Face Of Agony

This olive tree in the Garden of Gesthemane is hundreds of years old; its roots may have fed the trees that sheltered Jesus as he awaited his betrayal. I took the photo in January 2011.

An 1896 View Of Ottoman Jerusalem

Hat tip to Andrew Sullivan for this gem (St. John's pilgrims will recognize some of the streetscapes from their visits over a century later) as well as for the commentary of a Palestinian high school student, Jalal Abukhater, who lives in Jerusalem:

It is becoming a trend among influential GOP candidates to call out the Palestinian people as “invented” or even “non-existent." First we had Republican candidate Newt Gingrich calling the Palestinians an “invented people." Another rising star, Republican candidate Rick Santorum, has also said “There is no Palestine." But I won’t really bother to give any of them dimwits any more attention than they deserve. Their case is a hopeless miserable case after all.

On this occasion I’d like to share with you this, video footage taken in Palestine back in the year 1896. We see Palestinians; we see Jews, Christians, and Muslims living in peace. We see a Jewish man praying at the Western Wall without having to show IDs to any authority, unlike what we see in Jerusalem today. We see neighbors, friends, families, and a society just like that in Cairo or Damascus, as the commentator says. If we look today, we don’t see much of the same thing. Not so much freedom of religion, not so much freedom of life.

In Fairness To The Monks

After reading about Rod Dreher's blog for years, I'm a little embarrassed that it took a nudge from David Brooks this morning to pay closer attention. He has a fascinating (and, for a political blog, exceptionally civil) discussion thread about the post-Christmas Day monk mash at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. I left this comment:

As a three-time pilgrim, I try not to be too critical about the occasional clashes at churches in the Holy Land, especially Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulcher [shown here], where, as you may know, six denominations have been co-managing the premises (with a Muslim family controlling the keys) for over 150 years. I actually think we could learn something from them. How would any of us do, coexisting with our arch rivals in incredibly close quarters for the sake of a shared goal (in the case of the Holy Sepulcher, preserving and venerating the place all six agree was the site of Jesus Christ’s death and Resurrection)?

Christians do take their faith and doctrinal differences seriously in Bethlehem and Jerusalem, which makes the long days and nights of uneasy peace and cooperation between these well-publicized incidents all the more remarkable — even beautiful if one has a chance to see the intricately scheduled and sometimes overlapping worship that occurs almost constantly around Christ’s tomb.

Some of us can't take a ten-minute drive without getting mad at another motorist. Twelve members of a congressional super-committee with a combined 220 years of education couldn't agree on a budget. U.S. bosses spend millions of hours a year mediating employees' squabbles over turf, office supplies, and who was mean to whom first. (I made that statistic up, but I'll bet it's true.) Find one on-line debate about the Middle East that doesn't descend into ad hominem attacks, and we don't even live there. We're really going to make fun of people who've dedicated their live to preserving our LORD's birthplace because they sometimes have a bad day, too?

40 Days, 40 Years -- And Now 40 Miles

Hey, pilgrims: Maybe we should hoof it next time.

Our Epiphany Palm Sunday

Pilgrim Andy captured the moment in January when St. John's pilgrims participated in the tradition of following Jesus's Palm Sunday walk into Jerusalem from Bethphage on the Mount of Olives.

Back To The Wall

Thanks to Duane and DJ Gomer, my fellow St. John's pilgrims, for this photo Duane took at the Western Wall during our January visit. An orthodox Jew would not have turned his back on Herod the Great's wall and the holy of holies buried deep behind it. I'll be more careful next time.

Delta Blues

As Kathy and I drove to LAX yesterday morning, we heard on the radio that Delta Airlines is ranked lowest in customer satisfaction. The scene at left may be one reason why. Passengers who don't pay a high annual fee for special security privileges are herded down a long, dark tunnel and funneled through two checkpoints. It took us a half hour on Monday morning. In January, I spent an hour and a half in the line while my fellow Holy Land pilgrims worried that I'd been waylaid or had gotten sick. I couldn't call them, because cell phones don't work on Delta's long underground march.

Our January experience exposed an inconsistency in Delta's methods. We can debate giving speed passes to frequent fliers and others who are willing to pay. My heart says that homeland security should be equally annoying for all. But I can also understand the value of getting the frequently flying engineers of our sputtering economic engine to their vital job- and wealth-creating work as painlessly as possible.

