Asmonean palace

• residence of Herod the Great

125:1.5Joseph saw how his son had sick­ened at the sight of the tem­ple rites and wisely led him around to view the “Gate Beau­ti­ful,” the artis­tic gate made of Corinthian bronze. But Je­sus had had enough for his first visit at the tem­ple. They re­turned to the up­per court for Mary and walked about in the open air and away from the crowds for an hour, view­ing the As­monean palace, the stately home of Herod, and the tower of the Ro­man guards. Dur­ing this stroll Joseph ex­plained to Je­sus that only the in­hab­i­tants of Je­ru­sa­lem were per­mit­ted to wit­ness the daily sac­ri­fices in the tem­ple, and that the dwellers in Gal­i­lee came up only three times a year to par­tic­i­pate in the tem­ple wor­ship: at the Pass­over, at the feast of Pen­te­cost (seven weeks af­ter Pass­over), and at the feast of taber­na­cles in Oc­to­ber. These feasts were es­tab­lished by Moses. They then dis­cussed the two later es­tab­lished feasts of the ded­i­ca­tion and of Purim. Af­ter­ward they went to their lodg­ings and made ready for the cel­e­bra­tion of the Pass­over.

• residence of Herod the Great

128:3.5Per­haps the most no­table of all these con­tacts was the one with a young Hel­lenist named Stephen. This young man was on his first visit to Je­ru­sa­lem and chanced to meet Je­sus on Thurs­day af­ter­noon of Pass­over week. While they both strolled about view­ing the As­monean palace, Je­sus be­gan the ca­sual con­ver­sa­tion that re­sulted in their be­com­ing in­ter­ested in each other, and which led to a four-hour dis­cus­sion of the way of life and the true God and his wor­ship. Stephen was tremen­dously im­pressed with what Je­sus said; he never for­got his words.

• residence of Herod the Great

185:4.1When Herod An­tipas stopped in Je­ru­sa­lem, he dwelt in the old Mac­cabean palace of Herod the Great, and it was to this home of the for­mer king that Je­sus was now taken by the tem­ple guards, and he was fol­lowed by his ac­cusers and an in­creas­ing mul­ti­tude. Herod had long heard of Je­sus, and he was very cu­ri­ous about him. When the Son of Man stood be­fore him, on this Fri­day morn­ing, the wicked Idumean never for one mo­ment re­called the lad of for­mer years who had ap­peared be­fore him in Sep­pho­ris plead­ing for a just de­ci­sion re­gard­ing the money due his fa­ther, who had been ac­ci­den­tally killed while at work on one of the pub­lic build­ings. As far as Herod knew, he had never seen Je­sus, al­though he had wor­ried a great deal about him when his work had been cen­tered in Gal­i­lee. Now that he was in cus­tody of Pi­late and the Judeans, Herod was de­sirous of see­ing him, feel­ing se­cure against any trou­ble from him in the fu­ture. Herod had heard much about the mir­a­cles wrought by Je­sus, and he re­ally hoped to see him do some won­der.