New Pictures!

Hi Friends and Family! We have added some new pictures - some shots of our apartment and some Christmas pictures. Both the album "Our Apartment" and the one titled "Christmas Time!" include pictures of our apartment.

We hope that you and your families all have a wonderful and blessed Christmas!

Tales from Jerusalem Winters Long Past

"Behold, our enemies are crushed; let us go up to cleanse the sanctuary and dedicate it." So all the army assembled and they went up to Mount Zion. And they saw the sanctuary desolate, the altar profaned, and the gates burned. Then they rent their clothes, and mourned with great lamentation, and sprinkled themselves with ashes. They fell face down on the ground, and sounded the signal on the trumpets and cried out to Heaven. They cleansed the sanctuary and removed the defiled stones to an unclean place. Early in the morning on the twenty-fifth day of the ninth month, which is the month of Kislev, in the one hundred and forty-eighth year, they rose and offered sacrifice, as the law directs, on the new altar of burnt offering which they built. All the people fell on their faces and worshiped and blessed Heaven, who had prospered them. So they celebrated the dedication of the altar for eight days, and offered burnt offerings with gladness; they offered a sacrifice of deliverance and praise. There was very great gladness among the people, and the reproach of the Gentiles was removed. Then they determined that every year at that season the days of the dedication of the altar should be observed with gladness and joy for eight days, beginning with the twenty-fifth day of the month of Kislev (Adapted from 1 Maccabees 4:36-52).

No, not exactly the Christmas story that many are used to. No angels in the fields, no wise men, no manger, no "little town of Bethlehem." Yet, in mid-December, while us westerners are heading out to get our Christmas trees (or digging out our fake ones from storage), decorating our houses, and listening to our favorite Christmas songs, most of the inhabitants of Israel are visiting family, giving gifts to their children, lighting the nine-branched menorah, and reading this story, the story of Hanukkah. Interestingly, the story of Jesus' birth and ministry does coincide with this winter holiday celebrated by the Jewish people and makes for some interesting reflections.

In the year 275 B.C.E. the kingdom of the great Greek conquerer Alexander was divided into three dynasties: the Antigonids in Mesopotamia, the Ptolemies in Egypt, and the Seleucids in Syria. In 175, Antiochus IV Epiphanēs (perhaps a shortened version of the title Theos Epiphanēs or "God Manifest") took control of the Seleucid Empire. Antiochus IV was an ambitious king and upon becoming king of the Syrian empire, managed to conquer Ptolemaic Egypt as well. During this time in Palestine, quarrels were constantly breaking out between the Jews who had chosen to accommodate Greek religion (known as "Hellenized Jews") and those who wanted to remain true to orthodox Judaism. The conflict, of course, trickled into the cultic personnel of the Jerusalem temple and people from both the Hellenistic and Orthodox persuasion wanted their respective representative in the position of High Priest. A devout Jew named Onias III was the high priest until his brother Iason, a Hellenized Jew, paid Antiochus in order to have himself appointed as High Priest. The Greek king, who had little knowledge (or sensitivity toward) Jewish religion appointed Iason. Eventually another Jew, Menelaus, who also tended more toward the accommodation of Greek religion, usurped the position of High Priest, from Iason. However, Iason, began a bloody rebellion in order to take back the position from Menelaus.

About this time the extant sources tell us that Antiochus, heard about the battle that Iason had waged in Jerusalem and took it to mean that Palestine was in revolt. Leaving Egypt, the king went to Jerusalem and sacked the temple, he took out the temple furniture, stripped it of its gold and "profaned" it. The author of 1 Maccabees notes that on the altar Antiochus "built a sacrilegious object of desolation" (1:54), which, though not explained in the text, was probably something having to do with Zeus, the high-god of the Hellenistic pantheon (2 Macc 6:2-6). This event occurred in the winter of 167 B.C.E. It was not long after this point that Antiochus decreed that the Jews were no longer able to worship in their traditional ways but had to follow the religion of the Greeks, which meant the worship of Hellenistic deities and the sacrifice of non-kosher animals, such as pigs. While this was no problem for many Jews, it was devastating for devout Jews who only wanted to worship according the ways prescribed in the Torah of Moses, and persecution of the orthodox Jews inevitably followed. Many of these pious Jews were murdered at this time for their desire to maintain their traditional religion.

In Israel's hill country, in a town called Modein, there dwelled at this time five Jewish brothers and their father Mattathias. Of Mattathias it is said that he "burned with zeal for the law" (1 Macc 2:26) and he gathered around him many who supported his cause, including a renowned band of warriors called the Hasideans. Mattahthias, along with his sons and his army, skirmished with local Greek rulers and Hellenizing Jews, those who did not follow the pure teaching of Moses. Before Mattathias died he admonished his sons to be zealous for the law and to give their lives for the covenant of their fathers.

Mattathias' son Judah, called in Hebrew the Maqabi (in Greek, Maccabeus) or "the Hammer," so-called for his prowess as a warrior, became the head of the army and led the lead of the warriors in one successful battle after another, killing thousands of impious Jews and Gentiles. In the winter of 164 B.C.E. in the month of Kislev, roughly three years to the day that Antiochus had defiled the temple, Judah and his ten thousand soldiers marched on Mt. Zion following their battle against Lysias, an official of Antiochus. They cleansed the temple and restored it as best they could to its former state, as the above excerpt says. They determined that a festival should be held yearly to celebrate the day that the temple was cleansed and dedicated, the day that the "disgrace of the Gentiles was removed."

Later tradition developed around the story told in the books of 1 and 2 Maccabees regarding the dedication of the temple. In the Talmud (the compilation of Jewish literature ranging in time from 200 - 500 C.E.) it is noted that rabbinical thought on Hanukkah is as follows:

"On the twenty-fifth day of Kislev Hanukah commences and lasts eight days, on which lamenting (in commemoration of the dead) and fasting are prohibited. When the Hellenists entered the sanctuary, they defiled all the oil that was found there. When the government of the House of Hasmoneans [founded by Judah the Maqabi] prevailed and conquered them, oil was sought (to feed the holy lamp in the sanctuary) and only one vial was found with the seal of the high priest intact. The vial contained sufficient oil for one day only, but a miracle occurred, and it fed the holy lamp eight days in succession. These eight days were the following year established as days of good cheer, on which psalms of praise and acknowledgment (of God's wonders) were to be recited (Tractate Shabbat 21b; bracketed insertion my own).

Thus the miraculous occurrence of the oil lasting for eight days, supplemented the account in the history of the Maccabees. This has then been the basis for the "Festival of Lights" and the activities of the celebrants of Hanukkah over the past 500 years.

We now fast-forward to another winter's day in the Roman province of Judea, during the reign of Tiberias Caesar (ca. 14-37 C.E.). In the month of Kislev, ca. 28 C.E., a teacher of no small repute from the hills of Lower Galilee was walking in the courts of Jerusalem's temple during the Festival of Dedication. It was some 194 years that had passed since Judah the Hammer had succeeded in taking Jerusalem and cleansing the temple. However, the memory of the events were no doubt still important to the pious Jews living in and around what was now Herod's Jerusalem. Yeshua, the Galilean teacher, is said to have been approached by a group of Jews who said to him, "How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly" (John 10:22-24).

