Day 2: Justice and the Gates of Hell

           Day 2 started out much better than day 2. My camera worked, we didn't have to jump a gate, and it was decently cold outside! And I had 2 cappuccinos before we left the hotel. Caffeine and good weather can turn any potentially bad situation into a good.

           Remember how I mentioned that there are three cities that Solomon fortified during his reign? Well the third one is Hazor, which is were we started our second day on the field. So I have officially been to all three sites and seen all three excavated Solomonic gates. Pretty cool stuff. Other importances of Hazor: this city was huge, back in the day! There's an upper acropolis of 25 acres and, in the ancient Canaanite days, it spread out along the valley an extra 175 acres. The little town of David in Jerusalem was only 10 acres. Of course, it helps that Hazor is the only city that people hit when going from the Galilee up into Damascus and onto Mesopotamia. So we're talking a major international influence. Now this only lasted until the 13^th C, and from there on out only the top 25 acres were settled and used. Archaeologists have found a destruction layer in the city, dating to the 13^th C. And we're not just talking that the city was taken over or something, this was some major destruction. To put it into context, Hazor is the seam between the Rosh Pinnah (an area of basalt just above the Sea of Galilee) and the Huleh Basin (an swampy area below Dan). Hazor is built of the basalt from the Rosh Pinnah Sill. The destruction that happened there in the 13^th C was so intense that it cracked the basalt. I'm not sure what temperature that is... but I'm sure it's pretty crazy. So the question is, what happened here? We all turned to Joshua 11. After reading the story and plotting it out on a map, I'm not sure what the Canaanites were thinking. The Canaanites had bases all throughout the Galilee area, from the Galilee to the coast. Now, if Joshua was coming in from Jerusalem with a tribe of measly Israelites just out of their wilderness wanderings, it would make sense to keep all your men at your bases and pick off Joshua's people one by one until he reaches Hazor – if he even does! Right? Well that's not what they did. Instead, all the Canaanite chiefs piled up on top of Hazor and waited for Joshua to come with all his men. And it's not like Hazor has any real defenses. The city is on flat land. They had to build a mote to try and have any sort of protection. So, of course, Joshua destroyed them. Go Joshua.

           After Hazor, we drove North along the Jordan River to Dan. Now Dan wasn't originally called Dan. But the Dan tribe was having trouble taking their land from the Philistines in the Sorek Valley, so the Bible says that they came up an “innocent and unsuspecting people” and took the city for themselves and named it Dan. I sometimes get the feeling that Israelites were a little twisted in their thought process. Dan is considered the Northern boundary for Israel. You read it often in the Bible as, “From Dan to Beer-Sheva”. The gate at Dan has an altar outside of the gate and a large patio like area that may be a trading enclave from Ahab and Omri's time. And, when you walk in through the gate, there is a line of stone benches and a pedestal for a seat. Why are their benches and a raised seat in the gate? Because the gate was often the only entrance into the city, the elders would sit on the benches and welcome guests. I say welcome, but really it's more like... “Here, welcome to my city. Let me show you around and make sure you don't plan to do us any harm.” It's probably not too different than having boarder crossing police stationed at the front of every city. This is also where court cases were heard, and also where our conversation got really interesting. How is justice pictured to us Westerners? As a blind woman holding a scale. But that's not really how things work in the Bible/ancient days. The culture back then was more of a survivalist thing. Cities were built so that people could unite and protect themselves against outsiders, as well as support each other in food and health. So if one person did something stupid like... anger an outside and cause all their fields of food to be burned down (I'm drawing from the Samson story)... then that person needed to be killed or thrown out of the city. This sounds harsh but, because of that one man's stupidity, the whole town had to potentially starve for a year. Stupid people had to go (man, I wish things still worked that way sometimes). So, court cases were always heard in the gate because that's where all the elders sat and everyone in the city could gather there and hear the case. Unlike today's society where we have anonymous people judging us for our supposed crimes, everyone who was judging you knew you and your character. They were judged in the open air for all to hear. Anyone could come to your side and aid you, or preach against you if you had a known bad reputation. Everyone needed to hear the outcome of the case because they didn't have police to keep people accountable. So everyone had to keep the person being charged accountable for whatever their punishment was. It's all very communal, as was the whole of the ancient world. But this is the Biblical model that's given to us. The example our professor used was from Deuteronomy 22:28-29, which basically says that if a man rapes a virgin woman, then he must pay the full bride price and marry her and is not allowed to divorce her. Again, this seems really weird to us today. But, when put in an Ancient Middle Eastern context, it makes a lot of sense. By being raped and defiled, no other man would be able to marry her. Her honor would have been stripped from her. She would become a burden on her family and would birth no children to take care of her in her old age. It would almost be better if she were dead. But, if the man married her, then he would have to pay the full bride price (no getting off for free, here), and then would have to accept her into his home and care for her. She would be fed and have a home. And, once she had kids, her honor would be restored to her and her children could look after her thereafter. Not to mention, everyone in the city – including her Dad, brothers, uncles, etc. - would be watching the man to make sure that he never hurt her again and that she was happy and taken care of. Biblical law seems weird to us, but it's often a commentary on known ancient law that was already in place.

