Entries from October 2005 ↓

Another day has come to a close. I am once again in silent stillness upon the waters’ edge of the lake called Chinnereth. I do not know why I am here. I suppose it is because I don’t like the awkwardness of my room and enjoy the steady sound of the waves rippling on the shore.

The events of this evening have sent my mind and heart deep into the truth of God’s Word for a trying, yet comforting challenge. We had chapel on the Sea of Galilee tonight, which made for a unique and very special service. The focus of the night was Jesus Christ. The songs were chosen to show His life, work, and glory. Bill taught on the first half of the last year of Jesus’ life. We looked in the gospel of Matthew and Mark, seeing how Jesus is indeed, the only one that we can stake our lives on. He challenged us to have a mature faith that doesn’t simply hinge on a decision from the third grade, but a daily commitment to Jesus Christ. I will, Lord willing, blog more on this later.

During the service, Todd came and pulled Leona out. After everything was over, Todd came to the front and told us that Leona’s grandmother had just died and that she was really close to her grandma. We stopped as a group and Shane and I prayed for Leona and her family. It was a neat time to see other believers gather around those in pain.

The day began with people being left behind. The group went to the north side of the sea and two miles inland to the ancient site of Chorazin. The whole city was constructed out of basalt because that is the local stone and it was easy to build with. The stone can’t support itself very well, so they had to come up with ways to support it, such as arches and supporting stones. The city had a synagogue and several other public buildings, along with many domestic dwellings. The synagogue has a depiction of the Greek god Medusa and a seat of Moses.

Hazor was next on our list of stops. North of the Sea of Galilee is the Rosh Pina Sill, which acts as a big basalt plug blocking the waters of the Jordan Rivers and forming the Huleh Basin. The city of Hazor sits in this basin and during Old Testament times guarded the northern approaches into Galilee. Joshua understood the importance of this site and he burned it during the conquest. tells the story of how a great army amassed against the Israelites and the Lord gave the enemies into their hands. Joshua did exactly as the Lord had commanded, rather than turning to his own way. Solomon fortified Hazor, along with Gezer and Megiddo. The time of Barak & Deborah is the last Canaanite layer and gives us the end of Hazor in the Bible, when Tiglath-Piliaser conquered Galilee and Gilead. Some of the remains that Yigael Yadin found when he was excavating lower Hazor was several temples, idols, and occultic objects. There have been excavations going on since 1990 by Hebrew University.

Before lunch, we drove up to the Dado Lookout and looked over to Lebanon. We were surrounded on three sides by Lebanese. From the viewpoint, we could see southeast into the Huleh Basin. Mt. Hermon and the Golan Heights were plainly visible, but Tel Dan was lost in the haze of the valley.

We stopped at beautiful Tel Dan for lunch, in the shade of the trees along the flowing water. Dan is the spot of where the tribe moved after they could no longer conquer the area that was allotted to them. Dan is so picturesque and green because it is the site of the biggest spring/source to the Jordan River. The high place of Dan erected by Jeroboam in and 12 is visible today. He did not trust God to provide for him and the people, but rather took the matter into his own hands and changed the place of worship to Dan and Bethel. He also changed the day of Sukkot, in order to control the worship of his people. There are two ancient gates that have been excavated. The Middle Bronze gate is from 1800 B.C. and was buried into a rampart and preserved. The other gate is from the Iron Age (900 B.C.) and right outside the gate the Tel Dan Stele was found, in which it talks about the house of David. The funny thing about it, is that the Aram king who wrote it, took credit for what Jehu, the Israelite king did.

At Caesarea Philippi, there is evidence of worship of the foreign god Pan. There are niches built into the rock cliff for them to place their idols. The people would throw animals into the spring as a sacrifice. The Bible doesn’t say that Jesus went to Caesarea Philippi, but it does mention Him being in the region of it. It would make sense then that after being in that region, Jesus takes Peter, James, and John to a high mountain, where He is transfigured. That mountain would logically be a place on Mt. Hermon, where it is away from everyone and it is in the region.

Todd gave us a bonus and took us up to a Crusader castle called Nimrod’s Castle. We were able to spend time crawling all around inside of it and taking a lot of pictures. It is strategically placed castle and is still well intact, with an impressive appearance on the hill it juts out on.

We drove back to En Gev through the Golan Heights, the territory of Herod Philip during Jesus’ time. We saw some people called Drews who believe that the Messiah will be born to a man and so the men wear funny pants with a large pocket in between the legs in order to catch the Messiah when he comes. We also saw the cows of Bashan, mentioned in .

The last stop was at Qunetra, over looking the country of Syria. In between Israel and Syria is the DMZ (De-militarized zone), which is the no-man’s-land where the United Nations are at. The two countries are still at war with each other. After some pictures, back to En Gev we went.