It was no coincidence that these people asked this question of Jesus during the Hanukkah festival. Jesus of Nazareth was a person of great renown, and thought by many to be the long-awaited Messiah from his birth. Two gospel writers tell us that the birth was heralded by divine messengers, like the birth of the warrior/judge Samson of old. Further, according to the author of the gospel of Luke, when Mary and Joseph brought Jesus to the temple for his dedication, they met a man named Simeon, a devout and righteous person, who was looking for the "consolation" or "salvation" of Israel. Upon seeing the child, Simeon proclaimed, "Lord, my eyes have seen your salvation which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel" (Luke 2:29-32). Jesus' parents also encountered a prophetess, named Anna, who was praying in the temple. Recognizing something unique about the child, Anna "gave thanks to God, and spoke of him to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem" (Luke 2:38). People like Simeon and Anna would likely have viewed Jesus in light of the mainstream messianic expectations, which were influenced by the exploits of people like Judah the Maqabi - a devout leader, whose actions demonstrated his zeal for the law and his willingness to give his life for the sake of the ancient teaching. In Jesus' day, the miraculous aspect of Hanukkah was the retaking of the temple and the establishment of freedom for the Jewish people to worship as their ancient texts mandated without the intervention and harassment of foreign rulers or Jews who were happy to accommodate foreign religious practices. This time would have been before the Talmudic supplement to the story, which is now the larger focus of the holiday. In the first century C.E., people hoped for a Messiah who would be able to do something similar to what Judah did two hundred years before - establish a free Jewish nation, in this case one in which the Jews were out from under the control of the Roman Empire. No doubt these were at least some of the winter reflections in the minds and hearts of the first century inhabitants of Jerusalem as Hanukkah approached.

In response to the demanding question of whether Jesus was the Messiah, Jesus' simply responds: "I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness to me; but you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep" (John 10:25-26). As far as what can be ascertained about Jesus from the gospel narratives, Jesus believed himself to be the Messiah , but had a unique take on what the Messiah was supposed to be and do that was different from traditional messianic expectations. In Luke we find an interesting account (4:16-30) in which Jesus is in his hometown of Nazareth in the synagogue on the Sabbath. He stands up and reads the first few lines of Isaiah 61, saying, "The Spirit of Yahweh is upon me, because he has anointed me..." Jesus' audience marvels in hope that the Messiah had appeared before them and that the redemption of Jerusalem and the salvation of Israel was at hand. Jesus put down the Isaiah scroll and began to tell two stories from the Hebrew Bible centering on the prophets Elijah and Elisha. In both of these stories, Jesus points out that God's help was given to foreigners, NOT Israelites. Wait a minute - what about the salvation of Israel...the redemption of Jerusalem? The people in the synagogue were enraged, the author notes, and they threw Jesus outside the city, intending to kill him. No wonder they were upset. Nevertheless, many people believed.

Toward the end of the summer of 70 C.E. the Roman army under the future emperor Titus sacked Jerusalem and destroyed the temple. This event came about following a major revolt in Palestine in which a group of Jews, tried to overthrow Rome's control on Jerusalem by force. They were successful to some degree, but ultimately could not stand against the siege of the city by Titus. By this time it had been nearly forty years since Jesus of Nazareth had been put to death. His followers, who held that he was raised from the dead, had been dispersed all over the known world. Written chronicles of Jesus' life and ministry were circulating and many people, both Jews and non-Jews, had become "Christians," due to the tireless efforts of believers like the former rabbi Shaul, better known as Paul. Jesus' followers believed that he was the promised Messiah who, it turns out, had not come to deliver people from the dominion of Rome, but from their sins; and to build upon the ancient promises made to the Jewish fathers and create a new body of believers that would encompass anyone who chose to believe.

That many did not believe in the messianic nature of Jesus of Nazareth or his teaching, is seen in numerous places in the New Testament, but also outside the Bible. Following the fall of the temple and the destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman army, an interesting piece of Jewish literature, designated by scholars as 4 Ezra (or 2 Esdras in the Apocrypha), was penned. The book is an apocalypse, not unlike the Christian text of Revelation, which was contemporary to it (it is interesting to note that the Gospel of John was also written at this time). Within the body of this text, colored with descriptive imagery, the author denounces Rome for its wickedness and looks forward to the day when the Son of the Most High would come and judge the enemies of Israel, setting right the wrongs of the past (13:1-58). The author notes, while relating the words of the Most High concerning his son:

And when all the nations of the earth hear his voice, every man shall leave his own land and the warfare that they have against one another; and an innumerable multitude shall be gathered together...desiring to come and conquer him. But he will stand on the top of Mount Zion. And he will reprove the assembled nations for their ungodliness...and will destroy them without effort by the law. When he destroys the multitude of the nations that are gathered together, he will defend the people who remain. And then he will show them very many wonders (4 Ezra 13:33-35, 37-38, 49-50).

This Messiah sounds a lot like Judah the Hammer and less like Jesus of Nazareth as he appears in our sources that detail his life. Indeed this is a major part of the explanation of why people did not accept Jesus as the Messiah. Though in the book of Revelation, once Christians began to endure difficult times, Jesus of Nazareth is envisioned as assuming the role of the divine warrior, battling the forces of darkness (perhaps Rome) in Yahweh's stead on behalf of the Church.

People over the millennia have always had situations where they needed someone to stand up for them - this is built into the very fabric of what it means to be human. When people are oppressed they hope for a way out, someone or something to come along and offer some respite. Following the exile to Babylon a gradual hope began to grow among the ancient Israelites, a hope for a person that would reestablish the House of David and lead the people in the proper worship of Yahweh according to the Torah of Moses. Hanukkah commemorates the battles of a righteous leader, Judah the Maqabi, who won independence for the Jewish people and dedicated the temple for proper use, thus removing the reproach on the people. Christmas represents, for many, the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, a devout Jewish teacher from Galilee who proclaimed the need for repentance from sin and taught about the kingdom of God. Jesus was executed, a factor, which in the minds of some, effectively ended any hope of him being the Messiah. His followers, however, proclaimed that he had triumphed over death and by doing so had made it possible for people to have a relationship with God.

One winter's day in 165 B.C.E. a Jewish warrior took back Jerusalem on behalf of the Jews devoted to a pure religion, free from the influence of the Greeks. Almost 200 years later, a renown teacher, walked in the temple during the festival commemorating Judah's victory, a time when the air was practically electrified with questions of whether this or that person was the Messiah. Was this teacher the One? Would he lead the hopeful Jews to victory over Rome as the Maqabi had done against the Greeks? Many people, no doubt, wished that he would. Jesus own response to the question in the passage from John, considered above, was simply that he had already told them the answer. Was he the Messiah? Is he the Messiah? "I have already told you," the teacher said one wintry day as he stood in the temple courtyard, "the works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness to me."

Christmas Time and Other Stories

Christmas has come, and we are finally done with our first semester! It has been a challenging and amazing semester, and we can’t believe that four months have already come and gone. It feels like it has been so long and yet so short at the same time, and I can’t believe that four months ago we got on a plane to come here. It seems that we have been running for the entire semester, and only now are we slowing down to sink in to living here a bit.

