Galilee, Week 1

I would be ungrateful if I didn't start off this post with a heartfelt thanks to someone who has done me an enormous favor. After a camera mishap in Gethsemane a couple of weeks ago, I was left with no real way to take pictures right on the eve of our Galilee expedition. As I was wailing about my predicament in the computer lab, Sara Plater (may she be blessed) approached me and offered to let me use her backup camera for the remainder of the study abroad. She probably doesn't know just how important that gift was to me: as most of you know, I'm pretty passionate about the sites I've been visiting this summer, and the prospect of not being able to document our remaining adventures had me pretty depressed for a couple of days. So a large thank you to Sara! If any of you know her, give her a hug or buy her ice cream or something. (Also, a big thank you to several of the equally generous people who also offered their cameras, like Sean, Dana, and Ashley.) 

And with that done, let me show you what I've been doing with Sara's camera!

Field Trip 1

We left Jerusalem on Monday morning and headed up the Jordan river valley towards the northern region of Galilee. Much as the ancient Jews took pains to avoid crossing through Samaria on their way between Galilee and Judea, modern travelers heading north from Jerusalem circumvent the West Bank area. After a bit of a drive, we stopped in the ancient city of Bet Shean, aka Scythopolis. This strategically-situated site was a center of Egyptian administration in the area in the 13th century BC. It eventually fell into Philistine hands, and when Saul and his sons were killed in the battle at Mount Gilboa, the Philistines hung their corpses on the walls of the city (1 Samuel 31:8-10). The city passed into Israelite hands, then to Ptolemaic hands, and then finally into Roman control. During the time of Jesus it was known as a city of the Decapolis, a league of ten cities that formed a bastion of Greco-Roman culture in the region. It remains the best-preserved Roman city in Israel.

We couldn't resist a shot of our class enjoying the Roman public latrines.

Our next stop as we headed north was Jesus's home town of Nazareth! This was a highly-anticipated site, and it didn't disappoint. While the city has developed many of the tourist trappings we've come to expect at pilgrimage sites in the Holy Land, it still retains a little of the small-town atmosphere it must have had as the Savior was growing up here two millennia ago. The gospels are frustratingly silent about what Jesus's childhood, adolescence, and early manhood would have been like, and for me our visit to Nazareth did more to prompt questions than provide answers, but it was an amazing experience the same.

This "Synagogue Church," which dates to the Crusader period, is built over the ruins of a first-century synagogue, traditionally regarded as the one which Jesus would have attended as a young man and where he dramatically announced his Messianic fulfillment of Isaiah 61 (see Luke 4:16-30). 

A beautifully enormous church sits atop the traditional site of Gabriel's annunciation to Mary (pictured above). I didn't get very many good photos, but the walls are all decorated with creative mosaics from dozens of different countries.  

Behind the three of us are some ruins of first-century Nazareth. I have a shot of just the ruins that I was going to upload, but Natalie and Hannah are even cooler than ruins, so I stuck with this shot. :) We had some discussions at Nazareth about the role of Mary and the importance of righteous, spiritually-minded women in the New Testament. It made me grateful for all of the fantastic young women I've gotten to know over the course of the this study abroad; they all inspire me to a higher standard of discipleship.

As we left Nazareth and headed towards the Sea of Galilee, we stopped by the city of Cana, where Jesus performed his first miracle by transforming water to wine at a wedding. This was by far the preferred miracle of many Argentine wine lovers that I encountered on my mission, but the story may have a greater significance than they realized. Brother Huntsman has published a fantastic article on blood and water imagery in the book of John, and he suggests that John consistently uses water as a symbol of immortality and spirit, while blood (or in this case, wine) symbolizes mortality. John's gospel lacks a nativity story, but just as Jesus turns the water here into wine, this miracle might represent Jehovah's transformation from his spiritual, divine state to a physical, mortal body. I can't explain it nearly as well as Brother Huntsman does, so I highly recommend his article: http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/studies/?vol=1&id=29 Pictured above is the church built at the site. It was unfortunately closed when we came to visit; sneaking a photo through the bars of the gate was all I could do. 

This is the summit of Mt. Arbel. While it was the site of some crazy Roman Jewish clashes (Roman forces had to lower troops down into rebel-occupied caves via ropes), we climbed it primarily for the amazing view it provides of the Sea of Galilee. 

This is our view of the sunset from the beach of our Galilean lakeside resort. How lucky am I? SO lucky. 

Field Trip 2

To kick off the day, we boarded a ship and crossed over to the other side of the Sea of Galilee!

No storms popped up for us, but we did sing "Master, the Tempest is Raging."

Me and Sara, with the Sea of Galilee and Mt. Arbel in the background. 

Waiting for us at the end of our boat ride was...a boat! This one is slightly cooler though: it's an ancient fishing boat that was removed from the muddy shore of the sea in 1986. After painstakingly excavating it and moving it, it was treated with preservatives for a decade before it was finally put on display. Jesus and his disciples likely would have used a small fishing boat like this one to cross the Sea of Galilee.

Our next stop was the traditional site of the Sermon on the Mount. It's a beautiful site for a beautiful text. Brother Harper, our teacher/guide, didn't spend too much time talking to us here: we had a musical number, he shared some brief thoughts with us, and then he let us find secluded spots to sit and read Matthew 5-7. There's nothing quite like reading the Sermon on the Mount...on the mount. 

