"exciting" goings on in the world of a JUC student

It's been a while since I have written on here just to write. Life gets busy around here real quick. Today I had a class, an exam on the Galilee, and then nothing to do. So instead of sleeping or taking a walk through the city, I decided to take some time updating this and pictures and figuring out the logistics of going to Eilat this weekend. :o) Yes, Eilat. On Thursday after class I am going with 5-7 other people, on a bus, to Eilat on the southern tip of Israel (the northern tip of the Red Sea). We plan on going snorkeling or scuba diving, which I am so excited about. The last time I had the opportunity to do that, I was in Jamaica, and for some reason I passed it up. weird.

I always feel bad when people ask what exciting things have happened recently, and I don't really have an answer. Of course this is all exciting--I'm in Israel, how can it not be? But the semster here pretty much starts feeling like home, like normal life after a while. But here are a few of the things that have gone on. 2 weeks ago, our Jewish Thought and Practice class took a "field trip" to our Professor's (Rabbi's) Synagogue. He showed us around the sanctuary and gave us a demonstration of reading the Torah Portion of the week. They have their own "ark of the covenant" where they store the Torah scrolls. It's amazing and beautiful. Then that Friday evening we attended the synagogue for their Kabbalat Shabbat service. Pretty much the whole service is focused on welcoming the "Sabbath Queen" (i.e. the Sabbath). Almost all of the service consisted of a capella singing, with some blessings and recitation of prayers. It was awesome, how unified they were and how beautiful they sounded. Rabbi Moshe (our Prof) was harmonizing the entire time. :-D

Even further back, I took a day trip with one other girl to En Gedi, where we had gone just the week before with my Physical Settings class. We hiked a different wadi than the class did, and just took in the sites and sounds (literally, of the middle school classes that were there on a field trip). It was raining in Jerusalem when we left that morning. But When we got to En Gedi, we could see a split in the clouds. It was bright and warm where we were. The black clouds joined up again in Transjordan. Now that was a sight to see--walking down a road where to the right is clear and bright, and to the left is dark and overcast. It was a long day, and I had hoped to do more resting than I actually did, but all in all, it was good to get away and not worry about taking notes out in the field or getting work done at school.

I took a walk one morning this week to the Temple Mount with some friends. Just to take pictures and such. It was amaznig how incredibly large that thing is! It has its own parks all around the Dome of the Rock and El Aqsa mosques. The way the light shines off of the dome's gold is beautiful. Everything looks so small in comparison.
Palm Sunday is coming up. I think I am going to find a good spot in the Old City to go up on a roof and watch the huge processional of foreigners coming over the mount of Olives to Jerusalem. Sounds like a pretty cool sight to me.

There are some cats that are always on our campus, walking around outside, and I have grown quite fond of one of them. It's strange, I normally am not a huge cat person--they are cute, and I like to pet them but normally they get bored or distracted and leave, which is no fun for me. This one cat, though, absolutely loves to be petted, and will stay with me for quite a while, as I enjoy his company. I hear also that I have Claire Regan to thank for this cat. Apparently she found it and saved its life... becuase Tim was trying to let it die?!? anyway, all that aside, thank you Claire :o)

Day 3: Masada, Dead Sea, En Gedi, Qumron

Although this day of our field study seemed like a lot of "exploration time" there were some things brought to my attention that I had never known. The first, at Masada, is concerning Josephus and his writings, spefically about the sechari (radical zealots) at Masada. The story is always told about the Jews who committed suicide just before the Romans could break in an take the fort. Usually we take this to be a courageous act, because they did not want to be subjected to slavery. Until the day we were on Masada, I had never heard anyone really question the validity or historicity of the story. Partially due to lack of knowledge about the origin of the story and knowledge of Josephus, and partially due to my own tendancy to take things at face value, I had never thought much of it. But that day when we heard about Josephus' lack of involvement and his own personal story, combined with the lack of evidence of dead men women and children on top of Masada, it seems to make sense that this story would not be (at least completely) true. Josephus was a Jewish general who fled to the Romans and cowardly switched sides, becoming a Roman officer, and saving his own life. He could have written the story about Masada thinking that he should have done what these men did, instead of running away. He could be living vicariously through these men's story.

