Israel - Day 6

And we made it to Jerusalem!  But wait, that's the end of our day, let me start at the beginning.

A few of us went for a morning dip in the Dead Sea before we left our hotel.  As we were driving away, I snapped this picture.  We Canadians would think that white stuff on the water is ice, but no, it's salt.

We made our way from our hotel to the remains of a fortress/city called Masada, built on the top of a mountain.  It was built by the Romans and Herod the Great, taken over by the zealots when the Romans had to send many of their forces back home when there was some tension, and then taken over again by the Romans.  This all happened during and just after Jesus lifetime, so while it's not in the bible, it gave us a great reference to what was happening elsewhere in the country during Jesus time.  You could walk up the mountain via the snake path, or take the gondola.

At the top you could pretty much see the entire layout of the place.  It was really remarkable, including the colourful frescos that still remain.

They created huge storage rooms, and aqueducts and massive cisterns to hold all the water from the flash floods that would hit.  Here's our group looking into one of the cisterns.

In the picture below, you're looking at a view of Herod's palace from the back and side.  When we stood at the palace itself, it was easy to see why he selected that spot for himself.  There was a constant, wonderful breeze atop a scorching hot mountain.

There was one other REALLY cool thing on the top of this mountain.  Have you ever tried to tell someone about Jesus, and they argue by saying that the Bible has been changed so many times over the years?  Here's proof that it hasn't changed.  Here's a scribe on the mountaintop of Masada, and he is copying the Old Testament word for word.  If he makes one mistake he has to throw that whole sheet out.  (The bible has been copied out by hand by the Jews since the time of Jesus).

One more thing from Masada…  In Israel it is mandatory for citizens to enter the army.  They do so after high school, so many are very young.  It is not uncommon to see a site like this (this was at top of the hill on Masada - note the rifle).

From Masada we went to the hills of En Gedi.  These are the hills where David hid from Saul and his army.  1 Samuel 24 has the story - David hid in one of the caves as Saul's army approached.  Saul decided to relieve himself in a cave, and it happened to be the exact one David was hiding in.  Instead of killing Saul, David cut off a corner of his robe, then later showed it to him to say that he could have taken his life but did not.  That happened in one of these caves.  At this spot we read 1 Samuel 24, and also Psalm 13.  That's a Psalm of deep grief and sorrow, where David still praises God in the end.  As we read, we pictured David in one of these caves, writing this Psalm and others like it.

As we walked in those hills, we also passed the type of tree that it's believed Jesus' crown of thorns was made from (I can't remember the name of it).  The thorns were smaller than I expected, but incredibly sharp and very strong.  Not something you'd like to have stuck on your head.

From there we moved on to Qumran.  This is where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found just 66 years ago.  Just a few paragraphs ago I talked about how we know the bible hasn't been changed over the years.  Here's more proof, and this is amazing.  The Dead Sea Scrolls are the oldest text of the Old Testament ever found - they date back exactly to the time of Jesus.  Before this discovery, the oldest version of the bible that we had was from the 10th century, 1,000 years after Jesus.  Our guide told us that up until the 1947 discovery, people had wondered if the bible we read today was the same one Jesus read.  This discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls proved that it was.  These are some of the hills and caves where the scrolls were found.

And after a full day in the sunshine (it was hot!), we finally hit Jerusalem.  The first thing we did was take in the view.  There were a lot of tears when we hit this spot.

Tomorrow we actually begin our adventure of touring Jerusalem.  We're spending 3 full days here, by far the longest time we're spending one spot.  But it's easy when there's so much to see - the Mount of Olives, Garden of Gethsemane, the garden tomb, walk the Via Dolorosa, etc, etc…

Okay, it's off to bed for me.  One quick note, see the post below, I was able to upload the video of the Israeli fighter jets.