Galilee, Day 3

October 27, 2008

Time for more tea and more impressions. Today was another full day. I’ll start with the highlights (places I enjoyed most).

1. I got to see the Jordan River! I think I may have caught a glimpse of it before, but for heaven’s sake! This is the end of my second month in Israel on my second trip here. The Jordan is one of the most famous places in this land, probably mostly because of spirituals. I mean, really, rarely would you meet someone who has heard of Beth Shean, much less knows where it is. Everyone knows about the Jordan. So it was about time that I got to see it! I was a little disappointed that the waters didn’t part when I put my foot in it, but I guess I wasn’t carrying the ark, after all, and shouldn’t be too distraught. I did get to see an amazing green and orange bird, though, so that made up for it.

2. Dr. Wright surprised us with a boat ride this morning! We just went out for a bit and came back, but it was lovely. It was interesting to learn a bit about fishing and the types of nets used. The best part was seeing Dr. Wright walk on water, though. It was nice that the rain let up for most of the ride too.
3. Mt. Arbel. Enough said. Ok, maybe not. We got to hike down the cliff and look into a few of the caves.
I didn’t see as many caves as I would have liked because I didn’t think I’d have time before it got dark. Oh well. It still amuses me so much that they have hand hold and foot holds built into the trail. I mean, it’s really nice. I’m not sure that I would have been brave enough otherwise to come down it, especially since it was a bit slick after the rain. But the trail really wasn’t much worse than some places around Natural Bridge or Monument, and those don’t have hand-holds. We joke around that in America if someone falls off a cliff they or their surviving kin sue for damages (“Why didn’t you warn me that standing near a cliff was dangerous?!”) In Israel they say, “Oh, you fell off a cliff? Stupid you.” As true as that may be, they sure have a lot more signs and rails and such around here. Of course, that is probably because it also has a denser population. These places probably get hundreds of visitors weekly, if not daily. Monetarily it just isn’t feasible to put these sort of safe guards all over Montana. At any rate, back to the point, Arbel was really beautiful. We even saw a bit of a rainbow, which pretty much made my day. We serve an amazing God!
Those were the beginning, ending, and somewhere in the middle of my day. The rest of the day wasn’t bad. We went to Qazrin, Kursi, and Capernaum. All of which I had been to before. In fact, the only new place for me today was the Jordan. I got to see a few different parts of the places I’d been (like the cistern at Kursi
and the “flying-saucer-church” at Capernaum) and I got to hear a different perspective on some things along with some new information, but a lot of it was review. Which isn’t bad. I admit, though, as much as I need review, I enjoy learning new things more.

Fortuantely, I did learn some new things. 
1. I learned that this northern area had 5 geo-political divisions (Philip’s territory, Galilee, Tyre/Syrio-phonecia, Decapolis, and Samaria. Of those, only Galilee was “Comfortably Jewish,” and it was in the middle of all the rest. By putting his home base here, Jesus was still focused on the Jews, but available to all sorts of people.
2. I learned that the job description of a disciple was someone that Jesus wanted so they could be with him. (Mark 3:13-14) We also talked a little about the 12 – their backgrounds and such.
3. When Jesus “crossed over” the sea He probably didn’t go straight across it in either direction. It probably was often as little as from Capernaum to Bethsaida: simply a crossing from one of the five ‘valleys’ around the sea to the next one, or similarly, from one geopolitical region to the next.
4. In Mark 5:1 Jesus arrives in one of these regions from somewhere “across” the sea. Some translations call it the “Land of the Gadarenes” or Gedera. Others call it Gerasa, and get others say it was Gergasa. The funny thing about Gerasa especially is that it is about 40 miles from the Sea of Galilee and 3000ft higher. That translation doesn’t seem so likely. Gedera is closer but still a ways from the sea. The only one really on the sea (which is pretty necessary for this story) is Gergasa (today known as Kursi). All three places have remains of Byzantine churches to commemorate this event. I think we’ll get to visit Gerasa on our Jordan trip.
This is at the church at Gergasa:

5. At Qazrin (or Qatzrin or to really Americanize it, Katsrine) we heard a story about wine-making at JUC. Sounded pretty nasty. We watched a video about the Talmud. I found it really terribly confusing. I couldn’t follow the logic of the presentation. We also looked there at a reconstructed house and the remains of a Synagog from near Jesus’ time. It gave a decent idea of what He would have been familiar with, and what he probably built as a carpenter in his own village.
6. Logically, if Joseph was going to Bethlehem for the census, that would mean he was from there and probably had family of some sort still there. Which means he probably would have stayed with family. In Middle Easter culture, generally there is a front “public” room where guests stay. A little further in is the room where the animals stay in inclement weather. Since the shepherds were out watching their flocks, we must assume that it was summer and the weather was fine and there were no animals in the “stable.” In a sense, then, it was an honor for Mary and Joseph to be taken out of that public room and brought further back into the house. Now that’s quite a different take on the story of the nativity.
7. At Capernaum it poured. For probably about 10 minutes.
We weren’t in it for most of the time, but we did manage to get fairly wet. We sat out most of it in the church built over the supposed sight of Peter’s house (or that of his in-laws) where Jesus is supposed to have stayed.

I’ll end with that. Time to go re-pack and make sure I’m all set to head “home” tomorrow. Strange how quickly Jerusalem has become home. I’ve enjoyed Galilee, but I’ll be glad to go back too.