Right before the end of the semester, Thanksgiving came. Now, Thanksgiving as celebrated on the 4th Thursday of November is, of course, an American holiday. But, since many students from JUC are American, we still were able to celebrate it! Off-campus students were able to participate, as long as we brought a dessert. To spice things up a bit, Justin and I made and brought Chocolate-Chipotle Shortbread Cookies (shortbread was one of the few dessert baked items I could think of that required minimal ingredients and no eggs, which are incredibly expensive here, and could fit in our adult version of an easy-bake oven). Now, this cookie might sound yucky to you, but if you have never tried chocolate with chili, you are definitely missing out! Even the first hot cocoa invented was made in South America by the Aztecs, and it had chili powder in it! So, don’t knock it until you try it…and if you would like to try it, email me and I’ll send you the recipe!

Some friends of ours made the dinner for the entire school, and we had a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, complete with turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and cranberry sauce! (In wondering where they got all of these American ingredients, our curiosity was quelled when we went to one of the more American grocery stores here to get cocoa powder, only to find it stocked more than usual with American ingredients…and more English-speaking shoppers than we had heard in months! I guess all of the American ex-pats come out of the woodwork during the American holidays :0).

The week after Thanksgiving was our finals, and we had a countdown of about 4 tests and 2 papers. Our most stressful test was the very last one, on Friday. Our archaeology class consisted of lectures and one final exam at the end, similar to a more European method of teaching. All research and all studying was the responsibility of the student, and needless to say, a very, very significant portion of your grade is based on that one exam. Compounded with this, as some of you know, our emphasis here is in archaeology, and we have already begun to work on our thesis topics with the professor of this class, Dr. Gabriel Barkay. So, we also felt a little pressure to do well on this exam because, well, we are his only thesis students. No pressure…. At 11am on Friday morning, we emerged from the 2-hour essay exam with throbbing fingers and much, much lighter hearts. We’ll get our graded tests back in about 4 or 5 months, but in the mean time, I think we did ok.

That Friday night, we kicked off the celebrations of Christmas. Since it was the last night all of the Fall 2009 JUC students would be together (those in the Egypt class would be leaving the next morning at 5:30 to head to Egypt, and all others were going home), around 7pm, everyone headed through the Old City, to St. Anne’s Church for Christmas carols. St. Anne’s cathedral is a Crusader church with the most amazing acoustics you will ever hear in your life (we talked about this church in one of our first blog entries). I had been looking forward to this all semester! It was fun and strange to walk through the Old City at night, with most of the shops closed and no Christmas decorations, with the crisp cold of the night still reminiscent of Christmas time, to go to a 1,000 year old church to sing carols about an event that happened down the road from us 1,000 years before that. It was a fun experience, and made Justin and I look forward to Christmas Eve services in just a few short weeks.

Well, with the end of our schoolwork, we could now focus on decorating! You see, Christmas here is not like Christmas in the United States. Here, those who celebrate Christmas do so in a much more solemn fashion, and you will not typically find decorations and Christmas carols in any store (save the very, very few who cater to expats). Of course, in the States we tend to ascribe these features (Christmas products and carols in every store, beginning as early as September) to American commercialism and not to the true spirit of Christmas, but it is interesting to be away from it and to realize that this aspect of American culture really helps to set the mood that we, as Americans, are used to when celebrating Christmas. I don’t know if I can sufficiently describe it, but needless to say, we miss it.

So, we are bringing Christmas to us! And…we have to do it very creatively, and very cheaply, since we have, well, nothing. So, we have slowly collected a few items, and over the past week or so we have diligently worked at making our home look Christmassy. It is absolutely amazing what you can do with items such as pine cones and toilet paper roles when you have a little bit of glitter and colorful pipe cleaners! We brought a tiny fake tree from home, and we have that up and decorated. We even have the hope of getting a REAL Christmas tree! We have never had a real Christmas tree, since they are really, really expensive in the United States! There is actually one Christmas tree farm in Israel, just south of Jerusalem and maybe an hour or so away, who give away Christmas trees to non-profits like JUC every year! We just received an update, and it looks like we might (yes, everything here is expressed as “might” :0) get our Christmas tree on Monday!!! It will be delivered to the school, and we get to tote it home. Yay!!! The only thing we are missing in our decorations is lights (I brought a strand from home and then realized that it wasn’t rigged for 220 voltage), and since a very small strand of lights here (50 lights or so) will cost us about $15, we are willing to forego them. I was, however, thrilled last Friday night when, as we were walking home at dusk, we discovered that they had hung lights along one of the main roads we cross! They were blue and gold and marked the Shabbat of the lighting of the first candle of Hanukah, but somehow, it made it feel a little more like Christmas too.

So, we are getting all prepared for Christmas! (For those who are still looking for pictures of our new apartment, we haven’t forgotten! We are planning to get some good pics of our house after it is all decorated :0) For Christmas Eve, we plan to go to Christ Church, in the Old City, for caroling (in English, we hope :0) and then to the Scottish Presbyterian Church near us for a Christmas Eve “watch-service.” We have never attended a midnight Christmas service, and we are very excited to go! We had considered going to Bethlehem, but we have heard that it is very busy down there on Christmas Eve. Not to mention, we would have to arrange and pay for bus fare in the evening, and ultimately, it sounds a little crazier than what we want to do.

I had wondered what it would be like to celebrate Christmas here, and I think it is turning out to be a little different from what I had imagined. On the one hand, as mentioned above, it doesn’t have the same eye-catching reminders that we have in the States. But, it is still a special time. For one, it is incredible to listen to familiar Christmas music, hear the songs that we know and love and to consider the realities that surround us. The "little town of Bethlehem" is only a few miles south of our apartment as are the surrounding Judean fields in which the gospel writers note that shepherds saw divine messengers heralding the birth of the one called "God with us," in Hebrew ˁImmanu-El. Jesus was probably born in a culture very much like the one that is in Bethlehem today. You see, the little town of modern Bethlehem is a Palestinian city and the Palestinians, up until a few years ago had resisted the kind of westernization that now characterizes the majority of Israel and has for the last hundred years. This means that up until 100 years ago or so, life for Palestinians (which includes both Jews and Arabs) was very much like it has been since the first century in terms of how people live and make money.

It is so strange to hear our Christmas carols we brought with us, and to be struck every time we hear “Bethlehem” with the knowledge that we can now walk to it. We’ve been to the city, we’ve seen the people who are there, and we picture it when we hear its name. It is about 3 miles down the road from us, and the Church of the Nativity is another mile or so past that. Not far to drive at all, and a little bit of a walk. The Son of God was born just down the road from us, in a culture that is very similar to the one we currently live in. He wasn’t American…He was Middle-Eastern. He didn’t celebrate Christmas… He wasn’t familiar with any of the things we miss from home. His home was here, speaking a language we can’t understand, acting according to the principles of a culture we are just beginning to know. It is interesting to contemplate, and it brings the story of Christmas into a much more realistic light for us. The nativity scene has jumped off of the western table in our minds and now walks around in front of us with flesh and blood. Was it exactly as we see it today? No, of course not. But, living here definitely brings it to life. I no longer picture the ceramic people and animals that my mom puts on her coffee table every December, sprinkled with snow and with stars and angels above it. Those are really good reminders, but they aren’t what I picture any more. I picture now real people in traditional dress with middle eastern smells (all of which are not so pleasant) living in small houses made of mud and stone. It is a very good transition, I think, and makes us appreciate the wonder of Christmas all the more.