           Our last stop was Caesarea-Philipi. A couple of interesting thoughts from here. At Caesarea-Philipi there is a large cave that runs so deep into the ground it was often referred to as an abyss. From this “abyss” flowed a spring from the run off water of Mount Hermon. And on top of this spring was built a pagan temple to the god Pan (who looks like a goat). Now, the pagan Greco-Roman culture here, looked at this cave/abyss as the gateway to the underworld. It basically held back the things that lie below. And it is here, where Jesus asks the disciples “Who do people say that I am?" And they said,

"Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets." He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" Simon Peter replied, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." And Jesus answered him, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."  Then he strictly charged the disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ. ” (Matthew 16:13-20).

           The word that Jesus uses to call Peter the “rock” of the church, is actually the word for a pebble or a building stone. Where as, the word that He uses to describe the rock of God and the church later in the gospels, is the word for bedrock. So, in the context of being in front of this giant cliff face with an abysmal like cave carved into it, they would have known that God is the rock and the foundation of the church and the disciples are the building blocks that create it. And when Jesus speaks of “the gates of hell” he's referring to the cave. One of the reasons that pagan cultures often placed the underworld so close to them, like they did with the cave being the “gate of the underworld”, was so that they felt more comfortable with death. But Jesus is telling people that they need not fear death because there is life after death. One of the roles of a Rabbi was interpreting scripture. Whatever their interpretation of the scripture was, became factual law. When Jesus tells them that whatever they bind on earth will be bound in heave, He's telling them that they have the authority to interpret scripture because of Jesus. I never understood that passage until now.

Galilee Day 1: New Perspectives

          This weekend we had a four day trip to the Galilee, and, just as I expected, I really enjoyed myself. I don't know if I liked it as much as going to the Negev because there are so many amazing cultural and theological things to learn, but I liked it all the same. It was very relaxed.

          I started the day by attempting to take a picture of the Jordan River and discovering that my battery had not charged the night before. Good times. And the place that we stopped at needed to be opened by a gatekeeper with the key, but he never showed up. So we jumped the fence. That really was good times. We walked along the Jordan and up a hill (isn't that everywhere in Israel? Haha) to Beit-Sha'an. This city is at the junction of the Jordan River Valley and the Jezreel Valley. What that basically means is that a bunch of international trade routes cross here. Egypt was all over this place early on, before they entered an intermediate period and lost their kingdom to the Pheonicians and then the Canaanites. The most Biblically important thing that happened here was the death of Saul, Jonathan, and their men. I think most of us know this story. If not, you can check it out at 1 Samuel 31. Basically, Saul decides to go up again the Philistines here, he is no longer in God's will, and kills himself when he realizes that he's lost the battle because he doesn't want a group of uncircumcised sinners to kill him. So he falls on his sword and the Philistines take his body and hang it up on the wall of Beit Sha'an to further humiliate him and his loss. A couple of interesting things are going on here. Beit Sha'an is far into the Northern Kingdom and out of Saul's region of reign. So what is he doing here? It's been suggested that Saul was trying to unite the tribes of Israel – like David later goes on to do. So he was probably going on to do something smart for a change. Saul gets a lot of crap, but I think we should give him more credit than we do. I think he occasionally knew what he was doing. Anyways, interesting thing number 2: Why did the inhabitants of Jabesh-Gilead come and take down Saul's body? Jabesh-Gilead was not in Saul's kingdom. Well this ties back to Judges 21. So, there's that whole story about how Benjamin just gets utterly destroyed because they messed with a Levite's concubine and then all the tribes reigned war on Benjamin for it. It's an interesting story, if you ever have the hankering to read a slightly demented story from the Bible. Anyways, so there's this remnant of Benjamin left, after this war, and the people don't want to completely kill off the tribe of Benjamin. So they start looking to other tribes for wives. They have two options: the dancing virgins of Shilo or women from Jabesh-Gilead. All this to say that, Saul is a Benjamite. It's possible that he had a great-great-grandmother or something from Jabesh-Gilead. Another reason the people may have come and taken down his body is that Saul saved their city once. So he had some fairly positive ties with the people.

