Israel October 16, 2011 Day 6 Dead Sea, Masada, Qumran Dead Sea Scrolls, Abraham's Tent.

View of the Dead Sea from Marsha's hotel room.  The area here was desolate except for 3 hotels. The hotel provided very large bottles of water because the tap water wasn't potable.

This was in the spa area of our motel.

And this is where you soak your feet so the little fishes will remove your dead skin.  EEEEWWWW!!!

Some of our group floating in the Dead Sea.  It was strange swimming around.  Anyone can float :-)  I loved how soft my skin felt after swimming in the Dead Sea.  At a gift shop I received some free Dead Sea items with my purchase. The Ahava Mineral Hand Cream feels wonderful!!


Masada was "rebuilt by Herod, making it virtually impregnable.  Massive fortifications, palaces and storehouses were designed to protect Herod in case of protracted wars and he built hanging gardens, a swimming pool, an elaborate bath-house, vast stores, a synagogue and ritual baths, protecting the whole by sentry towers set at intervals along an encircling wall.  Approach was difficult.  The only way seems to have been by the narrow Snake Path, tortuously winding up the eastern slope of the mountain, from where can be seen the threatening outlines of the Roman camp at the base of the hill.  After the fall of Jerusalem in  70 A.D., a group of 960 Jewish zealots-men, women and children, barricaded themselves on Masada and held it for three years.  When conquest seemed imminent and the Romans were ready to burst in, Josephus tells us that the commander, Eleazar ben Yair, spoke to the defenders enjoining each man to kill his family.  Then they 'chose ten men by lot to slay all the rest...and when these ten had slain them all, they made the same rule for casting lots for themselves;' (Wars of the Jews, Book VII:9:1).  When the Romans eventually entered the fortress, they found ample stores to show that it was not lack of provisions that caused the surrender; otherwise they found nothing but piles of corpses and a deathly silence."  from The Holy Land pp. 114-115

Ibex (goat) at the base of Masada.

Cable car to the top of Masada.  I was dreading this trip.  I don't like heights but...I had prayed about it and never felt any fear!!

Looking down from the top
of Masada.

 Some people walked up to the top of Masada but none from our group.

View of the Dead Sea from the top of Masada.

Part of the floor in the Western Palace.
Another intricate mosaic.

Fifteen long storerooms kept essential provisions for time of siege.  Herod filled with them with food and weapons. Each storeroom held a different commodity.  This was attested by different storage jars and inscriptions on jars in rooms.  Wine bottles sent to Herod from Italy were found.

Below the black line is the original wall and above is the rebuilt wall from the stones found in this area.

The rampart the Romans built to scale Masada.  It is hard for me to imagine that Masada was built and this rampart was built without the use of modern day machinery.

Rocks of this size were used to ward off intruders.










This is the area where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found.  It is said that the scrolls were found by two Bedouin shepherd boys looking for a stray.  They found seven earthenware jars containing priceless biblical manuscripts.  So far 11 caves have been found. The cave you can see is cave 4. More than 15,000 fragments from over 200 books were found in this cave.  From all 11 Qumran caves, every Old Testament book is represented except Esther.  No New Testament books or fragments have been found at these sites.  Info from Bibleplaces.com and "The Holy Land".

At the base of the Qumran was a monastic brotherhood called the Essenes, which devoted itself to asceticism.  This is one of the cisterns.  They probably lived in tents and were celibate.  They believed they were the Chosen.  There have been many excavations at this site.

This was a scary day for me in the morning.  Afraid of the cable car and of riding on a camel.  Chicken has always been my middle name :-)  This was really fun and not scary at all.  My riding companion was from FL and did not speak English.  I'm not sure if she was visiting FL from Africa.

This was the most fun next to swimming in the Dead Sea.

Marsha and her sister, Judy.  We started out on the ground.

We were told to hang on and lean back as far as we could and then the camel stood up on it's back legs.

Finally standing up!!
Going down was front feet first and then back feet.

We sat on the floor on cushions to eat at Abraham's tent.  It was quite uncomfortable!!

"Abraham and his nephew, Lot" sharing with us what God had said to them and their life in this area.  We were then served foods from this area.  Nothing was very outstanding to me :-)

View out the front door of
"Abraham's tent"








After dinner at the camel ranch, we had about a 45 min. ride to Jerusalem.  As we drove into the outskirts of Jerusalem someone began singing the song "Jerusalem"  We all joined in and it sounded like a beautiful choir-my arms had goose bumps.  I looked out the window and car had 222 on it's license plate and I thanked God for this experience.  222 is my special number from the Lord-it is too long of a story to explain the significance and how I got this number in this blog.