Well, report number two from comes directly from shores of the Sea of Galilee. I am only a couple feet away from the gently lapping water. The lights of Tiberius, the largest city in Galilee, from across the lake glimmer in the distance and the stars have all decided to show their singular brilliance tonight. I hope that I never lose perspective of where I am. Tonight, I swam in the water that Jesus walked on only 2000 years ago. The places that we visit and see are so historical. Not only did biblical history happen there, but so many other things to place here, in the land between. I don’t ever want to forget, for these three months that I am here, that this is the land promised to Abraham and where his word took place. It is encouraging to hear Todd be amazed and in awe at the sites we go to. He has been here for about 9 or 10 years and yet the land of the Bible still has the effect on him that it first did.

Today was just one more example of how important geography is to the Old Testament. I have read through the accounts of the nation of Israel, the kings, and the prophets, many times with no regard for where they happened. I remember as a kid looking at the maps in the back of my Bible and trying to follow how things happened, but never being able to because they were limited maps and I didn’t know what I was looking for. Even this last year during Old Testament Survey, we had to read each book twice and I would cruise right over the location names, because I had no clue where they were and most of the time I didn’t know how to pronounce them. IBEX has sparked a wildfire in my reading of the Old Testament. God is shown more glorious and mighty when the land is understood and not just the words on the page. My New Testament will be revamped because of the focus that we have while we are here at the Sea of Galilee. We are in Christ’s territory. I pray that I will be able to worship the man who walked in this very land with a faith that is real and not ambiguous. It is hard to put my feelings and thoughts into words for others to grasp, but know that even though it can seem that I am so focused with what I am learning over here, I do think of all you back on the west coast often and pray the God would enrich your lives in most Christ-glorifying way. Well, now to the account of the day.

The day started with Kai and I sleeping in because I forgot to turn the alarm on. It wasn’t that bad, but still a little frustrating. The rising of the sun over the Nazareth ridge as it sprawled itself on the roof tops of town of Nazareth was a sight not soon forgotten. It was definitely the start to the day that I needed. Breakfast was good since it was a change from what we normally get at Yad Hashmonah. Shea Butta’ was the packer of luggage on the bus when he was here with Master’s Chorale and so he assembled a team and we had the bus packed quickly and extremely efficiently. We took off towards our first stop at 8:04 and wandered through Nazareth looking for it. After a good twenty minutes, we found out that a different road had been made to reach the overlook that we were trying to get to. From the top of the hill, we could see all of the Jezreel Valley. We saw features such as Mt. Tabor, Hill of Moreh, Harod Valley, and Mt. Carmel. There were several overlooks during the day and this was the first. The top of this hill marked the traditional place where Jesus got away from the mob at Nazareth in . The site is wrongly identified as most traditional sites are in Israel.

The next on the “to-do” list was Megiddo. The city is mentioned a couple of times in the Bible. Two kings die at Megiddo, Josiah, after being killed in battle against the Egyptians, and Ahaziah, after being shot with an arrow from Jehu. It is also stated that Solomon fortified the city, along with Gezer and Hazor. The tell has been excavated quite extensively be several different groups. The Germans, Americans, and Israelis have all dug at this site. Some of the remains worth mentioning are the Middle Bronze triple gate and the Iron Age three-chamber gate. The three temples on the east side of tell are from the Early Bronze Age, which means that they existed before the time of Abraham. Extended off of one of the temples is an altar, circular in shape and composed of many small rocks. It was probably about twice the size of an AWANA circle and about 3 feet high. Some buildings unknown buildings on site are most likely stables for horses rather than storehouses or barracks. The last thing we did at Megiddo was go down into the water system that was dug by Ahab in order to get water while city was in siege. It should be noted that Megiddo was a very important city because it controlled one of the three passes through Mt. Carmel, was strongly fortified, and was were the officials of the land lived.

Mary and I and a couple others continued singing through the songbook from A-Z. We were still on A when Todd jumped in to talk about the geographical landmarks around us and the place where we were going next, Ein Harod. This is the Harod Spring in the Harod Valley at the base of Mt. Gilboa. The Bible story that is associated with this spring, is the account of Gideon. In the midst of God filtering out Gideon’s army, He had the men drink from the stream to send some home. tells the story of how God uses weak, frail humans to accomplish his purposes and how God gets the glory for the victory over the Midianites.

We began to rejoice when we saw Randy and Phyilis Cook at the park next to Ein Harod with our lunch all prepared. We had a delectable selection of PB&J, tuna, chips and salsa, and three different types of cookies. A dozen or so of us began a game of ultimate Frisbee. I am so glad that there are people here who love to play the one of the greatest games ever. We have so much fun!

The second half of the day began at Tel-Jezreel, where Ahab and Jezebel lived. Several events in Scripture happened here or around the city, such as Jezebel taking the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite for Ahab (), the slaughter of Jezebel by Jehu (), and the placing of 70 heads of the line of Ahab in front of its gates ().

We made an IBEX never-before-seen stop. The village of Endor, where Saul went to raise the prophet of Samuel through the witch who lived there, sits on the north slope of the Hill of Moreh. Todd stopped the bus along the side of the road and then we ran down the road a ways and then up the side of the hill until we found remains of habitation, which were more recent than the story of Saul, but it is the place where it happened. Todd read the story and explained to us what happened and why it happened. It is interesting to think of why God allowed for the witch raise Samuel back to the dead to talk to Saul.

