Jim/Hopps
We started out the day at the Church of Peter Gallicantu. Gallicantu is latin for crowing rooster. This site is in remembrance of the 3 denials of Jesus by Peter. It is built on the location that is thought to be the house of Caiaphas the high priest. It is likely this is the site since it is on the side of Mt. Zion near the Temple Mount, though it is possible his house might have been further up since he would have been quite rich. The current church there was built in the 1950s, but it is built on the ruins of a Byzantine time church. It is unknown what the Byzantine church was called, if it was to commemorate the same thing. Underneath the current church are the ruins of the Byzantine church that can be seen.
First level of Byzantine ruins under the church
In the lowest level is an old cistern that is believed to have been used by Caiaphas as a torture chamber and holding cell and possibly Jesus was kept there over night. From an outlook can be seen a monastery in the Ge Ben Hinon (sp?) valley that is thought to be the plot of land bought by the priests with the 30 pieces of silver that was given to Judas. An interesting though, while we often give Peter a hard time for denying Jesus, he is the only disciple to follow Jesus there, the other 10 disciples disappeared.
A statue of Peter denying Jesus
We then went to the Israeli museum which has a model of Jerusalem as it was in the second temple period, the time of Herod.
Overview of model from the north
It shows the Temple pretty well finished and a wall around the outer suburbs of Jerusalem.
Herod's Temple model
Old City of David
Jerusalem was only in this state for about 5 years from 65AD to 70Ad when the Romans laid siege and destroyed Jerusalem. At the museum is also the shrine of the book, it is a place where some of the Dead Sea Scrolls are on display. The entrance is a black basalt slab of stone, this represents the son of darkness. One of the scrolls found at Qumran speaks of the battle between the son of light and the son of darkness, similar language to the book of revelation. The main exhibit is underneath a white dome that bears resemblance to the top of the pottery jars the scrolls were found in, there are jets of water pouring onto the roof, these represent the living water.
Dome over the Shrine of the Books
Inside the dome in the middle is a larger than life handle and end of a scroll standing on end with a sample dead sea scroll wrapped around it,I was unable to get photos inside since photography was prohibited inside.
We then had a presentation on the Shepherds Field overlooking Bethlehem. Shepherds at that time basically lived the bedouin lifestyle, nomads who lived off the products of their animals, the wool and milk and meat. They would live in tents or caves. There are several caves with monuments that claim to be the location where the angels appeared to the shepherds on the night of Jesus' birth, but there isn't really any way of knowing since that aren't exactly any markers or remains left from such as visit.
Then a brief presentation on the Temple. The first temple was built by Solomon as a final resting place for the Ark of the Covenant, for place for the spirit of God to reside. It was built in 7 years, though it is interesting to note it Solomon spent 11 years on his own palace and 21 years on the palace complex for his hundreds of wives and concubines. At the temple is where the Levite priests were the intermediaries between man and God. The first temple was destroyed in 586BC by Nebuchadnezzar. A poor temple was then rebuilt 70 years later by Nehemiah when the Jews returned to Israel. Herod rebuilt the temple in a magnificent manner starting in about 20BC.
To finish the day we went to a Bedouin encampment in the northern Negev desert area near the Dead Sea. This is a place for visitors to spend the night and experience and learn about eh Bedouin culture and lifestyle. When we first arrived we had the opportunity to ride camels. It was two people to a camel, one on each side of the center hump.
Riding Camels!
It was an experience, particularly since they are sitting with their legs tucked under when you get on and off and so they have to rise up and then sit back down to get off, they do so by first rising one end of the body and then the other. It was a lot of fun. The bedouins have a lot of culture to their way of living, though very different from ours.
The main eating tent at the Bedouin Camp
Sitting around having tea and learning about the Bedouin lifestyle
When guests are first welcomed they are served a sweet tea, but when the talking and visiting is over the host serves a bitter coffee indicating it is time to wrap things up an go. The bedouin concept of women is also very different, the women do essentially all the work from shepherding to cooking to child bearing while the men more or less sit around and talk. Women are seen as property, a man can have up to 4 wives at a time and can change them out anytime he feels like it. They don't understand our culture, our women dress similar to us and we have them out in the open. However, in a situation in a visitors camp like we were at they deal with it because they are getting paid to show of what they do to live. While we were there we saw no women, even though they would often do the work being demonstrated by the men, they don't want out and about. There has been a lot of conflict between the bedouins and the Israeli government over land. As long as they are moving around in the desert area it hasn't been a big deal with the government, but now that some of them are settling down into more permanent settlement arrangements this is causing more problems. They don't see the land as ownable, kind of like the Native Americans at the founding of America, so they don't see why they can't just move and around and live where they want to. Later that evening after a delicious meal, sitting in groups on cushions eating from a shared platter of rice and lambburger and chicken and vegetables with pita bread, we walked out into the desert. We walked away from the lights and looked at the stars, it was very peaceful but also a little ominous.
While walking out we saw some sort of dog creature lurking outside our flashlight beam, but it was probably a tame dog from the settlement. There was enough light from the moon and stars and distant cities it was pretty easy to see where we were going even without flashlights. It was interesting to think of these being the hills that David fled to when running from Saul, it would be very difficult to find someone out here if they knew what they were doing hiding in the hills and caves in the nearby mountains.
No comments:
Post a Comment