somewhere around sixty percent of all Bible stories that can be places on a map took place in the land given to the tribe of Benjamin? Which happens to be where we went for our field study this Sunday after our expidition around Eilat. Other than being completely exhausted, the day was incredible. And aparently we picked a good weekend for Eilat because this upcoming weekend starts off the holday season here that goes on for weeks, which means the beach will be uber-crowded on the weekends. This weekend will certainly be interesting. Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, is this Friday/Saturday. Three quarters of the students here at JUC will be gone this weekend, but the city's population will likely triple or quadrupal. Ben and I were walking around today and we saw hundreds, and we heard there were thousands, of school kids from various parts of Israel running around the Old City on field trips. Should be a fun weekend...
Back to Sunday:
We started off the morning with a hike along the old Jericho Road. We walked about a third of the way from Jerusalem to Jericho in the "coolness" of the morning.
This is the road we walked along. You know, I never knew how narrow the road was from Jerusalem to Jericho. Looking again at the parable Jesus told of the good Samaritan, the priest and Levite would have had to literally step directly over top of the injured man. The "passing by on the other side of the road" was more like squeezing beside the bloodied man along the cliff edge. Brings a whole other meaning to the story.
This is the cliff edge along the side of the road. The view was great!
We met this guy along the road who let the girls sit on his donkey and tried to sell the guys some head coverings. Benaiah looked pretty good in it, so we both bought one the next chance we got :)
These are Bedouin "houses." They're scattered all along the wilderness to the east of Jerusalem.
We also saw the remains of one of Herod's palaces.
I'm not positive, but I think this is the ancient style toilet. I mean, this stuff is top of the line; high class.
This is the Central Benjamin Plataue where hundreds of Bible stories took place. From here - Nebi Samwell - we could see for miles the various cities and villages that we read about in the Bible stories.
Next we went to Gezer, which is near the coast. The city off in the distance is Tel Aviv. This place was nice because it is in the plains/foothills of the mountains and the change of scenery was good for us.
Here's a synagogue. And here is a mosque. It serves as both without trouble between the Jews and the Muslims. Interesting? The news reports that we see in the states are incredibly skewed. Yes, there are problems here. Big problems. But nothing like the constant fighting and terror the news portrays it to be.
"Danger of falling! No Passage!" - i love these signs. They're all over the various archaelogical dig sights and if you zoom in on the symbol on the right you can see a man in mid-flight after falling off a cliff. To me it's histerical, because they're usually in rather random places which almost never have cliffs.
This was our last stop for the day. These are either stones from a temple or stones of remembrance. We spent a good deal of time talking about the importance of having things in our lives to remind us of the things we have seen God do so that we would not forget Him in our business. The weight of the command to not neglect our great salvation has been pressed on my mind considerably the past few weeks. I look at my life and at the church and see such a strong tendancy toward complacency. I want to maintain a fear of rejecting/presumming upon the grace of God. A praise from last week: God has given me an increasing sense of peace in my life neary every day now. I love being calm and at peace, but I do not want to lessen my pursuit of God as a result. Just a few of my thoughts.
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