2008 Soap Box Archives

Israel Trip Part Four

Day Four

At Beit Shean, we saw massive ruins of a Greco-Roman town that was destroyed in an earthquake. There was a very tall set of stairs that led to the top of the manmade hill, or tel, that overlooked the ruins where a olive tree prop that was used in the movie Jesus Christ Superstar stands which the adventurous and well-conditioned traveler could see if they dared to climb them.

As you travel down the Jordan valley you're reminded that Israel is perpetually in a state of military preparedness as you go through the checkpoints entering the west bank.

In Hebrew, the Dead Sea is called the Sea of Salt as it has an incredible high salt and mineral content, so high in fact that a person can float on top of the water and not worry about sinking.

The Jordan river runs from the Sea of Galilee to the northern tip of the Dead Sea and did at one time empty into it, but that is no longer the case. Israel has had drought problems in the last few years and the Sea of Galilee has receded, so the Israelis have stopped the Southern flow of the Jordan River retaining the water in the Sea of Galilee to service the nation as the sea of Galilee is Israel's prime source of fresh water.

The result is that the Dead Sea is getting smaller by the year as the shoreline recedes. Water is a very serious matter in that dry land and since the Dead Sea water is not potable it just makes sense to divert the fresh water of the Jordan from it.

Israel is on one side of the Red Sea and Jordan is on the other side and both countries have built resorts on their respective shorelines. Luxury hotels line the Israel side and it seems to be a favorite vacation spot, with the terrain resembling Southern Nevada.

Qumran is just a dry and desolate spot on the map but one of the most important archeological finds in history happened there. A shepherd boy happened to look into a cave and found a sealed jar containing ancient, but well preserved goatskins with writing on them.

He took them home to his father who happened to be a shoemaker and he was just about to start cutting them up to make shoe parts when a neighbor happened by and realized that the writings may be worth more than shoe soles.

The upshot of the incident is that the writings were ultimately presented to a scholar and were recognized to be Biblical writings now known as the Dead Sea Scrolls, including the oldest existing copies of The Old Testament.

Unfortunately, after the local people found out that the scrolls were worth money, they proceeded to cut some of them up into smaller pieces so they'd have more to sell.

One of the most remarkable finds at Qumran was a scroll containing the complete book of Isaiah, including chapter 53, which prophesizes of the coming of a suffering Messiah that many Jewish scholars had previously dismissed as having been added later by Christians as it did not fit with the Jewish idea of the Messiah.

The next stop was Ein Gedi. When David fell into disfavor with King Saul and Saul wanted to kill him, he made his way to Ein Gedi to hide out. There are caves for hiding and a supply of spring water, what the Israelis call living water.

There is still a plentiful supply of red mountain goats called ibex there and though don't know, I would think there would have been plentiful game there in David's day as well.

Massada sits atop an isolated cliff that rises more that twelve hundred feet above the Judean Desert. You reach it by cable car, or by an unbelievably high set of stairs, and what you find when you reach the top is a truly amazing view of the Red Sea far away and far below.

Massada was built by King Herod in 30 BC and was not only a fortress but also a city complete with a royal palace built on three rock terraces over looking the gorge below.

Twelve enormous cisterns on the western side of the hilltop collected the floodwater that flowed from the Massada Wadi in the wet season. They could hold collectively forty thousand cubic meters of water that could be brought to the summit by beasts of burden.

In the year 72 AD the Roman army, having conquered Jerusalem, made their way to Massada which was inhabited by 960 Jews who called themselves the Zealots and were blood enemies of Rome.

The Romans built a huge earthen siege ramp against the Western side and when it became obvious the Zealots couldn't hold out any longer they all agreed to take each other's lives rather than be taken by the Romans.

The Holy Land is truly a delight. Tomorrow, we're on to Jerusalem.

Pray for our troops.

What do you think?

God Bless America

Charlie Daniels

 

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