The season is also different for us for, outside our home, it doesn’t really feel much like Christmas. You have this almost constant feeling that many around you don’t celebrate it. So, for us to keep the spirit of Christmas, we must keep it within us. It seems so Christmassy to say that, but I think we are learning to live it this year. We really feel it, and we work hard to maintain it. The season of Christmas shouldn’t just bestow happy feelings on people because of everything around them, but people should work to make Christmas feel like Christmas because of what they do for each other and the conscious decisions they make to keep Christmas as a joyous, thankful, giving time of year. That is what brings peace to homes and glad tidings to families during these holidays. It isn’t the things that are brought to us (by people or by our surroundings) that make Christmas special; it is what we contribute to the holidays that creates the “spirit of Christmas” and the celebratory nature of the birth of Christ and the time with friends and family.

So, there is much for us to think about and do during this restful season of Christmas! We are planning to spend our break doing some research for our thesis papers, which are not due until the end of our time here, but will require a good deal of work and so the earlier that we can get started on them the better. We have picked out our topics, met with our advisor, and have checked out a bunch of books, which we hope to read over the break - we'll see what happens. We still have another year and a half here, but we have been advised to start our theses now, to try to get them done in the time frame we have allotted. So, we have plans for diligent study over the break!

In January, we are also scheduled to help JUC in the kitchen with their short-term January group that will be coming the beginning of the month. Justin and I are excited for the opportunity to earn a little more money, to help with our spring semester costs, and to get to spend a little more time at the school. JUC currently hires volunteer cooks for the semester, and the new cooks will be arriving and training alongside us! (as a side note, if anyone is interested in volunteering for a semester in Israel to cook for JUC, with room and board paid for and opportunities to see the country, please contact the Director, Paul Wright, at paulwright@juc.edu).

Praise Reports!
1. Done with Semester #1 with hopefully successful scores!
2. We have finally finished paying all of the bills due to our old landlord, so we are officially done with our old apartment! (bills here come sporadically and are paid, oh, every 3-4 months or so… it has been really frustrating to not have these paid and to not even know how much we owe! It’s nice to have this off of our plate :0)
3. Extra work over the break, and Justin is definitely going to teach his online class through LIFE Pacific College again in the Spring!
4. We received scholarships to help cover about 1/3 of the total cost of our spring semester!
5. I have finally figured out how to dry laundry! (this one might seem silly, but it is a really big deal! Living in a solid cement box with little ventilation and no dryer, it was taking over 48 hours to get our laundry dry…which means mildew… With a double spin at the end of the laundry cycle, a little space heater, a line stretched across our house, and a towel to capture the heat under the drying lines…and a fan to push all of the moist air out of here, I have succeeded in getting laundry dry in about 12 hours!)

To update everyone on our prayer requests over the next couple of months:

1. Spring Semester Costs. Our school bill for the Spring semester will be due the beginning of February, and we are currently about $5,000 short. If you feel led to give, please let us know, and we can give you directions on where to send the funds. We appreciate each and every one of you for your prayers, support, and active participation in the journey with us. Each step is difficult and rewarding, and we have peace that we are not walking this alone.
2. Alternate Sources of Funding. We have recently discovered a few different possible sources for funding some of this experience. Please be praying that the funding works out for us, as it would help relieve the stress of living here on a depleting account.
3. Thesis Topics. As much as we love the experience of living here, we know it costs money that, well, we simply can’t make here. So, we are trying to reduce our time here as much as possible by adding more work now. Please pray that we can successfully work through thesis topics and that our advisor works with us in a timely manner, so that we can get done and come home on time!
4. The Holidays. We definitely miss being away from our families and what is familiar during this time of year. We appreciate your prayers during this holiday season, for us and for our families.

Thank you everyone for your prayers and support of our first set of adventures in Israel. We are on the threshold of a new semester with another full load of classes and lots of things to learn. We are excited to see what is next and what God has in store for us. We humbly ask that you, our friends and family, would continue to support us with prayer and where possible with finances. Thank you for your generosity and your care for us that you have shown over the course of our first semester.

God bless each of you through this wonderful time of the year! Savor the moments of Christmas, and enjoy the twinkling lights and familiar holiday baked smells for us. We hope that our entries have inspired you and have maybe been food for thought as well.

Much Love,

Justin and Mandy Kelley

Field Study in Jordan

Hello Friends and Family! Our next adventure was to Jordan! We had been looking forward to this trip for quite some time now, and when it came, I think we received it with mixed emotions. On the one hand, we were very excited to get to see Jordan and all of its Roman and Byzantine remains (let’s face it, columns are much easier to appreciate than late bronze mud brick :0). We were especially excited to see Petra! On the other hand, this was our last trip of the semester, and it fell only a couple of weeks before finals, so it was a little scary to set aside our other projects with their deadlines swiftly approaching, to be gone for four long days. Not only that, but after a semester of traveling, we had found that the days are packed with so much that sometimes it is hard to take it all in or have time to appreciate the site fully.

After a rather uneventful border crossing at Beth Shean to Jordan, our adventure started. It is strange that this different country is only across a very sluggish river – you can see it very easily from much of Israel – but it is truly stepping into a different world…. very different with glimpses of similarities. The first thing I (Mandy) noticed about crossing the border was that all of the signs immediately changed. This may seem painfully obvious, but it still surprised me somehow. In Israel, all of the signs are in Hebrew, Arabic, and English (in that order). As soon as we crossed the river (and got off the bus and on the bus and off the bus and on the bus…all part of the border crossing), the signs eliminated Hebrew altogether, and many of them no longer even contained English. I hadn’t felt this illiterate since I went to Mexico in college!

Tour groups in Jordan are required by Jordanian law to have along a Jordanian tour guide and policeman. Our friendly tour guide, Zapher, proved to be an interesting character. He would “tag-team” with Paul, our professor, at the sites. Paul would concentrate on Old Testament sites and connections between the two lands (the main reason we were there), and Zapher would show us all of the New Testament, Late Roman and Byzantine sites, with perhaps a slightly less clear explanation, and less time to jot down the notes.

Once we were in the country, there were other features that surprised me. It is very different from the other side of the river, in Israel. To begin, the plain on this side is much more fertile than on the Israel side. There was almost constant settlement on this northern border. In addition, the houses are not predominantly Cenomanian limestone (like most are in Israel). Instead, they are cement, and many are very brightly painted in pink, green, orange, purple, red, etc. Some that weren’t painted (as we discovered further south in the country) had nice patterns of waves, leaves, etc. formed in the cement before it dried. In addition, it was interesting to observe that the beduin settlements were comfortably located within regular settlements… on the other side of the river (in Israel), which I suppose had helped to shape my impressions, the tents are usually outside of the city entirely. Yet over here, the beduins still mingled with the more settled or urban of society and dwelt among them.

On the first day, we stopped at Deir Alla (biblical Succoth), a badly preserved site, where had been found an inscription about the biblical Balaam), Pella (a Decapolis city across the river but within eye sight of Beth Shean), Geresa (with impressive black basalt columns…also a Decapolis city and within sight of the Sea of Galilee…and cheeseburgers!!!), and Ramoth Gilead (where many defining battles were fought in the Old Testament between Israel [including Saul and Ahab], trying to maintain their control of the land of the 2 ½ Transjordan tribes, and Damascus in the north…).

