Image Details

Victoria and Albert Museum

Jerusalem as Roberts saw it on April 9, 1839. Then, as today, the domed Mosque of Omar, also known as the Dome of the Rock (center), and the El Aqsa mosque (left) dominate the southern end of the Temple Mount platform. At lower right, hewn into the cliffside, are the Tomb of Absalom and the Tomb of Zechariah, so-called though neither biblical figure is buried there. Like the lithograph shown in the next photo, this scene, too, came from Roberts’ Holy Land book and was reproduced in illustrated Bibles. The text in the original edition noted that “On the revival of letters in Europe, Jerusalem became once more that object of interest, which it has continued to the present day…For to what other spot of earth was language like this ever spoken? It shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains. And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob…for out of Sion shall go forth the Law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.’ ”