The octagonal Church of the Beattiudes sits on the mount overlooking the sea; each of its sides commemorates one of the blessings Jesus gave in the beginning of the sermon. We had a fantastic violin/vocal duet perform "Consider the Lilies" right outside the church. A nun, who had been shushing other tourists, started to approach us, and I was afraid she would tell us we were being loud. Instead, she whipped out her cell phone and took a picture, giving us a thumbs-up afterwards. Gotta love Israel. 

This is the Table of Christ, in the Church of St. Peter's Primacy, where Jesus appeared to the apostles after his resurrection and made them breakfast on the lakeside (John 21). Egeria, a fourth century pilgrim to the Holy Land, wrote that chipping off a piece of the rock and taking it with you would bring prosperity. I was tempted, but I thought it might also bring me an Israeli court summons, so I abstained. 

One of my most anticipated sites on the Galilee itinerary was the city of Capernaum. This site became the central location for Jesus's Galilean ministry, and numerous miracles occurred there (particularly the raising of Jarius's daughter, healing the woman with an issue of blood, healing a nobleman's son, and healing a centurion's servant). Jesus quite possibly spent more of his ministry here than in any other single location.  Unfortunately, Jesus's words and works found a largely unreceptive audience: the Savior sharply upbraided the town in Matthew 11:23: "And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell: for if the mighty works, which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day." Today there is nothing left in the city but memorials and ruins.

This is a fifth century synagogue, built over the ruins of what might have been the first century synagogue in which Jesus preached part of his famous Bread of Life discourse. I couldn't help but do a little preaching myself. 

This might not look like much, but it's perhaps one of the most significant early Christian sites. Inside these octagonal walls are the ruins of what is believed to be Peter's (or Peter's mother-in-law's) house, where Jesus stayed and often taught during his time in Capernaum. After Jesus's resurrection, early saints used this location as a house-church (known as domus ecclesia), which was expanded in the fourth century and then replaced by an octagonal Byzantine church in the fifth century (which included the walls pictured above). In this photo you can see a large structure above the ruins; this is a large, spider-like Catholic church that sits suspended above the former churches; it has a glass floor so that worshippers can look down on the site of one of the first Christian meeting places. 

For dinner we went to a fish restaurant. I'm not a seafood guy, but even I couldn't resist something titled "Saint Peter's Fish Fillet."

That's the fish's head...yeah, I was in a strange mood that night. 

Field Trip 3

I've forgotten to mention one of the best parts of the entire Galilee experience thus far. Before we left Jerusalem, Brother Harper pulled me aside and asked if I would be willing to give the historical/archaeological explanations at the sites during this expedition. I'm not exactly sure what induced him to do this--even though he's more of a Restoration historian, he still knows the ancient Near East far better than I do. Maybe he thought I needed a creative outlet for all of my nerdish excitement. Regardless, he has made my wildest dreams come true by letting me tell the class about all of the ancient awesomeness at the sites we've visited, and I owe him a lot for letting me live my dream of being an ANES professor. The real victims of this arrangement are my fellow students, who now have to endure my craziness at every place we visit. And no where has that craziness been more apparent than at Gamla. 

 Me and my Roman troops, preparing the siege engines for an assault on Gamla. 

Gamla deserves its own blog post, but I'll try and do it justice here. It's built on the side of a steep, rocky hill. (It's visible from the Mount of Beatitudes, which means that Jesus may have been referring to Gamla when he told his disciples that "A city which is set on a hill cannot be hid.") The steep dropoffs on three sides of the hill make the eastern side the only point at which it can be attacked. As the Roman legions marched into Israel to crush the Great Revolt, most of the cities in the Galilee region capitulated without a fight, but many of those who wanted to resist the Roman attack gathered at Gamla. The historian Josephus describes in detail the siege of Gamla, where the general and soon-to-be emperor Vespasian brought three legions in to crush the rebels. After breaching the walls with siege engines, the Romans stormed the city but were repelled by the Jewish fighters, and (as told by Josephus) only a Rambo-like performance from Vespasian himself prevented the loss from becoming a total massacre. Later, with reinforcements from his son Titus, Vespasian manages to reenter the city and force the defenders to the highest precipice of the hill. With Romans on one side and the valley on the other, the remaining combatants hurled themselves off the craggy peak. Some of the details of Josephus's account might not hold up under scrutiny, but the ruins themselves and the hundreds of Roman arrowheads and catapult stones bear witness to the heart of the story.  

 One of the most significant features of Gamla is the synagogue, which is possibly the oldest synagogue in Israel. 

 Brave Jewish defenders, standing in the remains of one of the guard towers. 

After reluctantly leaving behind the battlefield of Gamla, we went to Katzrin, a Jewish city from the Talmudic/Byzantine era. It helped us better visualize what day-to-day life would have been like for Jews living in the early centuries AD. Brother Harper pointed out many New Testament parables that make a lot more sense when understood in the context of Jewish life at the time. 

Just grinding my grain to make my pitas.  

 Friendship in the ruins!

Finally, our last stop of the day was at Kursi. This was identified by Byzantines as the place where Jesus cast the legion of devils out of a possessed man and into a herd of swine, who promptly ran into the Sea of Galilee and drown. The Byzantines couldn't pass up the chance to erect a commemorative church, and it remains the largest Byzantine bascilica found in the Galilee. 

 Us, impersonating the herd of demon-possessed swine. As you can see, I don't have to work too hard to impersonate a pig.

Nor do I have to work too hard to impersonate a possessed crazy dude. My classmates say that I make this exact face when teachers tell me it's time to leave a site.