History Globe
Question
How big was Jerusalem in the time of Jesus?
A walled city of roughly 85 ha, by the map's reconstruction of the First and Second Walls, about the size of today's Old City within its Ottoman walls (86 ha): the Temple Mount with Herod's platform of some 14 ha, the Upper City on the western hill with Herod's palace and its three towers, the Lower City on the ridge of the City of David down to the pool of Siloam, and the Antonia fortress at the Temple's corner. Houses had spread north of the Second Wall into the suburb of Bezetha, which Herod Agrippa I began to enclose with the Third Wall in AD 41–44; with it the city grew to about 180 ha. Estimates of the people in Jesus' day run from 25,000–30,000 (Jeremias) to about 40,000 (Broshi); for the larger city before 70, Broshi reckoned about 80,000 and Levine 60,000–70,000; the feasts swelled it several times over.
The Gospels show the city from outside and within. Coming down the Mount of Olives, “when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it”; “when he was come into Jerusalem, all the city was moved, saying, Who is this?” The disciples admired the Temple, “how it was adorned with goodly stones and gifts”. Pilgrims filled it: “his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the passover”, and at Pentecost “there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven”. Josephus, who knew the city before AD 70, describes its three walls, the two hills and the valley between them, and gives the whole circuit at thirty-three stadia, about 6 km; his figures of millions at Passover are not taken literally.
The First Wall ran from Herod's towers east to the Temple and round the western hill above the Hinnom valley to Siloam; the Second Wall, whose course is the least known, enclosed the markets between the Gennath gate and the Antonia, leaving the quarry where Golgotha is placed outside; the Third Wall, finished only in the revolt of 66, took in the north. The city's water came from the Gihon through Hezekiah's tunnel, from cisterns and from aqueducts out of the hills to the south. The map draws the walls of Jesus' day from Josephus and the excavations, placing the uncertain stretches itself, and shows the Ottoman walls and the City of David of about 1000 BC for comparison.
Scripture: Luke 19:41; Matt 21:10; Luke 21:5; Luke 2:41; Acts 2:5; John 2:20
Sources
- Josephus, Jewish War 5.136-247 (the city and its walls; the circuit of thirty-three stadia at 5.159); 6.420-427 (the numbers at Passover)
- J. Jeremias, Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus (1969)
- M. Broshi, 'Estimating the Population of Ancient Jerusalem', Biblical Archaeology Review 4.2 (1978) (about 40,000 under Herod; about 80,000 before 66, with the Third Wall, on some 180 ha)
- L. I. Levine, Jerusalem: Portrait of the City in the Second Temple Period (538 B.C.E.-70 C.E.) (2002)
- History Globe city-walls layer (areas computed from its polygons: Jerusalem in the time of Jesus; Ottoman walls; City of David) and History Globe articles “Jerusalem”, “City of David” and “Zion”
- History Globe question on Golgotha (the quarry outside the Second Wall)
Checked against its sources; not yet read by a historian.