Touring Israel

Sandee and I did an 8 day tour in Israel at the beginning of December. We don’t normally do tours as we generally prefer the freedom to explore at our own pace – sometimes even taking days to just relax. In this case we knew we’d have a much better experience having a guide and we had several friends coming along with us, so we took the plunge.

Our’s was a “Bible Experience” tour led by Behold Israel and it was extremely well run. They managed all lodging, transportation and food and all were excellent. Especially the food. We had a full time guide, driver and bus and were joined though most of the tour by Amir Tsarfati who provides great information from both Jewish and Christian perspectives and gave bible lessons from the sites we visited.

We flew into Tel Aviv and had one night at the Royal Beach Hotel on the Mediterranean Sea before starting the tour in earnest. The hotel was nice with great beaches right across the street. The dinner buffet was fantastic and a sign of the weight gain to come. Lots of great fish, lamb and desserts. I grabbed a night show from the balcony of our room, looking south toward Jaffa.

Since we only had one night in Tel Aviv, I got up early to catch sunrise. I was treated to some wonderful color looking toward the old city of Jaffa.

I followed that with a look north along the beach in Tel Aviv with our hotel in the foreground. I might have worked it into a reflection as well…

We started the day in Jaffa (also referred to as Joppa and Yafo). This is the ancient seaport from which Jonah boarded a ship in search of whales (not exactly) and where Peter stayed with Simon the tanner and had his vision that led him to Cornelius and the Gentiles in Caesarea.

I really liked the narrow stone streets and walls as we walked around Jaffa.

Caesarea and Mt. Carmel

Our first day included a drive up the coast from Tel Aviv to Caesarea to tour the ruins there and have lunch, before going to Mt. Carmel and finally to our hotel in Tiberias on the Sea of Galilee. I realized the I really like wandering around Roman-era ruins, looking at the theaters, columns, and other structures and decorations. Some examples below.

We also saw the remains of Herod’s palace in Caesarea, both the upper portion and the pool area down by the sea. Paul was imprisoned here as described in the book of Acts.

Mount Carmel is where Elijah taunted the prophets of Baal in the Old Testament. It overlooks the Megiddo Valley (Armageddon) and you can see Nazareth across the valley.

Galilee

I knew that the Dead Sea was well below sea level, but I had no idea that the Sea of Galilee was more than 680 feet below sea level itself. The Sea of Galilee is about 13 miles long and 8 miles wide, making it more of a lake than a sea. It is the location of many of Jesus’ early sermons and miracles, including the Sermon on the Mount and walking on water.

We stayed in Tiberias, a city of about 40,000 people, on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. That was our home base for visits to historical sites in Galilee, northern Israel, and Golan. The below photograph was taken at sunrise on our first morning in Tiberias. One of several lakeside resorts is in the foreground.

We drove to the eastern shore for the obligatory boat ride on the Sea of Galilee. On the one hand it did seem like a very touristy activity. On the other hand, there are so many references to sailing and fishing here in the Bible that I really enjoyed the experience. We sailed from Ein Gev on the eastern shore due to the winds that day, in boats that are replicas of those in use 2000 years ago.

We also had a chance to see an actual boat dated back to the time of Christ that was preserved in the mud and found as the lake level receded.

The Beatitude Monastery is located on the site believed to be the location of Jesus’ “Sermon on the Mount.” We stopped there for a bible teaching and enjoyed the view.

The plastic tarps in the image below are covering a banana field on the hillside believed to be where the crowds gathered. You can see the Sea of Galilee in the background.

Capernaum was a fishing village referred to many times in the New Testament. The Byzantine-era synagogue shown below was built on top of the previous synagogue were Jesus had taught and healed a man who was possessed by an unclean spirit.

You can see some of the excavated ruins from Capernaum in the photo below.

After teaching in the synagogue, Jesus went into the house of Simon Peter and Andrew where he healed Peter’s mother-in-law from a fever. A church has been built over the ruins believed to be of that house, with a clear floor allowing people to look inside.

Magdala is the home town of Mary Magdalene. There had been a “generally recognized” site of Magdala nearby, but the actual ruins of the city were found within the last 10 years when the Catholic church started digging the foundation for a new retreat house. They have found the 1st century synagogue (picture below) that was in use during the life of Jesus and have been excavating the city. Notice the mosaic tile in the synagogue.

Tabgha is traditionally accepted as the place of the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes and the place where the resurrected Jesus appeared to the apostles when they were fishing. John 21:12 is one of my favorite verses from this location “Jesus said to them ‘Come and have breakfast'”. I really like breakfast… The Church of the Primacy of Saint Peter includes a rock said to be the table on which Jesus prepared breakfast for the disciples:

We had a really nice sunset in Tabgha that evening too..