October 15, 2011 Day 5 Sea of Galilee, Yigal Allon Museum, Korazim (Chorazin), Jordan River Baptism Site, Bet She'an National Park

This is the type of boat that we boarded to go across the Sea of Galilee which is 13 miles long and 7.5 miles wide and about 150' deep and 685' below sea level.  Jesus spent most of his three-year public ministry in town and villages around the Sea of Galilee.  The lake was named Kinneret, which means "lyre", because its shape reminded them of that musical instrument played by King Dave and by the Levites in the Temple.

Marsha and I on the bow of the boat.

This young man showed us how the disciples would have thrown their nets.  He led us in a 5 minute time of contemplation and then in worship.  He sang a beautiful song and then led us in dancing on the boat to Hava Nagila.

In 1986, an ancient boat was pulled from the mud along the northwestern shore of the Sea of Galilee.
The boat appeared due to a great drought during which the waters of the lake receded  The brothers who found the boat reported that when they found the boat, a double rainbow appeared in the sky.
The boat has been dated to the 1st century AD  . It is likely that this sort of boat was used by Jesus and his disciples, many of whom were fishermen.The boat is made of 12 different types of wood and measures 25.5 ft. long, 7.5 ft. wide, and 4.1 ft  high. It would have had a crew of five (four rowers and a helmsman) and could carry about 15 additional persons. This seems like a lot for such a humble boat, but men were smaller 2,000 years ago — about 5'5" and 140 pounds.

This museum had a wonderful gift shop.  The one thing Marsha and I wanted to buy was a prayer shawl.  She got one that was blue and gold and I got one that was purple and silver.  I am so glad we bought them there as we never saw any as beautiful as these in the rest of our travels.

This Synagogue in Korazim is dated from the 2nd century.  There are many carved artifacts that were found at this site.

This is a copy of the Moses Seat that was found in the 1920's. Jesus references this position of authority, "The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. So you must obey them and do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach" (Matt. 23:2-3).
Our guide, Mickey, also said that when Jesus stood and read the passage from Isaiah in Luke 4:17-21 and then said, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in our hearing." that he would have then sat down in the Moses seat.





                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     We then went to the Jordon River Baptismal Site.  I was baptized by Rev. Michael Appana, a Pastor in our group from South Africa. I'm in the middle.  Marsha and her sister, Judy, said they had little fish nipping at the feet.  I never did!  Saw a tree planted by Glenn Beck at this site.  He had been in  Israel in Sept.

Marsha was baptized by another Pastor in our group, Rev. Russell Huff.
Mickey told us that this is the area of the Jordan River where Israel owns both sides of the river and where it is believed that Jesus was baptized.  It is very commercialized but...it was special to us.

Bet She'an National Park
It is 400 acres. Excavation shows 20 levels of occupation. I Samuel 31:10 tells of Saul's death in battle with the Philistines, who "fastened his body to the walls of Beth-shean".

The theater was built in the 1st century A.D. and seated 7000.  It was renovated at the end of the 2nd century. There was so much to see at this site that we were only able to see part of it.

This is a steam bath.  Hot water was poured over this area and steam was produced.  I thought it was ingenious!

I was fascinated with the many mosaics.  The stones were about 1/2" square.  I can't even imagine making something like this.There were so many beautiful excavations here that it was somewhat overwhelming.  We were supposed to swim in the Dead Sea this evening but we got there too late.

October 14, 2011 Day 4 Capernaum, Mount of Beatitudes, Dan, Caesarea Philippi, Yom Kippur War Memorial

                                                      Sunrise over the Sea Of Galilee from my hotel room

       
 Some of our fellow travelers at the entrance to Capernaum

This town is cited in the Gospel of Luke where it was reported to have been the home of the apostles Simon Peter, Andrew, James and John, as well as the tax collector Matthew.  In Matthew 4:13 the town was reported to have been the home of Jesus.  According to Luke  4:31-44, Jesus taught in the synagogue in Capernaum on Sabbath.  Jesus then delivered a man who had an unclean spirit and healed a fever in Simon Peter’s mother-in-law.  According to Luke 7:1-10, it is also the place where a Roman Centurion asked Jesus to heal his servant.  Capernaum is also mentioned in the Gospel of Mark (2:1), it is the the location of the famous healing of the paralytic lowered through the roof to reach Jesus.  According to the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus selected this town as the center of his public ministry in the Galilee after he left the small mountainous hamlet of Nazareth (Matthew 4:12-17). Capernaum has no obvious advantages over any other city in the area, so he probably chose it because if was the home of his first disciples, Simon (Peter) and Andrew. Capernaum, Bethesda, and Korizim has been called the Jesus triangle.  Capernaum is one of the three cities cursed by Jesus for its lack of faith.

