Jericho and Judean Wilderness, this time with students

Today we took our students to Jericho and the Judean Wilderness. If you have been following the blog, this sounds familiar, because this is where we went with our wives on the pre-trip last week. But while our preparatory trips can be a more academic and in-depth visits to the sites, going with students is what the program is all about.

With our students we teach.  With our students we sing and feel.  With our students we experience the sites, and it is akin to pilgrimage, the experience that Jewish, Christian, and Muslim visitors to this land have been having for centuries.

So some of the pictures below may look familiar, but I think that you will agree that with students in them, they are a lot more fun!

It is hard to see in this picture, but the ruins of Herod's Winter palace in Jericho are on the mound in the middle, below the modern green house.  I did my historical lecture from this vantage point, after which we sang "God of Our Fathers, Known of Old."  The Kipling lyrics were perfect for this opulent palace that was now a heap of ruins: "The captains and the kings depart . . . on dune and headland sinks the fire. Lo, all our pomp of yesterday is one with Nineveh and Tyre."

The peristyle court of Herod's palace

And some of our students having a little fun

A goat came to check out what we were doing, really!

After touring Tel es-Sultan, the archaeological mound that constitutes the remnants of old Jericho, we did something we did not do last week.  We went down and around to Ein es-Sultan, the spring of Jericho also known as Elisha's spring.

Drinking from Elisha's spring

The modern water works.  The vast majority of the water is immediately piped to supply the needs of modern Jericho and to support the agriculture of the region

Above St. George's Monastery in the Judean Wilderness, we read the account of Jesus' 40 days in the wilderness from Matthew 4 and sang "More Holiness Give Me."

Some remains of a Roman aqueduct can be seen at the top of the wadi

The ubiquitous bedouin vendors made a few shekels off of our students.  Here Michael-Sean Covey tries riding a donkey

The new Mary and Joseph?

Beach Outing to Bat Yam

Today's blog post is about neither historical nor religious sites. Sunday is our "free day," though I must have admit that I felt a twinge as we were getting ready to go out today and I heard church bells ringing throughout the city [the LDS Church has been holding services on Saturdays since the 1970s out of practicality . . . the work week for most in Israel is Sunday - Thursday].

So, I had promised the family that we would "get off of the cruise liner," as we sometimes refer to our lovely and self-contained center.  Elaine and the children absolutely love the beach, so today we drove to just south of Tel Aviv to spend much of the day by the sea.  Well, actually it was not that easy . . . we missed a term and ended up north of Tel Aviv part way to Haifa! So much for staying in our mileage this month.

The beach was at a place at the southern edge of Tel Aviv-Jafo (ancient Joppa) called Bat Yam.  Many Jews from the former Soviet Union, upwards towards a million, immigrated in the 90's in the years after the dissolution of the U.S.S.R.  As a result, not only were signs in the usual Hebrew, Arabic, and English, but sometimes in Russian too.

Bat Yam is on the Mediterranean coast at the southern edge of Tel Aviv-Jafo

All official signs in Israel are in Hebrew, Arabic, and, fortunately, English

The water was warm and the breeze was refreshing.  I alternated splashing in the waves with Rachel and Samuel and sitting on a chair, looking out at the waves of the Mediterranean and imagining Odysseus and is Homeric crew rowing by or a Roman galley sailing up to conquer.

Sam Man loves the beach!

Chairs for a day, 12 shekels. Umbrellas, 15 shekels.

Tel Aviv and much of the coast is VERY different from Jerusalem.

The Israeli flag was everywhere we turned.

Rachel left her name on the sand at the end of our day at the beach.

Ushering in the Sabbath at the Western Wall

This evening Rachel and I went with the other faculty, their families, and all the students down to the Kotel or Western Wall, which is the most famous, exposed section of the great retaining wall of the massive platform that Herod the Great built for his refurbished temple (Titus did such a good job in A.D. 70 at fulfilling the prophecy that "one stone would not be left on top of another" from Mark 13:2, that nothing from the actual temple itself has survived). Anyway, it is the most sacred spot for observant Jews since it was the closest thing to the Holy of Holies that has survived.