We stayed in the Scots hotel in Tiberias during our time in Galilee. It is a beautiful hotel with nice views of the sea. The food (especially the desserts) was awfully good as well.

Northern Israel

We took a day trip to areas in Northern Israel including Caesarea Philippi, Dan, and Golan. This was a good reminder how small this area is. The drive wasn’t long, but we saw Lebanon from Dan and Syria from Golan.

We started with Caesarea Philippi on the slopes of Mount Hermon, which had been associated with the Greek god Pan. It has monuments to several Greek/Roman deities and is also the location where Peter identified Jesus as the Christ in the New Testament.

From there we went to the Tel Dan Nature Reserve. This was a spot I really enjoyed, as we got to do some hiking and it was a great combination of nature and history. The Canaanite Gate (below) is a mud-brick structure dating back 4000 years to time of Abraham as a defense for the Canaanite city of Laish. The arch has been filled and a structure has been built over the gate for protection from the elements. Note that this structure is 800 years older than the Roman “invention” of the arch.

After the ten northern tribes separated themselves from the Old Testament nation of Israel, Dan was the location of one of their places of worship. Below is believed to be one of the sites where King Jeroboam reinstituted worship of a golden calf in the tenth century B.C.

Below is the Israelite Gate – the remains of the entrance to the city of Dan from the Israelite period. People entering the city had to go through a zigzag area uphill on rough cobblestones as a defensive measure.

Our final stop of the day was Mount Bental at a bunker overlooking the border with Syria in Golan.

From Mount Bental we were able to look across the border into Syria. The lit area in the background is in Syria with the border running between there and the farm land in the foreground. The white buildings on the right are a UN station and the road just to the left of them is a border as well.

From Galilee to Jerusalem

From Tiberias we headed south to the Jordan River at the outlet of the Sea of Galilee to Yardenit, which is a popular spot for baptisms. This was a really pretty location with calm blue/green water surrounded by green trees and plants.

From there we went the Beit She’an which had some fantastic Roman-era ruins. It is also the biblical location where King Saul and his sons were hung on the wall after their defeat to the Philistines on Mount Gilboa.

We then had lunch in Nazareth at a restaurant with a nice view of the city and then visited Mount Precipice for a bible study. We were treated to some wonderful light over the Armageddon Valley so I had to take a few photos while we were there. This is the location referred to in Luke 4:29, “and they got up and drove Him (Jesus) out of the city, and led Him to the brow of the hill on which their city had been built, in order to throw Him down the cliff.”

Jerusalem

I really liked Jerusalem. The history goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway. Evidence of settlements in Jerusalem date back to 4000 BC. From a biblical standpoint, the city was founded by King David around 1000 BC and was the site of the original Jewish temple build by King Solomon. It is holy to the Jews, to the Christians (as the site of Jesus’ crucifixion, burial and resurrection), and to the Muslims who believe it was from Jerusalem that Muhammad ascended to heaven.

I also enjoyed the architecture. Large stone walls dating to the Ottoman period surround the old city, which includes a warren of tiny stone streets winding through shops and buildings. We stayed in the David Citadel Hotel which was just a ten minute walk from the Jaffa Gate entrance into the old city. The hotel was very nice, once again with great food and after some early electrical problems were ironed out we enjoyed our stay.

Our guide recommended that we get some rest on the evening that we arrived in Jerusalem, but that’s not how Sandee and I roll. After dinner we walked to the Jaffa Gate and found the city alive with activity. A plaza near the gate was the home to a Hanukkah celebration including music, fire dancers, and videos displayed on the city walls.

Entering the city we wandered through the narrow streets surrounded by lights and people enjoying the celebration. We eventually ended up at the Western Wall and then made our way back to the hotel. I returned in the early morning for sunrise, capturing the photo below of the Western Wall and the Dome of the Rock. The streets were less crowded at 5:00 am, but the wall is always busy.

I also took advantage of the early hour to visit the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which is considered by many of the Catholic and Orthodox churches as the site of Golgotha and the tomb of Jesus. Others, including many Protestant churches, place these locations at the garden tomb, which we visited a couple of days later.

Sandee and I came back to the church later, going upstairs to the altar over the rock where they believe the cross was placed (yes, we reached down to touch it) before getting chased out for a formal procession. Below is one of the small streets in the city, although the shops were still closed at this early hour.

