]]>It’s going to be an amazing adventure – and an incredible learning opportunity for me. Rikk is a drummer, aeronautical engineer turned New Testament scholar who is undoubtedly one the most interesting and best teachers I have ever sat under. Well versed in the arts, philosophy, history and sociology he is also, quite simply, a fun and funny guy. Nance and I have been to several retreats where Rikk has taught – as well, we have been to Turkey in 2008 where we followed Rikk through the archaeological sites of the seven churches mentioned in the book of Revelation.
I’ll also be able to reconnect to some of the Palestinian friends I made when I was in Israel/Palestine a few years back. I was in Israel/Palestine about four years ago where I experienced an deeply unsettling immersion into the current tragedy there. Nothing in my experience has been as disturbing as that trip. Since then I have read quite a bit about the more recent history of the region and about Islam. So it will be good to return with a bit more base knowledge than I had then.
Interested readers should check out Sandi Tolan’s The Lemon Tree, Elias Chacour’s Blood Brothers, Karen Armstrong’s Mohammad, Islam and The Battle for God. BTW – when I recommend books it by no means indicates that I endorse everything said – rather that I found them properly stimulating and challenging. Any book on the subject of Israel/Palestine, either historical of theological, is bound to be controversial and contested. The reason I recommend these books is they offer less common perspectives than we usually encounter in the west.
However, the main point of this trip is historical/theological, not political.
Here’s the itinerary:
PRE-TRIP TO EGYPT/ISRAEL
May 11 – 23, 2009
Day 1 – Monday, May 11 Depart the USA for Cairo, Egypt
Day 2 – Tuesday, May 12 Arrival Cairo airport. Overnight in Cairo
Day 3 – Wednesday, May 13 Pyramids, the Sphinx, Egyptian Museum with the Treasures of King Tut Ankh Amon. Overnight in Cairo.
Day 4 – Thursday, May 14 Fly to Luxor. Visit the Bank Valley of Kings, Queens, Hatshepsute Temple, Colossi of Memnon. Overnight in Luxor
Day 5 – Friday, May 15 Visit East Karnak and Luxor Temple. Then transferred back to the airport for a flight back to Cairo. Overnight in Cairo.
Day 6 – Saturday, May 16 Journey to Taba stopping on the way at Ismailia. Overnight in Taba.
Day 7 – Sunday, May 17 Arrival at Taba border– visit Timna Park with the Solomon Pillars. Drive via the Arava and Negev Desert to the Dead Sea Dinner and overnight at Daniel Hotel, Dead Sea
Day 8 – Monday, May 18 Visit Massada, Ein Gedi – hike to the waterfall and see the caves where where David hid from Saul. Continue drive via the Jordan Valley to Beit Shean: Bet-Shean. Continue to Yardenit (southern exit of the Jordan River at the Sea of Galilee). Overnight in Tiberius.
Day 9 – Tuesday, May 19 Visit Nazareth (could be replaced by a visit to the Golan Heights and Caesarea Philipi or Dan). Boat ride on the Sea of Galilee. Visit Tabgha. Visit Capernaum. Visit Mt. Beatitudes. Overnight in Tiberius.
Day 10 – Wednesday, May 20 Visit Megiddo. This is the traditional Armageddon battlefield. Visit Mt. Carmel. Visit Caesarea. Drive to Jerusalem – Visit Wailing Wall, City of David on Mount Moriah, Pool of Siloam, Mt. Olives, Garden of Getsemane, Bethlehem. Overnight in Jerusalem.
