Life and Breaks

September 20, 2009

This past week has been just a little bit crazy. Part of that craziness has included the impossibility of finding a good internet connection anywhere. Campus is always a little iffy, and now our ISP at our apartment has apparently decided we don't exist and therefore will not be allowed to access the internet. These sorts of things have conspired to keep me from updating my blog. *gasp* "Oh, the humanity!" as Adria would say.

Anyway...let's see if I can find a few points of interest to recount.

Most of the week I have spent searching diligently for Beit Aven. "Clearly a Biblical sight of significant proportions," you think, having never actually heard of it. Hint: Look here. That might give you an idea of what we're trying to find. It's not that simple, though. There are several issues involved in the search, such as...

1. When the Bible uses the term "Beit Aven" is it always refering to an actual town named "Beit Aven", or is it using it as a derogatory name (House of Iniquity) for some other place with its own name (like Bethel)?

2. What is the proper way to understand the geographical references given in the Hebrew Text?

3. Beit Aven is close to Ai, Bethel, and Michmash, which would seem to make it easier to find...if we were certain where Ai, Bethel, and Michmash were located.

4. Beit Aven is somewhere in the West Bank, which makes it difficult to do any further archaeological research. But that's ok, because

5. We're not necessarily sure of when Beit Aven should have been occupied. It depends on how you date the conquest of Joshua...and that's a whole other issue.

6. Add to all this that people have been searching for Beit Aven for over 100 years now. At least 8 different sights have, at one time or another, been put forth as a possible location for Beit Aven. Most of them have been discounted, but there are still a few that are fiercely argued for and against among scholars.

That should give you an idea of what my semester is going to look like. :) We'll be done looking for Beit Aven after this week, but other dilemmas are yet to come.

Outside of school things have been a little crazy too.

I went with a couple friends to David's Citadel this week. It's sort of a museum/park, and I'd never been inside before. It's really quite beautiful inside,

with grass, lovely panoramic views of the city, and good information on the history of Jerusalem from ancient to modern times.

One of my flat-mates had a family friend show up, needing a place to crash for a few days. She's a nice lady, and we've enjoyed having her, but it was a bit of a surprise and added to the chaos just a bit. The night she came, 3 other people were over at my house, and the juice man came. Some how there must be a rule that Thursday nights must be chaotic.

Here in Jerusalem it's "Holiday-Central." The Muslim month of Ramadan is just coming to and end, accompanied by much feasting and rejoicing. At the same time the Jews are celebrating their New Year - Rosh Hashannah.

(Apparently, it's traditional to have round challah for Rosh Hashanah. I don't know what it normally looks like, but this is my attempt.)

Yom Kippur is next week, and then Sukkot will be upon us in no time...which means the rains are coming. In fact, they are here. Apparently it rained a little in Jerusalem yesterday, which is an occasion for great rejoicing.

I, however, was not in Jerusalem to appreciate that rain. Another of my flat-mates rented a car this weekend so she could see "the pretty" outside of Jerusalem before city life drove her crazy. Yesterday she kindly took the rest of us along on an adventure.

We got a little bit of a late start...which was ok. It was Shabbat, after all! We headed down south of Jerusalem, skirted Hebron, waved at Arad, and stopped at Mampsis/Mamshit, one of the Nabatean cities of the lower Negev. The Nabateans were really a facinating people, and they left some impressive ruins.

(This is the "Market" which reminded me of the fairgrounds back home...)

Of those, Petra is of course the most famous, and the most spectacular, but Mampsis was fun to visit. We ate lunch there before exploring. They had some "impressive" staircases, a dam, a couple churches with some nice mosaics, a fresco, and a couple sweet stables. I would live there, if I were a horse. (I'm not, for the record.)

From there we drove to Be'er Sheva where we first stopped to get a new rental car. The breaks on ours were making a funny sound...so with remarkable ease (especially considering the holiday) we traded it for a different one.

We paused again to get ice cream and then proceeded to a park commemorating the last successful cavalry charge in history: the Charge of the Australian Light Horse Brigade. The park had one statue and a couple informational signs to commemorate the event. They also had some pretty sweet playground equipment. I would play there if I were a kid. For that matter, I would play there if I were an adult. Actually...I might have made Adria ride the merry-go-round with me... :)

We then set off in search of a Turkish bridge (build in 1914-1915 for World War II, according to our map...hmmm....) We some how managed to totally miss it as we drove past the first time...so we back-tracked, looking for wadis that might possibly have Turkish bridges over them. We stopped at 2 such places, parking the car in random locations and tramping off over hills and around trees, trying to spy a bridge. We were close to giving up when, "Oh hey, is THAT the bridge?"

In retrospect, I really don't know how we missed it so completely the first time driving past. Or how we could have thought it would have been over those little tiny wadis that we found. Oh well, we had a good walk, and we did eventually find it.

We then scurried off to Ashkelon to watch the sunset on the ocean. It was beautiful.

We had to stop for dinner, though, before heading back up into the hills. Cameron had been going on and on about wanting french fries...so we stopped at the first McDonald's we found. Oh the joys of greasy salty food.

Now it's Sunday. Luckily for me, the majority of the students are off on a field study today, which means that now that breakfast is done, I don't have to do much until I start on dinner. I might even get to go to church!