The Galilee Begins

Now! My trip through the Jerusalem lands continue! On to The Galilee -- 

This is exciting for me because I know Jesus spent a lot of his time here - and I know I'll gain further insights not only into that time period but those surrounding it. 

Our first stop was to Bet Shean a large city which begins the "Patriarchs Way" (or the series of cities along a prominent trade route) from the North. It has had several very different names. For instance it is the same as the Decapolis city Scythopolis (during that time the city moved away from what is now the Tel there {which itself covers the Canaanite period and many occupations in between} and built around it creating a grand city). This was the first city which used basalt stone for building - meaning many stones were of a black color. And in the theater here there were pink colored pillars which I was told came from Egypt which is awesome because this is very far North and must have taken the pillars quite a while to get to their destination. This city presents the best preserved Bath house (it has gymnasium influence in its architecture) - the ground beneath the hot room was pumped with hot water and hot air to allow shafts at the sides emit steam and shafts in the middle with no opening to the top to heat the floor. So that was interesting. We saw all the natural things to see in a Greco-Roman city like a main cardo (north/south) and decumanus (east/west) running streets etc. We ran to the top of the Tel (real Bet Shean) and had a great viewpoint of the city below and to the north saw the remains of a grand bridge which spanned a valley. The events that occurred here seem from the gruesome account that Saul and his sons bodies were hung here on the walls for a time (1 Sam 31). Though this route was immensely well traveled in Jesus' time so it's possible that Jesus walked through here and certainly some of the apostles did. 

Next was Nazareth which of course was a extremely small town at the time of Jesus' living there after the Egyptian refuge. The first stop here was the Church of Annunication which is a recently built church really. We started at the basement section from which you can see some of the original church in a middle circular section. Down in there some priest led a congregations proceedings - they prayed and recited latin. We went up to the second floor (which had in the same location a viewing circular hole downwards). There was a great dome on top and mosaics from many countries there - I spotted USA's, Canada's, Chile's, 3 from Spain - but couldn't find any from Peru (all the areas of my brother's & father's missions). Next in Nazareth came St. Joseph’s Church - which featured Joseph the Carpenters workshop in a grotto below. Though really we couldn't see much of the grotto - more visible is the remains of the church built on top of it (with a basin) - on top of which the current church sits. The interesting things I learned here was that the word "Carpenter" could have as easily been translated as "craftsman" so really and especially in such a small town as Nazareth Joseph was most likely a man of many trades. Some suggest Joseph was also a stone mason. Also that a figure in history  Eusebius calls out Jude's (the step brother of Jesus) grandchildren but discounts their testimony as lunatic as they speak of a spiritual kingdom not a temporal one (so they were not killed). Finally in Nazareth was the Synagogue church - built over the traditional spot of Jesus' reciting scripture in Luke 4:16-22. That accounts retains a good representation of a normal scripture reading practice of that time. We sang there some hymns and one line particularly struck me Hymn 117 Come Unto Jesus where it said "Oh know you not that Angels are near you" - I just love that. 

Finally was more of an outlook point than anything else in the form of Mt. Arbel Where you climb a slight hill until you reach a cliff face. The Trek up is marked by large stones all around you although in between these stones you can see dark green grass visible. Apparently during some periods of history this location with it's natural caves in the middle of the cliff faces. Soldiers or warriors would hide out in the caves - one clever assaulter built cranes and lowered parts of his army in large crates down to do battle with those in the caves. Anyways we got a good viewpoint where we were able to see Tiberias and Safed (Tiberias was one of the cities to which the rabbis fled after being expelled from Jerusalem and its locals - Safed is where Jewish Mysticism flourished in the 16th Century). And we saw from a distance a good number of the sites I will see in Galilee.

And finally we arrived at Ein Gev where our residence seems really good. It's 4 to a room and there are like 6 beds. We are on the beach of the enclosed sea of Galilee and so far I feel like the food will be pretty good. We'll be doing some pretty intensive classwork here as well as our field trips so - Wish Me Luck!