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In Holy Footsteps

Sacred places and how to reach them: Jake Wallis Simons visits the site of Jerusalem's Temple Mount with a controversial rabbi; Bob Walker treks eastern Turkey's St Paul trail

In Jerusalem, Jake Wallis Simons visits the site of Temple Mount, sacred to both Judaism and Islam, with a controversial rabbi who would like to build a 'Third Temple' there. This is a spot with history - perhaps too much of it, not just religious (it is also the third holiest site in Islam) but also political (when recent visits by Jewish hardliners sparked a violent Palestinian backlash). At the moment, even Jewish prayer is banned from the site - but the rabbi's 'Temple Institute' has other plans for the future. In eastern Turkey there is less human conflict, but rather more physical challenge, as Bob Walker treks the gruelling St Paul trail which follows in the apostle's footsteps from Perga to Antioch. He survives the wolves (and the sheepdogs), glories in the hospitality, but finds that few Turks remember or even recognise the name of St Paul today.

Available now

11 minutes

Last on

Tue 10 Dec 2013 20:50GMT

Broadcast

  • Tue 10 Dec 2013 20:50GMT