          At the foot of Beit-Sha'an was a Roman period city called Scythopolis. There wasn't a whole lot of biblically relevant things there, but it was really interesting to walk around. Maybe my favorite site to explore, other than Massada.

          Then we went to Megiddo. Two neat things about Megiddo. One: it's one of the cities that Solomon fortified during his reign. So now I've been to Gezer and Megiddo (two of the three cities). Two: In Revelations 16:16, John the Apostle writes that the “last battle” on earth will be at a place that, in Hebrew, is called “Armageddon”. Which, in Hebrew, sounds like “harmegiddo”. Basically, John took that word and transliterated it into Greek, which is how we get our word “Armageddon” today. There are a couple of problems with this, as always. “Har-megiddo” literally mean “mountain of Megiddo”, and there is no mountain at Megiddo. Also, when looking at the site, it doesn't make sense for a large battle to take place – it's large and open and would be really easy to overthrow. So one solution, and the one that probably makes the most sense, is that the “g” in “armegeddon” is a greek transliteration. This is going to be a little difficult to describe to non-Hebrew scholars, but I'll give it my best. The Greek letter gimmel (which makes the “g” sound) may not be a transliteration of the Hebrew letter “g” but of the Hebrew guttural sound “aiyn” which has not transliteration in Greek. I think the only other language that makes use of this sound are other Semitic languages like Arabic. Making the word “har mi-od” instead. Which means “the mountain of assembly” which is a phrase used often in prophetic literature to refer to Jerusalem. Fun stuff. I know that was a lot of language terms thrown around, sorry about that.

          Then we went to Mount Carmel, which is where Elijah destroyed the prophets of Baal (1 Kings 18). Interesting background on this story that helps it make more sense: Baal is the fertility god of the Canaanites. He is often pictured as riding on a bull (because bulls represented pure force and power in the ancient world) or sometimes as the bull itself and has a wife, Ashura, who is perpetually pregnant – sounds fun, doesn't it girls? So anywhere that was abundantly green and well watered was associated with Baal to the Canaanites. Well, Mount Carmel is close to the coast and close to the Jezreel Valley. So it has all the Mediterranean storm weather coming in and watering it, as well as the Jezreel Valley, which is well watered by Jordan River Springs. This place is incredibly green and fertile. The Canaanites actually saw it and decided that it was Baal – ancient peoples didn't differentiate between the god and the nature the god created; to them, they are both the god. Basically, they're a bunch of nature worshipers. And here comes Elijah, representing a God that refuses to be embodied by a picture or earthly thing and claims that His unseen God is the one true one. So he comes in, and destroys the prophet's of Baal. And how does God destroy them? With fire and rain – two examples of nature. Well, King Ahab's wife, Jezebel (who's father was a priest of Baal before becoming a king, or whatever important person he was) wasn't very happy with Elijah because he's just destroyed the god that she worships and follows along with all her prophets. So she runs after him, and Elijah hides. This is where we have the story of Elijah sitting down and being overwhelmed with depression. Is it any wonder why? The God that he represents destroyed a bunch of nature worshipers with nature. I would be feeling a little doubtful too. I mean... what makes God any better if He's just going to use nature too? That's when God silences Elijah's surrounding (in a not so quiet setting) and shows Elijah that he is not in nature but is outside and above it. If there isn't a sermon in that, then I'm in the wrong field of study.

