Day 5

Today started with the following joke on the bus:
A rabbi went to Rome to visit his friend who was a priest. While there, they had a debate about which location was holier - Jerusalem or Rome. They ended up agreeing to disagree. While he was there the Rabbi asked what the little black phone was for on the priest's desk. The priest told him that that was the line directly to God. The Rabbi asked to use his phone. The priest said that it was ok but it would cost him $200.

A while later, the priest went to visit his Rabbi friend in Jerusalem. They had a great evening and at the end of the night, the priest noticed that the rabbi also had a little black phone. The priest asked what was it for. The Rabbi said that it was his direct line to God. The priest asked how much it would cost to use it. The rabbi said it was free. Free, the priest asked? Yes, said the Rabbi. It is a local call.

Today we journeyed to the Mount of Olives. It was awesome! Did you know that the Garden of Gesemene is on the Mount of Olives and faces the Eastern Gate? Jesus would have prayed just outside of the city walls that night. Here is a picture of the garden....

Looking across, you see the Eastern Gate, propehsized to be the gate that Jesus will enter when He returns. As you can see, it is sealed shut and there are graves in front of it. This was the Muslims attempt at preventing this from happening. They know the prophecy too and by putting graves in front of it it "defiles" it and they think that this may prevent it from happening... Read that this was prophesized in Ezekiel 44: 1-3. It happened around 600 AD.

What are you going to do after high school? This is not a common question in Israel as everyone has to serve in the military for a minimum of 2 years after completing high school. You can see very young people in military uniforms everywhere. When you are completely surrounded by your enemies, you must remain prepared. They all get to carry some mean looking guns. They are smiley gun bearers though.

Below is a picture of the sacred pit. It is thought to be where they held Jesus while they were waiting to try Him in front of Pilate. You have to descend a winding staircase to get down to it. The holes in the wall where they tied their hands and feet are still present. This is right on the outside of the wall to the city and was definitely a prison.

The Western Wall - open 24 hours a day. Women have to go to a separate section from the men. The Western Wall is part of the retaining wall to the Temple Mount and is all that is left of the 2nd temple that King Herod built.

Day 4

The WIFI at the hotel isn't so great so I didn't get to post yesterday but I am catching up now before supper.

It is Friday and the Orthodox Jews have ceased working for the Sabbath, which ends tomorrow at the same time. They put their lights on timers and cook their food for tomorrow ahead of time, keeping them on special hot plates, so they can be sure to adhere to all of their rules for the Sabbath. They won't even push the elevator buttons, therefore there is a special elevator that stops on every floor on the Sabbath. Don't get on that one, it takes a while.

Today was an amazing day as we went to Golgotha and the Garden Tomb.

Golgotha was found in the early 1800s and the piece of land next to it was purchased by a Christian family, wishing to preserve something around the site.

Here is what is looks like today:

See the black eye in the middle? 100 years ago, you could still see the other one clearly but the bridge of the nose fell off and they built a bus station at the base, covering its "mouth". WHy would they ever do that at such a historic site? Well, remember that the majority of the Jewish people don't recognize who Jesus was, therefore, were not looking for the spot of His crucifixion when they returned to the land. And you know all of those pictures we see of the three crosses on top of the hill? Jesus was actually crucified on the road in front of the skull, at street level, which would be about where I am standing. Not on top of its head. Lots of interesting things learned today. Below is a picture of the place in the 1800s when they found the site. Can you see the two eyes in this picture? A little left of centre? This place was a quarry in Jesus' day and right behind my back was the wall of the city.

The garden tomb was very close to Golgotha. They do not know for sure if this was the tomb that Jesus was laid in but the facts are very convincing. They bought the land because it was next to Golgotha, not knowing that there was a tomb on site. They were digging for water when they found it. They thought that they had just bought an ancient vineyard, as they had previously uncovered a wine press and related instruments. After finding the tomb, they also found a huge cistern where they can still get their water.

When they uncovered that tomb, the following facts made them very seriously consider that this may be the site.
1. It was a rich man's tomb. The man owned a vineyard and had the tomb hewn out of the existing bedrock.
2. The Byzantines marked it with crosses and used the tomb themselves.
3. The tomb has a large indented stone ledge along the bottom of the front of it, where  a large stone (approx. 4000 pounds) rolled back and forth to cover the entrance.
4. The tomb was not sealed as the body was only temporarily placed there until it decayed into bones, and then the bones were moved. There is a little window to the right of the door that let the smell out and quickened the decomposition.
5. The Bible says that the apostles had to look into the right to see where Jesus had been laying. Unlike other tombs, a body preparation area is the first place you enter when you go through the tomb door. To the right are the three stone platforms that were made to hold bodies. They would have been able to see Jesus' body from the doorway if they stooped, looked in and to the right.
6. It is very close to Golgotha - like a stone's throw away.

