Bethlehem

Indians pressed in behind us as we pressed on the

Birthplace of Jesus from atlastours.net

Romanians ahead of us. Hundreds of Pilgrims packed like sardines in the airless corridor inched forward taking small steps toward the birthplace of Jesus.  As we converged on a circular set of steps leading to the grotto below, forward motion stopped; the Romanians had prostrated themselves in front of the birthplace.  One couple opened a music sheet and started singing.  Despite the heat and the sweat of so many bodies packed together, this was a holy moment. Their music filled the grotto.  We were in the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem. 

Like Jericho, Bethlehem lies within a Palestinian Autonomous Zone.  As our bus passed through a security check point and a walled barrier, Marian again moved to the middle of the bus and pocketed her Israeli ID. After rolling by a Kentucky Fried Chicken sign with a peace message, we stopped to pick up a Christian guide who was born in Bethlehem.  The city once eighty-five percent Christian is now about eighty percent Muslim.

After lunch at a cafeteria style restaurant, we assembled for Mass in St Jerome's Grotto hidden below St Catherine's Church. St Jerome, Father Jerry's patron saint, translated the Bible here from Greek and Hebrew into Latin in the fourth century.   

Listen as he expresses mixed sentiments about the visiting pilgrims in his time: 

 They come here from all over the world, the city regurgitates every type of human being; and there is an awful crush of persons of both sexes who in other places you should avoid at least in part but here you have to stomach them to the full. 

Maybe he was hot, tired, crushed and sweaty when he penned the words above. He also wrote:

 The very best of the Christian community comes to the Holy Land; they speak different tongues,  but the devotion is one and the same. There is no sign of conflict or arrogance, no differentiation whatsoever, except in the mode of dress. No one censures another, no one criticises or judges his neighbour.”  (Copied from See The Holy Land website.)

He could say the same today.

After our visit to the churches, we stopped at a Christian souvenir store. I thought the prices on the olive wood carvings must have been a mistake. They weren't - the lowest price, $350 negotiable, but there's only so much one can negotiate! We bought some less expensive stuff as did most everyone else.

As we were leaving, the shop owner thanked us for coming and recited the Lord's Prayer in Aramaic, the language Jesus spoke.
 
Eastward toward the Judean wilderness, the earth appeared to drop away at the edge of Bethlehem. The blue sky disappeared into a dusty tan haze.

As we exited Bethlehem, Israeli security guards armed with automatic rifles bordered the bus requesting us to hold up our passports and then blew us off and waved us through. We had dinner and slept in Jerusalem's elegant Dan Hotel.  

Jericho

In Biblical times, travelers seeking Jerusalem from Galilee, crossed the Jordan River to the pagan East Bank where the going was easier and then crossed back again a few miles from the oasis of Jericho.  Crossing the Jordan was considered a ritual bath to cleanse oneself upon entering the promised land. Joshua crossed here. Elijah parted the waters here. John baptised Jesus here. 

A narrow road through no man's land bordered by barbed wire and a security gate brought us to the crossing - and what appears to be an isolated Orthodox church, lies in the country of Jordan on the other side of the river.   The river appears to be very narrow but in flood much wider. A sign on a wall of the baptism site records the water level in flood stage, January 13, 2013.  See photos.

After crossing the Jordan, travelers make their way across truly barren land to the Oasis of Jericho.  Today, Jericho lies within a Palestinian autonomous area so our Israeli guide pretended she was an American tourist even though the Palestinians knew she wasn't.

Here, we bordered cable cars to ascend the Mount of Temptation. A Greek Orthodox Monastery hugs the side of the mountain. Within the monastery lies the stone that the devil tempted Jesus to turn into bread. 

The monastery can be reached by an arduous climb in stifling heat or by cable car. We took the cable car.  Ethiopians came by foot. Humanity converged on the steps to the monastery.  Think hot and think crowded. No queueing here!

Upon reaching the stone,  the Ethiopians prostrated themselves, reached out to touch the stone and prayed. What made this place holy to me was not the monastery, the icons or the stone, but the Ethiopians who struggled up the mountain.  One should know that they are persecuted in their own land by Muslims who burned over fifty of their churches in 2011.







Christians in Ethiopia

Jordan Valley

Judean Mountain

Nazareth

On our way to Nazareth, we stopped at Kfar Kedem, located at Hoshaya, a moshavim type community of  about five hundred orthodox families.  After a few missed turns as our bus rolled through the community that looked like an American gated subdivision, we arrived at our gateway to Biblical times.