          Our last stop of the day was the Nazareth Ridge. We didn't actually go into the city because it's overrun with a Christian/Jewish population now and it's a very large city. So, we sat up on the ridge that looks over the Jezreel Valley. Nazareth, while close to the Jezreel Valley and all the Gentile cities and international trade and corrupt lifestyle of Samaria, it is not connected with any of them. The ridge just outside the city makes it almost impossible for them to be connected to anyone. And the inhabitants were priests that had left Jerusalem, because the temple had been corrupted by the Hasmonean family, and so they were living a stark conservative Jewish lifestyle while awaiting the Messiah. Mary's family was from this group of priests, and Joseph was from the tribe of Benjamin. So we get the feeling that most of the people in Nazareth weren't natives. There really aren't a whole lot of reasons to settle there, other than that there's a well. Other than that, they don't have any income from trade and it's not good for agriculture. And, from this ridge, they could literally look down on all these sinful people that were mixing with the international Gentiles and pagans. At the same time, though, a lot of their Jewish history had happened in this area. The story of Deborah and Barak in Judges, Elijah and the prophets of Baal, Saul and Jonathon’s death, and many others. So what was their worldview possibly like? Well, they're in a very isolated place. So they were probably a little xenophobic. And they lived the righteous way while they were surrounded by degradation. So maybe a little self-righteous too. And proud of what little they had. Maybe they were even seeking redemption for their purity in such surroundings. So, here comes Jesus, who then comes along. He reads them a passage from Isaiah about the coming Messiah and says “this time is now” and everyone gets excited! This is the redemption they were looking for! But Jesus tells them that he has come to save the people that are in darkness, and the Jews are thinking, “Well that's us! Our temple has been overtaken and we've been pushed to this place that is enveloped by sin.” Of course, that isn't what Jesus means, though. Who is in more darkness, but the Gentiles? And then he goes on to list how Elijah and Elisha and the prophets before him helped Gentiles, and were hated in their hometown for it. The people automatically go from loving him and believing he's the Messiah, to hating him and throwing him off the ridge. And the Bible says that Jesus just “went on his way”. Kind of puts it all into perspective, doesn't it?

Day 3: Revolts, Waterfalls, and Death

I know you all have been waiting in anxious anticipation to hear about the third day of my trip to the Negev. My favorite day of the whole trip, though there was very little learning.

We left our hotel about about 7:45 in the morning to venture down the long and winding road from modern-day Arad to the desert palace and fortress of Masada. Long and winding road it was. I don't know if I have every been that car sick in my whole life. The g-force of turning in a vehicle is too much for me to handle, and we were trekking down the side of a wilderness mountain to the area of the Dead Sea. And, of course, we left right after breakfast. Not a good way to start the day. Then we got there and had to walk up the Roman siege ramp to the top of Masada – which, I'll admit, looked a lot easier than walking up the snake path. So, for those of you who don't know about the history of Masada, let me try to briefly justify it:

We have a short biblical excerpt referring to David fleeing to “the fortress” by the Dead Sea and En-gedi when he was running from Saul and his army. Many scholars attribute the fortress to be Masada.

As you can tell from my previous posts, Herod really loved his desert palaces. Masada is one of his many. It's right next to the Dead Sea – where, obviously, there is next to no life or fresh water – and Herod, being the show off that he is, builds this huge beautiful palace with an aqueduct and plenty of fresh water. What's interesting, is that Herod likely never even visited this place. He just built the palace, supplied it with huge stores of food and water, and then never went or stayed there. It had bath houses, living quarters, store rooms, three levels, and some of the most well preserved mosaics and painted plaster that we have today.