It makes me wonder, though, about what becomes "history" and how it happens. Who gets to write it? How do certain stories become popular/common belief? We can be really naive a lot of the time, I suppose.

Qumron was another quite interesting place. Since I don't know much about the Dead Sea Scrolls or Qumron itself, it was helpful to hear some background information on what many people believe the community was like. I did not know that it was supposedly a place where men lived and copied b hand the scrolls, as the one room seems to indicate. Archaeological finds uncovered three ink wells in the same room, implying that it was where the scribes would write.

The whole day in Dead Sea area was amazing, filled with new sites and things I had never seen. The differences in landscape from one place to the next never cease to amaze me. The Dead Sea proved to be the only thing of its kind. It seemed like something unreal how much you are forced to float. The lines on the shore of where the water used to be just 10 years ago made me think--if the Sea was that much larger just 10 years ago, what must it have looked like 33 years ago when my parents were here? And if there is that big of a difference between what they saw and what I see now, what will the next generation see in 30 years? How much (or little) will be left? I know what that means for the environment, too. If the sea dries up, the chemicals from all the salt will blow over the soil to the west, and make it unuseable for cultivation. What will happen if all the soil is no longer good for bearing crops? Is there a way to stop the process by bringing more water into the Sea? For the first time, I found myself intensely concerned for the future of this environment, probably because the evidence of what will be is already there on the coast line...

The Dead Sea, and En Gedi are especially beautiful places to visit. We hiked through the Kind Daivd Wadi at En Gedi, which has a few waterfalls and pools in which you can swim. It was such a beautiful day for some cool refreshing springs after a hike. We also found some black Dead Sea mud in a pit next to the water. It smells horrible but after you put it on your skin for 15 minutes and rinse it, your skin is cleansed and softened very well. :) We also climbed in a cave at Qumron, although not one of the caves in which a scroll was found. It was fun anyway.

...Thinking about all the things we learn about the land, about history, about the culture here, I find myself continuously wishing there were more time to spend here, to learn more. How can anyone possibly understand all the complexities of this place? I find myself pitying the tourist groups who come for a week or two, see the sites, and leave thinking what a beautiful place! Wasn't that a nice trip! But how much they are missing! I wonder, are most places in the world like this? Or can you go visit, tour for 2 weeks in other countries and leave satisfied with the adequate knowledge you have of the place? Is it so complex here because of the religious background and history that took place here (i.e. Because God chose this land to use)? I'm not sure what the answer is, partly because I haven't been on tours through other places, and partly because I'm just not sure how to answer that question theologically.

Day 2: Negev

The desert land is so different from the hill country, and even from the Shephelah. Everything there looks the same, and there is not often great living conditions. Beer Sheba, although in the Negev, gets about 6-12 inches of rain per year and is right near a wadi, so the water supply is sufficient for life. It makes sense that it would be a step on the international route from the Mediterranean to Arabia. More than all of hte detailed layout of the city that can be seen, the history of the Biblical events that surround it is what interests me. Abraham stopped there during his journeys, so it must have been a place of importance.

There is a struggle to understand the culture at the time of the Old Testament that is growing in me as I learn about more situations that I have been viewing incorrectly in a typical western way of thought, ignorant of the values and way of life at the time of the event.
A question was raised about Sarah being called Abraham's sister and taken by other kings in order to save Abraham. Although we may look at this and say that what Abraham did was morally wrong, we cannot judge Abraham through the lens of our modern culture. What he did would have been expected in his culture, or so we would think, in order to save his clan and the opportunity for his line to continue. Yes, God has promised Abraham a son, and so we are quick to say that Abraham lacked faith in God's promise. But at this point, Abraham did not know through what man (or what woman, for that matter) the heir would be, since he had no sons. He simply did what he saw as necessary to preserve the rest of the clan, because God had promised an heir. What I do find interesting, though, it that is what Abraham did was based on cultural values, why does Pharaoh rebuke him for lying about Sarah? Was it perhaps because he was threatened by God? Or were his cultural values different from Abraham's? Regardless, it is amazing that this example would be in the Biblical text; perhaps to teach usabout the importance of Abraham's heir to him? The question of why God chose the time and place that he did to step into human history is a huge one for me. Many people talk about Jesus coming at just the right time to fulfill prophecies, but he could have ordained it differently. Why then? Did God want to correct certain cultural values or reinforce them or either?