The reason that I have used a stock image from Wikimedia rather than one of my own is because we walked down at 5:45 so that we could be there when the Sabbath began at sunset, when no cameras or other electronic devices are allowed.  It was amazing to see such a diversity of worshipers, from the whole spectrum of observance and backgrounds, each with different costumes and traditions.

The plaza right before the wall is separated into a men's and women's section, so Rachel went with some of the students, while I led some of the male students into the worshiping area.  They held back, but I went right up to the wall to spend some private prayer time before going back to bring a few of the guys forward.

We then backed away from the wall itself to let other worshipers and and stood around an area where groups of soldiers and young men were singing and dancing to welcome the Sabbath.  We even joined in, clapping and making up the words the best we could.  Ran into the elders quorum president from the branch here, who is a physicist on sabbatical here but has been studying a lot of Hebrew on his own, and we went into the Kotel tunnel, which leads off of the plaza but follows the course of the Herodian wall, providing more prayer and reading space.

The center sent vans down to bring us home so that we did not need to walk through East Jerusalem in the dark.  As we drove by the temple platform, the Church of All Nations by Gethsemane, and other sights, all lit up, Rachel smiled and said she was glad to be here.

Jericho and the Desert

Today then faculty and their wives went on a "pre-field trip" to Jericho and the Judean Wildnerness.  We were joined for the first time by Andy and Janet Skinner.  Andy had taken Ray Huntington's place as associate director for academics.  This is his fifth "tour of duty" here in the Jerusalem program, and he brings a wealth of knowledge and experience.  I will miss Ray and Sandy, but I am looking forward to working with the Skinners.

Steve and Jen Harper; Eric and Elaine Huntsman; Margaret and Jared Ludlow

I also loved having Elaine with me on one of these trips.  Now that the children are in school, she is able to do a lot more of these things.

Elaine sporting her glitzy orange glitter toes at Jericho

Jericho, both ancient and modern, lies in the territory that is fully run by the Palestinian National Authority.  It was interesting to pass their checkpoint and see the Palestinian flag waving in an official capacity.  We passed a really big hotel that was built to support a casino that was started in the heady days immediately following the Madrid Conference and the Oslo Peace Accords, when Jericho was one of the first areas turned over to Palestinian control and Israelis flocked here in large numbers.  All that has ended, for now at least.

Besides being the lowest inhabited place on earth (well below sea level), Jericho is also the oldest city, with archaeological evidence suggesting that it was settled as early as 9,000 B.C.   In addition to being the place where Joshua began the Israelite invasion of the territory west of the Jordan River, it was also near where Elijah hid from Ahab, where he later called Elisha as his successor, and where Elisha healed the waters of the spring (Jericho is an oasis, completely dependent upon the springs in the area).

Diagram of the site of Tel es-Sultan, an archaeological mound of 26 or so habitations levels on the site of Jericho.

The Neolithic Tower is the oldest known human structure, supposedly having been built about 9.000 B.C.

These Middle Bronze Age walls date to about 2,500 B.C., considerably before the approximate 1,100 B.C. Israelite invasion, but they give an idea of what the walls looked like that "came tumbling down.'

Elaine on site!

This test video pans the site of ancient Jericho from the top of the tell, beginning with the Neolithic Tower, the oldest known structure from this, the earliest human city. It also shows off Elaine's fancy, glittery, orange toenails.

A brief survey of the Middle Bronze Age walls of Jericho (Joshua and company entered the Promised Land in the late Bronze Age, but this gives an idea)

Every site comes with a tourist trap!

Jericho was known as "the city of palm trees," and was an important source of dates and balsam.  It was also the "St. George" of the Holy Land, serving as the warm, pleasant winter retreat for kings.  Herod famously built a massive palace here.

Remains of Herod's winter palace.