Well, fast forward to the Jewish revolt against the Romans in 70 A.D. This is where it gets really interesting. There's this historian that we have from this time period named Josephus. Now, Josephus was a little bit of a coward, a suck-up, and greatly enjoyed exaggerating his stories, but he is still used as a great general historian for ancient times. Basically, Josephus was captured at another revolt site and, so that he wouldn't be killed, told the general of the army that he had a vision that he would one day be Caesar. So, of course, the general was like, “I like this guy”, and let him live. And Josephus was the one who recorded the events at Masada. As the story goes, a group of Jewish zealots camped out at Masada. It was the place of their last stand. Archeology shows us that they were even making plots of land to grow food, meaning that they were probably planning on holding out there for as long as possible. So the image is of all the Jewish guys on top of this mountain in an old beautiful palace with Roman soldiers camping at the bottom and building a siege ramp to the top. Josephus tells us that the Jews had so much water that they would stand on the edge of the mountain and poor water on themselves, because the Romans had to walk all the way to En-gedi for water (which I'm guessing is about 20 km.). Once the siege ramp was finished, the Romans brought their battering rams and siege chariots to the top and tried to bring down the wall, but something about how the wall was made meant that when they pressed against the wall it only hardened and became tougher. So, the Romans got smart and set the wall on fire, but the winds changed and blew back on the Romans. The Jews cheered thinking that God had saved them. Then, the winds changed again and blew back on the Jews, finally bringing down the wall. This is where the story gets a little sketchy. Josephus tells us that this event happened at night and that the Roman soldiers went back down to their camp and were to come back in the morning. That night, the leaders of the Jewish group got together and decided that they would rather die there than submit to Rome. So they wrote their names on bits of pottery and drew lots. They picked 10 men to go and kill the women and children (so that the children wouldn't be sold into slavery and so that the women wouldn't be raped by the soldiers), more men were chosen to go and kill the men who killed the families, one man would be left to kill those men, and then that last man would fall on his sword and commit suicide. Josephus says that when the Romans entered the camp in the morning, it was eerily quiet. Supposedly, then, a widowed woman and two orphaned children were found and told them the story of what happened. Here's some odd things about this story: though this wasn't your normal group of Jews, it still was unlike Jews to commit suicide; not enough skeletons were found at the site to corroborate the story; the women and children that were left behind were related to the leaders, and even though they had no immediate family to look for them to kill them it is still hard to believe that they would go unnoticed; and why would the Romans bring down the wall and then leave it there to come back in the morning when they had been trying to take down this wall for months and the whole time they were being mocked by the Jews – I would expect them to be mad! The last little piece, is that Josephus told almost the exact same story for two other sites. And, when he was captured by the Romans originally, it was because he had failed to fall on his sword and commit suicide. I'm thinking he may have been feeling guilty and so retold the story through his guilt for other sites. That being said, lots were uncovered at Masada with the names of the leaders written on them. So, who knows what really happened?

If you can't tell, Masada was my favorite site. There's still preserved original paint and mosaic there! And it's beautiful. I decided that if I was going to hide anywhere in the Negev, it would be Masada.

From Masada, we went to En-gedi. En-gedi is a desert Oasis across from the dead sea. Imagine miles of dry hot land, and along the most dry and dead part of it there is a spring of living, green, wet goodness. There's no good way to express how truly amazing it is. Waterfalls of cool fresh water and plant life surrounding it. Scholars also say that David probably stopped here when fleeing from Saul – and what a better place to flee to? Absolutely beautiful. So we stopped there, at lunch, and swam around in the springs.

Then we went to the Dead Sea. What a difference! To go from cold living water to the lowest and most dead place on Earth. I didn't really want to swim in the Dead Sea, but everyone talked me into doing it. I'm glad I did. It was worth trying once. I didn't know this previously, but when you swim in the Dead Sea, you just float. Due to all the minerals, nothing can physically sink in its waters. I can only equate the feeling of it to swimming in kerosene. It was luke warm and kind of thick and oily. If you didn't know that you had any cuts on your body before, you do as soon as you step in the water. I was suddenly acutely aware of some scratches on my legs and arms. Highly uncomfortable. I stayed in for about five or ten minutes and then took a twenty minute shower, haha. It was interesting. I think my skin is still dried out from the experience.

Our last stop was at Qumran, which I would have been much more excited about had I not still felt so uncomfortable from the Dead Sea water. It was enjoyable to walk through the little town there and see the caves.

This weekend I have another field study. We're going to Galilee to visit places like Damascus, Capernaum, and Nazareth. It'll be cold there! I'm pretty excited.

Day 2: Perceived Arch-Nemesis "The Negev"

Day 2:   I really expected this portion of the trip to be my least favorite. We headed down into the Negev, which is the southern-most part of Israel. On our geography maps that we have to color in class, it was the wide section that consisted of lots of yellow and little-to-no green. But, to my great surprise, I ended up pleasantly enjoying the Negev! Thought, I'm not sure if that was due to the massive amounts of prayer I had interceding for me that weekend, if it was my wanting to shock everyone who thought of me as a negative person (a majority of the undergrad student body – no exaggeration), or if I actually was just enjoying myself. No matter what the reason, I am thankful that I had a good time.

