Day 8 / The Galilee and Golan Heights

Tiberius

When one thinks of a sea, it is usually of a fairly large body of water. As with all things in this land you must think so much smaller than we do from our expansive plains at home. The Sea of Galilee is more like a lake, and when you stand on the north shores and look south - you can take in the whole area at once: Tiberius, Magdela, Capernum, the Mount of Beatitudes, etc. It's very serene. I do love it here. I couldn't get an overview picture that works because the heat makes the air hazy and the distance photos just wash out.

Capernum

This is the hometown of Peter. They've identified his house but unfortunately (in my opinion) they built a glass bottomed church right over top of it. It kind-of looks like a space ship has descended on top. Sigh... although it is lovely on the inside.

Inside the Church

What looks like a pool here is a glass floor that looks down on Peter's home. What is clear by the remains are several concentric additions to the house which give evidence that this became a church that kept expanding in size.


Capernum was a small village - likely only 12-15 families in total as were all the villages of the region. So when the NT records thousands of people gathering to hear Jesus speak, these would be significant gatherings - significant enough to get the attention of leaders jealous of anything that would undermine their authority, and nervous of anything that might look like opposition to Roman rule. The pictures below are the remains of a later period Synagogue built on top of the one Jesus would have known.

One of the earliest known pictoral representations of the Arc of the Covenant

From here we traveled up road a few minutes to the Mount of Beatitudes. This is the most developed of all the sites in terms of it's idyllic beauty. The gardens are lush and the veiw stunning. Again, too hazy to get a good picture of the sea.

It's important to remember, with many of these sites, the locations are traditionally remembered. There is no archeological evidence for the Mount of Beatitudes but from the story in the Bible, the lie of the land, proximity to Capernum etc, it is reasonable to assume this could be the spot.

My favorite spot in the whole region is this spot (below). It is a small beach from which you can clearly see Tiberius spill down the mountain to the sea. Just behind is the location where the feeding of the 5000 is remembered. And on this quiet beach it is said Jesus restored Peter to his status as dear friend of Christ.

At a critical moment in the drama of Jesus' capture and torment by the occupying Roman army, Peter lost courage and denied his association with Christ - three times. After the crucifixion, I imagine Peter's grief and shame to be insoluble. And coming back to Galilee to fish, after all the drama of hopes built and dashed, Jesus appears here and quietly asks Peter (three times) "do you love me?" It strikes me as such a profoundly kind thing to do. Of course Jesus knows... but he lets Peter say it anyway. Peter gets to hear himself say it. And I can imagine a lot of tears, some deeply tender and knowing looks, and an emotionally charged, trembling, long hug.


From Galilee we traveled north east to the Golan Heights. This area once belonged to Syria and was a strategic military post for the Sryian army from where they relentlessly shelled Jewish Kibbuts in the valley below for 19 years before the hills were stormed and taken by the Israeli defense forces in 1967.

The valley itelf was once a swampland until the late 1891 when the first Jewish pioneers began to settle here at Rosh Pina (meaning Cornerstone) draining the valley and and reclaiming it for rich, arable farmland.


At first there was little tension between the Jews and the local Arabs. But after Israeli Statehood in 1947, meaning (among other things) the displacement of 300,000 Palestinian Arabs to the West Bank, Gaza and the refugee camps of Syria, Jordan and Lebanon, the relationship turned toxic and has remained so to this day with both sides having legitimate claims to victim status, and both sides committing well documented and grim crimes against the other.

Israeli trench leading to a bunker overlooking both Lebanon and Syria (respectively below)

Syrian military outpost overlooking Israeli Settlements. This was the scene of a dramatic battle in 1967 when the Israelies took the Golan Heights.

Underground Syrian bunker.
Not sure what these are. Air vents to the bunkers below I assume.

Syrian trenches
Israeli (I think)

Mount Hermon

We visited the Tel Dan nature reserve at the base of Mount Hermon where it is as lush and green as any mountain base in the Rockies. Rain falls on the mountain, soaks through the soils and fissures until it hits a bedrock that forces the waters to peculate out of hundreds of tiny springs here at the base.
The many springs create small streams that find each other as they wind down to the valley eventually forming the Dan river which is one of the 3 sources of the Jordan River.

You can see why this would be a pretty important area to control if you were a country that is mostly desert. As much as the perennial conflicts of this region are reported as having religious/ethnic roots (and that is certainly partially true), access to water has always been common to most conflicts. Read through the old testament and notice how often water conflicts come up. Coming from a country where water is clean and plentiful, it's hard to appreciate how powerfully water shortage can stress relationships between communities. Many are saying this will not be an abstract reality for us in the west much longer.

At the base of Mt Hermon is the ancient ruins of the city of Dan, one of the lost tribes of Israel.

And the King arose and sat in the gate... and all the people came before the King.
(11 Samuel 19:8)

Following the division of the kingdom of Solomon in 930BCE, Jeroboam established a cult at Dan as an alternative to the one at the Temple in Jerusalem. “And the King made two calves of gold… and he set one in Beth-el and the other he put in Dan.” (1 Kings 12:28-29)

Above is Jeroboam's temple at Dan. The structure to the left is the altar where he offered sacrifices to the Golden Calf. The raised platform to the right would have been an observation platform for the city's elite, a sort-of Molson's box :)

The northern kingdom's revival of the Golden Calf cult marked the beginning of the end for them. Shortly afterward they were invaded by the Assyrians (I think it was the Assyrians anyway - I'll check). The ten tribes of the northern Kingdom were absorbed into the Assyrian empire assimilated by the culture and forever lost as a distinct people.