At the end of the first day we spent in Amman, at an amazing hotel called Amman West. We were told that each night we were here, the quality of our lodging was going to go down…we enjoyed the first night immensely. :0)

Day 2 was spent visiting the ruins in Amman, Jerash, the Jabbok River, and Tyre of Tobiah. Our first stop was Amman/OT Rabbah/NT Philadelphia, and true to a geography class, our professor opened our eyes to see the similarities between this city (the ancient capital of the Ammonites) and the geography of Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Like Bethlehem, its resource base is less, and it looks to the desert and to shepherding as a primary source of income. Like Jerusalem, however, it is located on a hill, with (slightly) higher hills almost all around, and one spur connecting it to the edge of the ridge. Being wider and flatter on top, it was easy to see how the capital, though it lacked certain resources, was better equipped and stronger than the capital at Jerusalem. We could easily see why the kingdom of Ammon constantly tried to push its borders to tap into the more fertile hills around and to their connecting international trade routes. The modern city and its ancient ruins also have a nice archaeological museum (which I think made Justin and I look like kids in a candy shop) and the site also affords a view of the largest flag in the world (see our pics :0).

Our next stop was Jerash, the “City of a Thousand Columns.” These ruins were vast, with columns stretching before us for a great distance! We arrived just as it started to rain, and when it stopped shortly after, we were given an opportunity to photograph this site complete with fresh green hills and imposing clouds. It was breathtaking! The green of the site looked more like Ireland, and the columns and temples all around resembled more of what you can see in Greece. It was truly a remarkable site! The only oddity is that, within the theater, there were some men playing bagpipes for the tourists, to demonstrate the acoustics of the place. Their music was impressive, though it was odd to walk around ancient ruins in Jordan listening to the ditty of Yankee Doodle.

After a few more stops (including one mystery site in the boonies outside Amman, called Tyre of Tobias…impressive ruins with building blocks similar to that of Herod’s temple in Jerusalem!), we headed south for Petra. The drive was 3-4 hours, and we arrived around 10pm to our hotel, with enough time to drop our bags and run to dinner (yes, dinner) before the kitchen closed for the evening. We stayed at a place called Petra Palace which, despite its fancy name, was a step below the location of the evening before. It was still decent, of course, but it took us at least 10 minutes for Justin and I to find our room, since the room guides on the walls didn’t have our room number listed…anywhere! Being tired and hungry and lugging our bags all over the hotel, needless to say, wasn’t a fun experience. After dinner and a restored sense of humor, we headed to bed, excited about the next day and seeing Petra!

It is hard to describe in words what we experienced in Petra. Upon arriving at the gate, the visitor is first accosted with vendors speaking English and offering clothing, donkey rides, and every other item you could possibly imagine. Passing this up, the visitor then arrives at the Siq. This is a narrow, natural passageway carved into the colorful sandstone which rises easily 50 feet or so above your head. It takes easily at least 30 minutes to walk through, and longer if you are with Zapher and/or have a camera. Along the way the visitor with keen eyes can pick out various mementos that were left by the ancients… a most impressive water system to channel the little desert water into a central location to make the land fertile, as well as symbols of their religion in the form of decorated niches carved into the rock. Even as far as the entrance we could see crude carvings of tombs with Egyptian and Mesopotamian artwork. Finally, the Siq narrows, the visitor walks around the corner, and through the crack in the rock you can see the bright and stunning façade of the Treasury, the most famous of the Petra carvings. It really is a shame that more of Petra was not featured in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, for it is a magnificent location!

We were thankful that we had the better part of the day to explore the ancient ruins, and we also had much of that time when we didn’t have to stay with the group and our tour guide, so Justin and I broke away from the group and went exploring on our own. Since Petra cannot all be seen in one day, we picked one or two sites to see, with the hopes of perhaps returning again someday. Within the main part of the city (maybe 15 minutes past the Treasury) there were many, many people offering rides, drinks, or any other commodity you could think of. There was even one girl selling little rocks she had found, and while we watched, she got a customer in a little boy. I hope she gave him a good deal. :0)

We decided to climb up to one of the high places (in this case a Nabatean worship site), and from there, we could look down at most of the ruins. Along the way, we walked through patches of sand of every color you could think of. The sandstone is really breathtaking (especially after 3 months of seeing nothing but cenomanian limestone :0), and I think I was most impressed with the pink sand (yes, naturally bright pink) we passed. We’ve seen many high places now, and though the ancients always built them on a raised platform or the highest spot of the mound, many of these sites don’t evoke the true imagery of a very high place. This spot, on the other hand, was incredible… Cut into the rock, the high place stood on the very top of a rock outcropping. This rock was so high that it offered us magnificent views of the city below and the canyons behind, and the sky seemed much closer than the previous places we have been to. It was not only a fitting location in height, but it was also a fitting location in that it evoked feelings of awe just to be there. (Paul, you were on my mind a lot at Petra…it reminded me of some of the pictures you have taken in Utah. :0) The people who were selling their wares were very friendly, and I got to chat with a couple of girls about some of the plants growing up there, as well as some words in Arabic we were trying to learn. It was an amazingly fun experience, and the people there are very friendly. I think they were interested that we cared about them, and not just their wares….

After lunch, Justin and I worked our way back through the Siq to the hotel, where we met the group and left for Bozrah, the ancient capital of the Edomites. The location was one that told us about the modern culture as well as the ancient one, and it gave us a glimpse into the recent past as well as the ancient past. The people who live in modern Busayrah are a very traditional, conservative society and are not used to having outsiders come through, let alone a gigantic bus filled with 50 people. Needless to say, we attracted quite a bit of attention, and we were grateful to our in-house policeman to stay off the curious young boys who weren’t so concerned about our serious lesson of geography and the Bible.

As the sun set over the horizon, one of our students read/recited the book of Obadiah, the prophecy against Edom. From our studies at JUC and those before Israel, we have learned to value all cultures of the Near East, not just the ones the prophets of Judah liked and wrote favorably about. Edom was not one of these. In light of both this and the modern tension between Arabs and Jews, it was a surreal experience to hear Obadiah being recited as regular Arab life went on around us…the Muslim call to prayer, men rushing home to eat dinner with their families, shop owners visiting with their neighbors, and of course the school boys observing this mob of foreign people in the back yard of their high school. The ideals of the Judaite prophets contrasted with the reality of a people who have their own beliefs and traditions and, whether they are Muslim, Christian, or otherwise, are a people God loves. It makes you see the prophecy of Obadiah not as an absolute reality, but as something written that is set within its own cultural context with its own biases. We can appreciate the viewpoint of the prophet – because it was his own perception of a situation – but we do not have to agree with it as the absolute truth of the situation. History is so much more complex than we would like to think, and it is the quieter time periods in between the fighting that demonstrate that the people groups did in fact, at times, get along. Edom was seen as a brother to Israel, and Edom is the place that the religion of Yahweh first came from. It would seem a pity to simply sum it up through Obadiah’s perspective, as being a nation worthy of complete annihilation and judgment. The people we drove past on our way into and out of the city gave the ancient people who lived there a couple thousand years ago a real face. For good or bad, they were still people. People with cares and hopes and families, who, just like the people of Israel, tried to do what they thought was best for their own.

