UPDATE: Impressions from Century 1 - Lawson C Briggs - May 1975

Lawson C Briggs

LAST MONTH we reported on a tour of the Mideast taken by several GN staff members. Here is a second article giving you the personal impressions and observations of one of our associate editors as he toured Jerusalem and the city of Bethlehem. We saw the sights of the Holy Land, but where were the "holy" sites? Under Roman Catholic church buildings. Greek Orthodox church buildings and buildings of other sects. Deep down in grottoes. caves and other hollow places beneath the surface. Centuries of building. ruin and rebuilding have indeed raised the surface of the land in the built-up and densely inhabited places. Each generation built on a little higher foundation, on the ruins of the edifices that had gone before. Present street level is several feet above the level of the first century, the time of the apostles. We stood on a part of the "Pavement" (see John 19:13) where Pontius Pilate sat in judgment to condemn Jesus to death by crucifixion. - Information Supplied By: Herbert W Armstrong Library