♪ It's the Final Countdown! ♪

I'm in quite a predicament right now: I can't work up the willpower to study for finals any more, but my conscience won't let me veg out and watch the Olympics. Thus, my creative avoidance is finding expression in...a blog update! I have less than a week left in Israel, which means that every second I'm not taking finals, I want to be out livin' like a Jerusalemite. Thus, this will be my last blog update from the Holy Land. There's not much of a rhyme or reason to this assortment of photos; they're just random snapshots from the most recent adventures. Enjoy!

Dormition Abbey: the traditional site of Mary's death. It's a Jerusalem landmark and one of my favorite churches in the Holy Land

One of the best things about these large rotunda churches is the amazing acoustics: we sang a good five hymns and still couldn't get enough of the great sound. 

This is the grave of Oskar Shindler, a German factory owner who saved over a thousand Jews from concentration camps and death during the Holocaust. In Israel, instead of leaving flowers on graves, Jews traditionally place stones on tombstones to honor the deceased. Finding Schindler's grave wasn't difficult: we just looked for the most rock-covered tomb in the graveyard. 

I already blogged about this Scottish church, but I had to get a picture by the sign of my patron saint. :)

One of the pews in St. Andrews was dedicated to "The Black Watch (Royal Highlanders)". I'm already planning to form a secret Highland organization called The Black Watch. 

Me and Ashley in front of the Tower of David, one of the landmarks of Jerusalem. In classes we're finishing the New Testament, and this structure has taken on new meaning: scholars believe that Christ would have been tried by Pilate in this building. 

Me in front of the Church of John the Baptist, which is considered the oldest Church in Jerusalem.

Qumran

On Monday we made the trek down into the Judean wilderness to visit two incredible sites. The first was Qumran, site of a secluded settlement of Jewish sectarians who produced the Dead Sea Scrolls. 

Our class first hiked through the barren desert terrain to reach Cave 11, where researchers found several of the most significant Dead Sea Scrolls, including the lengthy Temple Scroll.

Me outside of Cave 11.

Me inside of Cave 11! Holy ANES ground, to be sure. 

The ruins at Qumran are associated with the sect of the Essenes, a Jewish group who separated themselves from the broader Jewish world and strove to live lives of ritual purity in preparation for the final battle between the "sons of light" (themselves) and the "sons of darkness" (everyone else). While their beliefs might have been a bit crazy, their texts provide an unparalleled look at the world of Second Temple Judaism. 

I couldn't help but take a slide down their water aqueduct. 

Masada

Masada is generally regarded as the historical site to visit in Israel. It was built by Herod the Great as a palace fortress, but was commandeered by Jewish zealots at the end of the Great Revolt. According to Jewish historian Josephus, the zealots held out against Roman forces until the siege ramp was completed and a battering ram destroyed the outer wall. Rather than allowing themselves to be killed or enslaved by the Romans, the defenders burned their stores and killed one another, leaving a graveyard for the Romans to discover the following morning. While the dramatic story is of somewhat dubious accuracy, evidence of the Roman siege lies everywhere, making this an exciting site. 

I didn't get a good photo of the fortress itself, but Masada is situated on top of a large desert mesa, which made it virtually impregnable for invading armies. The only option for the Roman besiegers was to construct an enormous siege ramp which allowed their battering rams to reach the walls of the fortress. While erosion has taken its toll, the ramp is still enormous. 

The two squares in the background are the remains of two Roman camps. Several other camps are visible surrounding the mesa, as is the siege wall circling the site. The Romans knew how to run a siege. 

Me and my adopted sister Hannah, just chillin' on some of the catapult balls flung at the defenders by Roman siege engines. So dang cool!

In the remains of the synagogue at Masada we found a Torah scribe, busily writing out a copy of the Hebrew Bible. He took some time away from his writing to talk to us, and even wrote out a blessing for us on a spare piece of parchment he had! 

Maddie: Now let's take a picture of all of us swooning over Andy!

Me: There's a certain young lady in Provo who's not going to like this at all. 

Maddie: Well, I'm engaged, so there's a certain young man in Provo whose not going to like this at all.

On Tuesday we went to the Museum on the Seam, a contemporary art museum where I understood about 0.5% of what was being portrayed. This broken "We" block was the only thing on my level. 

