 |
| The day began with a sermon by Bishop Carter on the original steps of the Hulda Gates that lead to the Southern Wall of the Temple Mount. |
 |
| As we were making our way back to the bus, I was excited to see this group come through the gate for a bar mitzvah. I'll post a few more photographs from this in a later blog. |
 |
| We left Jerusalem for the day to visit the Judaean Wilderness and the Dead Sea. Our first stop was Masada, where Herod the Great built a fortified palace for himself between 37 and 31 BCE. The Romans surrounded Masada toward the end of the First Jewish-Roman War. Outnumbered, 960 Jewish rebels and their families committed mass suicide rather than be captured into slavery. Masada is one of the Jewish people's greatest symbols and is the most popular tourist destination next to Jerusalem. This is the view of the cable car leading up from the visitors center to the top of Masada. |
 |
| Our cable car on its return trip to the visitors center. |
 |
| A view from the top. The Dead Sea can be seen through the haze. |
 |
| My favorite picture from Masada. This is the view from Herod's palace. |
 |
| The second bar mitzvah of the day, this time on the peak of Masada. |
 |
| A good view of the surrounding mountains. |
 |
| From Masada we traveled to the oldest city in the world, Jericho, for lunch and shopping. This is the only picture worth showing from Jericho...a 2,000 year old sycamore tree. "Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through town. A man there named Zacchaeus, a ruler among tax collectors, was rich. He was trying to see who Jesus was, but, being a short man, he couldn’t because of the crowd. So he ran ahead and climbed up a sycamore tree so he could see Jesus, who was about to pass that way. When Jesus came to that spot, he looked up and said, "Zacchaeus, come down at once. I must stay in your home today." (Luke 19:1-5) |
 |
| From Jericho, we went to Qumran, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered. This is cave 4, where the largest number of scrolls (900) were discovered. It rarely rains here but when it does, flash flooding can come down the center of the mountain that stands over the cave. The Essenes who once lived at Qumran had a rather sophisticated way of collecting such rain water for use throughout the year. |
 |
| We ended the day by the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea, which is the lowest spot on earth at approximately 1300 feet below sea level. |
Hi, Bishop!
ReplyDelete