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well there's been some interesting times...

Here's to reflection on the past week. I know I didn't really write up anything substantial about my Galilee trip, but that just leaves one more story I can tell in person, so get excited (its probably not that exciting) but I have other issues that deserve my time not just field studies. For example, I went running the other day, and we stopped at a nice, scenic overlook known as the promenade. As we were stretching (we being Ashley, Brandon, and I) a man turned to me and said, "Do you think he will come from the clouds?" Suffice to say, for the first minutes none of us knew what he was asking. Finally we realized he was talking about Messiah. The conversation that ensued will trouble me forever. The truth mixed with fiction was so confusing but sounded so alluring that at times I could have been convinced he was a Christian, but at other times I would not have been surprised if he had been the Antichrist. Let me explain. He said things as crazy as that Moses could have gotten the Law from Aliens, and he said things like that we are all a little bit of God (much like Leibniz) but God was more God than all of us. He said a lot of interesting things, like that Moses was 30% messiah, and David 50% messiah, and Jesus 70% messiah, and one day finally messiah 100% will come and the world will be made like Eden again. Like I said very interesting, just weird. He said a lot more, but i don't feel like typing it all... basically he put it that he was like one before John the baptist. he was preparing the way for one to prepare the way for Messiah (who will be here by 2010 according him, his name was Ruven). He has argued with Rabbis about the relevance of the new testament, and some of what he says was good, but so much was wrong that it just showed me how great the threat of Satan is in his twisting of the truth.

The second thing that I wanna bring up was when a guy came and talked to us for Vespers. He was from an organization that works for the recolciliation of Jews and Palestinians through Jesus Christ. He leads trips into the desert and lets them work out their differences and grow in friendship... he said a lotta stuff that was really cool (like go to fuller semanary haha) but what hit me the most was when he said that if you just sit down in a church and try to just spout out all the problems you have with the other person nothing will happen but more pain. You forget that oyu are both human, and just have different backgrounds and think that you are two completely diferent entities. It reminded me of the Church today... how we are all Christians but our different views as prodistant or baptist or evangelical free or whatever split us apart... are we not all the body of Christ? anyway I just ate lunch and need to go burn off some of the 1500 calories i just consumed.

Cheers,

DP

From the Gates of hell to Beattitude Mountain...

This is a picture of Trey and I standing atop the "Gates of Hell" at Ceserea Phillipi. The Gates of Hell was a spring coming forth from a cave with a temple to the goddess Pan built around it. This was also the spot that Jesus said those famous words to Peter: "On this rock I will buld my church and the gates of hell will not stand against it." Well those gates did not keep Trey and I from climbing to the top of them. In this picture (to the right people) you can actually see the cave itself to the right of my head.

The whole trip was full of experiences like this, but one thing that struck me on the trip actually came from the reading I did on the bus rather than the places I traveled to (although as I said those were amazing). I finished C.S. Lewis' Out of the Silent Planet on this trip, and got 3/4's of the way through Peralandria before the trip was over, and a quote from Peralandria stuck out to me. I just gave the book back to its owner, so I will not be able to phrase this as well as Mr. Lewis does, but the idea was something like this: after eating the most delicious fruit that Ransom (the main character) had ever tasted, he was about to reach for another w hen stomething within him stopped him from doing so. He then wondered how many times he repeated an action simply for the reason plying him to repeat the pleasure he had just experienced when he really was satisfied and repeating the action would only give him a lesser filling of pleasure because he no longer desired the fruit for food, it was simply reason that pushed him to repeatedly fulfill his "desire" which was already satisfied. Doing so again would do no more than take the true joy out of the act. Like trusting someone's word only once you know the truth, there is no real trust. Anyway I just thought it was an interesting, applicible thought.

Perhaps later I'll update this further, but for now know that it was a sweet four days.

Cheers,

DP

Adventures in Galiliee

The quest for mount Meron.

