and the Aqueduct Pilate Built
Pontius Pilate was the governor of the Roman province of Judea from AD 26 to 36. He’s famous for presiding over the trial of Jesus of Nazareth and sending Jesus to the cross. We don’t have a huge amount of information on Pilate, but there’s a famous story that shows what kind of a man he was. You can read the story yourself in the works of the Jewish historian Josephus, in his book Antiquities of the Jews 18:60-62, and also in his earlier work Wars of the Jews 2:175-177. The story begins with Pilate looking rather good. He offered …