Easter Episode

The last three weeks of program were all about Easter.  The first week we celebrated Holy Week, the second we read about it in class, and the third we went to the sites on field trips. April 1 we went on the Palm Sunday procession.  This commemorates Jesus' triumphant entry into Jerusalem. Christians from all over the world came to participate.

 

This church is the traditional site of the Last Supper, the Cenacle.

The upper room was turned into a mosque for a while.  Muslims venerate this place because they believe Jesus was one of the prophets.

 

Today's Gethsemane is an olive grove across the valley from the Old City.

 

St. Peter of Gallicantu is supposedly where Peter denied knowing Jesus 3 times.  You can't see the weather vane very well but it's shaped like a rooster.

 

Early pilgrims thought the Via Dolorosa was the route Jesus took to Golgotha.  Modern pilgrims continue to walk this road, stopping at each of the 14 stations of the cross along the way.

 

There are 2 probable sites for Golgotha/Calvary.  The first is in the middle of the Old City at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.  This building was commissioned by Emperor Constantine in the 4th century. (Sorry, no interior shots.  I think those photos were erased).

 

Another candidate is just north of the Old City where the cliff face looks like a skull. (Look straight up from the van in the foreground).  This is near the Protestant site for the Garden Tomb.

 

Of course, it doesn't really matter where the events of Easter happened because the message is still the same:

Why does packing always take so long?

I've been busy packing everything to go home soon.  I'll post more entries when I get home.

Galilee (Part 3)

We'll start off the last Galilee entry with a castle.  Nimrod's Fortress is named after a hunter mentioned in Genesis.  This is the view from the keep.

 

This is part of a floor mosaic of a synagogue in Sepphoris.  The National Parks people decided the design was pretty enough to put a roof over.

 

This is the most famous mosaics in Israel.

 

Akko is a town most famous for its crusader ruins.  The crusaders in this city were hospitallers, fighting medics.  This picture shows one of the huge halls they built.

 

The crusaders headquarters also had secret passageways so they can move troops or send messages without anyone knowing.

 

This is just a bad idea all around.

 

A caravansari is like an ancient truck stop.  Merchants would store their goods on the first floor and stay the night on the second floor.  This way you can protect your goods while your waiting for your ship to arrive.

 

Here is Akko harbor on the Mediterranean Sea.  As you can see, the weather was really nice that day.

 

You can buy a boatload of oranges on the boardwalk.

 

Haifa has a Jerusalem Center connection.  When Hunter was trying to get the Center approved he ran into a law that said no religion could  build anything in Israel without having ties to the land before 1900.  We were able to find a tie in the Haifa Cemetery where a missionary was buried in 1895.

 

These gardens are owned by the Bahai religion.  The religion combines the best parts of other religions.  Below is the city of Haifa.

 

We stopped by a monastery on top of Mt. Carmel. Here Elijah showed up the priests of Baal. (For the full story, see 1 Kings 18).  The other class was stuck here for 5 hours because their bus broke down.  They caught up in the afternoon and even beat us back to the center.

 

Here's an aqueduct just outside of Caesaria Maritima.  This was used by the Romans to get fresh water into the city from Mt. Carmel.

 

Here's all that is left a port at Caesaria Maritima.  This city was suffered lots of damage from earthquakes.

Galilee (Part 2)

One of the optional things in Galilee was a guided hike to some waterfalls in Eli'ad.  This is Black Falls, so named because of the basalt.

 

This is White Falls because of the limestone.  The pool below would be a nice place to swim in the summer.  It was too cold when we went but some people swam anyway.

 

Our guide said we were experiencing Galilee at the most beautiful time of year.  The grass will be brown by the time the next BYU group visits.

 

This is a baptismal site on the Jordan River.  People from around the world get baptized here because it's cleaner than the one near Jericho (see my Jordan entry).

 

The walls around the site had the baptism account from Mark in different languages.  This one is in Pidgin, a Hawaiian dialect.

 

Mt. Tabor overlooks the Jezreel valley and is the traditional site of the Transfiguration.  On top you can kind of see the church that we visited.