Day one. Our adventure was set to begin at 8:00 AM, but we have been beset by downfalls. Tyson and I hiked up the King David street to find budget, our call rental place. Upon our arrival we found an uncomfortable seen of a man talking about damage done to his rental car. When the woman behind the counter finished with the one fortune in patron, she turned to Ty and I and said, “can I help you? “ yes” Tyson replied. “ we have a car reservation." “ OK, how old are you? “ 21 “ space "we don't read to you. You must be 24.“… oh no… so sadly we walked back to school. After much deliberation we decided to find another place that would rent to us. Finally, finding a Hertz that would give us a car, without insurance mind you, regret the tightly compact Hyundai GETZ “fun” on the back, although we did not accomplish this before listening to a guy complain and make the same for our radio five times, we hit the road. Our first stop on our trip, after praying and finding our way out of the city of Jerusalem, by the grace of God, we took the Assent of Adomimme, was check point. We were asked for our passports and only had two with us, and the woman checking us did not know much English… so we had to pull over for investigation. We gave our identification and the passports we had to the two men with guns, and Tyson started some small talk about Jacksonville. It went something like this. “ I have family of their "" it's nice, you should go. " eventually this conversation acted like a password because we were released to continue our travels. Surviving nearly getting deported we climbed the hills closer to Galilee and mount Meron. Once we get past the sea itself we decided to stop for a nice lunch of peanut butter and jelly along with whatever other wonders George had prepared for this. We pulled all into a force to delay (yes they were real trees I am interested), peed as a body, and snagged a picnic table. Pulling out the orange bag with the white bag in it, Tyson opened it to the words “this is a” . Cherries? Pounds and pounds of cherries. Gooey, read, face, sugary cherries. We laugh and really hard, on as we had no food for the weekend aside from these charities. We all congratulated John at grabbing the cherries from the fridge (although it wasn’t really his fault as he asked George and George said have a great weekend guys). So we called professor Cindy, she was no help and school cannot offer us any aid. So in the closest gas station we looked for food. We needed a grocery store. A lady from Canada points as the direction of a town near by vut warns us that they will be closing for Shabbat. So we raced off only to find a maze of a town with only one way streets. After exploring for quite a while we stumbled upon, again by the grace of God, a grocery store we get inside only to find, due to Shabat left in the 40 bread containers. Sadly we purchase peanut butter, nutella, rice cakes which were on sale, and hot dogs. I also bought some dates and two apples. Oh, and some peanuts. They closed for Shabat just as we left. After he had quick lunch, we headed, finally, to the mountain. it was super sweet. After a half-hour climb we made it to a sweet lookout point and got some sweet pictures. From there we went and found a campsite, an Israeli military base on top of the mountain, and explored farther. When we finally set up our campsite, it was almost dark. As we lit our campfire, darkness was upon us. We didn’t start the fire for about 30 minutes due to our lack of skillz. Finally it was started and we cooked our chicken dogs. I think John might have eaten 20. There were 3 left and I threw them at John telling him to get rid of them. He said no and threw them back. I replied, “I wash my hands of this”. And went to bed. It was 7:30. The rest of the guys were in bed by 9 and we slept. 5 of us, in a 3 man tent with our bags in the 2 person across from us. At 2 am I awoke to a sound which I thought was Willie Snoring. It wasn’t. I looked over at Tyson and John and Willie and John leaned over and said, “There is a bear outside our tent.” After I woke up Josh, we heard more growling and snorting… and decided it was not a bear, rather it was a wild boar, which can be equally dangerous. We listened and counted 5 boar at least with one that was huge with a deep rumbling voice. When we thought they had left, we were about to go outside when we hear more of the same, and get terrified haha. Finally, after the big one sniffed our tent and nuzzled up to Johns leg, they left. We all went outside to pee, only to find out hotdogs gone with the wrapper covered in saliva. Never again will I make that mistake. The next morning we read the Bible and hiked the rest of the mountain, then went to the Hexagon pools which was sweet. Oh we also put up will’s flag which we have a video of. Check it out, its sweet. Then we spent the night after dinner on the shore of the Sea of Galilee watching the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen. It was an amazing weekend I will never forget, to say the least.

here are some pictures for you.

The Negev and then some...