 
The ruins of this synagogue are one of the oldest synagogues in the world.  This synagogue was built almost entirely of white blocks of calcareous stone brought from distant quarries.  In this area one synagogue was built on the top of another.

One of many excavations
in Capernaum.

 

 The House of Peter 

Excavations revealed one residence that stood out from the others.  This house was the object of early Christian attention with 2^nd century graffiti and a 4^th century house church built above it.  In the 5^th century a large octagonal Byzantine church was erected above this, complete with a baptistery.  Pilgrims referred to this as the house of the apostle Peter.

  This is how the excavation looks like below the church.

This is what the excavation looks like looking down on it through the glass on the inside of the church.

Altar in the church above Peter's house.  It was an inlaid mosaic.

              Me in front of the largest aloe vera I've ever seen overlooking the Sea of Galilee.

The traditional location for the Mount of Beatitudes is on the northwestern shore 

of the Sea of Galilee, between Capernaum and Gennesaret.  The actual 

location of the Sermon on the Mount is not certain.  The current Roman Catholic 

Franciscan chapel was built in 1938.

Looking out over the Sea of Galilee from the  porch that surrounded the chapel. 

 The inside of the chapel.

Looking up at the roof
of the chapel

I had written at the beginning of this blog that I had fallen 2 weeks before the trip.  The trip to Tel Dan began along Dan Spring-the largest of 4 sources for the Jordan River.  After walking on uneven wet rocks for a couple of feet, I decided that because of the unevenness and my unsteadiness that it was probably not a wise choice to attempt the trip, I went back to where we started and waited with 3 others for the more adventuresome to make it back.  I have borrowed some of their pictures and got information about them from Wikepedia, BiblePlaces.com, etc.  Dan was the northernmost city of the Kingdom of Israel and is in the Golan Heights..

Nearly all archaeologists agree that this excavated podium was the one that Jeroboam constructed to house the golden calf at Dan.  Archaeologists now think the platform was roofed.

Evidence of a four-horned altar has been found as well as religious objects such as three iron shovels, a small horned altar, and an iron incense holder. 

Middle Bronze Gate-Built about 1800 B.C., this mudbrick gate was in use 

approximately 50 years before it was covered (and thus preserved) by an earthen rampart.

The style of the gate is typical for this period; it is a "Syrian gate" with three 

pairs of piers and four chambers.

Before we went to Caesarea Philippi we went to a restaurant where we were served falafel again and baklava.  We also had an Arabic coffee called Hell-it was aptly named!

 This is Caesarea Philippi.  When watching a Focus on the Family video on Israel, they said that it was the home of the god, Pan.  Since the 1933 class of Juniata College in Huntingdon dedicated their yearbook to Pan (an action that boggles my mind), I knew that Marsha and I needed to pray at this site.

Grotto of Pan

The spring emerged from the large cave which became the center of pagan worship.  Beginning in the 3rd century B.C., sacrifices were cast into the cave as offerings to the god Pan.  Pan, the half-man half-goat god of fright (thus "panic"), is often depicted playing the flute. 

 

This is a hewn niche where the a statue of the god Pan was placed.

You can see that there are several niches.  Many gods were worshiped in this area.  We could feel the evil.







 On a positive note this is the area where the confession of Peter took place-where he proclaims Jesus to be Christ-the Messiah.  Matthew 16:13-20; Mark 8:27-30; Luke 9:18-20

We were supposed to go to the Jordan River Baptismal site but when Mickey called there were 1000 people from Brazil waiting to be baptized so we were able to visit the Memorial of the 10/6/73 Yom Kippur War.  Yom Kippur is the holiest day on the Jewish calendar Syria and Egypt took advantage of this when they attacked Israel.  For the 1st week Syria and Egypt were winning. In the Suez region 500 Israeli soldiers faced 80,000 Egyptian soldiers. Israel tanks were outnumbered 1:9 .  The 2nd week Israel was victorious.  The Syrian commander took tanks into Israel and the farther he went into Israel, the more he became convinced that they were going to be ambushed so he turned the tanks around.  There was no ambush-he could have taken Israel.  He paid for this decision with his life sometime after returning to Syria.

                                         
                                                Syria in the distance from the Memorial Site.