ISRAEL TRIP - JOURNAL
November 24 - December 5, 2007
Page 3 of 5 - Days 6 and 7
Day 6 Thursday 11/29/07 Mount of Beatitudes, West Bank, Jordan
border, Jericho
MOUNT OF BEATITUDES
We packed up and left our Galilee hotel. On our way out of the region
we went to the traditional site of the Mount of Beatitudes where
nuns have a convent. Tom said the nuns there are true believers. When
the site is not busy and he has a group worshipping in the church, the
nuns will sneak in and worship with them. But, that day there
were tour buses filled with people from all over the world. It’s a
beautiful hillside
overlooking the Galilee.
We traveled down the West Bank along the Jordan and prayed and sang as
we went. We went past the Palestinian check point and we were boarded
so that they could check passports.
JERICHO
Connie Wilson, a close friend of Ruth Heflin’s joined us in Jericho
because she’s been helping a ministry in the area, Karen Dunham work
with Palestinians in the refugee camp.
In Jericho we saw an ancient sycamore tree. It was advertised as being
2000 years old, but our guide said it's probably about 800 years old.
It was like what Zaccheus would have climbed to see Jesus though.
We ate lunch at a buffet which was a great treat after falafels for
lunch too many times! We went for a walk around the ruins of Jericho.
There is no archaelogical information around the time of Joshua. It is
indeed as if the city walls disintegrated.
Before we got back on the bus, I went out to take a photo of the folks
taking a camel ride and the next thing I knew, I was paying $5 to get
on it and go for a ride. I knew I’d never live it down if I had a
chance to ride one and didn’t. Todd was already sitting in the bus but
someone else took the picture for me!
We took a cable car up the Mount of Temptation and saw the
Judean wilderness. We worshipped and prayed in the Cave where Karen
does the taping of her cable TV show. Barbara had me preach for a few
minutes on the
temptation of Jesus. We also went into the cave where Karen films here
TV show.
Then we went back down the cable cars and I was delighted that Connie
Wilson got in the last cable car with us. She will be in India with
Santhosh in February so we had a wonderful time to connect.
We went to the place where Elisha’s Spring comes from the ground where
he turned the bitter water into sweet. It’s also the location of the
School of the prophets. We went to our hotel rooms at the Dead Sea
which is a big resort area. There is literally nothing but mountains of
salty sand every where. This is the wilderness.
Day 7 Friday 11/30/07
Massada, Ein
Gedi, Qumran, Dead Sea
MASSADA
We took a large cable car up the mountain to Massada (also Masada), a
palace and fortress built by
Herod. Herod stocked it with supplies to withhold a seige of for three
years for a legion of soldiers. The food and water supply areas
were vast, It seemed to have all the conveniences of the Hellenistic
Roman needs. There were built in recessed areas in the floor in the
food preparation that were used for "refrigerators". Unglazed pots when
water was poured on them would cool the food in it. Massada included a
full Roman bath which included areas like saunas where heat came from
under the floor. And in some rooms you could still see how the room was
painted.
Massada is most known as the last hold out of Jewish rebellion from
Roman rule. The Zealots where fierce fighting Jews who were not going
submit to the
Hellenistic Romans rule. (When it came to fundraising methods for their
cause though, they were simply bullies with daggers up their sleeves.)
Herod had left three caretakers at the Massada
fortress. Having lost battles with the Romans, 963 Zealots – men, women
and children - took over Massada and held off 12,000
Roman army soldiers for over three years, which of course, only
infurioriated the Romans all the more. The Romans evenutally built
another rampart up the mountain top and battered
through the wall. The Romans only fought during the day, so at the end
of the day, they left. Then the Zealots worked all night to board it up
so the Romans burned the wall. When it was clear that they had lost and
there was no hope the Zealots committed suicide rather than to go
into slavery under the Romans.
EIN GEDI
We climbed up the mountain at Ein Gedi (also En Gedi) where David and
his men hid from
King Saul. There were several waterfalls along the way, and it was a
hard climb to go all the way to the top, but well worth it. Although it
has caved in, we saw where the caves had been. Tom told us how it
is
believed that David was hiding in the upper cave with his men. Saul
came and laid down in the lower cave as the water fall was coming down
and out through the cave. David came down from the upper cave through
the waterfall
in the back of the cave and came up to Saul who had fallen asleep in
the lower cave. The water noise which had soothed Saul asleep also
covered David's footsteps. We had a picnic lunch in Ein Gedi and
wildlife came rigth into the picnic area.
QUMRAN
We went to Qumran and saw the dig of where the Essenes lived in the 1st
century and where the cave is that holds the Dead Sea Scroll. The
Essenes were not married, although both men and women, who lived very
commited lives to God and lived in community. They made their living
producing scrolls. (As I was there I was reminded of the Shaker
community from our region.) One leader would read an accurate version
of the scrolls, letter by letter and 10 others would write it down. In
this way, they produced very accurate scrolls for the Jewish community.
When they were being attacked by the Romans, they hid the scrolls in
the cave to preserve them, and the whole community was killed. There
was no one alive who knew where the scrolls were hidden, until a
wandering (lazy) shepherd boy found them in 1947.
There are sink holes along the dead sea and areas are marked off so
that no one walks there. The ground can give way underneathe you!
There was yet another chance to ride a camel and brave Joanie had her
turn. We fed this camel what was left over from our picnic lunch.
Then we jumped into the Dead Sea – it is an experience like no place in
the world. There is so much mineral content in the water that by the
time one gets knee deep in the water, your feet want to float. We all
went together and laughed and laughed. It was very invigorating.
Beyond the Dead Sea or Salt Sea are the mountains of Moab.
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