Rain was forecast for our first two days in Jerusalem, and we ended up seeing plenty of it. Those stone streets become extremely slick when wet, which added to the adventure. We started on the Mount of Olives which has a great view of the old city and the temple mount and then worked our way down the hill to Gethsemane.

From the left below, you can see the south steps (which we’d visit a couple of days later), the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the Dome of the Rock, and the East Gate (the closed-off double gate in the wall). According to our guides, the gate was closed off to prevent the Messiah from entering the city from the east, as was prophesied in the Bible. Similarly, the Jewish graveyard in the foreground is oriented such that upon being resurrected, those in the tombs can sit up and watch the action. Visitors place rocks on the tombs instead of flowers.

As we made our way down the hill (the Palm Sunday route), we visited some old Jewish tombs. After a year in the tomb, family members would return to gather the bones and place them into ossuaries as shown below. This allowed tombs to be reused.

Gethsemane is best know as the garden where Jesus went to pray with his disciples and was betrayed by Judas and arrested. It is smaller than I expected, consisting of olive trees.

It was now raining in earnest so we adjusted our itinerary to try spending at least some time indoors. This included a visit to the “upper room”, believed to be the location of the last supper and where He appeared to the disciples after his resurrection. The room has changed hands many times over the last 2000 years, so the interior architecture is not consistent with how it would have been at the time.

We then visited the Israel Museum. Our first stop was their large scale model of ancient Jerusalem (shown below). I wasn’t particularly excited about seeing a model of the city, but it really was impressive. The photo below shows the model from about the same direction as we viewed the city from the Mount of Olives that morning.

Most compelling to me at the Israel Museum was the Shrine of the Book, which displays original pages from the dead sea scrolls as well as the full Aleppo Codex. The Aleppo Codex isn’t as well known as the scrolls, but it is an original Old Testament manuscript prepared in Tiberias that dates to 1000 AD. The consistency between this document, the older dead sea scrolls, and the modern Old Testament show the care that was taken over the millennia to ensure that the book of the law was not corrupted.

We had heavy rain in the forecast for the next day, so after starting at the Garden Tomb, we spent the afternoon at the holocaust museum in Yad Vashem. As noted above, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is traditionally accepted as the location of both Golgotha, where Jesus was crucified, and the tomb. The Garden Tomb, discovered in 1867 is believed by some to more accurately fit the descriptions provided in the Bible. I struggle with accepting the authenticity of any site at face value after 2000 years and many changes of ownership. I do agree that the Garden Tomb is a better environment for a pilgrimage location and for contemplating the events that took place.

Adjacent to the garden tomb is a hillside (if I recall correctly stone was excavated from this area during the construction of the original temple) that does look like a skull from certain angles (Golgotha is translated as “place of the skull”. Unfortunately the view from the Garden Tomb isn’t very skull like.

We visited the tomb ascribed to being that used for Jesus’ body. It is a Jewish tomb that dates back to that time period. It is also empty.

After visiting the tomb we held a communion service in the garden, which was particularly moving. We spent the afternoon in the Holocaust museum. I don’t have many photos since they are forbidden inside. The sobering reality I faced in the museum can be summarized as “there but for the grace of God go I”. It is very easy to look at what happened and blame it on the people involved, with an air of superiority that says “I would never have done that.”. So many of the horrible things that took place weren’t done by the Germans – they were done by the natives of the countries involved – and I have to believe that most people were mostly worried about their own safety. Seeing that before the war nobody, including the US, was willing to take refugees fleeing for their lives was a cause for self reflection as well.

We made a stop for Israeli hot chocolate at an Aroma coffee shop. For lack of a better way to put it, imagine solid chocolate in a cup of steamed milk. Stir and enjoy (phone picture below).

That evening, Sandee and I walked back into the old city, this time walking around the wall to the Damascus gate, which coincidentally was right down the street from the Garden Tomb where we started our day. Since it was about sunset I stopped to take some pictures. For those that are interested, here is a photographer’s tip for photographing busy places. If you have a tripod (I always do) or a place to set your camera, you can take several pictures of the same scene with the people moving around. It is then easy to use the different exposures in Photoshop to erase the people that are moving around from the scene. I used three exposures to use that technique here.

We walked through the city, in what was definitely a more Muslim part of town, until we ended up in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. We went up stairs and visited the traditional location of Golgotha. As you can see below, the rock is encased in glass and an altar has been placed over an opening where people can reach down and touch the rock where they believe the cross was placed. We joined the line and took our turn.

The next morning we went to the Dead Sea, but I’ll cover that in the next section as I want to keep the Jerusalem locations we visited together. The weather was better on our last day in Israel and that became our day to visit old Jerusalem with our tour group. We entered the city through the Dung Gate (what can I say?) shown below.