We finished our time at Bozrah and headed to our final night of Jordan lodging, the one we had been warned about from the beginning. As I mentioned at the beginning of this entry, we had been told that the quality of each night’s lodging would become steadily lower as the days progressed, and this was our final night. I didn’t fear dirt, but I did prepare for bugs, just in case. The town we stayed at was called Kerak, and was known for its amazing Crusader castle…and nothing else. In our professor’s words, no one stays overnight in Kerak…except us…and when we got there, he told us that “the adventures of the day have just begun.” Not very comforting…

The exciting part of our lodging was that it was right next to the castle. Well… it was the positive exciting part. :0) We stayed at a location called the Kerak Rest House, and the inside hall we stayed in looked remarkably like the hallways inside the Disney Haunted Mansion ride. The one main hallway in either direction behind the reception area was lined in green carpet, had tall doors on either side with ancient knobs (complete with an old fashioned key you had to jiggle to get the door to unlock), and spaces for pictures, though each space did not possess its accompanying decoration (almost as through it would mysteriously appear later?). Inside the rooms had tall ceilings with green curtains and twin beds (our curtains were pinned shut with a safety pin). Overall, the rooms were more comical than dirty on first glance. On second glance, the questionable blankets and the interesting smells from the bathrooms began to register a little better…

We survived the night with little excitement, and the next morning, we set off to explore Kerak Castle (with its many dimly-lit passageways that begged a photographer to linger longer than the amount of time allotted to us). Kerak, or Kir-hareseth, was the long-standing capital of the Moabites. From this lofty hill, inhabitants could look out across the valley to see the Dead Sea and the area of Ein Gedi on the other side (we had come full-circle from our Negev trip :0). For some reason, it was actually surprising to see the Dead Sea from this vantage point – I had thought we were too far away. Being on this side of the Jordan River, we could really see how connected all of these ancient nations had been to each other.

After descending and ascending the Arnon Canyon, which was amazing and pressed an indelible memory on our minds, we reached Dibon, the ninth century BCE capital of Mesha, king of Moab (Mesha is mentioned in the Bible as having rebelled against King Ahab of Israel. There was also discovered here a basalt stele with an inscription of Mesha’s account of the rebellion, an interesting comparison with the biblical account). Actually getting to see the area on this side of the Transjordan was remarkable, since it really clearly showed us the difference between either side of the Dead Sea. It was extremely fertile up here (as opposed to the barren wilderness on the other side), and the farmers were preparing the ground for their grain crops. It was obvious that this place had the resources to be a strong kingdom during the time of ancient Israel, and a location that Israel would attempt to control during its times of power.

For lunch, we headed to Medeba for a feast for our eyes and our stomachs. From our notes, we learned that, during the Byzantine Era (4th-7th centuries BCE), many churches thrived in the city of Medeba. In 1884, a Greek Orthodox community was clearing the debris from the still visible foundations of an ancient church and revealed a colorful mosaic, which had been a part of the floor of an ancient Byzantine cathedral. The map is dated between 542-565 AD and includes most of the Near Eastern world at that time, including present day Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel, and the Nile delta in Egypt. It is the only map we have during this time period that shows the geography and topography of the land. It contains details of buildings that existed during that time, boats that fished along the Jordan river, and the sites that were important to Christendom in the 6th century. The focal point of the entire map is Jerusalem, complete with the cardo (main street), the Holy Sepulchre, and Damascus Gate. Unfortunately, only 1/3 of the floor is preserved today (about 700,000 to 800,000 tiny cubes of tile).

After our stop to St. George’s, we ate our phenomenal lunch (so yummy…kind of like Middle Eastern Fajitas… truly the best thing we have eaten since we arrived in Israel!)

Our final stop for the day, before heading for the border and the joys of Passport Control, was Mt. Nebo, Moses’ final stop before his death. For some reason, this stop evoked more emotion than I had anticipated. It was our last stop of the last day of our last field study of the semester, but it was also the realization that, in contrast to the semester-only students who were about to be homeward-bound, the journey was just beginning for us. For Moses, this was his last stop, but it was also the realization that, for his people, the journey into the unknown was just beginning. I guess for us, the lessons of the semester came full circle on top of Nebo. When we stood on the opposite set of mountains at the beginning of the semester, we were struck with the realization that God had brought us out to the wilderness to learn to trust him, and to teach us things that could not be taught inside the comfort of the United States, with steady jobs and living situations we were familiar with. He had to bring us here. Not only that, he brought us here with absolutely nothing, forcing us to rely on him. We’ve already seen him working in our lives… every time we have had an unexpected expense, he has provided the extra finances. Do we have more than we need? No… I’m already nervous about next semester. But, I have learned to trust the fact that, just like God sustained the Israelites, his provision will come for us as well. We look for it, we do what we can to bring it in, but in the end, he forces to trust him step by step. Being on top of Mt. Nebo, I was reminded of that. God prepares and equips his people for what they do not know and what they cannot see. Our future is very hazy, like the haze over the land opposite us while standing on Nebo, but we trust that he is already there, and he is providing for each step we take to reach our destination.

The Galilee

Hello Everyone! It has been a long time since we updated our blog, as some of you have probably noticed; and to those of you who have checked periodically and have found no new entries, thanks for your patience! Since our last entry we have gone on two more field studies and completed our final exams and papers. We have made it through a semester and have lived in Jerusalem now for four months! It feels at once like the time has flown by and also that we have been here forever. This has been a challenging and amazing four months in which we have had the chance to see much of the land of the Bible. We have been challenged physically, spiritually, and emotionally as we have rigorously studied the geography, toponymy, and archaeology of the land. We have thus reached the close of the initial part of our journey here, but unlike the majority of the students who come to JUC to study for a semester, we are only a quarter of the way through. God has provided for us in ways that we do not deserve and we are grateful for your prayers and support of our education in Israel and we hope to have your continued support as we press on to finish our studies here!

Since we still have two trips that we haven't told you about, we will do three entries and post the corresponding pictures. This entry will cover our first four-day trip that we took to the Galilee. The next entry will cover our Jordan trip and finally we will bring you up to speed on where we are now and what we are up to over the break. So on to the Galilee trip!

Our four-day trip to the northern part of the land was pretty amazing. Our trip took us from Jerusalem north to what used to be the ancient coastal highway into the Jezreel Valley, which is a central location for many of the stories in the Bible, especially the Old Testament. The Jezreel Valley is probably one of the most important areas of the land in terms of ancient politics and international commerce. The main reasons for this are the fertility of the land in the valley and the international road that runs through it via Megiddo. One pharaoh in fact (Thutmose III) has a famous account where he captured Megiddo, long before the land belonged to the Israelites.

The biblical accounts of the area are numerous and striking. The earliest story in the biblical chronology and perhaps one of the earliest texts included in the Hebrew Bible, is the account of Deborah and Barak's war with the Canaanites. Here we have a battle that the author notes was "fought at Taanach, by Megiddo's waters" (Jdgs 5:19). Other stories include Gideon's battle with the Mideonites and Ahab's battles with Damascus. The battles featured in the biblical text as well as the numerous extrabiblical battle accounts have led many to interpret the Greek word Αρμαγεδδον "Armageddon" (in Revelation 16:16) as the name of the site in the Jezreel Valley, Megiddo (more likely this is a cryptic reference to Jerusalem, which makes the most sense in the context of the book). We had the chance to visit Megiddo and see some of its amazing archaeological remains.

