Israel

GBC Israel Trip 2015, Day 4 – Museum Day in Jerusalem

imageToday was a “museum day,” something I have not done quite this way before. We began at Yad VaShem, the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem. This is one of the best designed museums I have ever visited. A person can walk through the story of the Shoah from the beginnings of anti-Semitism and the rise of Hitler through the horrific events in the ghettos and death camps. There are numerous video interviews with survivors who tell their stories, many of these devastate me even though I have heard them several times. If you have the time to read the hundreds of displays you will have a full education in world history surrounding the Holocaust. While there are a few this that betray a bit of a slant, overall I think this is a museum all people should experience.

I am always interested in the reactions of my students as they encounter the story in more detail than an American usually hears. I think this group is one of the more serious I have had the pleasure of leading, and they asked several excellent questions along the way. I was surprised, however, that several did not really realize the Christian community not only was silent when the worst was happening, but participated in the crimes of the Holocaust. One asked me when the Nazis started coming after Christians. My response (“these were the Christians!”) shocked the student.

For those who are a bit younger, it is impossible to imagine the kind of police state that could enforce the crimes against humanity described in detail in the Yad VaShem. To me, this is the question the present generation must deal with. The events of the last week in Baltimore indicate a peaceful nation can be torn apart suddenly. The Christian church cannot be silent about racism against any people nor should we actively participate in attacks against people based on irrational prejudice.

imageFor the first time in many years I took a group to the Israel Museum. After walking around Jerusalem yesterday, most on the students were very interested in the model of Jerusalem from the Second Temple Period. While there a few odd things in the model I don’t quite understand, it is a wonderful teaching tool and most of the students actively participated in our discussion at the model.

We walked through the Shrine of the Book, the hall that houses the Dead Sea Scrolls. Most are Sectarian, although there is a nice display of 1QIsaa showing the best features on the book. This Dead Sea Scroll exhibit is good, but anyone who has studied the Scrolls should have a good grasp of the displays already. I do recommend some time spent in the lower level, which tells the story on the Aleppo Codex. (I do not recommend spending much time in the “nano-Bible” room.)

We walked over to the main museum and I let the kids have something to eat and the walk through the archaeological wing at their own pace. I naturally skipped lunch to spend maximum time looking over the excellent collection. I would estimate an interested visitor could spend several hours in this section alone! There are too many highlights to list here, but I thought the early history of Canaan was particularly good, and there were several important inscriptions on display from the later Second Temple period. There might be a rumor going around I “giggled like a school girl” on one occasion, but that remains unconfirmed.

We start early tomorrow at the Mount of Olives. It will be a long walking day, but very exciting.

GBC Israel Trip 2015, Day 3 – Seven Miles in Jerusalem

Today was a very long walk from our hotel to the Old City of Jerusalem. According to several step-counters people wore, we walked about 7 miles today. One estimate was higher, but the other two were a bit lower, but based on how my feet feel, 7 miles is just about right.

On the Old City Ramparts

 We started walking for our hotel Garden Tomb, a short walk from our hotel. As always the Garden Tomb is a delight. The grounds are a well-kept garden and the staff guides have always been very good. What I particularly appreciate is the clear message that it does not matter if this was the real tomb of Jesus, the only this that is important is that he is not in the tomb! In fact, there is almost no chance this was the tomb of Jesus, but the Garden Tomb is a lovely place to think about the death and resurrection. We had a short communion service (accompanied by the loudest sparrow in all Israel).

From the Garden Tomb we walked up the hill to Jaffa Gate. I will admit the hill is a bit steeper than I remember. We (ok, I) stopped about halfway up the hill to catch our breath, and while I was standing there young man approached me and asked if I was leading a tour. I thought this was perhaps a tour guide trying to find a job, but it ended up being a gentleman from Serbia who is visiting Jerusalem for one day and hope to be able to join us as we visited a few sites. He ended up being a great addition to the group and we had a nice talk over lunch about history and politics.

We did the Rampart walk from the Jaffa Gate to the Damascus Gate. This walk gives the students an overview of two or three sections of the city. The highlight for me is the  Hadrian-era Damascus Gate, since this shows how deep underneath the present “old city” the first and second century city of Jerusalem really is. Unfortunately the gate is not accessible as it once was. I used to be able to walk under the existing Damascus Gate and go through the the gate back up to the Ramparts. All this is locked out now.

