John C. Reeves
John C. Reeves
Blumenthal Professor of Judaic Studies and Professor of Religious Studies, Department of Religious Studies

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    • LBST 2212 Literature and Culture
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    • RELS 1120: Bible and its Interpreters
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      • Alternative Messiahs
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    • RELS 3104: Prophecy and Prophetic Literature in Ancient Israel
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    • RELS 6000: Pluriform Multilingual Zechariah
      • Various Zechariah Legends
        • Bordeaux Pilgrim (333 CE) on the Temple Mount
        • Cave of Treasures 47.12-17
        • Mas’udi, Muruj al-dhahab
        • Protevangelium Jacobi (Syriac) 22-24
    • RELS 6000: Readings in Jewish Aramaic
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Course Materials » RELS 6000: Pluriform Multilingual Zechariah » Various Zechariah Legends » Bordeaux Pilgrim (333 CE) on the Temple Mount

Bordeaux Pilgrim (333 CE) on the Temple Mount

Itinerarium Burdigalense 589.7-591.7 (apud P. Geyer and O. Cuntz, eds., Itineraria et alia geographica [CCL 175; Turnhout: Brepols, 1965], 14-16); translation is that of Andrew S. Jacobs, Remains of the Jews: The Holy Land and Christian Empire in Late Antiquity (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004), 112-13.  See also John Wilkinson, Egeria’s Travels to the Holy Land (Warminster: Aris & Phillips, 1981).

There are in Jerusalem two great pools on the side of the Temple, that is, one to the right and the other to the left, which Solomon built. But inside the city there are the twin pools, having five porches, which are called Bethsaida. There those sick for many years used to be healed.  Moreover these pools have water churned up, a sort of scarlet color.  There is also a crypt, where Solomon used to torture demons. There is the corner of a very tall tower, where the Lord climbed up and said to the one who was tempting him, ‘And the Lord said to him: You will not tempt the Lord your God, but him only will you serve’ (cf. Matt 4:5-11; Lk 4:1-8). There is also the great corner stone, about which it was said: ‘That which the builders rejected, this same stone is the head of the corner’ (Matt 21:42) and under the pinnacle of the tower are many chambers where Solomon had his palace. There also remains the chamber in which he sat and wrote Wisdom, and its roof is of a single stone. You also have there great underground cisterns and pools built with great toil, and in the building itself where was the Temple that Solomon built, before the altar in marble is the blood of Zacharias—you would say it had been shed today. Also all around are the traces of the hobnails of the soldiers who killed him, throughout the area, so that you might think they had been pressed in wax. There are there also two statues of Hadrian. There is also not far off from the statues a pierced stone, to which the Jews come every year, and they anoint it, and they cry out with a groan, and they tear their own garments, and in this way they withdraw. There is also there the house of Hezekiah, king of Judaea.

The ‘perforated stone’ (lapis pertusus) mentioned here may be relevant for Zech 12:10. For its possible archaeological recovery and the later Muslim legends associated with it, see Heribert Busse, review of Andreas Kaplony, The Haram of Jerusalem 324-1099, in Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 29 (2004): 436-38.

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