On our first day we visited the ancient manmade port at Caesarea, built by none other than Herod the Great, the man responsible for so much of the monumental building in Palestine during the last part of the first millennium BCE. Caesarea is also the location where the Romans brought Paul when the Jews sought to kill him, and where he later appealed to Caesar. We were able to see the remains of Herod’s beach palace, the guard complex next to it where most likely Paul stayed, and even the location where Herod’s man-made cement (yes, cement!) harbor had been. We went to Mt. Carmel, to the monastery that commemorates Elijah's confrontation with the prophets of Baal. A visit to this monastery affords an excellent view of the Jezreel Valley as well as the Mediterranean Sea. Here we reflected on Psalm 29 wherein the author notes that Yahweh's voice "thunders over the waters and flashes forth flames of fire, shaking the wilderness and shattering the cedars of Lebanon." Of course this imagery is that of a storm, precisely the powerful storms that brew over the Mediterranean and blow in via northern European winds. Yahweh here is depicted as a storm, interestingly, the same kind of imagery that the Canaanite authors used to describe their northern deity Baal, the Canaanite storm-god (what did Elijah see when he prayed and Yahweh responded - lightning and not long after, according to the story, the drought in the land ends via a cloud "the size of a man's hand"). All this compiled with the biblical confrontation between the Israelite storm-god and the Canaanite storm-god (an event which took place somewhere near where we stood!) makes for an interesting set of theological reflections that kept our minds occupied on the bus ride to our hotel, which happened to be in a quaint little resort called En-Gev right on the shore of the Sea of Galilee.

Our second day marked a trip northward from the Sea of Galilee to what is commonly called the "Golan Heights.” This is the area that pushes into the Transjordan (on the east side of the Jordan River), a little ways into Syria, and was a site of tension between Israel and Syria some 40 years ago, because Israel wanted the territory and Syria was of course reluctant to give it up. Many inactive military bases dot the landscape (one of which is situated atop an extinct volcano, which we had the chance to visit) standing as silent memorials to the battles fought over the Golan Heights in the late 1960s. Interestingly, this territory is viewed by the United Nations (and most other world organizations) as Israeli "occupied territory" and not part of Israel proper (which is evident in maps that are not from Israel). Also interesting is that there are around 1,000,000 mines that are still live in the Golan left over from the Six Day war in 1967! Roads have been cleared, but where no effort has been made to remove the mines, warning signs are posted.

This section of the land is characterized by basalt, a dark, volcanic rock that is found in just about every field one can see in this area. The basalt is here due to prehistoric volcanic activity in the Golan Area where ancient lava flowed toward the Mediterranean, forming the hilly basalt terrain of the upper part of Galilee and the Golan Heights. It is this volcanic rock that formed the building materials of the towns of the little cities situated on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee, and the materials that we can logically conclude that ancient "carpenters" built with, but more on this in a bit.

The northern sites such as Dan, were, in the time of Israel's kings, of immense importance to Israel's kingdom. These sites marked the frontlines of Israel's defense against attacks from the north, say from Damascus for example. Numerous military accounts in the biblical text demonstrate the importance of these sites (for example, 2 Kings 15). These sites also demonstrate a cultural connection with the north. The architecture at Hazor, which we had the chance to visit, is more like that of ancient sites in Turkey than sites further south in Israel.

The second important aspect of these sites, especially Tel Dan and Banias, is the abundance of flowing water due to the runoff of the melting snows from Mt. Hermon, just to the north. Here the water runs down into the sites in the form of massive springs that make up the headwaters of the Jordan River. This is a striking contrast to the sites in and around the Dead Sea and the Negev. On our visit to these southern places we were inundated with imagery of a dry and thirsty land. Here, however, the water flowed freely and, in some cases, year-round.

Given the prominence of the springs at these northern sites it is no wonder that the sites were religious sites long before Israel was ever in the land. The biblical text notes that Jeroboam built a high place at Dan (the other at Bethel) to provided major worship centers for the Northern Kingdom. Dan is a beautiful site, probably our favorite site that we visited in all of our travels. It is a lush site with pathways through overgrown woods with spring rushing through the site. Archaeological remains never looked as good as they do at Dan. Dan is also the site where the famous stele was discovered which contains the word, carved in old-Hebrew script: BYTDWD, which is generally interpreted to mean bet David, or "House of David." This is only known reference to the founder of the southern kingdom of Israel - David son of Jesse.

Near Dan is an interesting place that became the worship site of the Hellenistic forest deity Pan (who looks like the faun, Mr. Tumnus, in the Narnia stories) worshipped in conjunction with the sacrifice of "sacred goats." At Paneas as well, a major spring flows causing the lush fertile ground around the site. In the New Testament, the cultic activity of this site continued, and it was called Caesarea Philippi by Herod’s son, Phillip. It was here amid this well-known history of cultic activity that Jesus is said to have asked his disciples, "Who do people say that I am?" Amid the bustle of what the good Jewish disciples of Jesus would likely have seen as pagan worship, Simon-Peter, declares that the builder from Nazareth is the Messiah.

Our third and fourth days in the field focused on the blending of Jewish and Hellenistic/Roman culture that occurred in the land from about 300 B.C.E. until the beginning of the middle ages. This cultural blending is evident especially in the northern arena of the land - the Galilee and surrounding territories - in architecture and especially art. Our third day was spent around the Sea of Galilee and in fact our first lecture of the day took place in a boat drifting in the center of the lake. This field study around the Sea of Galilee was a wonderful way to bring so much of the gospel material to life, making it realistic, practical, and tangible. This is indeed the situation here and it is within this context that the followers of a man from Nazareth would turn the known world upside down, which could only take place in the mix of Jewish and Hellenistic ideals present in and around the Galilee.

The little body of water in the center of the Galilee area is fed by the runoff of the snow from Mt. Hermon to the north creating the Jordan River, which then runs into the Sea of Galilee. The body of water itself is not very big - it is 13 miles from north to south and 8 miles across the lake, east to west. When you are standing on one side of the lake it looks like an easy swim across, but water is deceptive that way, and once in the middle of the lake, the distance seems much further. The water is typically extremely calm and it is easy to picture Jesus walking on its glassy surface, though of course the biblical account says that he walked to the disciples during a storm. This raises interesting questions that have puzzled many people, namely: how can such a small and placid lake be so intimidating and fearful? Remember that the disciples thought that they were going to die in the storm when Jesus was sleeping.

There are a few interesting things to note in regard to this important question. Modern fishermen attest that the waves on the lake can reach about three feet in height in a storm. It is evident from archaeological remains that first century fishing boats sat low in the water, which would have presented problems in 4-foot waves. In addition to this, it is interesting to note that among the ancient inhabitants of Palestine, there was only one word to designate a large body of water - yam "sea." Thus the Yam Gadol "Great Sea" was the title for the Mediterranean and the Yam Kinneret "Sea of Kinneret," the Sea of Galilee. Among ancient Israelites (and their predecessors the Canaanites), and even into the 1st century AD, the sea was a thing to be feared, having its own chaotic life-force that they thought of as being divine. A storm on the lake, even for tough fishermen, might have had some theological significance for them aside from the physical struggles of keeping a boat afloat in high winds and waves. Jesus calming the "sea" would have had profound significance to people who knew that only Yahweh could tame the chaotic sea. This brings new meaning to their question: "Who is this man that even the wind and the waves (i.e. Yam) obey him?"