If I ever start a career as a singer, this is going to be the cover of my first album.

From the roof of the museum, we could see the lightrail speeding off in the direction of the Old City. It's always surreal to see the juxtaposition of old and new in Jerusalem. The blue dome in the background (just above the red triangular roof) is the Church of the Holy Sepluchure. 

This is a shot looking off into West Jerusalem. 

This is the Ethiopian Church of Jerusalem! Ethiopians are proud of their long-standing Christian heritage, and this church in Jerusalem commemorates that dedication to the Savior. 

If this statue isn't the embodiment of holy awesomeness, I don't know what is. 

The colorful interior of the church.

Apparently the Ethiopian priests take turns reading the Bible in Ethiopian round the clock. Too cool. 

I would not have believed this was a real language if you had showed it to me three months ago.

On the far right of the photo is professor Jared Ludlow (aka J. Rowdy), our ANES professor and one of the coolest men I know. We ran into him and his family exploring the Rockefeller Museum and had to take a picture. The faculty families leaving at the same time we are, so there's experiencing a bit of what we call JC LDS--Jerusalem Center Last Days Syndrome. 

Us on the road to the Russian Orthodox Church of the Ascension.

The church itself. 

A Russian depiction of the raising of Lazarus. 

And...Harry Potter in Hebrew!!!

I couldn't help but replicate this dramatic rendition of Moses breaking the tablets of the law. (Megan graciously obliged to be a cowering Aaron.)

Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem...

This shot is about as iconic as the following one....

In case you haven't been able to tell from my blog, my experience here in the Holy Land has been a supernal experience. It's not something that comes across well in photos; hopefully I'll be able to explain it better to each of you in person. I will update this blog with the experiences of my final week, but it probably won't happen until next Friday, when I'm sitting in my home in Highland. Thank you for sharing in my adventure, and I look forward to telling you all about it in the coming weeks!

Galilee, Part 2

You really can't do justice to Galilee, not with a thousand pictures or ten thousand words. It has been the highlight of my Holy Land experience thus far, which is probably why I had a hard time limiting the number of pictures to upload. This update will be sparse on the text and rich on visuals--a plus in that you don't have to put up with me rambling, a minus in that you have to see my ugly mug a hundred times. Luckily, that mug is place in front of some pretty awesome stuff. 

Saturday

The Church owns two official chapels in the Holy Land. On is the Jerusalem Center, of course, and the other is in the city of Tiberias, overlooking the Sea of Galilee. We got to enjoy this incredible view as we attended services there. Randomly, one of the branch members there is a woman who I helped find research materials in Special Collections last semester. Small world, eh?

This is the tomb of Maimonides, one of the most prominent Jewish sages and writers. His given name was Moses, and there's a Jewish saying that goes "From Moses to Moses there was no one like Moses!" Or in other words, from the Lawgiver Moses to the Commentator Moses, there was no one quite as wise as he. 

As cool as Maimonides was, I was even more excited to visit the grave of Rabbi Yohannan ben Zakai, a man who helped preserve Judaism in the disastrous aftermath of the Great Revolt. He escaped the Roman siege of Jerusalem in a coffin and negotiated with general Vespasian in order to preserve the Jewish city of Yavneh and its sages. From there he reconvened the Sanhedren and in large part paved the path for Rabbinic Judaism in a post-Temple setting. 

We also got to visit another traditional site of Jesus's baptism. This one might be a less likely historical candidate for the place of Jesus's baptism, but our awesome ANES teacher, Professor Ludlow, was baptized here, so it's significant in its own right. :)

Along the walls of the site were dozens of ceramic plaques quoting the story of Jesus's baptism from Mark. For obvious reasons, this one was our favorite.

Sunday

This is a church on Mt. Tabor, one of the candidates for the Mount of Transfiguration. We had a great devotional here about what the Bible says about that incident and what we learn from Restoration scripture about that incident. 

The interior of the church. 

Mt. Tabor is also famous as the site of a Judges-era battle of Israelites against the Canaanite forces of Sisera and his "nine hundred chariots of iron." The prophetess Deborah and the general Barak charged down the hill to face his forces, and a divinely-directed storm created mud in the valley, rendering Sisera's chariots worthless and giving the Israelites the victory. The fleeing Sisera was killed by the Kenite woman Jael, who "took a nail of the tent, and took an hammer in her hand, and went softly unto him, and smote the nail into his temples, and fastened it into the ground: for he was fast asleep and weary. So he died." (Judges 4) Classic Old Testament.

