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.
No comments:
Post a Comment