 
Jericho was also a New Testament site.  Here Jesus cured blind men, and, most famously, called the tax collector Zacchaeus down from the sycamore tree to follow him.

This sycamore tree is only about 90 years old, but it is planted at a corner which tradition maintains where Jesus called Zacchaeus.  The actual crossroads were actually probably closer to Herod's winter palace.

On the way back to Jerusalem, we stopped in the Judean Wilderness at the point revered as the place where Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness fasting and was tempted by Satan.  It is certainly barren, but there were still bedouins on hand to try to sell trinkets and give camel rides!

Barren!

This barren stretch of Judean Wilderness has come to be one of the sites

The monastery of St. George perches on the side of the deep Wadi Qilt, commemorating the time that Jesus spent in the wilderness.

Busy Day but Great to Have Our Students Here at Last

Today was as busy as I could possible of handled.  Started the day, as most days, with the best workout that I could cobble together in the center's gym, followed by a run around Hebrew University.  Hurried to get ready and see the children off to their first day of school.

But then it was non-stop activities with the students, much more than we would normally have in a single day.  It started with a half-day field trip which was intended to be a "geography" trip that illustrated the physical features of the area around Jerusalem by taking the students to various points around the city that provide overlooks or prospects not just of the city but of nearby areas and geographic features.

Steve and I started at different ends of the route so that all 82 of our students would not overlap at the sites.  I intended to start in the south, at Mar Elias overlooking Bethlehem, but for traffic reasons we started at St. Peter in Gallicantu on Mt Zion first, which gave us a good view of the City of David and the Temple Mount, as well as the Hinnom Valley to the south.

The view of the Temple Mount from St. Peter in Gallicantu

It is so great to have all our students here at last.  Here are my 41 at the St. Peter in Gallicantu overlook

St. Peter "of the cock crow" is the traditional site of Caipahas' palace, where Jesus was examined by the Jewish leadership and where Peter denied knowing the Savior.

We then went down to Mar Elias, the Monastery of Elijah, where there is an overlook of Bethlehem.  Staring down at one possible location for "Shepherds Field," where the angel announced the birth of Jesus, we sang "O Little Town of Bethlehem" and "Far, Far Away on Judea's Plains," even though the geography made it clear that my ancestor John Menzies Macfarlane did not know the terrain when he wrote that carol!

My students at the Haas Promenade between Bethlehem and Jerusalem

Heading back to Jerusalem, we got some great pictures of the city from the Seven Arches overlook on the Mount of Olives before heading on to the Hospital and Church of Augusta Victoria on Mount Scopus (close to our center).

Dominus Flevit, or "the Lord wept"

Orthodox mourner at the Jewish graves on the Mount of Olives.

That is one unhappy camel.  I do not think he really wanted to spend a hot day giving tourists photo ops!

We climbed the tower of Augusta Victoria to see the Judean Wilderness towards Jericho, the Jordan, and the Dead Sea to the east; Bethany and even the distant Herodion to the south; Jerusalem to the west; and Gibeon and Bethel (almost, it was hazy) to the north).  But the best part was coming down to the lovely Lutheran chapel where we were permitted to have a devotional and sing.  I read about future events that will take place on the Mt of Olives from Mark 13 and Zechariah 14, and then we sang "Come O Thou King of Kings."  Then in honor of our Lutheran friends, we sang "A Mighty Fortress is our God," followed by "All Glory, Laud, and Honor."  I love this.

But the day was just beginning.  We headed back to the center for lunch and then we needed to make up our first day of classes, which was scheduled for last Friday but needed to be delayed until all the students go here.  Taught my introduction to the Old Testament lecture, and then, after a short break, took 11 of the students who just arrived yesterday, on their orientation walk around and through the Old City.  But the best part is that Elaine was finally feeling well enough, and now that the kids are settled, was able to go with me.  So FINALLY Elaine was able to see some historical and religious sites.

Elaine and I on the roof of the Austrian Hospice with the Dome of the Rock in the background