Plucking the Eagle's Wings

Plucking the Eagle's Wings

tabernacle of David and healing the breach (Acts 15:15-16). This early church emblem speaks of the Jews and Gentiles being one in Christ. James also mentioned the anointing of the sick with oil in the name of the Lord (James 5:14). Some believe that this emblem is the seal of the Jerusalem church. Dr. Joe Van Koevering and I extended our stay after a tour of Israel in 1999 to tape programs for the January 2000 episodes of God's News Behind the News . During our stay, we asked our Israeli friend, Gideon Shor, to take us to the grotto where the pottery was discovered ( See Center Section Fig. 3-8 ). On December 5, the three of us, along with our camera crews, found the actual grotto located about 75 yards from the tomb of King David. A concrete building and metal cage surrounds the underground chamber, which has chained double metal doors. After contacting a Greek Monk who teaches at the Greek school, we were permitted to enter the grotto and take still photographs. Our Greek guide unlocked the metal doors and led us down a series of hewn steps that were chiseled by hand. He told us that the grotto was cut out of limestone and that it was an ancient cistern that may have once been a Jewish mikvot. The mikvot was an ancient baptismal pool where the Jews submerged themselves in water to become purified. At the bottom of the chiseled stairs and to the left were two small altars for prayer. To the right, we walked through a small opening into an adjoining room, again cut out of limestone. It was round and about 16 feet high. It wasn't very large and could have possibly held twenty people. We went through a small tunnel about twenty feet long that led into another room, which appeared to be another large cistern. The lighting was poor and the cistern was very dark. We were unable to see inside to determine its actual size. The chambers seemed to end at this point. The monk told us that the entire hill covered a series of tunnels that branch out and are similar to the catacombs under the city of Rome, Italy. Most tunnels have been sealed up or filled with debris and are no longer accessible, at least from the area of the ancient grotto. The monk told us that Helena, the mother of Constantine, came to the Holy Land over 1,600 years ago and built a church on the same hill that is above these tunnels. The monk allowed us to visit the basement of the Greek school to view two sections of a small, mosaic floor that are the only remains of the church that Helena built above the tunnels where some believe the early Christians secretly met (Fig. 8 and Fig. 9). 176