But Delta LAX doesn't play by its own rules. In January, I was the last through security because I wanted to make sure my 27 fellow pilgrims were on their way to the gate first. Few if any were so-called priority passengers, but most were sent through the priority line anyway. I'm glad they were spared the privations of the Styx Delta. But it means that the policy is sometimes to distribute the masses equally among all available lines and other times to honor the division between priority travelers and the rest of humanity. Better one policy or the other than both at the same time.

And a better airport, please. Part of Delta's problem is a generation-old physical plant. LAX has poor parking, makeshift security areas, and grubby-looking restrooms. Pretty embarrassing when you think of folks flying in from gleaming airports in Tokyo, Beijing, and Detroit.

Bishop's Move

As bishop of Jerusalem, the Rt. Rev. Suheil Dawani, a Palestinian, presides over 7,000 Episcopalians in 60 parishes in five countries. The diocese also operates a famous hospital in Gaza and schools that serve 35,000 students (almost all Muslim). I took this picture of him in 2007. This January we St. John's pilgrims were back at his headquarters, historic St. George's Cathedral in east Jerusalem. We didn't see Bishop Suheil, though his colleagues in the diocesan offices seemed to be working late every night.

Now we know why. Since last August, the bishop and his family have been quietly challenging Israel's decision to deny them a renewal of their residency visas. Anonymous parties have made charges about real estate deals which he strenuously denies and which may result from rivalries within the diocese (oh, we church people!). Several governments and Buckingham Palace have all weighed in to try to solve the problem diplomatically. The matter became public this week when he filed a lawsuit. As the British Guardian reports today:

A senior church source outside Israel said: "No one can figure out what the Israelis are playing at. This is not the kind of message they should be sending out. They really don't need to be doing this. Dawani is a very decent, good man and no one has produced any evidence against him. As far as we can tell there is no substance to any accusations."

The bishop's office said: "This situation has continued for over six months as Bishop Dawani attempted to resolve this with restraint and without causing the government of Israel embarrassment. The lack of resolution, despite all the efforts, required [him] to seek legal counsel ... upon the recommendation ... he has chosen to take the case to court, seeking redress through the Israeli legal system."

In London an Israeli embassy spokesman said: "Israel is not interested in any unnecessary delays but the allegations are still under official review. We understand it is causing damage as long as it remains unresolved."

They Were Enemies, And They Were Friends

A pivotal moment in Sandy Tolan's extraordinary book The Lemon Tree: An Arab, A Jew, And The Heart Of The Middle East occurs in chapter nine, when Bashir Khairi and Dalia Eshkenazi (shown here in a recent photo) come face to face in July 1967. She's an open-hearted young Israeli from Bulgaria who's performing her mandatory service in the Israel Defense Forces; he's an attorney and Palestinian activist living under Israeli occupation in the West Bank city of Rahmallah.

More to the point, Dalia and her family are living in the house Bashir's father had built for his family in the 1930s in al-Ramla, Palestine, about 12 miles south of Tel Aviv. Most of the town's Arabs left or were driven out during and after Israel's War of Independence in 1948.

After June 1967's Six-Day War, Bashir and two cousins return to al-Ramla to see the the town they'd left as children. With some trepidation, Bashir knocks on the Eshkenazis' door. Dalia, who's alone in the house, smiles and welcomes in three strangers, three nervous-looking Arab men. This profoundly moving moment seems to embody all the emotional power of Abraham welcoming the three strangers before his and Sarah's tent in the book of Genesis.

Dalia's instinct to trust ("'As soon as I saw them,' she remembered, 'I felt, Wow, it's them. It was as if I'd always been waiting for them'") enables the whole narrative of The Lemon Tree to take shape and then to teach. Tolan's meticulously researched and balanced book is as good a primer on the roots of Israeli-Palestinian conflict as we're likely to get, especially because he uses Dalia and Bashir's stories to make sure the reader doesn't forget the authenticity of the dreams and grievances nursed by both sides. The Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles has asked all its members to read The Lemon Tree this year. At St. John's, some of our once and future pilgrims, including Monica Swanson, had done so already. We eagerly took up the challenge and are now halfway through our study.