The day was hot and beginning to wear on when Todd the Magnificent (our nickname for our fearless leader) took us to McDonald’s and bought everyone an ice cream cone. Let me tell you, that vanilla ice cream cone was one of the best timed refreshments that I have ever had.

With our spirits renewed, we got back in the bus and headed to Mt. Arbel. At the top of this we got our first glimpse of the beautiful Sea of Galilee. The blue water was such a contrast to the dry, brown hillsides around it. The vantage point allowed us to see almost the whole lake and the Lord blessed us with a very clear day and so we could see very far and Todd pointed out a lot of things. I realized that this region that we entered into was where Christ chose to spend most of His time here during his ministry. I was about to get well acquainted with Jesus’ stomping grounds. From the top of the mountain, Todd led a group of us down the steep sides to the bottom. Several of us ran the whole way and made it down in record time. Once the bus arrived we drove around the northern side of the lake and went around to east shore to En Gev. En Gev is the name of the place where we are staying for the next several days. It is vacation village with the cabins directly on the waterfront. It is truly a site see. This evening has been filled with a great meal, a night swim, and typing this paper. I look forward to see what God will do.

I’ve written several field study reports so far, but I haven’t written one specifically to my readers. When I say that, I mean two things: 1) the past reports have been hard to relate to and 2) I haven’t written them with my United States audience in mind. It is my goal to help the uninformed to know where we went and why we went to those sites, with a little more clarity.

Once again we had an amazing day out and around the beautiful country of Israel. With it being fall, the countryside is mostly dry and brown, unless there is a spring near-by, which isn’t extremely out of the question. The weather is like clockwork. The sun rises, it is hot all day, and then it sets and stays warm for a long time. Many times I long for the clouds of Washington to appear overhead.

I began the day in a flurry as I threw all the stuff I needed for seven days into a bag and ate breakfast all before 8am. We drove away from the moshav and headed west to the coastal plain where we stopped at the city of Aphek. Aphek was a junction of two branches of the International Coastal Highway, where all the traffic going north or south was funneled through. On the site, there is most dominantly the castle built by Suliman in the 1500’s. There is evidence of many periods of occupation, showing the importance of this site through time. Remains from an Egyptian Governor’s house from the Late Bronze Period exist. Unique to this house was the number of inscriptions found inside. Aphek was renamed Antipatris by the Herod the Great and is seen in Bible in . Paul goes to Anitpatris over night from Jerusalem because he is being put on trial by the Romans. We boarded the bus and headed north for the New Testament town of Caesarea. This beautiful Roman city is on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. The Biblical significance connected to this site is that Cornelius the Gentile lived here. Peter had a dream in Joppa (ancient Tel-Aviv) to not reject that which God calls clean. As a result, Peter goes with messengers to Caesarea to see a Roman centurion named Cornelius. This event marks the beginning of the spread of the Gospel to the Gentiles.

When we got to the city, we walked inside the theatre that is significantly still intact. There was a huge modern stage set up at the bottom for concert that was going to be held there later that night. The city was named Caesarea Maritime in order to distinguish it from Caesarea Philippi. It was built in the first century B.C. by Herod the Great. The city was very beautiful and was turned into a great harbor from the worthless site it was before. Josephus, an author of the first century, describes how big the harbor was and how majestic Herod’s palace was.

At the top of Mt. Caramel is a lookout called Muhraqa, The valley from that viewpoint we could see the whole Jezreel Valley. To one not familiar with his Old Testament, the Jezreel Valley may sound a little foreign, but if you look it up, you will see that it is a major piece of geography. Muhraqa is the traditional place where Elijah defeated the prophets of Baal (). The cool thing about the contest between the Elijah and the prophets of Baal, is that God shows himself to be the most supreme one. The whole country has been in a drought for three and half years, which is an assault on Baal, the god of rain. During the contest, the prophets of Baal have all the advantages: more prophets, a dry offering, and they had the first turn. God still showed Himself mighty by engulfing the altar that was doused with water. The battle was over the hearts of the people; were they going to follow Baal or YHWH?

We went west along the top of Mt. Carmel until we came to Haifa University and we walked up the hill to lookout over the city of Haifa and the Acco Plain, north of Mt. Carmel. The view was very beautiful, because the sun was going down and there were clouds creating some cool sun spots. Haifa is the center of the Bahai religion, which teaches that all religions lead to heaven. While we were at the lookout, our bus died and we had to wait for about an hour before the new came to get us, but no worries because we were able to play ultimate Frisbee.

The day ended by driving to Nazareth, about 30 minutes away. The St. Gabriel Hotel was really nice and overlooked the city of Nazareth. We all moved in smoothly and were happy to get a full meal. The soft beds made for sweet sleep.

All the girls of this semester stopped for a shot at the aquaduct at Caesarea.

So for our second to last field trip, we went for a week up to the Sea of Galilee. The trip was very amazing. There were 5 out of the eight days that we were on field trips visiting sites where biblical events took place. The other days we spent in freedom doing lots of fun things in the area.

I will let all you share in what I experienced by posting my 5 reports from the field trips and then a final one on what I did on my free time what it was like to be on the Sea of Galilee.