 

Here's the artwork in the apse.  From left to right we have Peter, Moses, Jesus, Elijah, James (kneeling) and John the Beloved. Or maybe Peter and James are switched.  John is always beardless in Christian art because he did not die (John 21:23).

 

Megiddo, aka Armageddon, is the site of many battles throughout history.  Some of the more famous conquerors are Ramses 2, King David, King Solomon, Alexander the Great, and Napoleon. In the book of Revelation Armageddon is a symbol for the final battle.

 

Megiddo was a chariot city under King Solomon. Here are some friends riding iron horses.

 

Behold, the view from Tel Hazor. The yellow stuff is all flowers and the islands of rock are actually ruins.  This gives you an idea of the city's size.

 

Hazor is on two major trade routes, which explains why the city was so enormous.  This is where Deborah and Barak defeated King Jabin's army during the book of Judges.

 

Tel Dan has a bunch of springs which feed into the Jordan River.  The symbolism of water coming out of rock is used by Moses in the Old Testament and Jesus in the New Testament.

 

This structure is neat because the mud brick is original.  It was built around 2000 BC but buried when the new entrance was constructed.  This preserved the mud so that the only part that needed support was the doorway.

 

Caesarea Philippi and another source of the Jordan River.  The cave in the background was once a temple to the Greek god Pan.  It was here that Jesus said "upon this rock I will build my church" (Matt 16:13-20).

 

We took another optional hike was through a canyon.  Notice how the trail is suspended over the river.

 

Here's Banias Falls.  See the little rainbow above the rock?

Galilee (Part 1)

We stayed in Galilee for 10 days at a kibbutz on the sea called Ein Gev. A kibbutz is a collective community  unique to Israel.  Using Ein Gev as a home base, we explored the surrounding area by bus.  We also had 13 lecture hours, plus homework, so it wasn't all fun and games.  I'll try to give you the highlights of the trip.

We stopped by Bet Shean on the way up to Galilee.  Also known as Scythopolis, this was the chief city of the Decapolis, a region on 10 city-states during Roman times.  Here's the view from the hilltop.

 

Nazareth is a little ways up the road. We stopped at the Church of Annunciation, which commemorates Mary The church is huge because it was built around the remains of existing churches.  It's the largest Christian church in the Middle East.

 

The church of St. Joseph was built over the traditional site for Joseph's carpenter shop and home of the holy family.  The Catholics decided Joseph would make a good patron saint for fathers, carpenters, and social justice.

 

We drove up Mt. Arbel to see the view.  The caves on the face of the mountain were used as hiding places during the Maccabean revolt.  The Romans conquered the Jewish rebels by lowering themselves down the cliff side in baskets.  Here's what we were supposed to see.

 

Here is what we saw.

 

The next day we took a boat ride across the Sea of Galilee.  Because of its shape, the Sea is also known as the Kinneret, which means harp. The weather was still hazy.

 

We talked to the captain of the boat.  He said the worst storm he ever experienced had waves 9 feet high.  It's hard to imagine because the lake only 13 miles at the longest point and 6 miles at the widest point.  The lake is also 700 feet below sea level.

 

The next photo is of a fairly recent discovery. A 1st century book was discovered in the mud after a severe drought in 1985.  The boat marinated in chemicals for nine years for preservation.  This kind of boat would have 5 crewmen and 10 passengers.

 

This is a church on the Mount of Beatitudes.  It's octagonal and the inside has a beatitude on each wall. (See Matthew 5:3-10.)

 

Capernaum became Jesus' hometown after Nazareth rejected him.

 

This funny shaped building was built over the apostle Peter's house, which the early Christians had turned into a church.  Notice how dark the buildings are.  These homes were built out of black basalt instead of the white limestone found all over Jerusalem.

 

If you look closely you can see the ruins of the city of Gamla on the left side of the hill.  Some scholars suggest this was the city set on a hill mentioned in Matthew 5:14, as it would be visible from the Mount of Beatitudes.

 

Galilee had a wet winter. As evidence of this, Emilie and Courtney found a crab in the Gamla synagogue.

 

We also got to see Gamla Falls.

 

Here we have the remains of the city of Hippos.  It was kind of disappointing because we didn't see one hippo.  Maybe it's because "hippo" is Greek for "horse."  I'll have to look for horses the next time I go.