Pretty convincing right? And, nicely enough, no one has built a church over this site....

This is inside looking to the right.

The slab on the left hand side was where Jesus would have been laid.

Day 3 !

Capernaum
Home of the apostle Peter and located along the coast of the Sea of Galilee. Peter's house, pictured below, is identified in the ruins of Capernaum and is literally a stone's throw away of the synagogue in that town. What happened to the town? Did you know that in 746 - 749AD there were a series of large earthquakes in Israel, which devastated cities made of stone, crashing columns over and causing people to sometimes just leave the area rather then rebuild?

It's an odd picture. Try to ignore the grey thing at the top, which is the bottom of a church that was built on top of it (of course). The round structure you see in the middle is the middle of Peter's house. The rings outside of the house were where the livestock were kept. Remember the story about the crippled man lowered through the roof that Jesus healed? It happened right here!

This is the synagogue where Jesus taught in Capernaum.

Missing it's roof and outer walls of course!

After Capernaum, we went to the Jordan River. This is not the place of Jesus' baptism. It just happens to be the deepest and widest part of the whole river, where people get baptized today. The Israeli government dams the river so that the water won't be wasted and the release is controlled, so maybe it used to be bigger. I was surprised how small it was! It runs from the Sea of Galilee all the way down to the Dead Sea. People in the Galilee area would have left Galilee and travelled by way of the King's Highway, which is now the West Bank and followed the Jordan River, for water and direction.

People getting baptized. Not me. I just put my hand in.....

It was beautiful - green and clear with lots of fish swimming around!

And below, the best falafel of my life....

On to Jerusalem. View from the mount - Jerusalem is in the middle of the mountain....

Hazy day - it's still very hot. 45 degrees at 1PM today. Which is unusual for this time of year.

Nazareth, Cana and the Sea of Galilee

Day 2 started off bright and early and hot in Nazareth. Nazareth, located in the centre of very large hills, or small mountains. Our bus just climbed and climbed to get there....
This picture is in the Church of Ascension. They claim that this is Mary's kitchen (behind the big alter of course). Her wall oven looks to be about the same size as mine. Probably heated up just as fast as well.... Joseph's house is just around the corner, where she would have moved when they got married. So, they were neighbours if this is truly their houses. The church claims that this is where Mary was met by the angel Gabrielle as well, but how do they know that? Outside, there are Muslims banners over the square. Our guide, Eli, tells us that the Muslims want to build a mosque right in front of the church and it has caused quite the controversy.

Next is Joseph's house. We were told that Joseph must have been quite a wealthy man as he had his own carpentry shop and an indoor, private bath. His house was also located above a spring so they didn't have to leave to get fresh water. At first, it didn't sound right to me, but then, what did they do with all of that loot that the wise men brought them? Hmmm..... I am still skeptical... But it was somebody's bathtub....

Here is present day Nazareth. 

On to Cana - I now know that Jesus and family would have had quite a long walk downhill to get to Cana where the synagogue was. They have dug up the remains of the synagogue.... 

Above is the reception area, and if they are right, this is where Jesus would have turned water into wine. And we thought our church pews were hard?

These were some jugs that were also unearthed.

When we got off the bus, tradition is that you are offered wine in Cana. Well.......OK!!!

It was an 18 year old vintage called King David. Quite nice. Then, of course, you could buy a bottle if you wanted. Our guide allocates less than 60 seconds for stopping so I don't dare to even go to the washroom for fear of the bus leaving. Oh well, when it's this hot, you don't have to go anyhow.

From Cana we went to the Sea of Galilee for a boat ride on a fishing boat made to look like a 1st century one.

 We sailed around for about an hour and learned some Jewish dancing... I am a natural.
Lots of New Testament moments to think about while sailing and looking at the shores. Several apostles were recruited from these beaches, Jesus walked on these waters and calmed the wind, across the lake is where he healed a demon possessed man and the demon went into the pigs which ran into the sea, the loaves and the fishes happened close to here and many others.... It wasn't a very big body of water to be called a sea. I was wondering how the apostles got into trouble so fast out there, but when we headed back to the hotel, the guide told us that the sea East wind still bellows through there and kicks up the lake causing quite a "tempest" (to use Kent's word) so not to go swimming after 4PM. And sure enough, later today the wind kicked up and it became quite a tempest out there. By the way Kent, no one on the tour knew what I was talking about when I used that word.