We learned, among other things, that farmers must a leave a corner of the field unharvested for the poor and that a donkey and an ox must not be yoked together. This reminded me somehow of Molly and Warbonnet harnessed to the hay wagon back in West Texas. Molly would slack off and Warbonnet would pull for her. Without a Git Up, Molly, Warbonnet would have worked himself to death .  I don't think an ox would do that for a donkey!

Joanne ground wheat into flour the old fashioned way before we all made pita bread for a snack before lunch.  Many of us got a kick out of riding the little donkeys before we continued to Nazareth.

Nazareth was a very small and very poor community of about two hundred in the boyhood time of Jesus.  People lived in interconnected caves .  Nazareth is now a city of eighty thousand, the Arab capital of Israel.  Eighty percent Christian twenty years ago;  it is now eighty percent Muslim.

We visited the Basilica of the Annunciation built in 1969 on the site of earlier Byzantine and Crusader churches that mark the site of the Annunciation.  The basilica has no arches; shapes of "A" and "M" remind us of Ava Maria.  I snapped a few photos of the many mosaics of the Virgin donated by communities from around the world.  Below this upper church lies the the Grotto or Cave of the Annunciation, where the angelic announcement to Mary occurred. 

Just down the street from the basilica, Muslim billboards proclaim Christians to be losers.  Perhaps the signs express anger and resentment - Muslims tried to build a Mosque here to overshadow the basilica but Israel intervened at the request of the Vatican.     





Nazareth - Catholic Encyclopedia Nazareth - Wikpedia
Nazareth - Bible Places

Kfar Kedem, Galilee Kfar Kedem, Galilee  Moshavim

Who Do You Say I Am?

Caesarea Philippi  - Pan is a prefix of Greek origin meaning

all or everything from which we get words like panic, pandemonium and pan grilled fillet!  Pan was also a Greek god with the hindquarters, legs, and horns of a goat.  Worshiped here on the southwestern slopes of Mount Herman at the source of the Banias River, a tributary of the Jordan,  Herod the Great's son, Philippi, built a temple to honor Caesar.  Jesus led his disciples here to affix them with "training wheels" before he sent them out own their own. 

Father Jerry twisted and turned on a makeshift pedestal as he portrayed a hell and brimstone preacher here before the gates of hell in this pagan place. Standing before the temple and the pagan gods, Jesus asked his disciples, "Who do men say that I am?" And they answered, "John the Baptist; but some say, Elijah; and others, one of the prophets."  He then said to them, "But who do you say that I am? "And Peter answered "You are the Christ."

Following this devotional interlude by the cool and flowing water, we boarded our bus to ride through the Hula Valley and on to Mount Tabor, the traditional site of the Transfiguration.  However, the actual site was probably somewhere near Caesarea Philippi  on Mount Herman.  

What did happen here was a victory of the Israelites over the Canaanites in the time of Deborah as described in the book of Judges.  Deborah wisely withheld attack until she saw clouds approaching from the Mediterranean.  The clouds meant rain. Rain it did, miring the Canaanites chariots in mud and thus giving the advantage to the chariotless Israelites.

Tour buses cannot navigate the steep and switch-backing road that leads to the top of mountain so we boarded small vans for the ride to the top along with a dozen or so other tour groups.  One would think, we would queue up for a ride back down. But tempers flared as tour groups and their guides tried to push ahead of us for the ride down. Apparently the concept of the queue doesn't exist in the Middle East.

On the top of the mountain, Antonio Barluzzi built the Church of the Transfiguration. Outside the church in a little courtyard, Father Jerry held another devotional. 

Once we were all down from the mountain and back on the bus we headed to a kibbutz near our hotel for dinner as the sun set over the Sea of Galilee. Along the way, I snapped a few pictures of the sea from sea level.  See below... 

 

Golan Heights

On the Golan Heights, Yom Kippur, 1973 - Syria invaded

Israel on the holiest day of the year with an overwhelming advantage in tanks, artillery and men.  The Israeli army held on at great sacrifice. One of the greatest tank battles in history played out in the Emek HaBakha Valley commemorated now as the Valley of Tears.  At a war memorial, we listened to a recording of a tank commander's radio communication while he was surrounded by Syrian forces. Although in Hebrew, we could feel the tension in his voice. For a detailed description of the battle click
War on the Golan. 