To begin our longest trip yet we boarded the bus and took a little trip past Nebi Samwil (the place where Samuel is supposedly buried) and took our first stop at the national park where we walked down into the Sorek Valley. Along the way we s topped and read Judges 5, a passage about Deborah where it reads that the people were sticking to back roads which were much like the trail we were currently traveling on, rather than the main roads (see also Isaiah 62:10). We descended a bit further to see a “house” which really consisted of a cave in the rock, which would be an average Israelite dwelling. At our next sitting place we could see the western settlements of Jerusalem. We were just above the end of the Sorek Canyon. In this area is nice cenomanian rock with terra rosa soil, and the land here is kept within the family and the small spring found in the area is enough to support everyone living there. We red 1 kings 4:25 which describes the “good life” which is living under your own vines and eating, sleeping, and living in peace. Climbing down a bit farther we read Psalm 80 which uses vine imagery, which was very cool since we were stopped by a bunch of grape vines (see also Psalm 128; Isaiah 7; John 15). We also read Isaiah 5 which again speaks of grape vines (a vineyard). John 15 was interesting because it shows Jesus as becoming what Israel was supposed to be. They were often portrayed as a vine, but Christ is the True Vine! At our last stop I took a sweet picture of the “Good Land” being plowed.

We then began our ascent (I climbed up the face of the cliff in a poor decision and fought my way through many thorns and thistles and almost fell to my death a few times), boarded the bus, and traveled on to a spot on the Sorek Valley near Beth Shemesh.
From this spot we could see Zorah and Eshtaol, both of which play important roles in the story of Samson. But before we talked about Samson, Cyndi Parker (our professor of course) talked about the cycle that chapter two of Judges begins that is displayed throughout the book: 1) Israel worships the Baals around them 2) God is angry and allows persecution by the people around Israel 3) Israel cries out 4) God raises a Judge for Israel who delivers the people from their persecutors until the death of the Judge 5) Israel goes back to their evil ways. As the book goes the people rally less and less to the Judge until Judges 13 where a new cycle begins with Samson w here no Israelites remain that are willing to come together under the Judge. It is worth mentioning that Samson carried the city gates quite a ways. Look up the story and look at a map… he wasn’t just strong, he could walk a ways to!! The event of him taking the city gaates was not just a random event to show Samson can pick up gates… but when one took the “gates of the city” one is said to have conquered that city. Thus Samson was trying to rally the people around him by essentially saying “I took this city by myself, rally to me and we can defeat the Philistines!!” Needless to say, it didn’t work.
Our next stop was at Azekah, the place where the story of David and Goliath unfolded. From our spot we could see the upper Shephelah (Eocene rock). These hills are lower rolling hills than we are used to seeing. The Husan Ridge Route which is marked on our maps from Bethlehem to Socoh passes through this area. In 1 Samuel 17:2 the emmic is the valley mentioned, which is a flat valley with sloping sides. In verse 3 the Hebrew word for valley is gai which is describing a valley with v-shaped sides. Quite interesting the difference the two words could make realistically between two armies. The pictures that I have display the emmic, while the gai would be on the other side of the hills. It was definitely cool to see where the battle lines would have been, or even were drawn between Israel and the Philistines. The Husson ridge route would have been David’s path to his brothers from his home in Bethlehem.

Our next and second to last stop was Lachish (the toaster) (sorry that’s an analogy from class that few understand ;-)). This city is important for Israel and the Philistines because it holds the fertile valleys of the wadis and it is an opening past the hill country’s natural defenses into the heart of Israel (Hebron and Jerusalem). The picture following this paragraph displays the Assyrian siege ramp which captured the city (the Israelites tried to make a ramp on the other side of the wall to continue to reinforce and build up the wall, but to no avail). We sat near the inner gate where a room used to stand known as the “room of letters” because many letters where found there during excavation. We talked about Solomon fortifying the routes going from the valleys and the hill country. Jar handles found in fortified cities entitled “for the king” showed that Rahaboem was storing goods via taxes for the fortified cities encase of siege.