Day 11 – Thursday, May 21 Visit Mt. Zion: Last Supper Room, St. Peter in Gallicantu , Ein Karem – the town of John the Baptist. Visit Israel Museum with the Shrine of the Book and the Model of Jerusalme during the 2nd Temple time Visit Tower of David Museum, depicting the History of Jerusalem and walk on the Ramparts of the Old City Garden Tomb
Day 12 – Friday, May 22 Visit the Ophel – Davidson Center, the Biblical Ascent to the Temple- the Southern Steps, where pilgrims used to assemble to pray as they made their way to the Temple. Continue to Yad Vashem Holocaust, containing the world’s largest repository of information on the Holocaust. Drive via the Elah Valley, where David slew Goliath to Tel Aviv and the Old city of Jaffa. Return to Jerusalem for dinner and overnight
Day 13 – Saturday, May 23 Monday Transfer to Ben Gurion airport for return flight
Rikk Watts
me
The Nile River – taken from my hotel room.First impression flying over the Nile delta and toward Cairo is the absolute enormity of the city. It took half an hour to fly over it to get to the airport. There, we were met by a rather striking man, both in features and in demeanor, named Hassan who guided us through customs and to the waiting vehicle to bring us to our hotel.
It was hard to take in much information. Our flight was roughly 24 hours after the delays and missed connections. I didn’t sleep much and somewhere over the Atlantic I was suddenly full-on sick: headache, muscle cramps, hot/sweaty, cold clammy, alarmingly dizzy and nauseous. Ended up retching in the bathroom which was unique in that the plane bathrooms are so tiny you can’t back your butt far enough from the toilet to get your head over it. Unpleasant. I remained weak and headachey for the rest of the flight but seem to be alright now.
However, a bit of info: There are roughly 80 million people in Egypt and 20 million of them live in Cairo. Each day the city swells two or three million with workers coming in from the country. The country is roughly 80% Muslim and 20% Coptic Orthodox Christian. There is also a small Jewish community here. Hussan was eager to tell us that despite media misrepresentation, folks get along here for the most part quite famously and treat each other with great respect. We passed many striking Mosques and Churches.
Cairo (meaning Victorious) was established by the Arab Muslims about 1000 years ago. Before that Egypt was mostly Christian since the coming of St. Mark to Alexandria. Apparently Alexandria is fabulous but we’re not going to get there on this trip. The little I’ve seen of Cairo so far is gorgeous. Very orderly and clean, great road sytems, large squares. But again, I’ll be a better ovserver in the morning.
After washing up, Rikk and I ate a wonderful meal in the buffet restaurant. Could easily be the best buffet I’ve experienced. Nothing wildly exotic – just good. Great humus, salads, skewars, wonderful sausages (I’ll get the name tomorrow – sounds like kafka) with delicate sauces, lots of beautiful tomatoes, cucumbers, stuff I have no idea what it was. All great.
Quite tired now. Tomorrow is aparently a long day – starts at 7. Hope to sleep.
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Great Pyramid at Giza
First, let me correct last night’s description of Cairo. It is perhaps a bit more cacophonous and unruly than I had perceived in the dark the previous night. The population density is staggering. Most folks live in a sea of largely unfinnished appartment blocks (owners pay less taxes on an unfinnished structure) which gives the city a… well…. unfinished look. There is a lot of road construction to try to keep up with the rapidly increasing population.
Egypt, though only one tenth the size of Canada has more than 80 million people, compared to Canada’s 33 million. But here’s the rub – Egypt is 95% uninhabitable desert. All these folks live in the remaining 5% of land and the population is increasing by 1 million every 9 months.
Anyway, the Giza Pyramids are right along the edge of the city that stops abruptly on the desert’s edge.
Rikk and Magda in front of the Great Pyramid / 2700 BC
On first glance the pyramids don’t seem as large as you might think but as you approach the enormity becomes apparent. This one is 480 feet and is made of 2,300,000 blocks of stone ranging in weight from 2-15 tons.
Pyramids are four sided structures corresponding to the four compass points.
From obeserving the death of the sun each evening, and its rebirth each morning, the ancient Egyptians deduced that there was an afterlife. But they assumed that the afterlife was a rebirth back into the physical world. So, those who were rich andpowerful enough to do so were entombed with all their stuff so they’d have it when they came back.
The three Giza pyramids entomb a father, son and grandson; Kings from the 4th dynasty. The largest of the three remains the only surviving structure from the ancient 7 wonders of the world.Rick and I went into the pyramid in the forground of the above shot. You enter by crouching into a small shaft (maybe 3 feet square) and descend 70 feet down and then 70 feet back up to the center of the pyramid were the burial chamber is. The chamber is empty but for a single open sarcophegus. The contents of the chamber have long since been emptied by tomb robbers.