          Our first two stops were slightly interesting, but I enjoyed them more for the view they offered than anything else. We began our day at Arad, once a bustling and large Canaanite city along the Egyptian gold trade routes to the south, that was later conquered by Israel and used as an Israelite fortress. Did I say fortress? I meant a sacrificial city. Now, today, you can go and see the remains of the Canaanite city – a very large city wall surrounding a city with some of the best archaeological remains that we have for the Canaanites. There stands a well preserved house, animal troth, storage rooms, and various other city buildings. What's unique about this site is not just how well preserved everything was, but that there is a cistern in the center and all the roads direct rain water fall into it. This means that the city had to have been well planned. Which also means that the city would have needed a unified powerful government to conduct such planning. Later on, the Israelites came in and took over the city (leaving the remains of the Canaanite city) and built their own fortress at the highest point there was. Israel wanted a city there because it sat right on the gold/copper trade and could “protect” their Southern boarder. The problem is that there is too little rain to support agriculture, so the land only gave enough to support shepherding. So they probably had to have a lot of support from Israel because they would have needed things like water and grain. We also know that only 12 families held down the site. Doesn't sound very strong or scary, does it? Basically, if any invading army came through, they would be destroyed and a message would be sent to Israel saying that their southern fortress had been taken down and that an invading army was coming through. Not many people volunteered for that job, I'm sure. Next, we stopped at Beer-Sheva, which kind of served the same purposes in that it was on the trade route, acted as an administration center (people brought their taxes there), and acted as a southern defense. But, Beer-Sheva had a well and more water. So it was a much bigger city than Arad and supported much more life. They would have only needed extra food, which they may have even been able to get from incoming trade caravans. Does Beer-Sheva sound familiar to you? It should. Abraham and Isaac came through there and dug many wells and it marks the southern boundary of Israel, thus the phrase “from Dan to Beer-Sheva” when the Bible talks about the whole of Israel. It's also where Elijah took refuge when Jezebel wanted him killed.

          What else do these two cities have in common? They both contain mini-reconstructions of the temple in Jerusalem from Solomon's time period. Meaning, that Solomon gave them permission to build these little temples. What's odd about this is that the temple in Jerusalem was supposed to be the only one. We can only suspect that Solomon allowed this to happen because the cities are too far away from Jerusalem for people to make their yearly sacrifices. But, in both these temples, we find evidence and artifacts related to other gods. Archaeologists think that these cities may have mixed pagan gods like Baal and Ashura with Yahweh-istic worship, forming a sort of Jewish folk religion. This is plausible because there were so many other cultures passing through the cities with their pagan gods. And, Ashura is the pagan god of fertility and abundance. Well, out in the middle of the desert with little water and life support, I may be praying for a little land fertility as well. Or, maybe they weren't mixing the religions at all. Maybe they were just offering an area of worship to their pagan friends that were passing through.

          After these two stops, we went and at lunch by the Wadi Zin, also known as the “ladder trail”. That name should automatically alert you. It's the reason that I fully expected to hate the Negev. Who wants to “walk” a climb that consists of climbing ladders. The pictures that I took from the top of the mountain, look horizontal, but no. They're vertical. Check this out:

Yep. I climbed up that. And it was shady and breezy and, dare I say it? I enjoyed it! Yep. I actually had a good time. It just goes to show you that I can handle anything as long as it's not hot, humid, and sunny.

          Then we ended the day at Machtesh Ramon. A machtesh is a natural land crater. Meaning that it's not really a crater, it's just somewhere that the land just drops down to a cliff and creates this giant inlaid bowl in the ground. You really have to see it to know what I'm talking about:

This was a perfect end to the day. It wasn't hot, the wind was blowing, and our last two stops consisted of nothing historical. Just peaceful scenery and getting to experience the land.

A Very Late Day 1: the Shephelah and Philistia

 I know, I know. My updates are late again – as some friends of mine have so kindly reminded me.

So, my last field study, which wasn't last weekend but the weekend before, was three days long. It was split up into what we call “the Shephelah, Philistia, the Negev, and the Dead Sea”. So, pretty much, everything directly to the West, East, and South of Jerusalem. Hence the three day trip. It was a lot of ground to cover. I'll try to cover it as succinctly and interestingly as I can, but I may end up dividing the three trips into three different blog entries so that I can have enough room for expression and thoughts.