Rikk explained to me the significance of the northern Kingdom's sin. The social experiment begun by Moses in the Sinai was inspired by a radically different notion of God and creation than what came out of Pharoah's Egypt. Pharonic power was one of brute force, legitimized by capricious self-serving Gods. Moses intuited a different God and therefore a different model of leadership/authority - characterized by goodness, constancy and servanthood.

Egyptian worship consisted of static man-made temples in which an image of the god, fashioned by human hands, was placed. The idol was the physical representative of the god - and what you did to the idol, you did to the God.

The Hebrew understanding is astonishing in contrast. They understood all of creation to be a temple created by Yahweh. And the "image of the god" is the human person - fashioned by God - in the image of God. Along with the understanding that "what you do to the image, you do to the God," is the foundation for the radical understanding of the fundamental dignity of all persons, and I might add, a proper theology behind creation care. Therefore, the Hebrew temple never had a man-made idol. The northern Kingdom's retrogressive practices under Jeroboam where a profound rejection of the "new thing" Yahweh was doing. And, in the end they got what they wanted - inhuman empire.

I'm sure Rikk is going to die when he reads my distillation of a much longer conversation - honestly, the best part of this trip has been listening to Rikk describe and connect the dots in a way I've never been able to do before.

Anyway, I ramble. We drove back through the Golan Heights and boarded a boat on the Galilee to make our last few miles back to the hotel on the lake. Awesome!

Boating on the Sea of Galilee

Day 7 / Jordan Valley

Looking behind at the Dead Sea as we head west (up) from the Jordan Valley

We rose early again this morning and were on the road by 7:30. Very hot today. In the morning it was already in the high 30's and rose to around 45C by mid-afternoon.

We first traveled inland toward Tel Arad, the site of an ancient Canaanite settlement (3200- 2600 BC) and a Jewish military outpost/ settlement (~1200 BC).


On the way we passed the Zohar Canyon which was an secondary Canaanite trading route linking the Mediterranean to the Jordan Valley. If you look carefully at the above picture you can see the road at the very bottom - that gives you a reference for how far down we were looking.


About 25 minutes drive west we came to Tel Arad. This is a Hebrew fortress settlement from the time of David and Solomon.


The fortress settlement is so dramatic it is the only thing you notice at first – but looking down from the fortress toward the south you see the ruins of an earlier Canannite settlement .

Looking south

Looking north

Looking at the temple inside the fortress. The big block in the center was the altar.

Kodesh Kodashim / Holy of Holies

This Caananite settlement is from the time of Joshua. It was a trading intersection of the east/west trading route through the Zohar and the secondary north/south trading route from Jerusalem down to Egypt. (the primary north/south trading route was along the east coast through Gaza.

Looking east from the ruins you see an expansive farm. The Israelies have developed extremely sophisticated and efficient drip-irrigation systems that turn desert into verdant farms. It’s amazing to see.

Down in the valley we stopped at Yatir Forrest Vineyard that is producing the best Israeli wines - considered by some to be among the great wines of the world. We toured the simple, but high-tech facility and had a chance to taste a few - a little pricey for me, but really, really great.

We then headed back to the Jordan Valley and turned north toward the Gallilee.

A few hours later we were at Masada. It was here, in 70 AD, that Rome put an end to the Jewish rebellion. Just 3 years earlier, Rome destroyed Jerusalem after which a small band of Jewish freedom fighters dug in at Masada for a final and dramatic standoff.

Masada

Masada was a vanity project of Herod the Great who built his elaborate winter castle on the top of this mountain – thirteen hundred feet above the valley floor. (Interestingly, the top of Masada is roughly sea level. The Jordan valley is -1300 feet.) He used it to host and impress his Roman bosses but many believe he suspected he may need such a place for his own survival. Herod killed many people (including his wife and his sons) and had many enemies.

Ruins on top of Masada.

Pictures do not do this justice. This was a huge area and Herod had developed elaborate water systems, food storage and gardens - the Jewish rebels could have lived here indefinitely.

After Rome destroyed Jerusalem, some 960 Jewish rebels fled to the mountain where they held out for three years until the Romans built a thousand foot ramp up the east side of the mountain to get at the compound's entrance. The night the rebels realized their time was up, rather than surrender to Roman brutality and slavery, they chose death.

The Synagogue. This is the place of the last meeting of elders where they decided to destroy all their wealth, kill their wives and children and then kill themselves rather than be taken slave by the Romans. The drew lots by which ten men were chosen to slay the rest. Then the ten drew lots by which one killed the other nine before himself. The lots were found with the names of the ten written on them. When the Romans finally breached the fort, they found alive only two women and five children (who had survived by hiding in a cistern,) flames and an "awful solitude."

Tram back to the valley floor. Sorry the pictures are so hazy - by this point the temperature was about 45C.

We continued north to Qumran – where the dead sea scrolls were recently discovered (1947 by Bedouin Shepherds) in the caves near this ancient Essene settlement.

Cave where a shepherd boy discovered some of the Dead Sea Scrolls

From Qumran we continued north past Jerico to Bet She’an just a few miles south of Gallilee.

It gets greener as you travel north. This is the "mighty" Jordan river.

Isreali security fence along Jordanian border.

Bet She’an is the place where King Saul was beheaded along with his son Jonathan by the Phillistines. The archealogical remains here are of a later Roman city that thrived from 63 B.C.E through to 749 C.E. when it was destroyed by earthquake.



Finally we came to Tiberius on the Galilee. Checked in to the hotel, had supper and now to sleep. Tomorrow we tour the lake and then on to the Golan Hights.

Pomegranates

Sea of Galilee