If you turn 180 degrees from where I took the above picture you see nothing but desert. This is the mighty Sahara which extends from this spot for 4000 kms to the Atlantic ocean. I found this to be more stunning than the pyramids .
Standing on guard at the entrance of the whole area is the Sphinx; body of a lion, head of a king – presumably King Khufu who’s tomb is directly behind.
We left the Giza pyramids and traveled 2okms south of Cairo to Memphis which is the first capitol of the Ancient Kingdom. The roadway followed a canal taken from the Nile that gives surprisingly verdent life to the fertile ground. Farming here is done much the same way it has been for thousands of years.
There’s not much left at Memphis but a small compound with a large statue of Ramses ll and some smaller relics and statues. Ramses ll was the most powerful of all the Pharohs.
Nearby is the step pyramid of King Zostr (1st King of the 3rd Dynasty). This was wonderful to see. You entered through the remains of this collonade to a large courtyard in front of the Pyramid (below).
We also visited the Tomb of Maryruka and King Titi (6th Dynasty 20430 BC.) Rikk and I descended into this one as well. I somehow forgot to take pictures of the outside which has not been restored so didn’t look like much more than a rocky hill. But here are pictures of the entrance shaft and burial chamber.
From here we travelled to Old Cairo where we visited a Coptic Church (Egyptian Orthodox) built over a site where the Holy Family stayed for several months on their flight to Egypt. (we weren’t allowed to take pictures. ) We also visited a famous Synagogue (no pictures) before returning to our hotel.
Tomorrow we get up at 6am to catch a flight to Luxor to see, among other things, the Valley of the Kings.
I’ve left out so much of the day – but these were some highlights anyway. Equally wonderful were the conversations with our guide Magda who was so wonderfully informative.
In closing, I wanted to show you how abruptly the desert starts. The picture doesn’t really show the drama of it – it’s quite amazing – there is an actual line where the green is no more and ocean of sand takes over for thousands of miles.
Good night.
The Nile from my hotel room window in Luxor
Rikk and I flew out of Cairo early this morning and landed in Luxor by 9am. Luxor is the great city of the Upper Kingdom (southern Egypt – I know it sounds wrong but trust me.) Across the Nile on the west bank is the ancient necropolis which is where we find the Valley of the Kings, Valley of the Queens and the tombs of the Artisans.
As in the northern region, there is only a thin band of lush green farmland that divides like a ribbon the relentless desert and so within a mile or so on either side of the Nile you are into hot, inhospitable landscape.
I couldn’t get a vantage point that adequately shows the Valley of the Kings but here is the entrance to the area of ancient tombs. The Egyptians started burying here because the Pyramids turned out to be a big sign informing grave robbers where to dig. Also, here the stone is stable enough for digging and the waters of the flooding Nile were too far away to be a problem.
Many Kings, including Tutankhamen were buried here but the boy-king’s tomb is the only one found with its contents intact. Below is is the entrance to one of the tombs. We weren’t allowed to take pictures inside. But maybe, just maybe, one of us tried to sneak a picture anyway and it turned into a bit of an incident 
I mean 
Inside the tombs are completely covered with paintings and hierogliphics. These serve to describe the journey of the King through death and hopefully through to resurrection.
Because of time, we decided to skip the Valley of the Queens and move on to the Artisan’s tombs. On the way we stopped at an shop that made and sold ababaster jars. This man was in front of the shop working with raw alabaster.
Inside the shop owner explained the proccess and showed us several vases by holding them up to a light that shows off the unique stone colourings and workmanship.
This one below was an inverted bowl with a candle underneath. They turned off all the lights in the shop for us to see. Gorgeous.
On the way to the artisan’s tombs we passed several villages and hamlets on the mountainside.
Then – up through the mountains we suddenly came upon this site which is the archeological remains of an ancient artisan’s village.
Below is the same site from higher up. It looks fake but that’s what I saw.