One thing most of us won't be able to do when we're done is participate in the popular ritual of identifying the Middle East's moment of original sin. There are far too many choices -- antisemitism, Zionism, the Balfour Declaration, the Arab uprising in the 1930s, the failure of Palestinians to accept partition, the Six-Day War, Arab terrorism, West Bank settlements. Tolan hasn't touched on it yet and may not, but if we're scripturally inclined, if we like we can go all the way back to God's mischievousness in giving Canaan to Abraham and his followers even though people lived there already.

If you're stuck in an intractable problem or bruised relationship, if everyone's pointing fingers and no one can decide who's really at fault, what do you do? Friends remind me that often there is a right and wrong, there should be a winner and loser, there must be judgment and punishment. But increasingly it seems as though we're apt to demand judgment too hastily, give up too quickly on dialog and relationship, and resist acknowledging our own accountability.

Thankfully, Dalia and Bashir avoided such temptations. In chapter nine, Tolan recounts their first three meetings, two in al-Ramla and the third when Dalia persuades a friend to drive her to Ramallah so she can reciprocate Bashir's visits.

It's January 1968. The Israelis have just let him out of jail, where they'd interrogated him about the strike he organized among his fellow Palestinian attorneys. He's a potential Palestinian fighter, she's serving in the IDF, and they disagree completely on the recent history of their peoples. On paper, they have nothing in common besides their humanity. As Dalia tells Tolan later:

[T]his was an amazing situation to be in. That everyone could feel the warmth and the reality of our people meeting, meeting the other, and it was real, it was happening, and we were admiring each other's being, so to speak. And it was so tangible. And on the other hand, we were conversing of things that seemed totally mutually exclusive. That my life here is at their expense, and if they want to realize their dream, it's at my expense.

Tolan continues:

Each had chosen to reside with the contradiction: They were enemies, and they were friends. Therefore, Dalia believed, they had reason to keep talking; the conversation itself was worth protecting.

A preachment indeed to families, communities, Americans, and the Christian church from the front lines of the world's most difficult political conflict.

Must-See On Next Pilgrimage

Breathtaking mosaic from a fifth to seventh-century Byzantine church recently unearthed by Israeli archaeologists on a hillside southwest of Jerusalem

The Place To Find God

I'm pleased to post the Holy Land reflections of the Hon. Andrew Guilford of St. John's Church. In January, Andy and Loreen completed their second St. John's pilgrimage:


By Andy Guilford

The Holy Land is a powerful place filled with confusion, but bringing clarity to pilgrims seeking to know God. The confusion starts with what to call this land of milk and honey. Israel? Palestine? The West Bank? Samaria? Judea? But there is the clarity of all three Abrahamic religions agreeing that something's happening here. What it is ain't exactly clear, to some, and there's a man with a gun over there. Actually, there are many there with impressive automatic rifles, but they are just boys and girls, and we can call this place Israel only because of them.

As for what's happening, for many this is where the physical meets the spiritual. Theophany is a powerful thing. Incarnation even more powerful. And it is in this physical place that these physical and spiritual things happened. That gives this place a Holiness like no other place.

There is no sign of a "post-Christian" world here, as diverse folks of many colors from around the world piously pilgrim to where the Holy One walked. Wavering Christians who seek holiness or truth or beauty or discipline elsewhere should first fully appreciate the Christianity that thrives around where He was born in Bethlehem, where He preached in Galilee, and where He was crucified and resurrected at a rock and slab honored under one roof at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.

The calming Holiness of this place contrasts with the confusion of the conflict all around. The conflict may come from the desire of so many to control such special land. And perhaps it is fueled by the inability to forgive, and reconcile, and together move closer to the One God.

There is also the striking physical contrast between two cultures, with one producing the sparkling indicia of achievement, and the other stumbling thorough the rubble of poverty, even a poverty that remains full of the spicy richness of life. How can this be side by side? Are we witnessing cultural bias, the oppressor and the oppressed, or those who are left free to achieve and those who are not?

Surrounded by all this, in the end, with the Creation thriving here in all its glory and pain, this is indeed THE place to find God.