Our final stop (which I regret I have no pictures of because I was too busy swimming) was the Mediterranean Sea. Now I have saw in 2 of the 4 (at least) seas I will be swimming in while I am here (actually I get number 3 on this trip as well). It was clear and warm and awesome. There was a sand bar a little ways out and we rode waves like nobody’s business. Then we took our two hour drive to the youth hostel on the edge of the super bowl (which looked awesome at night) but I will talk about it my next section.
Here we start day two. Rather than explain what the “Super Bowl” looks like, I will show you.

This is only one of many pictures of the giant crater in the earth found in the Negev. We started our day here. Some of the rock we could see (and you can too!) is as old as the Jurassic period. Wow. If you ever want to travel there and see it for yourself, stay at the Youth Hostel in Mizpeh Ramon, it was super nice. Super nice, I sound like Ashley Greenwell ;-). We talked about how the Greater Negev represented Israel’s honeymoon stage with God, a place where they had nothing but lacked nothing. The prayer in the desert is not “God take me out of this place” rather it is “meet me here”. God places us into the desert to revive his relationship with us back to the necessity of the honeymoon stage, and we should not want to leave this place, as hard as it may be, without taking full advantage of that gift. Looking around this giant Maktesh (in Hebrew this huge bowl is called Makhtesh Ramon meaning great maktesh or great crater) we could truly understand the image of God as our Rock. The rock surrounding us was breathtaking. Do we see our God as so breathtaking? I could even see why God cannot be in the presence of sin. As I looked down I saw a lone plastic bag floating around the edge of the wall, and it made the majestic scene immediately less astounding. It took away from the glory of the maktesh, and God cannot allow the same to be done to him.
Our next stop was Avdat (which was formally known as Aboda). This was one of the few Nabatian cities. We watched a movie on the nomadic people known as the Nabatians. They have the finest type of pottery of anyone of their day, which was strange since they traveled all the time to and fro across the desert. No one but them knew their secret ways to traverse this landscape, and this made them very wealthy. Even when the Romans conquered the Nabatians, they could not glean their paths across the desert. The Byzentine remains here at this site allow us to assume that the Nabatians were assimilated into their ranks after the Romans took their toll. Check it out.
We even saw a sweet wine press here (which is crazy because it was in the desert, and I’ll tell you guys some stories about this site sometime but enough is enough for now).

From here we traveled to Beer Sheva, which is in biblical history was settled by the patriarchs. There is no archeological evidence of this (which is not surprising) because they were nomads dwelling in tents until when Israel comes in under Joshua making permanent settlements. What we do have are wells which could have been dug by Abraham and Isaac themselves. This is also where Hagar and Ishmael would have been in Genesis 21:14 (the wilderness of Beer Sheva) when they were cast out of Abrahams household. Another story which took place here was that of Samuel’s sons who were the religious rulers of the area but were untrustworthy and were the last straw before the people demanded a king. Also noteworthy is that Beer Sheva was a city of refuge (one of 6), a place where someone who murdered another accidentally could escape from an avenger of blood. This was the location of a four horned alter, which was a strange site since it was cut from stone, not simply made of uncut stones as the Israelites were supposed to make their alters. We looked at the gate of the city, built at the lowest point where the water of the city could drain, and we talked about (among many other things) the three large storehouses so that (perhaps) food could be stored for military pushes into the grater Negev.


After we finished here by walking through the water system of the city, the group was ferried over (by the bus) to Tel Arad. As we looked into the biblical Negev we could see the hills of the Transjordan and even into Moab. Arad anchors the land of Israel watching the lands of Edom and Moab and perhaps was even more of a stronghold than Beer Sheva. Arad had no natural springs but took advantage of the hills to catch a ll of the water draining. In Obadiah, a book which is essentially just written against the Edomites, we read verse 9 and onward from there objectifying Edom watching and aiding Babylon in defeating Israel so that they could take the land surrounding Arad from Israel when Babylon defeats them. One question that arises from Tel Arad is the remains of a lesser temple modeled after the temple in Jerusalem and probably built by Solomon. However at this temple there were two standing stones and two alters… some might argue that it had to do with the assimilation of the cultures around them and one was for God and one for his wife, or it was a temple for Solomon’s wives, the answer (as of yet) remains unclear. Thus ended day two of our Journey.
Day three was the most physically stimulating. We began by driving to an overlook of Masada too talk about the aquifer that Herod the Great created to bring water to his desert fortress. From here we drove to the base of the great fortress and had the immense pleasure of trying to run up the siege ramp. I think Trey did it in like 2:35 seconds or so, I managed it in 3:10. Dan does not like running stairs, or running in general. Anyway the fortress was amazing. We talked about three areas of Masada: Its excavation, Herod the Great, and Josephus.

