The Sea to the Mountain - Galilee I

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.