This is a chapel in the town of Nain, where Jesus saw the funeral bier of a widow's son being carried out of the city. Luke 7:11-16 states that Jesus "had compassion on her" and raised the son from the dead. The story becomes even more poignant when we consider that, at this point, Jesus may very well have been the son of a widow, and he knew very well that Mary would soon experience the same sorrow.

This is me at Megiddo, which overlooks the Jezreel valley, aka the valley of Armageddon. Brother Harper corrected some of our false apocalyptic assumptions, but that doesn't change the immense historical significance of the site. Every conqueror who's any conqueror in the Near East marched through Megiddo. 

Me and Alvin, manning a chariot. Megiddo is identified as a chariot city during the time of Solomon.

Tuesday

Me and my Galilee roommate Michael, in front of the remains of a Cannanite palace at Hazor, another Solomonic stronghold. 

This would have been the main gate into the city at the time of Solomon. This six-chambered gate is extremely similar to the gate at Megiddo, which I had to write a ten-page paper about in my ANES class; my nerdy knowledge at this site exceeded even my own usual standards. 

This sign pretty much encapsulates my life for the last three months. 

Nerd moment: this mud brick gate, perfectly preserved in the city of Dan, dates to (roughly) the time of Abraham, who came up this way to rescue his kidnapped nephew Lot. 

In Iron Age Israel, the gate of a city was a major social, economic, and judicial center. Pictured here is a typical gatehouse scene: on the left are the city elder deliberating, while on the left the king sits on his raised platform, judging the pleas of a peasant. Brother Ludlow and Hannah are serving as pillars for the royal awning.  

The city of Dan is most famous (or infamous) as a cultic site of the northern kingdom of Israel. Jereboam, who became king after the northern tribes split from Solomon's son Rehoboam, set up golden calves in Dan and Beth-el as alternative worship sites to the temple at Jerusalem. The altar would have stood here. I'm doing my best golden calf impression here. 

One less famous landmark of the city of Dan is the Winnie the Pooh tree. 

Since I was the most Pooh-like of all the JC students, I had to reenact an important moment from Disney history. 

Caesarea Philippi was the capital of Herod Philip's tetrarchy and the cite of Peter's famous testimony of Christ (see Matthew 16:13-20). The passage takes on new meaning when one contrasts Jesus's declaration "upon this rock I will build my church" with the gigantic stone cliff face that dominates the city. 

Our final stop of the day was at Nimrod Fortress, a castle built to impede the progress of the Crusaders on their march towards Damascus. Normally history that recent doesn't appeal to us ANES scholars as much, but I couldn't resist jumping around the fortifications. 

Chloe, Breanne, Hannah and me at the top of the citadel. 

"Aim for the trolls!"

What could make Israel any cooler than it already is? Dinosaurs made of scrap metal, of course!

Wednesday

I know that a certain reader appreciates all references to mythology, and when I saw this Medusa head I had to document it. The most surprising thing, however, is that we found this in the synagogue of Chorazin. Apparently the Jews of the fourth century had an appreciation for Greek mythology!

This is the seat of Moses in the Chorazin synagogue, from which distinguished members of the congregation would deliver sermons.

Brother Jackson explained to us that, in largely wood-less Galilee, the beams used in building construction would have largely been made of the black basalt rock that is so plentiful. Thus, when Jesus taught his disciples to remove the beam out of their eye (as demonstrated here) before harassing others about motes, he was likely talking about these sorts of beams. 

"Wo unto thee, Chorazin!...for if the mighty works, which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I say unto you, it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgement, than for you" (Mathew 11:21-22). 

This is a floor mosaic in the synagogue of Sepphoris depicting the binding of Issac. The story may be Jewish, but the medium and the style is 100% Roman. 