From there we had a nice view of the south wall, the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the Mount of Olives in the background.

We proceeded to the Western Wall, which is one of the holiest places in Judaism. This is based on its proximity to the original temple and the belief held by some that God’s spirit retains a presence there. I took my turn approaching the wall and praying and then respectfully captured some images of the activities taking place.

I did stop to take some photos of the Hanukkah menorah at the wall, with all but the last candle lit. We visited on the last day of the celebration.

I also liked the view looking back from the wall, at people studying and the buildings of the Jewish Quarter we had previously walked through on our first night in the city.

We proceeded to the southern steps, a place where Jesus would have walked in his visits to the temple. The worn steps at the bottom of this photo are original, dating back to the second temple period. The others have been refurbished more recently.

We then spent some time exploring the area around the southern and western walls, including debris from the destruction of the temple and the remains of Robinson’s Arch (photo below) before heading to lunch in the Jewish Quarter.

And here are some photos from the Jewish Quarter. The menorah in front of the Hurva synagogue was built to match as closely as possible the temple menorah from the Old Testament and is intended for use in a rebuilt holy temple. It was over half a ton and includes 45 kg of 24-carat gold.

We did a brief visit of the excavations taking place in the City of David, the area where King David had established the original urban core of Jerusalem.

Our last stop in Jerusalem was Mount Scopus, which has a nice view of the city. Apparently we weren’t the first to realize that, as it is the site which Roman forces used as their base to carry out the final siege of the Jerusalem in 70 AD. On our way back to Tel Aviv we stopped at the valley where David faced Goliath. seeing the stream where he would have gathered his stones and the hills on which both armies encamped.

The Dead Sea, Qumran, and Masada

The drive from Jerusalem to the Dead Sea is relatively short, only about 40 km from our hotel, but it does represent a dramatic change of scenery. Jerusalem sits at an elevation of 2,474 feet, is densely populated, and as you can see above in the view from Mt. Scopus has plenty of greenery. Traveling to the Dead Sea you lose almost 4,000 feet of elevation, ending up 1,410 feet below sea level in a desert environment. Our first stop was Qumran, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in clay jars buried in caves. We had a chance to see excavations of the village that was there as well as some of the caves and the desert landscape.

From Qumran we traveled to Jordan River near Jericho. This is the area where the nation of Israel crossed the Jordan as they took possession of the promised land as well as the the likely the location where John baptized Jesus. As you can see below, the waters of the Jordan aren’t as clear here as they were closer to Galilee. The river was also surprisingly narrow – the church on the other side is in Jordan.

Next up was the obligatory swim in the Dead Sea. The Dead Sea is about 9.6 times saltier than the ocean making it really easy to float. We were warned about swallowing any water or letting it come into contact with our eyes or any open wounds. I quickly changed into my bathing suit when we arrived and went straight into the water. It was windy, producing some waves that made things challenging. I managed to float long enough for Sandee to snap the photo below and then lifeguards called me back to shore – no more swimming allowed. I did coat myself in the mud, which is supposed to be great for the skin. I do still feel younger…

As the beach is a popular tourist site, there were camels around for people to pay to ride and get their pictures taken. I had to snap a few.

Our next stop was Masada, a site I was excited to visit. Masada was a palace fortified by Herod the Great overlooking the Dead Sea. It is most famous for being the last holdout of the Jewish rebels after the destruction of the second temple in the first Jewish-Roman war. The Romans laid siege to Masada and the conflict eventually ended in the mass suicide of 960 people.

There is a hiking trail up the mountain from the park entrance , but we took the tram. It would have been fun to hike down though! Many ruins have been excavated in Masada and you can see the locations of some of the Roman encampments as well. It definitely provides some great views of the Dead Sea and Jordan.

Our last stop of the day was Ein Gedi which is currently a kibbutz (similar to a commune) on the western shore of the Dead Sea. Biblically, Ein Gedi is where David hid from King Saul. As written in 1 Samuel 24:2, Saul looked for him “even upon the most craggy rocks, which are accessible only to wild goats”. There is a canyon with a waterfall, which you can just see in the picture below taken at sunset.

Hopefully this will be the longest post I ever write, and congratulations to those of you that made it through the whole thing. If you have a desire to visit Israel, I encourage you to do so. The counrty was easy to travel in, the food was great, and the history is key to much of western culture. I’ll leave you with a sunset over the Dead Sea. Feel free to ask any questions in the comments, or even point out some of the errors I may have made.