The excavation was done by an Israeli general, who was the first to incorporate the people into the dig getting people to see it as an honor to dig and doing so at their own expense, and he was the first to start the idea of a reconstruction line showing what was standing before and what was rebuilt by archeologists. Herod the great had Masada as his greatest accomplishment. With two palaces (one for him and now for whoever he was entertaining) he was a master of fine design and a genius of beauty. He had various ways of making things look even better than they were (i.e. plastering the walls). Lastly we talked about the story of the zealots defending Masada from the Romans as told my Josephus. Crazy interesting story, and the siege ramp was super cool, especially how it only came to the base of the wall so the roman siege machines could come and do the rest… but the really interesting part is where the Romans finish the ramp, breach the wall, then wait until morning only to find the zealots all dead except a woman or two and some children who hid. Read the story, its sweet.

Our next stop was the dead sea. That was really cool. I never knew I would have the inability to sink in water, but now I know what it is like. And putting one’s tongue to one’s finger was the worst salty taste throughout your entire mouth ever. There was even Crystallized salt lying around. I felt almost greasy on your body in t he water and out of it. I didn’t take any pictures here but I am getting some off of Brandon’s Camera so I’ll put them up when I get them. Lunch here was awesome. Hotdogs and hummus. Delicious. Next we went to our second to last stop, En Geti Springs. En Geti was like a big park with a stream running through it with Ibex running around and pools we could swim in. It was beautiful. Again I’ll get pictures when I steal them from Trey.
After a bath in the freshwater springs, which nicely washed the salt from our bones, we spent our last stop at Qumran. This is the site of the finding of the Dead Sea scrolls. There are various interpretations of the settlement below the caves where the scrolls where found, but it may have been an Essene community that was writing the scrolls and hiding them in the caves. The truth is yet to be discovered, for not everything points to this as accurate. Lastly we climbed up on a rock and read some scripture and drew our trip to a close. Here is a picture to close out this super long entry.

Sameria

Another day in the life of a foreigner in Israel... who is at this very moment making his experience as American as possible. To explain, I am currently watching men in black and laughing as will smith makes a fool of himself as only he can. As for the real life portion, life is good. I don't have an enormous work load (aside from perhaps 4 papers and some greek). This past weekend we went up into Sameria. I'm once again going to post my reflection report from the weekend if you care to read it... then maybe some summarizing thoughts at the end.

