Jerusalem in the New Testament

This first-century Jerusalem map orients readers to the city Jesus called “the city of the Great King”, threading its lanes from the towering Temple Mount-where He overturned tables and taught daily (Matthew 21:12-17)-north to the Antonia Fortress, the pavement where Pilate’s judgment seat stood (John 19:13). Contour shading highlights the Kidron and Hinnom valleys that cradle the ancient City of David and channel pilgrims up the monumental southern steps, while blue ribbons trace the aqueduct that fed the ritual baths by the Pool of Siloam where the man born blind washed (John 9:7). West across the Tyropoeon ravine, the map marks the Upper Room on the Western Hill, birthplace of Pentecost’s rushing wind (Acts 2:1-4), and follows the Via Dolorosa from the Praetorium to the skull-shaped outcrop of Golgotha outside the northern wall (Mark 15:22). In Gethsemane’s olive-dotted slope east of the city, the cartography places the garden where Jesus prayed in anguish (Mark 14:32), just beyond the golden sheen of the temple gates. Roman roads, Herodian palaces, and the bustling market-lined Cardo are plotted in ochre, helping viewers grasp how sacred precincts, civic power, and everyday commerce converged within stone ramparts-making Jerusalem both a spiritual epicenter and a tinderbox that would ignite in A.D. 70, yet still the stage on which the risen Christ commissioned witnesses “to the remotest part of the earth” (Acts 1:8).