Join our group for a brief web tour of Jordan and Israel.
We travelled first to Jordan, where we spent three days touring by bus, with one day at Petra.
Then we took a bus across the border to Israel. We stayed in Jerusalem for 3 days before travelling to Tiberias, where we spent 3 more days near the Sea of Galilee, and then returned home.
Enjoy! We sure did.
Starting out at Mt. Nebo, we visted the Moses Memorial.
The church on the site had a very well-preserved mosaic.
Also on the site was a replica of the bronze snake mentioned in
Numbers 21:9.
We visited a church where someone had drawn a map of biblical
geography on the floor, based only on references in the Bible
and with no help from genuine cartography.
The church had a policy that all women had to cover themselves
modestly, and provided robes to do so.
It looked like they were all graduating.
Here I am, *trying* to look cool, sitting in the
middle of the ruins of Jerash.
Jerash is one of the cities of the Decapolis, and is just east
of the Jordan river.
Now I finally look cool, but only because of the beautiful woman
standing beside me.
Walking towards the Roman temple in Jerash...
...on the steps...
...and squished under a pillar.
The pillars here are just rocks sitting on top of one another,
and when the wind blows you can feel them move.
Our guide used a key levered on a rock, and you could see the
end of the key moving as the pillar swayed in the wind.
Back before they had headset walkie-talkies, the ushers in this
theater could just stick their head into one of the holes along
the front wall of the seating area, and anyone else who happened
to be imitating their strange behavior could hear them whisper.
Now we are preparing to enter the canyon leading to Petra.
Petra was an entire city for dead people.
Nobody actually lived there (at least, not originally), but this
was the preferred burial place way back when.
Once you get down to the bottom of the canyon, you can see these
sorts of tomb/cave entrances cut all over the face of the rocks.
Since then (when people were buried here), nomads decided
these caves would not be such a bad place to live, so they
cleaned up the places and moved in.
Of course, free housing has to be against some law, so now they
can't.
I'll try to find a better picture of the outside of this than
the ones I have now.
This picture looks out of the treasury into the canyon we
walked down.
Supposedly the treasury is a universal temple--they have found
imagery from Greek, Roman, and Nebatean religions here.
The thing I liked about it was that I could stand in the small
room at the back of the big room and sing a low note that would
resonate through the whole building.
I think it was somewhere near a B-flat.
This is the amphitheater.
According to Ed, our guide, it was only used for funerals--never
for drama.
What a shame.
Here is another picture at the bottom of the ravine.
I guess I just like this picture.
This is taken a little beyond the treasury--the ravine widens
and becomes somewhat more like a valley.
You can still see all the tombs carved high on the walls.
I'm the guy in the background on the left.
This is back in Amman at the citadel.
I am standing in a water cistern.
They let me out eventually. =)
Here was the view from the bottom looking up.
Janice was the one who took the picture from above.
Behind her are the remains of a small church.
Brian and Debbi got engaged while on the trip, though in this
picture that had not happened yet.
Same view without Brian and Debbi.
There used to be a staircase from the road in the valley all the
way up to this point.
I bet being on a sports team was no fun back then with every
coach in town eyeing that staircase.
And what site would be complete without the friendly and
well-armed tourist police?
Our guide said they are there to protect poor clueless tourists
like ourselves from mean and nasty guides like himself.
(but I bet they would have a thing or two to say if one of the
tourists got out of line too...)
In front of the western wall, a.k.a. the Wailing Wall.
This is underneath the wall in the Rabinnical Tunnel.
This blocked arch is the former entrance to the temple.
In the words of our guide, "you think Jesus walked here?
Hund-red pehr-cent he did."
Of course, back then it probably wasn't blocked like this...
This is a different view down the Rabinnical Tunnel.
Here, our guide (the guy with the colorful hat) is explaining
about the new (and *extremely* controversial) part of the tunnel
in the background that was carved out at the end of 1996.
This is the Damascus Gate leading out of the old city.
In the wheelchair is Marguerite.
As we were walking along the area outside the Dome of the Rock
(where the Jewish temple used to be), someone asked her if the
wheelchair ride wasn't awfully bumpy.
In her grandmotherly voice she responded, "Well," paused, then,
"It isn't a Mercedes."
Fortunately, the person pushing her at the time did not find it
as funny as I did.
Then again, perhaps you just had to be there.
In front of the church in Bethlehem at the birthplace of Jesus.
Notice the very small door--it is actually about 3 feet high.
Notice how the little door is inside a small arch (about twice
the height of the door).
Notice how the arch is in a very large doorway.