Along these lines, i find it facinating that God often uses the attributes of other deities, or the rituals for worshipping them for himself. It seems to be a way of showing His superiority over other gods, when He takes an attribute and "one-ups" it. Yet this also seems to lead to confusion or apathy among the people. They see other gods and then Yahweh and his similarities to them, and ignoring His sovereignty, they worship the lesser ones, or bring Yahweh down totheir level. There seems to be similar case of this at Arad. where the temple, made similar to Yahweh's temple in Jerusalem, had 2 insense altars and 2 standing stones. There were inscriptions found written to"Yahweh and His Asherah." Maybe because the people saw Yahweh as male, they wanted Him to have a female counterpart goddess, Asherah. Once again, though we look at this today and try to bend the people of the OT to our image. We can't accept that they might have thought this way--they were suposed to be Yahwists. So maybe there were 3 altars and 3 standing stones.. we can handle that, right? foreshadows of teh trinity.. but 2?
I'm not so sure the people of God always got it right, I'm not even sure we always get it right today. In fact I'm sure we don't.




















The edge of the Mahktesh Ramon (the largest crater by erosion in the world!!)

The Shephelah, Negev, and Dead Sea (7-9 March 2009)

DAY 1

This was our first multiple-days-long field study. The first day, we stopped at Sattaf, tiny terraced trails along the hills overlooking the Sorek Wadi. It was a nice hike and a beautiful view. It really illustrates what the Bible says about the days of Solomon that every man lived under his own vine and fig tree. Generally, this is taken to mean that there was peace in the land, and that was true, but it was also quite literal. At Sattaf, there were many vineyards, and all the hills were terraced. There were small springs that came out of the rock, running into small plots of land by irrigation, almost like the land of Egypt, where you could farm by running your heel through the dirt, allowing the water to flow to the rest of the plot. This image of the vine and grapes is a symbol of wealth, comfort and so it makes sense that Jesus would use this image to describe Himself (in John 15 Jesus says He is the "true vine") as life giving.

Next, we made some stops in the Shephelah, at 3 cities along the "diagonal road" that cuts it into NW and SE halves. The Shephelah is a land that is not completely flat nor all hills. It acts as steps up from the coast into the hills (or down from the hills to the coast) in that the ground literally gets higher the further east you go. There are six raods along valleys running east-west through the Shephelah each with a city on the intersection of that road and the diagonal road. These cities act as doorways bewteen the coast along the Mediterranean and the hill county of Judah, not having an importance all of their own, but always being a part of other people's stories. For this reason, Bet Shemesh, Azekah and Lachish are all important sites, especially in the time of the Old Testament. Bet Shemesh was involved in Samson's affairs as he traveled back and forth between Philistia on the coast and the hill country of Judah, bringing people into Dan's struggle (or just desire) for the coastal land they had been alloted by Joshua.

Azekah was particularly important because it was the gateway (on the diagonal road) from the coast and the Philistine city of Gath to Socoh, and from there to 2 routes leading to the Watershed Ridge route,(in the middle of Judah). The routes led to two important cities: Bethlehem and Hebron. If the Philistines could get these sites, they could control the Watershed Ridge. This puts David's battle with Goliath into perspective a bit more, and gives it more weight. David fought Goliath near Socoh, in the valley to the east. (just over the large dark hill, to the right)From there, the Israelites pushed the Philistines back west and north all the way to Ekron.

Lachish, another city on the diagonal road, one of the swinging doors, always seemed like it would be a good spot to fortify and hold for Judah, but it seems to have brought itself too much attention. The Assyrians saw it as being too haughty for its actual power and so could not just walk by. It fell to Sennacharib and then again to the babyloniansa century and a half later. Though the city was tall and had its own well for water supply the people couldn't hold it. Perhaps Judah had overstepped its bounds and was pushing too far west.