These people would have been in the Pharoh’s service. And these tombs here were almost more interesting than the Kings’.
Because they were mere artisans and not kings – these tombs were built for whole families and so were multi-chambered. One has to make your way significantly down into the earth through steep, narrow carved staircases and into the many chambers of the dead. The walls tell the same stories as the Kings; Gods legitimizing imperial power and the process of passing through death to resurrection. On one of the walls was the most astonishing picture of the Tree of Knowlege, a male and female, and a sepent apparently encouraging them to eat of the tree. Serpents play a big role in the mythology of Ancient Egypt and usually serve to legitimate and protect Imperial power. It could well be that Moses, upon imagining an alternative vision for human community and dignity than what Pharonic logic offered, used many of the Egyptian metaphors but turned them on their heads energizing the new community under Yahweh to a new way of life under God whose rightesouness and justice transends the parochial, self serving and the petty. In the Imperial version – one eats of the tree so that they can become God-like. The serpent is good because it encourages the process. In the Hebrew telling (remember the Hebrews knew first-hand the shadow side of Pharonic logic,) only Yahweh is God and aspirations to be like God are destructive to the person and community. It could be that Genesis was written as a polemic to the Hebrew experience of Egypt, a sort-of counter claim presented directly in the face of the primary claim. I’m over my head here but it sure is interesting to think about.
Entrance to artisan’s tomb.
From the Artisan’s village we visited two separate Egyptian temples. The first one, I can’t remember the name. It was enormous and had enormous significance for Rikk who is a histoian. I think by this point the heat was bearing down and I was having a hard time absorbing the details of the pictography and it’s significance. I’ll have to come back to some of that, but in the mean time here are a couple of shots:
Temple entrance.
You can’t see it in the picture but every inch of wall space is covered with writing or picture. The whole structure is really a book.
Pharaoh with left foot forward – stepping into battle. His hands would have been holding a parchment in one hand and a scepter in the other. The message: I can read, I have knowledge, I am powerful.
and one last shot of the Nile.
Good night. Peace.
This will be very brief. We saw another amazing temple this morning before catching a flight back to Cairo where we were immediately taken to the Egyptian Museum for the rest of the afternoon. We saw, among other things, the contents of Tutankhamen’s Tomb. To see this stuff is overwhelming. Of course we weren’t allowed to take pictures (really this time.)
Now Rikk and I are back at the hotel and have both been sideswiped with exhaustion so I’m not going to take any time now to describe the day.
Tomorrow we leave at 4am for the Sinai where we’ll go to St. Catherine’s Monastery – the traditional site where Moses encountered the burning bush. We’ll then continue on to Taba (see map). The Sinai is the part of the trip I’ve been most looking forward to.
I’ll give a more detailed an pictured account tomorrow.
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Gulf of Aqaba
It’s 6am and I’m sitting on my hotel balcony, drinking my morning ‘Nescafe’, and looking across the Gulf of Aqaba at the mountains of Jordan. But for the Nescafe, this could be a perfect moment. To the north east I can see the shores of Israel; to the south, Saudi Arabia. And I… am still in Egypt. This place is called Taba and we arrived here yesterday afternoon after a long driving day through the Sinai Peninsula.
When the bible tells about the children of Israel wandering about the desert for 40 years, this is the place; roughly 24,000 square miles of rock, sand, scorpions and snakes. Here the sand sweeps up the mountains like the snows do at home and the sun bakes the stones with rarely a cloud to intervene (2 1/2 inches of rain annually.) There is precious little vegetation and the barren desolation is dramatic and powerful.
The Sinai is the strip of land that connects Israel to Egypt and was crossed by Abraham, Joseph, Moses, Elijah and the Holy family. And as you drive through, these stories become immediate, intimate and wonderfully real.
The day started yesterday at 4am when we left Cairo and by the time the sun was coming up we were approaching the Suez Canal. A few facts: the Suez was dug (by hand) between 1859 and 1869 by some 20,000 laborers – mostly forced. It is roughly 200 Kms long, 500 feet across and 75 feet deep. It was initiated by Egypt but as she could not afford the project herself, it became a joint project between several countries. The deal meant there would be shared access between all the players for 99 years. However, Egypt won the canal back to herself 2 years before the lease deal was up. Last year the revenues from the canal brought 4 billion dollars to the Egyptian economy.