From the Damascus Gate we headed back to visit the Western Wall. I had intended to visit the Pool of Bethesda, but we did not get off the Ramparts until noon, the site was closed. We did stop for lunch (your choice, pizza, schwarma or falafel) and an icy  lemon mint  drink.

The Western Wall plaza has not changed much since the last tour, although I noticed they moved the entrance to the Temple Tunnels back by the security checkpoint. The Herodian excavations are not open to the public, and the people at the gate resisted my plea for a quick look. I this this is going to be a very nice addition to a Jerusalem tour in the future.

I took the group up the steps toward the Jewish Quarter so the could buy some cold water or maybe an ice cream. Unfortunately the toilets were under repair, so several of us (mostly Zac) were in great need.   After most of the group bought t-shirts of American sports teams in Hebrew, we cut back through the city to the Holy Sepulchre.

Outside the Holy Sepulchre

The Holy Sepulchre is one of those places your need to visit on a tour to Israel,although I am never really happy about it. It is of great historical significance, but it is also a place where many legends about Jesus are perpetuated to serve the faithful. Is the is real site of Golgotha and the Tomb? Perhaps, and there is a better chance this is the site than the Garden Tomb, but as a Protestant, I think the place obscures the truth more than is expected.

Back to the Leonardo Hotel for a great dinner, although not everyone appreciates beef tongue like I do.

GBC Israel Trip Day 1 and 2 – Traveling to Jerusalem

Our long travel day started from the Grace Bible College commons, and although the bus was late and we hit some really slow traffic, we made it to Chicago in time to make the flight. Funny that a trip of 6000 miles starts with road construction in West Michigan,

imageThere are 25 in our group, five veterans of previous GBC trips to Israel. Josh and Lisa Tweist were on the 2011 trip (which started in Jordan) and Becca Zuber was a member of the 2013 trip. She is along as a chaperone. Scott Shaw (professor at GBC) is along for the third time, providing his usual help and occasional Tae Kwon Do lessons. It was good to see Jeremy Herr, a pastor in Long Island and one my my former students. Jeremy flew separate from us and we met up at the Ben Gurion airport.

The Chicago to Frankfurt flight was long, eight hours flight time. Not much to do but sleep, although the small child sitting behind me kept that from happening. We had a short layover in  Frankfurt before flying to Tel Aviv. Our drive to the Hotel Leonardo near the Damascus Gate was uneventful and we checked in with no problems. We had a great dinner, no complaints on the food from this group.

We start tomorrow at the Garden Tomb, just a short walk from the hotel. We will the head to the Jaffa Gate and walk the ramparts, visit the Western Wall and the Holy Sepluchure.

Israel 2013, Day 11 – Homeward Bound

This was our last day in Israel, and we made it count. Staring at Tamar at 9AM, we drover north to En-Gedi. This is the canyon where David hid from King Saul in 1 Sam 24. While there are plenty of caves, I doubt any of the current caves are the place where David was hiding when Saul came to “cover his feet.” With a supply of water, shade, animals and defensive lookouts, it is little wonder that David would have used this canyon as a base of operations in the Negev. The Israeli Parks service has made this an easy hike, although there are a few scrambles up rocks. We started about 9AM, so the park was not really crowed, only a few small groups. We had a few photo ops with rock badgers, but the wild goats were all in hiding from the heat. We did see an unusually large fresh water crab.

Kodie samples the water at David's waterfall

Kodie samples the water at David’s waterfall

After drinking water (and eating ice-cream, just like David did I am sure), we continued north to Qumran. The site is little changed from previous visits, but this time there were almost no other visitors. It was about noon by this time and quite hot. Most groups do not even go out to the site, they stop for the buffet and shopping area. This is sad, because Qumran is one of the most significant sites for the study fo the New Testament. Since the Dead Sea Scrolls were found near the site, I usually take the time to talk a bit about the Essenes and the problems with the relationship between the villa at Qumran and the presence of the scrolls. I tend to accept the “standard” view that the villa was used by some Essenes and that they collected the scrolls and stored them away in the caves prior to A.D. 70. Because of the heat, we walked the site quickly and spent some time in the shaded area near the cave view talking about the contents of the Dead Sea Scrolls and why they are important to the study of the New Testament.