Photos: Pilgrim Andy at the Western Wall; Andy and Fr. John at a spot where the three Abrahamic faiths converge; Israeli soldiers drilling for a ceremony at the Western Wall plaza; Andy watches as pilgrim Loreen touches the stone of Mt. Calvary in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher; woman selling parsley in Jerusalem's Old City

Peeks And Peaks Of Jerusalem

From pilgrim Kathy's holy memory stick, a couple of her favorite images from our January 2011 pilgrimage to the Holy Land. That's pilgrim Andy at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, looking enigmatically from the men's into the much smaller women's section of Judaism's holiest place. The orthodox rabbis who run the Western Wall insist on gender segregation -- and also give the women the smaller part.

Near the end of our 12 extraordinary days, Kathy took this photo of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, which encloses the site of Jesus Christ's crucifixion, burial, and resurrection.

Sunday Sermon: "Paul's Pilgrimage"

The six denominations in charge of Jerusalem's Church of the Holy Sepulcher feud and bicker not because they're Christians but because they're human. They achieve an uneasy coexistence because they agree on only one thing: That Jesus died and rose from the dead somewhere on the rough stones buried a few meters under their feet. What's the rock that unifies our homes and communities despite the disturbances and conflicts inherent in the human experience? My Sunday sermon, in honor of our patron, St. John Proparoxytone, is here.

The Worst Airport Security, Except For The Others

Writing in the aftermath of the Moscow murders, Jeffrey Goldberg on one of the world's safest airports:

I think Ben-Gurion airport in Israel has a decent system. All people going to the airport -- in taxis, cars and buses -- have to pass through a checkpoint a couple of miles away from the main terminal. When you get to the main terminal, plainclothes security officers are everywhere, looking for suspicious behavior.

Yes, I know, having shepherded 28 fellow St. John's pilgrims through the process on Saturday evening. What's unique, at least in my experience, is that you go through security before you check in as well as after. Moments after we'd entered the terminal, each of us had been interviewed, out of the hearing of the others, and asked a series of questions about our luggage and whether we'd been given any gifts while in Israel.

After our bags were examined by a machine, most of us were sent to have at least one bag opened and inspected. When one of our pilgrims had made it all the way to the check-in desk, she casually asked me if it was okay that she had packed some items for another pilgrim who'd run out of space in her suitcase. We were evidently overheard by a plainclothes officer. A couple of seconds later, she was directed back to secondary, where she had to unpack her luggage item by item.

As I think everyone knows, the Ben Gurion system is based on profiling. Arab friends say it takes them at least two hours to clear security, every time. Sometimes they're subjected to strip searches. Absolutely nobody likes that. But everybody likes a safe airport. Not that it would ever fly politically (unless the U.S. suffers another catastrophic attack), but the Israeli approach at U.S. airports would cost the TSA up to $150 billion more a year.

One thing about Ben Gurion's system for checking people and their carry-on baggage: You don't have to shed shoes and belts or go through a body scan. Either the Israelis have cooler machines, or they're more casual at the second stage because of the thoroughness of the pre-check-in process.

Sounding Flutes In Jericho

Pilgrim Andy snapped this photo of my duet with a merchant in Jericho during our recent St. John's pilgrimage. The walls may not have come tumbling down, but I think a pilgrim or two plugged her ears. Pilgrim Kathy was especially pleased that I've acquired a new instrument!

Searching For The True Stone

Kathy's and my last Jerusalem adventure (besides making it through Ben Gurion airport security with our fellow St. John's pilgrims in a couple of hours) felt a little like a Dan Brown novel -- with the final chapter yet to come.

Our quest began yesterday morning at the Holy Sepulcher, when St. John's pilgrims DJ and Duane and I met with Rev. Fergus Clarke, a Franciscan priest assigned to that holiest of churches. He told us that in the mid-second century, the Romans desecrated the site of Jesus Christ's resurrection and built a Roman temple on top. To reach the stone of Jesus's actual tomb, industrious Christians dug a tunnel under the temple which, Fr. Fergus said, still exists.

While the Greek Orthodox Church now claims sovereignty over the Edicule and therefore Christ's tomb underneath, some years ago the Roman Catholics managed to acquire a significant amount of the tomb stone. Somewhat opaquely, Father said those who should go to the Christian Quarter and enter the grounds of St. Xavier Church though the entrance on St. Francis St. might be able to obtain a small cross containing a piece of the Real Stone.