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Today was pretty good, but it wasn’t my favorite field study. I remembered my passport, I brought two apples, I was ready for a day of adventure… but the day was rather lacking in adventure. Maybe it was the 20 minutes in the bus before our first stop (an outlook looking over the mountains of Ephraim), but something must have killed my adventurous spirit. After this stop we drove some more and then met up with an Israelite settler of the area of the Biblical city of Shiloh. He talked to us a lot about teenagers (who to him were the primary cause of the impossibility of peace between Arabs and Jews), but I couldn’t really hear him very well so I am not sure much of what else he talked about aside from some crazy stories about the 6 day war. Dr. Wright told us about the wonders of the land of Manasseh including its cenomanian soil and its interconnections between the costal highway and the rift valley. The difference between Ephraim and Manasseh and Jerusalem lie in these connections. While Jerusalem has few routes in and out and few connections to international trade, Ephraim and Manasseh are riddled with passages allowing those living in those areas (and invaders) to move about much more freely. We also went to Mount Gerazim, and a nearby city. We ate lunch at this city (hummus and pita with some meat and cheese, always a good lunch on these trips). After a hearty lunch we walked up the street to a fenced in area where several children were kicking around a soccer ball and there was an old basketball hoop. Aside from these festivities there were several wells covered with metal bars and what we later learned to be an alter. Here we talked to a Samaritan priest about who the Samaritans are and what they believe. He explained that the Samaritans believe in the five books of Moses *which differ slightly from the books of Moses found in the Tenach* and do not then have need to worship in Jerusalem. Although their children go to school learning Arabic, they are taught Hebrew, the language in which they pray to “The God”. It was hard seeing people who were so close to the origins of the Truth and who have drifted so far. They await a messiah they do not know, one who unbeknownst to them has already come. I can almost understand why Christ had such compassion on the Samaritan woman with her “5 husbands.” The man we were talking to explained that the area we were standing in is the area where the Samaritans celebrated Yom Kippor and other festivals and the wells were where the sacrificial meat was cooked and the alter where they were sacrificed. It was fascinating to hear him explain, but as I have already mentioned heart breaking at the same time. After speaking with this man we went to Mt. Gerazim and looked down upon the city below us. We could see many of the homes of the Arab refugees forced there after their expulsion from Israeli territory. From the land of Samaria we headed to our final destination (which on the way to we stopped on an overlook covered in garbage smelling like death with bones everywhere… that stop was awful except for the sweet Terra Rosa terracing we could see from the overlook). At Shiloh we talked about the story of Samuel and about the Tabernacle. We looked at a small model of the Tabernacle and examined the remains of the wall surrounding the city. We also talked about “glacis” which is the supports running up the wall from the outside not only supporting the wall but making it at an angle so that archers could see the enemy without peering over the walls edge and so that battering rams could not so easily bash at the wall. After this we looked at an olive and grape press then headed back to the bus and home. Although it was a fun day (as field studies usually are) it just seemed a little lacking in comparison to the usual grandeur.

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It is easy to do nothing here. Just sit back and relax. We had our first rain the other day. It was awesome. Its hard to write for real while watching the movie... so I'll finish this later. But, enojy what there is for now.

the next stage (wowzer?)

This is Willie
Oh my dear readers

things are going at light speed and a snails pace as usual. I am right now sitting at a table in the shade almost cold (there's a chilly breeze) in my tank top, shorts, and sandals (there was a nice gust nearly producing goosebumps). I still haven't managed to tell anyone about last weekend when we went to Nahal Yahudia (a sweet canyon park thing) and hiked. That was awesome. I've been trying tp put up the pictures for ages. I got one or two of them up but who knows if I'll ever get the rest. (Finally got the goosebumps... I should get a hoodie). Anyway basically we drove two hours and then got out of the bus only to descend into a giant rift in the earth with a river at the bottom. Not only were their rock cliffs on either side of me which were huge and awesome, but there were spots where I could climb up the rock face and jump into the deeper levels of the river. The first jump was from about 30 feet and the second from 45 to 50 feet. Being not so good with heights I took my time jumping from each, but finally I was coerced into take the leap of faith each time. It was a good analogy if I ever wanna talk about the struggled and benefits of faith. Anyway there was a waterfall we could sit under and some other sweet stuff.

This weekend we went to Benjamin (Jericho, Gezer, the road between Jerusalem and Jericho). It was really cool seeing Herod's winter palace, but other than that it wasn't super interesting.

Haha there's a lot less homework here than I am used to so I've been wasting some time playing my friends psp (exactly 18 hours of time lol)... kinda embarrassing. But I'm almost done with that stage of my time here. It's cool the different ways some of my classes have me looking at the Bible. Like, in Physical Settings of the Bible we see how much the sentences like "they went from Jericho to Jerusalem" are really important and set a scene while we just pass over them, or how my rabbinic thought and lit class has us look for "problems" in the text, like what isn't said. It's pretty cool

In two weeks were going to Eliat (or something Eaat I dunno...) and camping on the beach. i am super excited for that.


Cheers and God bless