We crossed over to the Sinai through a tunnel under the Canal and turned south to travel for an hour or so along the canal to the Red Sea. As ships passed, the visual effect for us is that they were sailing the sands. At one point we turned in to get a closer look and a picture of the canal itself but were turned away by stern, finger wagging Soldiers, “No photos!”
Along the coast the desert was flat and unremarkable for the most part. But as we turned inland it quickly became mountainous. Back home we are accustomed to dense green forests and happy streams to decorate our mountains. Nothing of the sort here. The rugged inhospitality is absolute but for the occasional relief of a tattered oasis. I wondered allowed why the Israelites would turn inland to such rugged landscape. “Probably to avoid chariots,” Rikk replied. Ah, yes.
What I’m getting from this trip so far is a much deeper appreciation for how profoundly the social vision of Moses for Israel was shaped by his experience of Egypt. Egypt was wealthy and powerful, advanced and beautiful, famous and feared. But, as I once read, no empire can exist without it’s slave class. And one has to wonder if God allowed Israel to experience the shadow side of that system so they could begin to imagine a different kind of community under a very different God. This is the beginning of an appreciation of the fundamental dignity of all persons and of power that comes in the form of servanthood and self-donation rather than brute force. This is the beginning of a slow dawning that clearly has not fully risen, but the trajectory of which was crystallized in Christ – the one who absorbs victim-hood into himself so that others can be free. It’s astonishing really. Whenever Christianity aligns herself with power of the Pharonic nature, she diminishes herself. This most recent season of power politics in North America, I believe, has been the result of Christians second-guessing and forgetting their core identity. The results have been devastating. But the story isn’t over.
At mid-morning we came to St. Catherine’s Monastery. I’ll not tell the story of Catherine and her martyrdom, you can read that on the net, but this is the traditional site of the burning bush encountered by Moses after having killed the Egyptian soldier. Inside the monastery is “the” bush – no longer on fire but as you can see – doing just fine ☺.
The claim is that this is the actual bush still thriving.
Garden gate in the Monastery
Relics of Monks who have lived and died here.
This is also the traditional site of Mt. Sinai where Moses received the 10 commandments. Mt. Sinai is a three hour trek around this mountain – we didn’t have time so we couldn’t make the journey which was a big disappointment for me.
Here is the valley the Israelites encamped in while Moses was on the mountain. Moses came down and found them here having fashioned a golden calf to worship as they had in Egypt.
And below – is a natural rock formation in the shape of a calf. Hmmm…
From here we left the interior and drove through these amazing formations to the east coast.
Roadside Store
Bedouin dwelling.
Sand glaciers.
Shelter from the hot sun.
This final picture is taken from my hotel balcony. Such a bizarre and sudden change of worlds. I spent the rest of the afternoon snoozing under one of these. But for the extremely large naked lady under the next umbrella it could have been a perfect moment
Flowers outside my room.
This morning was the one chance to sleep in – and of course I woke up shortly after 5 am. Sigh… But it was a great am with the sun bathing my balcony so I just relaxed there reading ‘till about 10 when I met Rikk for a quick breakfast before we left.
The Israeli border was only a twenty minute drive from Tabla – the coast is gorgeous.
Pharoh’s Island / built by Salah ah-Din (1182) Visited by Lawrence of Arabia in 1914Our guides got us through the Egyptian border without a hitch. We said goodbye and then had to walk an outdoor corridor to the Israeli border crossing. The last time I was in Israel, entering and exiting the country was a daunting, almost frightening experience. That was at the tail end of the last Intifada so I suppose security was pretty stressed. This time was much more relaxed. The soldiers were wearing casual pants, t-shirts, baseball caps and…. machine guns. It was weird. But everyone seemed friendly enough and we were through much quicker than I had expected.