That's all Kathy needed to hear. By mid-afternoon Saturday, we had shouldered our way through the human tide at Damascus Gate (it was shopping day in the Arab suk) to St. Francis St. Here's where it gets a little weird. As though she knew exactly where we were going, a small, lively woman in a blue sweater (shown here) motioned toward a door with a smile. We opened it for her and followed her through.

We were now in the vast, hushed domain of the Custodia di Terra Santa, the Roman Catholic Church's Jerusalem HQ. The woman gave us some advice about Arab merchants and went on her way. We made several inquires and learned that the store selling the treasure we sought would reopen at 3:30 p.m. (notwithstanding the sign on the shop door saying it closed at noon on Saturdays).

Kathy wanted to stay; I wanted some coffee. Within ten minutes I had found a cafe and cappuccino and was enjoying a conversation with Rev. Adam Civu, a Roman Catholic priest from Uganda who's been living in Jerusalem for 27 years. He described a tour he'd taken of churches in 17 U.S. states and counseled me about preaching in terms people could relate to personally. "Isaiah says that our sins will be cleansed so as to be 'white as snow,' but we don't have snow in Uganda," he said. "So I would say, 'as white as cotton'."

Just then, in a moment Fellini would've loved, the woman in the blue sweater entered the cafe and asked if I knew where the WC was. I did, as a matter of fact, so I opened the door and turned the light on for her. She smiled and handed me an empty pink plastic bag for safekeeping.

She left, and soon I said goodbye to Fr. Adam. Making my way back to Kathy, I saw the woman once more. I handed her the pink bag, which she had failed to collect when she left the cafe. She asked me about my children, and I asked about hers -- two sons and five daughters, only one living nearby. "I am alone now," she said. By the time I reached the Custodia, Kathy had learned that the only priest permitted to sell pieces of the True Stone had been in the hospital for a month. She managed to obtain his business card. Looks like we're coming back to Jerusalem.

Pilgrims' Progress: A Last Morning In Jerusalem

Beginning before dawn Saturday, we walked along the Via Dolorosa through the Old City of Jerusalem, ending in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Each of us had one more moment to touch the rock of Golgotha and hear the chants and the organ and smell the incense and meet the lively eyes of pilgrims from all over the world and come as close as we could to our God in Christ. For that, there are no words, and the best pictures are the ones we can't quite show you. To experience it yourself, ask for God's grace, and if you can, come to Jerusalem. As our guide, we used A Walk In Jerusalem: Stations Of The Cross by John Peterson, former dean of St. George's Cathedral and secretary general of the Anglican Communion.

Fr. Fergus Clarke, a Franciscan assigned to the Holy Sepulcher, told us yesterday that, based on what we know about the first century role of women, if Mary Magdalene hadn't been the first witness to Jesus Christ's resurrection, nobody would have gone to the trouble of making up a culturally incorrect story claiming that she was. Imagine that: Proof both that Jesus rose again and that men are wrong to keep women down in the church. This sculpture hangs behind the altar in the Holy Sepulcher's Chapel of St. Mary Magdalene.

If anyone tells you that Christians can't agree on anything, tell him this: We agree that Jesus rose from the dead at a spot about 20 paces behind pilgrim Andrea. The building, called the Edicule, and the slab it encloses are relatively new. Beneath them is the rock of the tomb itself, which people have venerated since the resurrection moment. Fr. Fergus told us that when the Romans tried to obliterate it in the second century and built a Roman temple in its place, Christians dug a secret tunnel under the temple and found the tomb.

Pilgrim Kathy met a friend at the Holy Sepulcher this morning: Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, former archbishop of Washington, D.C. You may remember him from the memorial service at Washington National Cathedral following the Sept. 11 attacks. Kathy knows him through her work as former President Nixon's last chief of staff. While the cardinal had been to the Holy Sepulcher many times, this was his first visit to the Adam Chapel, where the split rock of Golgotha is visible through a window behind the altar.

Au Revoir, Jerusalem

An iPhone photo of the group photo of our 30-member St. John's Episcopal Church pilgrim band, taken at the beginning of our pilgrimage outside St. George's Cathedral in east Jerusalem, with Canon Iyad Qumri, our friend and guide, at left in the first row.