Our time on the Golan was, in contrast, serene with the exception of our wild ride in TOM CAR ATV's from
Kibbutz Merom Golan  to an old Syrian "hospital" near the border. We kicked up a lot of dust and made some noise! The "hospital" building, now abandoned, was actually a Syrian weapons depot and command post. We were right on the border about the time Israel bombed Syria to destroy weapons destined for Hezbollah.  But all was peaceful on the border.


Before the Six Day War, Syrian forces shelled the Hula Valley at will forcing children to sleep in bomb shelters. But the more serious issue was Syria's attempt to cut off two of the three sources of water for the Sea of Galilee, the only water supply for Israel at the time.  The water orginates in the Golan Heights.

Much of the Golan Heights looks like West Texas, good land for cattle.  Now that Israel controls the Golan Heights,  farms have blossomed on the land. Later, after touring a winery we had lunch at an olive oil factory here.

The next day we traveled North through the heights to Birket Ram, a Druze village, for lunch. We had Falafel, ground and fried chickpeas, in a pita with salad and humus. Yum! After lunch, we turned East to Banias - also known as Caesarea Philippi.  More about that later.

St Peter's Primacy & Capernaum

Rock Upon Which Jesus Cooked
 the Fish - copied from Wikipedia

May 3 - Again, the sky is clear and blue over the Galilee .  After a visit to the Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes, we moved a  short distance along the shore to St. Peter's Primacy. The former church marks the site where Jesus fed the five thousand. The latter marks the site where he fed the apostles after his resurrection.  Here Jesus told Peter to feed his lambs, marking Peter as the head of his church. See also the Wikipedia articles on St. Peter's Primacy and the theological debate about Peter's appointment as the leader of the apostles. 

We had Mass here in a beautiful spot on the shore of the Galilee.

Before heading up the Golan Heights for the afternoon, we watched a movie about the discovery and preservation of a fishing boat from the first century. See Jesus Boat.

May 4 - Dawn brought another beautiful morning on the Galilee. We visited Capernaum before heading for the Golan Heights again. A big bicycle race around the Sea of Galilee closed the roads so we were stuck for a little while before the police agreed to escort our bus through the race course. How nice was that!

 Capernaum, unlike Nazareth, was located on an "international" travel route. Its residents would have been routinely exposed to new and different ideas of travelers from a wider world than the Galilee. That Nazareth, on the other hand, was relatively isolated may explain why Jesus was accepted in Capernaum while facing rejection in his home town of Nazareth. 

Capernaum was also a fairly wealthy town, its residents receiving income from farming, fishing and taxes on travelers crossing the border.

A church built in 1990 sits above an earlier church built to mark the location of Peter's house. We had Mass here.

Check out the excellent photos at  Bible Walks-Capernaum.

We learned something else from Marian along the way. When the Bible uses two names for a person, the second name is a modifier that emphasizes something about the person. Take Mary Magdalene, for example. Magdalene refers to the town of Migdal and also the Hebrew word for strong. Migdal was a wealthy town. Thus, the Bible is saying Mary Magdalene was a wealthy and a strong woman. 

On the Shores of Galilee

Living Water - The Jordan River flows into the Sea of Galilee from the North and continues flowing through the Jordan River Valley at the south end of the sea. So, the Sea of Galilee gives as well as receives. The Jordan ends by flowing into the Dead Sea so the Dead Sea receives but does not give. By this example,  Israeli  school children are taught that those who give as well as receive live; those that only receive die.

Ten hours from Newark, our plane landed in Tel Aviv without incident. Bags collected and pilgrims herded together, we boarded our tour bus to travel via a highway that follows the ancient trade route, the Via Maris, to the Ramot Resort Hotel that overlooks the Sea of Galilee. Following an excellent meal under the stars, we fell into our beds over twenty-fours after leaving Punta Gorda.

The next day we started at 9 AM and did not return until 10 PM.  Following a visit to the Mount of Beatitudes with a devotional interlude with Father Jerry, we toured the archeological sites of Korazim and Bethsaida. The latter link will lead you to a site with a cool video about the ongoing archeological work at Bethsaida. 

After lunch at the fish restaurant of the Ein Gev Kibbutz, we boarded a boat for a trip across the Sea of Galilee.  Engine shut down, our boat rolled with waves in the middle of the Galilee while we celebrated Mass.

Before dinner at Decks in Tiberias, we were also baptized in the Jordan River at the Yardenit Baptismal Site.

Each day begins early and ends late - sometimes as late as 10PM. After three days of touring, we took Sunday morning off for a little time to relax around the pool. 



Click on Pictures