We met our guide, Arie and were on our way. (I forgot to ask Arie if I can post his picture – I’ll check tomorrow. )
Jordan Valley near southern tip.Israel is a long skinny country – only about 350 miles from top to bottom. Width is hard to say with one number as the country is misshapen by geography and politics. There are roughly 7.5 million people living in Isreal: 6 million Jews, and 1.5 million Arabs. Of the Arab population, 1.2 million are Muslim, about 160,000 are Christians and the rest are mostly Druze. The Druze are a deviation from Islam who claim to decend from Jethro (Moses’ father-in-law.) They are fairly conservative, have no written sacred text and harbor no national aspirations.
In the West Bank there are 3 million Arabs. And in Gaza, 2 million. Gaza is one of the most densely populated regions in the world.
We entered at the lowest tip of Israel and followed up the Jordan Valley along the east boarder to the Dead Sea. The valley itself extends up to Gallilee and is (I found out) part of the same Rift Valley Nanci and I saw in Kenya last year.
At the southern tip of Israel the desert is called the Negev and it feels very similar to parts of the Sinai – hot and desolate though not quite as rocky.
We stopped in the area called Sodom to see this salt mountain. It is a ridge 2-300 feet high and eight miles long and is made up almost exclusively of salt. No kidding.
Salt pillar – aptly named: Lot’s Wife
Rikk Watts / salt connouiseur
It doesn’t look like it – but this whole ridge is salt – for another eight miles.We made it to the Dead Sea and our hotel by late afternoon and basically had supper and crashed. Not a terribly dramatic day but lots of good conversation with Rikk and Arie about the lie of the land, its history and it’s current woes.
The Dead Sea from my room.
Looking behind at the Dead Sea as we head west (up) from the Jordan Valley
We rose early again this morning and were on the road by 7:30. Very hot today. In the morning it was already in the high 30′s and rose to around 45C by mid-afternoon.
We first traveled inland toward Tel Arad, the site of an ancient Canaanite settlement (3200- 2600 BC) and a Jewish military outpost/ settlement (~1200 BC).
On the way we passed the Zohar Canyon which was an secondary Canaanite trading route linking the Mediterranean to the Jordan Valley. If you look carefully at the above picture you can see the road at the very bottom – that gives you a reference for how far down we were looking.
About 25 minutes drive west we came to Tel Arad. This is a Hebrew fortress settlement from the time of David and Solomon.
The fortress settlement is so dramatic it is the only thing you notice at first – but looking down from the fortress toward the south you see the ruins of an earlier Canannite settlement .
Looking south
Looking north
Looking at the temple inside the fortress. The big block in the center was the altar.
Kodesh Kodashim / Holy of Holies
This Caananite settlement is from the time of Joshua. It was a trading intersection of the east/west trading route through the Zohar and the secondary north/south trading route from Jerusalem down to Egypt. (the primary north/south trading route was along the east coast through Gaza.
Looking east from the ruins you see an expansive farm. The Israelies have developed extremely sophisticated and efficient drip-irrigation systems that turn desert into verdant farms. It’s amazing to see.
Down in the valley we stopped at Yatir Forrest Vineyard that is producing the best Israeli wines – considered by some to be among the great wines of the world. We toured the simple, but high-tech facility and had a chance to taste a few – a little pricey for me, but really, really great.
We then headed back to the Jordan Valley and turned north toward the Gallilee.A few hours later we were at Masada. It was here, in 70 AD, that Rome put an end to the Jewish rebellion. Just 3 years earlier, Rome destroyed Jerusalem after which a small band of Jewish freedom fighters dug in at Masada for a final and dramatic standoff.
MasadaMasada was a vanity project of Herod the Great who built his elaborate winter castle on the top of this mountain – thirteen hundred feet above the valley floor. (Interestingly, the top of Masada is roughly sea level. The Jordan valley is -1300 feet.) He used it to host and impress his Roman bosses but many believe he suspected he may need such a place for his own survival. Herod killed many people (including his wife and his sons) and had many enemies.
Ruins on top of Masada.