After walking the Stations of the Cross beginning Saturday morning at 5:45 and having our final Holy Eucharist service at one of the places associated with the biblical town of Emmaus, we'll have a final few hours to pack and drink in the Old City before our departure at about midnight from Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv. We arrive at LAX Sunday morning, each of us, in some way, changed.

As the French say, we'll be back.

Pilgrims' Progress: Thursday In Gethsemane

We've been in the Holy Land nine days. We've seen more churches than we can probably remember right off the bat (Quick: Was that fresco you loved in the Holy Sepulcher, Dominus Flevit, or the Church of the Annunciation?). We have sipped cold water from Jacob's well, stood in the ruins of the Capernaum synagogue where Jesus may have taught, climbed the same steps he may have used to enter the Second Temple, stooped to touch Golgotha, and draped ourselves over his burial slab.

And then this morning, after a long walk across the Temple Mount and through the Old City, as we arrived in the Garden of Gethsemane (I can only speak for myself; I'm sure all the other St. John's pilgrims were more devout), I briefly wondered what we were going to have for lunch back at St. George's.

The gnarled olive trees themselves, probably fed by the same roots as the ones that sheltered Jesus Christ and his slumberous disciples the night of his betrayal, seem to proclaim his suffering. I'd been there twice before, it's true. But how could the faithful pilgrim's mind wander for even a moment?

Could you not keep awake one hour? Waiting until the last few days of a sometimes grueling Christian pilgrimage before visiting Gethsemane and St. Peter in Galicantu helpfully tempts us to reenact the disciples' far more fateful 11th-hour distraction. Gali cantu means "cock crows." Churches often commemorate saints' best moments. Here, we remember Jesus's prediction that his friend will deny him three times.

Denying him my own full attention illustrated a truth a Nixon colleague taught me after a decisive three-hour meeting we sat through together: "All that really counts is how you behave in the last three minutes." Jesus's disciples had their ups and downs during his three years of public ministry, but in the end, they utterly failed him. Together with his smiters, his best friends contributed to his desolate experience of complete abandonment. Our ministry after our pilgrimage will be to do better for him and one another.

Wall Low

We're used to seeing Jews (and the occasional Gentile) praying at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. But nearly 500 more meters of the wall have been uncovered by Israeli archaeologists digging beneath the Muslim Quarter. A result of their work is the Western Wall Tunnel, which pilgrims Andy, Deb, Kathy, Leslie, Loreen, and I visited tonight. About halfway through, where this young woman was praying, is the point experts surmise is the closest (94 meters) to what Jews call the foundation stone. Also understood to be the biblical Mt. Moriah as well as the place from which Mohammad ascended to heaven, the stone is now enclosed by the Dome of the Rock, one of the two principal Muslim installations on the Temple Mount.

Work on the tunnel excavations began soon after Israel defeated the Arabs in 1967 and won back control of the Old City. Fascinating as the attraction is, it's as much politics as tourism. Muslims know as well as anyone that the tunnel excavations are under the ultimate authority of orthodox rabbis, not archaeologists. Property owners in the Muslim Quarter complained that the dig weakened the foundations of their homes and businesses. Once the rabbi in charge ordered his crews to start digging under the Temple Mount itself until the Israeli government got wind of it and stopped him.

As a matter of fact, all of Israel's digs along the perimeters of Herod the Great's walls give the impression of being aimed not only at gaining insights about the Second Temple period but also undermining the theological authority and perhaps even the physical integrity of the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa mosque. When Israel first announced plans in 1996 to open a northern exit for the tunnel exhibit, which Muslims said would be an encroachment on their territory, 80 people lost their lives in protest riots.

The polemical quotient was pretty high this evening. Our guide, David, was an orthodox Jew who confirmed to pilgrim Andy that he believed the world was 6,000 years old, just as Torah says. As we made our way back through the long, narrow tunnel at the end of our tour, David and I got into a discussion about modern biblical criticism. He wasn't buying. Moses wrote Torah, period.

I did think I detected a hint of opportunism when I asked David if he would favor excavations on the Temple Mount itself if they were possible. (They're not possible. It would spark the third intifada or worse.) He said his strictly religious colleagues would think twice, since no one besides the high priest (and that includes archaeologists, no matter how devout) was allowed to see the interior of the the Holy of Holies. But then he smiled and added that university archaeologists probably wouldn't be as scrupulous. He said he'd definitely be interested in seeing what they found.