The gospel accounts tell us that Jesus moved from the little village of Nazareth to Caparnaum. The only explicit reference to Jesus profession in the gospel narratives is the question that someone is said to have asked concerning him: "Is this not the son of the builder?" Jesus' father is called a tektonos in Greek here, a builder who knew how to make stuff out of local materials - in this case basalt blocks, abundant in the area due to its proximity to the ancient volcanic cones in Upper Golan (the region of Gaulanitis in Jesus' day).

One look at the tightly clustered basalt-brick houses in the excavated areas of Capernaum and it is clear that this took some doing to get things built. The village is clearly set up according to a plan, no doubt with certain distances appropriate for certain areas and set dimensions for the buildings. The doorframes we saw were specially created in the basalt walls, a technique that required a master (see our pics). We thus discussed the potential interpretation of the Greek term tektonos to denote a local master-builder who had dedicated himself to the technical know-how of certain tasks. This person would be called upon to build and help others with certain kinds of building projects.

We have then a picture of Jesus as a builder working in his village of Capernaum (a location along the international trade route and also the site of a Roman garrison) and probably at the other towns in the area. Here Jesus was able to meet people's needs on a practical level as well as a spiritual one. Jesus in this light is seen not so much as a holy man with a random designation as a carpenter, but as a well-known builder who in his hometown was known as such. The gospel accounts make it seem like Jesus' eloquence, teaching, and miraculous actions were unusual for a stonemason. The picture presented however, is a really beautiful one since it presents Jesus in a very practical light that explains how people would have known about him and how he was able to make so many connections.

Our last stop on Day #3 was a strenuous one. We drove up to the Arbel Cliffs above Tiberius to climb down them. You have to see the pictures of this cliff to fully appreciate what we did… Unfortunately, we don’t have pictures of the actual climb, since a storm was brewing and we knew we would be climbing, not hiking. So, the camera stayed in the bus. It was a fun, crazy, and memorable experience and once again a test to Mandy’s fear of heights. Mountain number two conquered!

After our visits and lectures at the sites of Jesus' ministry, we spent the final day in the western lower Galilee area where Jesus hometown of Nazareth is (which has grown up into a significant city over the past two-thousand years from a tiny, secluded village primarily because it was put on the map by the biblical story). Nazareth is located on a ridge to the north of the Jezreel Valley, overlooking it. One cannot visit Nazareth and look off of the ridge into the Jezreel Valley without thinking about the psychological effect of the stories that took place here would have had on a person growing up in the area.

Here in the expansive valley, kings and tribal leaders battled with surrounding nations to hold their land and their trade routes. Epic poetic events tell of the "stars of the sky" fighting for the people of Yahweh as they battled the Canaanites in the valley "at Taanach by Megiddo's waters." Here one can see the area thought to be 'Ein Dor, the "Spring of a Generation," where Saul sought supernatural counsel only to encounter the apparition of Samuel and a grisly proclamation of his death. One could reflect on Ahab, the politically brilliant, but spiritually fallen king who battled the king of Damascus here. The larger than life prophet Elijah here headed up the fateful confrontation between the deities of Israel and Phoenicia atop Mt. Carmel, only a few miles away. Jonah, the man associated with the epic of the fish, lived just near Nazareth, a tradition that would have no doubt been known to Jesus and the inhabitants of his little town. At Megiddo Josiah, the last great king of Judah, who surely would have been seen in a messianic role as Judah's last hope for restoration, lost his life in a confrontation with Neco, the king of Egypt.

In their own way these people were "anointed ones" (Messiahs or Christs) people who felt and were recognized as set apart by God to do something special and/or represent him in some way to others, be it politically, spiritually, or both. This ridge where we stood was surely a lookout spot for the ancient inhabitants of first century Nazareth, just a short distance away. No doubt a young man once stood here and perhaps contemplated the stories that had taken place here so many years before.

As Jesus grew up, how did these ancient stories affect his thinking? How did they shape him to the point that he went into the synagogue in his hometown of Nazareth and said of himself, "The Spirit of Yahweh has anointed me." The text says that following this proclamation, everyone's eyes "were fixed upon him" (Luke 4:20). Here before them was a guy who had grown before their eyes. The older people probably remembered when he was a baby. He probably installed some of their basalt door fixtures. Jesus was ultimately not accepted among his own, which to some degree is natural. It is no wonder that Jesus is said to have uttered the words, "Only in his hometown, among his relatives and in his own house is a prophet without honor" (Mark 6:4).

While we cannot know historically what went through Jesus' mind throughout his life and ultimately what influenced his decisions, actions, proclamations, and messianic ideology, through the eyes of faith, it was the Spirit of Yahweh upon him. And, indeed it is possible to bring the perspective of faith and that of history together. It is truly beautiful to think about the human side of Jesus and the stories, ideals, circumstances, and events that shaped his thinking of which we only have vestiges of in the gospel stories, knowing all the while that God was there in all of those things, shaping Jesus into the kind of person who would die for his beliefs and for his purpose.

We visited a site called Sepphoris, which was a Jewish town from the second century B.C.E. It was in this town and the surrounding region that the primary post-biblical Jewish literature (the Talmud and Mishnah) was written and compiled. The site of Sepphoris, while not explicitly tied to the biblical narratives, may have been a part of the life of Jesus, though we cannot be sure. The oldest city was destroyed by the Romans in 4 B.C.E. The city was then rebuilt in the years following and since the city was within walking distance of Nazareth, the need for a skilled tektonos would have presented itself. Perhaps the local professional Joseph and his young son and apprentice worked in the rebuilding. This is a speculative local tradition, but one that has some validity to it. Sepphoris also has some beautiful and intricate mosaics, among them the famous "Mona Lisa of the Galilee." We finished out our trip to Galilee with a visit to Beth Shean, the only site Mandy and I had visited before, in 2008. It was fun to see it again!

Our time in the Galilee was, as you can see, packed with lots of information. It was an impacting four days for us academically and spiritually as we reflected on the geography and history of the northern arena of the land as well as on the ministry and life of Jesus. It was a profound experience to stand on the shore of the Sea of Galilee each night at the end of our days in the field and to reflect on the day’s events. We will never forget standing on the shore listening to the small waves lap against the sand while looking out at the extremely calm water as it reflected the moonlight. The Galilee is a beautiful region. It is a lush and fertile region watered by four springs fed by the melting snow from the high mountains of the Lebanon range.

It is a land that is not only rich in physical beauty, but in the beauty of the cultures that have made up its inhabitants for the past five-thousand years. It is a land that was for the ancients no doubt a mysterious place where the gods sent forth life-giving water and where people could journey to worship these deities. In the last few centuries before the common era the political landscape was a blend of Hellenistic/Roman and Jewish culture. Here some Jewish people accommodated the new influences of Hellenism, namely those in regular contact with it in commercial locations like Capernaum. Some sought to hold to their traditions, especially those who were already in secluded locations like Nazareth. It was from this second kind of environment that Jesus came. Here people had certain ideals about life, religion, politics, as well as Messiah and the role he should play. Jesus, however, envisioned a Messiah who would save his people from sin rather than from Rome and would be a person of lowly means rather than a king. His messianic ideals were not accepted in his hometown and he thus moved to Capernaum where he could work, make connections, and spread the message of the kingdom of heaven. The modern culture of these areas, aside from being steeped in the tourism industry, are very much still a blend of cultures - now Jewish, Muslim, and Christian. We are grateful for the privilege of having been a part of this world for a few days.