Our last stop of the first day was at Ashkelon, where I got my first stroll along the Mediterranean Sea. Some of us walked down to the tel(s) of Ashkelon, where one of my classmates helped in an archaeological dig this past summer. The tel is an impressive site. There are two tels (one north and one south) with a deep valley inbetween. Because there is no natural port there, people wonder if the low spot between the tels could have been used as a port. The gateway leading into the city ws found still standing pretty high--the mud brick melted together to lean into an arched top. On the sout tel, hundreds of babies' remains were found near a large drain. Close by there was a sign that read "come in and enjoy" implying that there might have been a brothel at the site. It would have been a convenient spot for men coming on ships, far away from their homes, to "enjoy themselves". Then for lack of birth control, the babies were disposed of.

The day was pretty hazy and so the sun was not very clear, but the Med. Sea was still amazing, as beaches are. There were tons of shells--I'm talking endless piles of them along the shoreline. While we were at Ashkelon, we could hear another kind of shell going off, but don't worry, we couldn't see anything.

Samaria (1 March 2009)

Samaria is a very diverse region in terms of topography. The southern portion of it, Ephraim, is made up of cenomanian limestone, which shapes the entire region like one huge mound, lifted up. The northern half called Manasseh, however, is quite different. Because of the fault lines in the earth, the ground is split up into smaller hills of cenomanian, and eocene with senonian in between, in a repetitious cycle. Because of this, the land in Manasseh is more open, with ridge routes running through it as well as wide valleys of senonian chalk and alluvial soil in between the larger mountains.


Shechem sits in the intersection of three of these valleys, the Michmathah, Salim, and Tirzah. It is situated nicely where the soil is good for growing crops, and where the hills surround the valleys. Where it sits, Shechem also has access to the routes taking you in any direction. To the north, the route past Tirzah takes you to Beth-Sean. If you turn right at Tirzah, the Faria Route takes you east to the Jordan River. Westward, the route end up at the Costal highway, while southbound, you head down toward the Watershed Ridge route to Jerusalem. It is not hard to see why the Patriarchs liked this place so much, and why it became the capital of the Northern Kingdom first. Yet at the same time these wide valleys and routes that connect at Shechem made the city just a bit too open to the outside, and the larger powers who would want to control the area, so that Israel could never really settle down there.
Since Shechem seems to be the central focus of the beginnings of Israel, dating back even to Abraham, the Mountains of Gerizim and Ebal seem to also take importance. They form the high sides of the Valley in which Shechem sits, and so protect it. Gerizim, although the smaller of the two, has been given greater importance in many traditions since the command was given from Moses to the people that the blessing should be on Mt. Gerizim and the curse on Mt. Ebal.
Those who still hold Mt. Gerizim to be holy, claim to be obeying the Pentateuch. The Samaritans are a small group of people, still living on Mt. Gerizim, who claim to be the true followers of the Torah. They say that the Jews were a group that departure from the truth to which they (the Samaritans) still hold. I find this interesting because the people known as Samaritans only came into historical knowledge during the inter-testamental period. If they existed from the time the Israelites entered the land, and they do not hold to the book of the Jewish Bible from Joshua on, where were they in everyone’s remembrance of history? Why did they not begin to be named and heard of until after the Assyrians settled people in the land of Samaria during the Northern Kingdom’s exile? How then, if the book of Joshua is not accepted, did they enter the land and end up living on Gerizim? Did they split from the rest when they came to Gerizim with Joshua?
These people are so devoted to carrying out the ceremonial sacrifice each year, they live on the mountain where Israel first entered the land, and yet I never knew they were still around or who they actually are. The only time I had heard mention of Samaritans was in the parable Jesus told about the “good Samaritan”. I wonder if the Samaritans have their own story of how they were preserved until today, as the Jews do. It would certainly be interesting to hear an explanation, since I don’t really know much about them.

Lastly, we stopped at Shiloh. It was the original site of the Tabernacle when the Israelites entered the land. There are three locations at Shiloh where the Tabernacle supposedly was set up. Because it was a tent as opposed to a building of stone, there aren't remains of it, making it pretty much impossible to locate for certain. There were inscriptions found under one spot, making mention of preists, and another is a large plateau which might have been a good foundation for the tabernacle to be placed, but no one knows for sure. One of the oldest wine presses was also found there, near the plateau. This is interesting also because in the valley next to Shiloh, the "valley of dancing dolls", is where the women of Shiloh were stolen and taken for wives by the Benjaminites after benjamin had been nearly wiped out by the rest of Israel...So there are some random facts about Shiloh. :)