Of course, I forget why they did it this way, but perhaps they
stopped allowing elephants in church, and then stopped allowing
horses, too.
Speaking of small doors, this is a door in a C&MA church we
visited.
On to Herodian.
This was a fortress built by Herod the Great into the top of a
mountain, with lots of twisty tunnels throughout--nice and cool,
too.
Here we are on top of the mountain, inside the fortress.
The room in the background here is the room where
Herod passed out and his son and servants started partying
because they thought he was dead.
Then he woke up.
Bummer of a day for everyone involved...
This is a view of Herodian from the top of the walls.
The structure to the right used to be a tower.
This is the view of Tekoa from the top of Herodian.
Tekoa was the city of the prophet Amos.
Amos was quite a dude.
He was the one who coined the phrase, "Prepare to meet thy
maker."
Another site of controversy--this is where Israel is planning to
put in 6000 housing units, which makes Palestine upset (this is
in the West Bank).
If you look carefully at this view in real life, you can see the
remains of watchtowers for the vineyard.
Thanks to current scanning and picture compression technology, I
don't think you can distinguish them any more.
A threshing floor, much like the one belonging to Boaz as
described in the book of Ruth.
An olive tree.
Just looked cool, I guess.
These are some of the people in our group.
This was a random castle we stopped by to take a picture.
Outside Castle Karak.
An altar at Tel Beer-Sheva.
Our guide told about how people who had killed someone or
something could come here and hang on to one of the "horns" of
the altar, and nobody was allowed to touch them.
A guy was doing this thousands of years ago, just kind of
leaning nonchalantly on the altar, passing the time, when
someone came and told him that his oxen had been stolen or
something.
He went to go find them and was killed.
I'm sure there's a lesson in here somewhere for us all.
This is the Golden Gate, with the Dome of the Rock in the
background on the left.
The doors are sealed shut, and the Jews believe that when the
Messiah comes, he will enter Jerusalem through these gates.
A picture of the young crowd of our group, along with the
compulsory tourist camel.
I think there must be a law there that says at every tourist
site there must be at least one camel, someone selling beverages
for $1, someone selling postcards (varying amounts) for $1, and
someone who will take your picture for $1. Optional are
bookmarks, caps, posters, and artsy trinkets.
Some of our group on a roadside overlooking the old city.
Masada means "fortress," and is built on top of a high plateau.
In the first century the Jews here held off Roman siege for two
and a half years before killing themselves.
It is hard to tell from this picture, but this looks across the
top of the plateau, and then in the distance is the Dead Sea,
hundreds of feet below.
We floated around in the Dead Sea for a while, though we were
too fearful of salt to bring the camera much closer than this.
The stuff in the water keeps you afloat, which is a very good
thing because it tastes awful and really burns your eyes.
The Dead Sea scrolls were found here in Qumran.
For years, the oldest known manuscripts of the Jewish Bible were
from 1200 AD, and literary scholars were convinced that the
Bible had changed significantly since it was originally penned.
When the Dead Sea scrolls were found, they were able to confirm
with few exceptions that the Bible was word for word the same as
it had been around the time of Jesus.
The Valley of the Shadow of Death, of Psalm 23 fame.
The squiggly line along the far side is a Roman aquaduct.
Golgotha...
Outside the tomb.
Peering into the tomb.
What's inside?
Art at the Holocaust Museum.
There is so much I want to say about this place, but words fail.
In Tel Dan, this is the gate that is supposed to have been used
by Abraham as he entered Canaan.
Military bunker nearby--the border of Lebanon is a stone's throw
away, as demonstrated by our guide.
The altar at Tel Dan.
The tree on the left is actually growing out of the structure,
and is about the only thing holding it together--all the blocks
outside the tree's grasp have fallen apart.
Ruins at Tel Bet-She'an.
...and the view from above.
This is the boat we rode in across the Sea of Galilee.
This is supposed to be an exact replica of the one Jesus rode
in, including, of course, the motor. :-)
A fishing demo aboard the boat by one of the locals.
A woman by the roadside carrying stuff the old-fashioned way.
The temple at Capernaum.
A massive cistern in a city near Nazareth where Joseph (Jesus'
father) was supposed to have worked.
Another view of the same.
Antoine (our guide), doing what he does best.
And here I am, finding a good spot to listen to him.
Right after a friend of ours was baptized, some of us went
wading.
I decided I couldn't pass up the opportunity and stomped through
the water, soaking everyone else.
So a couple of the drenched grabbed their water bottles and let
me have it.
Very nice on a hot summer day.
A picture of our entire group, with the old city (Jerusalem)
in the background.