A little on the current day...

These are how the Israelis grow bananas, in tents. It keeps the bugs off and they can control the tempterature with the different types of mesh and colours.

They grow other crops this way as well.
Everything is irrigated here.. It has to be as most of it is desert if not watered. The water is piped in everywhere, even on to the patches of grass and flowers at street corners.

Where they grow produce, they irrigate by so many drops a minute and have it calculated for efficiency and growing power very precisely. It is all computerized and the technology is bought by other countries.

DId you know that Israel has the happiest milking cows? Apparently, Israelis wanted to perfect the art of milking, therefore they computerized that as well. Each cow has a chip in each ear. One chip, when the cow is brought in to be milked, reads out the cow's blood pressure, blood sugar, temp, etc. So that it can be cared for exactly as needed to ensure maximum milk. The other chip goes a step further and monitors mood indicators, so that if the cow appears to be depressed, it actually gets to have a brushing and a massage before it goes back out to pasture. And when it goes back out to pasture, it is put with different cows to improve its moooooood. Apparently it works, as they have the highest milk per cow of anywhere in the world.

Orthodox Jewish marriage, until recently, was the first time you met your spouse. Apparently now the couple is allowed to have three dates before they are allowed to decide whether they are going to get married or not. Before, they didn't have the choice. But only three dates and all in very public settings.

Tomorrow we are going to the Mount of Beatitudes and then on to Jerusalem. Did you know that this is a double Jubilee year in 2017? And the feast of Trumpets is right around the corner on Sept 22nd.....

1st Day Finished

We started at 8AM this morning and the temperature steadily increased to 37 degrees Celsius. That combined with a lot of walking resulted in a 10 minute cold shower. And that wasn't even the desert part of the tour!

We started the day in Jaffa, or Joppa as it is referred to sometimes in the Bible. What happened there? This is the port that Jonah booked passage from to flee from what God wanted him to do, right before being swallowed by a whale. It is also the port into which King David and King Solomon received the "logs from Lebanon" to build the first temple. As well, we saw the house of Simon the Tanner, who house overlooked the harbour and has a rooftop balcony. It was here (Acts chapter 10) that Peter received his vision of the net containing all of the different animals, which meant that he was to bring the Word to the Gentiles as well.

The top picture is Jaffa Harbour looking towards Tel Aviv. The bottom picture is an excavated site. If you look to the left of the archway, you will see lighter coloured rocks. This wall dates back to the Canaanites around 3000BC - before Abraham! Good thing they made
 things out of rocks, or we wouldn't see anything from that date!

Next on to Caesarea.......

This is a picture from the front of Herod's palace. Partially covered with water due to earthquakes, this would have been his front steps...

These foundation stones are for the courthouse in Caesarea. It is thought that this is where Paul was brought before the Roman officials after he informed them that he was a Roman citizen. Afterwards, they sent him by ship to Rome, where he got shipwrecked on Malta on the way... 

This would have been Herod's view of the harbour from his palace - blue waters and white sands and the hippodrome, where the chariot races were held (and later where the gladiators would have fought )

By far the most breath-taking view today. I was on the top of Mount Carmel and this is the Jezreel Valley. I was on the rooftop patio of the church of Elijah, the traditional place of where Elijah had a contest with the prophets of Baal (now the Carmelite Monastery). Did God really send fire down on this very spot? I don't know but it was a pretty good location for a lot of people below to see.... Off in the distance, on the other side of the valley (from left to right), you can see Nazareth (which is in the hilltops), Mount Tabor (or the Mount of Transfiguration) and the mountain on the right is where King Saul died in battle. Towards the bottom of the screen on the right, you can see the top of Tel Megiddo, or more commonly, Armageddon, the fortress dating back to King David and King Solomon. 

This is Tel Megiddo. We walked through the fortress which they have excavated back to the time of King Solomon. Pictured are the eastern horse stables of the King, housing his famous stallions. 

See the round thing centre right? They uncovered this in recent years and found it to be an alter where the Jewish people sacrificed (when they couldn't get to Jerusalem). They also uncovered the 7 large steps up to the alter, of which only the priests were allowed to ascend completely. 

Tonight we're staying right next to the Sea of Galilee. The Golen Heights overshadow the sea on the other side and we are quite close to the Syrian and Lebanese borders here. You would never know it though. There seem to be no safety concerns. Tomorrow we go to Nazareth and have a free afternoon. 

Where I'll be

Here's a map of my route for the next 8 days! I start in Tel Aviv and then head North for two days. The rest of the trip is around Jerusalem. The next entry will hopefully by Monday night from Tel Aviv! See you when I get back!