Mom by the door leading into the Church of the Nativity. It is small so everyone has to bow to come into the Lord. Kind of a cool concept.
Originally the doorway was large enough for people to ride in on their horses, then they changed it.
Sahar was our gracious tour guide for Bethlehem today. Yesterday at Relief Society it was said of her, "This is the only place in the world where your Relief Society president lives in Bethlehem. What an amazing lady. She is also very smart. She has a PhD in statistics.
She was raised Greek Orthodox, in fact used to worship here, and then got a scholarship to get a Masters degree at BYU. She converted to the church there. When she came home to Bethlehem, she had to sneak through holes and fences and hide every time to come to Jerusalem to church. After doing this for years, risking her life and risking getting arrested by Israeli police, she told Heavenly Father she was so tired, and it would be His turn to find a way. Within a few months she had a job at the UN office, in Jerusalem! That job gives her the papers she needs to come into Jerusalem to attend church with the branch here. I love her.
The part of the building that is used by the Greek Orthodox church.
The original floor of this church was a mosaic. The newer floor is stone tiles, but they preserved a small section for us to see what it used to look like. Isn't it beautiful?
A beautiful metal mural of the nativity on some doors.
This is the room where the man hid and worked at translating the Bible from Greek to Latin. What a work!
This is the part the Catholics use. We had to wait a while to get in this part, as they were having their church service here. It is Sunday, after all.
I wonder how annoyed the local people are at all of us tourists trying to get a peek into their churches and their worshiping. Sahar says she thinks Bethlehem is about 50% Christian, which surprised me, but the outlying cities would be much less.
The place they believe the cave (stable) was where Jesus was born. People reverently kneel and kiss this site.
The place they believe Jesus was lain in a manger inside the cave.
The cave of the Nativity and the cave of St. Jerome, where he translated the Bible, is the same cave. There is a door in the large cave where you can look through a peep hole and see the Nativity part. Although the LDS Church does not really believe this is where the Nativity took place, I had to have second thoughts when I saw the larger part of the cave....that makes it all large enough to be an actual stable! Did you see the large brass scene in the larger part of the cave of Samuel choosing David from his brothers to be King? And the tree in the scene where the leaves had the names of Abraham's descendants all the way to Jesus, just like Ancestors.com does on the leaves? Interesting things! I was told by a young Jewish man selling olive wood carvings in the South Town Mall in Sandy, Utah, later during Christmas shopping, that there is a place in that cave where there are the bones of 2000 children, two years old and under, that were killed by Herod after the birth of Christ. I didn't see or know about that when I was there. My name is rodcasper@hotmail.com
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