Pictures do not do this justice. This was a huge area and Herod had developed elaborate water systems, food storage and gardens – the Jewish rebels could have lived here indefinitely.
After Rome destroyed Jerusalem, some 960 Jewish rebels fled to the mountain where they held out for three years until the Romans built a thousand foot ramp up the east side of the mountain to get at the compound’s entrance. The night the rebels realized their time was up, rather than surrender to Roman brutality and slavery, they chose death.
The Synagogue. This is the place of the last meeting of elders where they decided to destroy all their wealth, kill their wives and children and then kill themselves rather than be taken slave by the Romans. The drew lots by which ten men were chosen to slay the rest. Then the ten drew lots by which one killed the other nine before himself. The lots were found with the names of the ten written on them. When the Romans finally breached the fort, they found alive only two women and five children (who had survived by hiding in a cistern,) flames and an “awful solitude.”
Tram back to the valley floor. Sorry the pictures are so hazy – by this point the temperature was about 45C.
We continued north to Qumran – where the dead sea scrolls were recently discovered (1947 by Bedouin Shepherds) in the caves near this ancient Essene settlement.
Cave where a shepherd boy discovered some of the Dead Sea Scrolls
From Qumran we continued north past Jerico to Bet She’an just a few miles south of Gallilee.
It gets greener as you travel north. This is the “mighty” Jordan river.
Isreali security fence along Jordanian border.
Bet She’an is the place where King Saul was beheaded along with his son Jonathan by the Phillistines. The archealogical remains here are of a later Roman city that thrived from 63 B.C.E through to 749 C.E. when it was destroyed by earthquake.
Finally we came to Tiberius on the Galilee. Checked in to the hotel, had supper and now to sleep. Tomorrow we tour the lake and then on to the Golan Hights.
Pomegranates
Sea of Galilee
Tiberius
When one thinks of a sea, it is usually of a fairly large body of water. As with all things in this land you must think so much smaller than we do from our expansive plains at home. The Sea of Galilee is more like a lake, and when you stand on the north shores and look south – you can take in the whole area at once: Tiberius, Magdela, Capernum, the Mount of Beatitudes, etc. It’s very serene. I do love it here. I couldn’t get an overview picture that works because the heat makes the air hazy and the distance photos just wash out.
Capernum
Inside the ChurchWhat looks like a pool here is a glass floor that looks down on Peter’s home. What is clear by the remains are several concentric additions to the house which give evidence that this became a church that kept expanding in size.
Capernum was a small village – likely only 12-15 families in total as were all the villages of the region. So when the NT records thousands of people gathering to hear Jesus speak, these would be significant gatherings – significant enough to get the attention of leaders jealous of anything that would undermine their authority, and nervous of anything that might look like opposition to Roman rule. The pictures below are the remains of a later period Synagogue built on top of the one Jesus would have known.
One of the earliest known pictoral representations of the Arc of the CovenantIt’s important to remember, with many of these sites, the locations are traditionally remembered. There is no archeological evidence for the Mount of Beatitudes but from the story in the Bible, the lie of the land, proximity to Capernum etc, it is reasonable to assume this could be the spot.
My favorite spot in the whole region is this spot (below). It is a small beach from which you can clearly see Tiberius spill down the mountain to the sea. Just behind is the location where the feeding of the 5000 is remembered. And on this quiet beach it is said Jesus restored Peter to his status as dear friend of Christ.
At a critical moment in the drama of Jesus’ capture and torment by the occupying Roman army, Peter lost courage and denied his association with Christ – three times. After the crucifixion, I imagine Peter’s grief and shame to be insoluble. And coming back to Galilee to fish, after all the drama of hopes built and dashed, Jesus appears here and quietly asks Peter (three times) “do you love me?” It strikes me as such a profoundly kind thing to do. Of course Jesus knows… but he lets Peter say it anyway. Peter gets to hear himself say it. And I can imagine a lot of tears, some deeply tender and knowing looks, and an emotionally charged, trembling, long hug.
From Galilee we traveled north east to the Golan Heights. This area once belonged to Syria and was a strategic military post for the Sryian army from where they relentlessly shelled Jewish Kibbuts in the valley below for 19 years before the hills were stormed and taken by the Israeli defense forces in 1967.