I don't really like this picture of me, but the view is too significant to pass up. I'm standing atop a crusader citadel of Sepphoris. Perched on that second set of rolling hills in the background (barely distinguishable on the right side of my head) is the city of Nazareth; it lies less then four miles southeast of Sepphoris. Following the death of his father, Herod Antipas made Sepphoris the capital of his tetrarchy, and worked hard to enlarge and beautify the city. This would have provided a large number of construction jobs for people in the surrounding countryside--most notably, perhaps, Joseph and his son Jesus. (Nerd note: the word translated as carpenter in the NT is the Greek tekton, means a general artisan. As wood would have been an uncommon resource in the region, it's likely that Joseph and Jesus would have worked in stone. How cool is that?!)

This mosaic is called the "Mona Lisa of Galilee." I actually think that it's nicer than Miss Lisa, but that's just me. It adorns the floor of a dining hall. 

After this trip, I decided that my future home needs to have awesome mosaics. This centaur was on the floor of a Byzantine-era home. 

This is me next to Sara, a Crusader expert, under a Crusader arch in the Crusader city of Akko. Underneath the modern city lies an incredible lower city of ruins that we got to explore. 

As the author of the Hobbit in the Holy Land blog, I couldn't help but document the hobbit-sized door. 

This four gentlemen are the latest Israeli music sensation, achieving fame with their new hit single "Love Amidst the Ruins".

Thursday

The Haifa Templer cemetery is not a common tourist destination, but for me it was one of the most significant stops on our Galilee trip. Buried here are several of the LDS pioneers in the Holy Land. Pictured above is the grave of Georg Grau, who is perhaps the first convert baptized by priesthood authority in the Holy Land since the days of the apostles. Quoting from our field trip manual, "LDS missionay Jacob Spori was sent from the European Mission to Haifa, arriving in 1886. Before he left, Elder Spori had a dream in which he saw a blacksmith who was prepared for the gospel. When Elder Spori arrived in Haifa and went to the street and blacksmith shop he had seen in his dream, Johan Georg Grau ran out to meet him and declared he had seen Elder Spori in a dream the night before. Elder Spori baptized both Brother Grau and his wife Magdalena, both of whom are buried in the Haifa cemetery." (Katie will be pleased to hear that Elder Spori is none other than the first principal of the Bannok Stake Academy, which eventually became Ricks College, which eventually became BYU-I.)

"In 1894, John A. Clark, a 23-year-old student at BYU, accepted a call to serve a mission. After one year serving in Haifa, Elder Clark contracted smallpox and died shortly before his 24th birthday." The story of a 23-year-old BYU student in the Holy Land naturally made an impression on me. As it turns out, Elder Clark and another young missionary who died here, Adolph Hagg, made it possible for me to be in the Holy Land on this study abroad. In order to establish itself in Israel, the LDS Church had to prove it had a presence in Israel before 1948. The graves of Elder Clark and Elder Hagg provided that evidence, allowing the Jerusalem Center to be built.

Haifa is home to the Baha'i Gardens/World Headquarters. Baha'i was started in 1863; its initial followers were Shiite Muslims but it borrowed liberally from other faiths and traditions. The seven million adherents of the faith recognize such figures as Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad as divinely inspired, and even have some beliefs about Mormons: some claim that Moroni and Joseph Smith are different reincarnations of the apostle Paul. Their gardens are breathtakingly beautiful.


One of my most highly anticipated visits was to Mt. Carmel, site of the epic showdown between Jehovah's champion, Elijah, and the 450 priests loyal to Baal. Naturally, we had to do some re-enacting.




One prophet goes and calls down fire from heaven, and it ruins the fun for the rest of us.

This is the view from the top of Mt. Carmel. The brook Kishon, where Elijah slaughtered the Baalites, is in the background.

This is the aqueduct of Caesarea Maritima, the Roman capital for Judea and home of its Roman governors (including Pontius Pilate).

Another historical reenactment: Paul making his defense before Felix. It's possible that this exchange happened in this exact spot.

Our program director, Dr. Kent Jackson, is always warning us to not climb on antiquities. I couldn't pass up documenting this sign for him.

The Crusader moat and walls of Caesarea Maritima. The French King Louis IX spent a year personally working on the construction as an act of public penitence.

 And that just about does it! Just a week and a half left of Jerusalem awesomeness before rejoining the real world! I'll probably do one last update after our field trip to Masada and Qumran; expect that on Monday or Tuesday.