Jersusalem, The Holy City, 1950

we [Music] [Music] Jerusalem City with nearly 40 centuries of History founded in the Stone Age Fortress beside a trade route of the ancient world garrison city of the Pharaohs of Egypt captured by David the Israelite destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar rebuilt by Maya conquered by Alexander the Great desecrated by Pompei made a new city by Herod governed by ponus pilate Jerusalem Holy City of three religions to enter the ancient city is to ENT a historic meeting ground of the peoples of the East and the West it is to walk among shrines men have held sacred Through the Ages near this Garden is said to have lived one cafas the high priest and in the Palace of cafas Christ was imprisoned to await his trial of the events that came to pass within these Gates it was written and they that had laid hold on Jesus led him away to cafas the high priest where the scribes and the elders were assembled but Peter followed him AAR off unto the high priest's Palace and went in and sat down with the servants to see the [Music] end The Garden of Gethsemane and Rising beyond the Mount of Olives it was unto the Mount of Olives that Jesus and the disciples went following the last supper and in the writings of Matthew then cometh Jesus with them into a place called Gethsemane and Seth unto the disciples sit ye here while I go and pray Yonder this was the night before the crucifixion [Music] such is the Heritage shared by all the Christian faiths varied as may be the churches and monasteries established in Jerusalem near the Historic Site sacred to [Music] tradition here as the members of holy orders walk the grounds of their monasteries it is with the belief that in these same precincts Christ and the disciples walked and talked together [Music] in the Jerusalem of the time of David of Solomon of Greek conquerors of Roman governors in the Jerusalem of the time of Christ women carried pictures to the well for water and in the Jerusalem of today the women of the ancient city continued the age-old practice the scene may have been much like this when in the time of Abraham Rebecca came forth with her pitchure on her shoulder and went down unto the well and Drew [Music] water threading its way laboriously toward the place called golgatha is the via doosa the street of Sorrow which many believe Christ trod on his way to the crucifixion as it is the scene of the events from which Christianity took its origin Jerusalem is the scene too of ritual and ceremonies cherished by a multitude of Christian [Music] faiths among the rituals common to Greek Orthodox Roman Catholic Coptic Armenian and other churches are the daily pilgrimages to the Church of the Holy sear on this spot where Christ is thought to have been inomed Constantine emperor of Rome built this church in 326 ad nine centuries later when the Crusaders held Jerusalem the church was rebuilt and enlarged by men who had marched from the West the bells of the Church of the Holy Seiler yet well within the reach of their sound Rises the Dome of the Rock a shrine sacred to the followers of Muhammad the prophet of Allah so is one reminded of the variety of faiths that hold Jerusalem sacred even as he walks among the towers and walls of this ancient Christian Church the walls centuries old are threatened with Decay but a tradition and Heritage live on amid the storied reminders of a body of belief the pillar of Holy Fire from which Flames are said to have issued during an Easter service within these doors a stone held in veneration and awe as the one on which Christ was laid after his death upon the [Music] cross how long a history has this burial ground sacred to the Jews this at least we know that in the days of the years of Solomon centuries before the Christian era Jerusalem was the center of a great Hebrew kingdom for the Jews sacred ties stretched back to Solomon and Beyond Solomon the wise he it was who brought to Jerusalem a glory wealth and luxury befitting a capital city today there are only memories and a Wailing Wall where there there was once a lavish Royal dwelling and the imposing Temple of Solomon gone is the Splendor of the great Hebrew Kings but the religion of Solomon of David of Moses of Abraham the worship of Jehovah and the honoring of his Commandments this endures in a living faith kingdoms have passed but the law and the prophets live on in a city that is Holy to the Jew [Music] and the mamadon to him too Jerusalem is a holy city he too has known an earlier age of Splendor when Muslims ruled J and erected their sacred shrines from early in the 7th Century until recent years muhammadans controlled the city with only brief interruptions during the time of the Crusades build upon the very same ground where the Temple of Solomon stood the Dome of the Rock stands as a shrine of the Muslim [Music] world and when the mlim built this towering structure he not only raised a shrine to the greater glory of Allah but gave to the world a work of architectural Beauty around the may God accept this gift of him and bless him amen three faiths in origin in history and in read but each for its own reasons holding sacred the historic plot of ground that is Jerusalem the holy city