The valley itelf was once a swampland until the late 1891 when the first Jewish pioneers began to settle here at Rosh Pina (meaning Cornerstone) draining the valley and and reclaiming it for rich, arable farmland.
At first there was little tension between the Jews and the local Arabs. But after Israeli Statehood in 1947, meaning (among other things) the displacement of 300,000 Palestinian Arabs to the West Bank, Gaza and the refugee camps of Syria, Jordan and Lebanon, the relationship turned toxic and has remained so to this day with both sides having legitimate claims to victim status, and both sides committing well documented and grim crimes against the other.
Israeli trench leading to a bunker overlooking both Lebanon and Syria (respectively below)
Syrian military outpost overlooking Israeli Settlements. This was the scene of a dramatic battle in 1967 when the Israelies took the Golan Heights.
Underground Syrian bunker.
Not sure what these are. Air vents to the bunkers below I assume.
Syrian trenches
Israeli (I think)
Mount Hermon
The many springs create small streams that find each other as they wind down to the valley eventually forming the Dan river which is one of the 3 sources of the Jordan River.
You can see why this would be a pretty important area to control if you were a country that is mostly desert. As much as the perennial conflicts of this region are reported as having religious/ethnic roots (and that is certainly partially true), access to water has always been common to most conflicts. Read through the old testament and notice how often water conflicts come up. Coming from a country where water is clean and plentiful, it’s hard to appreciate how powerfully water shortage can stress relationships between communities. Many are saying this will not be an abstract reality for us in the west much longer.
At the base of Mt Hermon is the ancient ruins of the city of Dan, one of the lost tribes of Israel.
And the King arose and sat in the gate… and all the people came before the King.(11 Samuel 19:8)
Following the division of the kingdom of Solomon in 930BCE, Jeroboam established a cult at Dan as an alternative to the one at the Temple in Jerusalem. “And the King made two calves of gold… and he set one in Beth-el and the other he put in Dan.” (1 Kings 12:28-29)
Above is Jeroboam’s temple at Dan. The structure to the left is the altar where he offered sacrifices to the Golden Calf. The raised platform to the right would have been an observation platform for the city’s elite, a sort-of Molson’s box
The northern kingdom’s revival of the Golden Calf cult marked the beginning of the end for them. Shortly afterward they were invaded by the Assyrians (I think it was the Assyrians anyway – I’ll check). The ten tribes of the northern Kingdom were absorbed into the Assyrian empire assimilated by the culture and forever lost as a distinct people.
Rikk explained to me the significance of the northern Kingdom’s sin. The social experiment begun by Moses in the Sinai was inspired by a radically different notion of God and creation than what came out of Pharoah’s Egypt. Pharonic power was one of brute force, legitimized by capricious self-serving Gods. Moses intuited a different God and therefore a different model of leadership/authority – characterized by goodness, constancy and servanthood.
Egyptian worship consisted of static man-made temples in which an image of the god, fashioned by human hands, was placed. The idol was the physical representative of the god – and what you did to the idol, you did to the God.
The Hebrew understanding is astonishing in contrast. They understood all of creation to be a temple created by Yahweh. And the “image of the god” is the human person – fashioned by God – in the image of God. Along with the understanding that “what you do to the image, you do to the God,” is the foundation for the radical understanding of the fundamental dignity of all persons, and I might add, a proper theology behind creation care. Therefore, the Hebrew temple never had a man-made idol. The northern Kingdom’s retrogressive practices under Jeroboam where a profound rejection of the “new thing” Yahweh was doing. And, in the end they got what they wanted – inhuman empire.
I’m sure Rikk is going to die when he reads my distillation of a much longer conversation – honestly, the best part of this trip has been listening to Rikk describe and connect the dots in a way I’ve never been able to do before.
Anyway, I ramble. We drove back through the Golan Heights and boarded a boat on the Galilee to make our last few miles back to the hotel on the lake. Awesome!
Boating on the Sea of Galilee