After some lunch and shopping, we drive to the Inn of the Good Samaritan, a relatively new site on the road from Jericho to Jerusalem. This was a new site to me since it was only recently added to the National Parks pass. The main attraction is a nice museum of mosaics from various synagogues and churches. There is a room dedicated to the Samaritans as well. The museum is built on the site of a crusader era church dedicated to the Good Samaritan. If you have an hour or so, and do not have a group of tired college kids with you, it is worth a stop.

After the Inn of the Good Samaritan, we drove to the Jaffa Gate for a final few hours of shopping in the Old City. Since it was a Friday afternoon, the crowds were a bit lighter than our previous visit. While most of the students had shopping lists of souvenirs they wanted to buy for people back home, I really just wandered around watching people. I listened to a Guide give an explanation of the Holy Sepulchre which was sad indeed. He gave far more time to the story of the Keeper of the Key than to Jesus. His talk was devoid of real history (mostly legends about the building) and he had no real idea who Jesus was. I guess it did not matter, most of his group were playing on their cell phones and not really paying attention.

After we re-gathered we headed to the airport. As I said, this is Friday evening. Ben Gurion Airport was in Shabbat mode. Only a single coffee stand was open and the place was as silent as a grave. This was a pleasant change from the usually midnight flight crowds. Since our fight did not leave until 12:40 AM, we had to hunker down for a few hours.  Passing through security was a big part of that time, since several of our people had to open bags and explain their 30 tiny jars of honey (or other odd images). Our return flights were smooth and on time. In fact, we got to Chicago before our drivers arrived to pick us up!

This was a great trip overall. The students were excellent, attentive, and well behaved (at least in front of me). I thoroughly enjoyed the trip despite being sick for most of the time. Thanks to all of you who have been reading along. I obviously finished this last installment after I caught up on some sleep over the weekend!

Israel 2013, Day 10 – The Negev

We got an early start from Tamar, driving north and a bit east to Mamshit. This is a well preserved Nabatean trading village along the Incense Route. I have only visited this site once before, in January 2012, so there are a number of this I wanted to explore, at the top of the hill there is an early Byzantine church with a number of Greek mosaics and a most interesting baptismal in a side room. The size and shape both strike me as odd, since it seems to have been used for immersion (there are steps), it it is so small it would have to be a self immersion at best. Mamshit also has a large Nabatean mansion with several nicely reconstructed rooms. Since we saw the Nabatean tombs at Petra, it is god to see how the wealthy lived.

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From Mamshit it is a short 40 minute drive to Tel Arad. This marvelous site has been on all six of my tours for several reasons. First, the Canaanite villages allows visitors to see a Canaanite home (in contrast to a four room house) as wee as a Canaanite sacred precinct. At the top of the Tel is an Israelite fortress excavated to the eighth century B.C. The large gates loom over the site, but the real highlight is an early Israelite temple at the center. This complex of rooms is the same general proportions as Solomon’s temple, although the Holy of Holies in the center of the Temple rather than at the end. A standing stone was found in the Holy of Holies, but it has been moved to a museum. Two incense stands were found buried in the ground, either as the result of Hezekiah or Josiah’s reforms.

From Arad we drove to Masada, the highlight of any tour of the Dead Sea region. Masada was a desert fortress / palace built by Herod the Great on the top of a steep, flat-topped mountain. He had cisterns and a water system built to collect the minimal rainfall and provide water for most of a year, and storehouses for food, wine, weapons and other supplies. While the Herodians planned for a worst case scenario, it was a group of Zealots who captured the citadel when Jerusalem rebelled against Rome. When Jerusalem fell, the Zealots held put at Masada for over a year, finally choosing to kill themselves rather then be captured by Rome.

Our visit was early afternoon, so it was beastly hot. We made our way to the store rooms, northern palace, bath house and fantastic view of the Dead Sea valley, looking to the north. Most of the kids went down the stairs to the palace, I stayed on top to take their picture. Not that I couldn’t walk back up those stairs…

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We had more than an hour for the Dead Sea float. We went to a private beach behind a cosmetics store, which has a nice patio with cold drinks and that type of thing. Everyone went into the water, although I neglected to warn the ladies to not shave their legs that morning (I never remember that, for some reason).

Tomorrow is our last full day in Israel, starting the the desert at Tamar, hiking at En Gedi, visiting Qumran, and a final fling in the Old City.