Day 1: The Shephelah is the area of 6 valleys in between the Judean territories and the Philistian territories. North to South, these valleys are named: Aijalon, Sorek, Elah, Guvrien, Lachish, Adoraim. We already visited the Aijalon when we went to the Benjamite territory a few weeks ago. So we started our trip, early in the morning, on the outskirts of the Sorek Valley, looking at vineyards made on terraces and talking about ancient daily life. Did you know that it could take a full year to create a terrace of half an acre? It took generations to build up a terrace large enough to fully support your family through the year. It's not wonder sons took over the family business, where else were they going to go? Their family spent years building a plot of land large enough to support themselves. Daily life consisted of men going out and working the land, while the women spent all day making bread to feed the family. I think people mostly have this idea of men taking care of the monetary resources of the family while the women cooked and cleaned, which seems to offend so many feminists and create so many chauvinists. But it wasn't like that, at all. The way families worked was out of necessity. Men worked the land because they were physically capable of doing it; women were raised by mothers to know how to cook and feed their whole family, and how to store and ration food through the dry season. Men had to be picky about their wives because if they married a woman who couldn't properly ration food then they would most likely run out of food and die. While a woman wanted a man who could farm well, someone who knew how to get the most out of his little plot of land. Of course, if a family made enough money to hire a helping hand, then the first duty to be passed off was bread making so that the women could do other things like child rearing. Women were pregnant almost all the time because their was such a high infant mortality rate that you kind of wanted a lot of kids just in case, and then while they were pregnant they slaved away on bread making all day. Meanwhile, men worked in the hot sun to provide enough food to last them for up to 6 months, not knowing if there would be enough rain for the season or not. It's a hard life, but a fulfilling one, none-the-less. This whole lifestyle is the idea of “Shalom”. I'm sure most of you have heard this word, it's the Jewish/Hebrew word for peace. But it's more than just things being quite. Shalom means “life the way it's meant to be lived.” And this is what the Bible really means when it talks about heaven. Heaven is living life the way it's meant to be lived, but without sin. Not floating on clouds, with wings and a harp and being all disembodied. It's everyone on their own plot of land with no turmoil or strife, just a quiet life where you worship God, live in community with family and friends, and get what you work for. I think that's also what's meant when the Bible says that we will all have our own jobs in heaven – pertaining to land and home and such. And, I think it's indicative of still living with family and friends. I've heard of people, like wives and husbands, being concerned that they won't have their spouses in heaven anymore, but I actually think that idea is contrary to a Biblical image of heaven. When you marry, you become one spiritual flesh. Why would God separate you from each other, then? That doesn't sound like shalom to me. It's something to think about, anyways.

Our next two stops were located in some very exciting Biblical historical places. First, was the plains of the Sorek – where Samson and Delilah took place – and then was the Elah valley – where David fought Goliath. We mostly just read the stories and pointed out where everything may have happened. It was interesting to see how close Samson was to Philistine territory. His home was an ancient border town to Philistia. When you think of modern border towns, what are they like? Usually, slightly stressful and full of mixed culture (think of southern Texas or New Mexico or Arizona). Well, this was very similar in Samson's day. You had Jews hating that the Philistine's were in their God-ordained territory and Philistine's hating that the Jews wanted their territory. So when Samson takes his first wife, it's no wonder there's so much strife between the families! It's an ancient Romeo and Juliet scenario! Then you have that whole situation where his wife's father marries her off to another family and offers his youngest daughter to Samson instead, which would have been against Jewish culture. You don't have too many instances where you marry one woman and then marry the sister just because something happens. No, you marry one woman and if the husband dies then she marries a brother or something so that she's taken care of. Then Samson goes crazy and burns all the town's fields – which means that he's basically cut off their entire life supply. It's not like they could go to the grocery store and buy more food. So when the Philistine's kill the father and his family, their not being brutal – like we and our Western minds may think – they were getting rid of further personal problems. Otherwise, they may have been future continued feuds between him and Samson. Anyhow, all very interesting to read and visualize.

Then we went to Azekah – Saul's camp when fighting Goliath – and saw the possible locations for the Philistine camp. The most interesting thing about this story to me was seeing the contrast between Saul and David. The Philistine army comes into Judaen territory and sends out their champion, Goliath, who's about 9 ft. tall, and calls for Judah to send out their champion – who was supposed to be Saul (for he was chosen to be king based on his handsomeness and tall stature. The Bible claims he was a full head taller than everyone else.) Another important detail, the outcome of this battle was crucial to the livelihood of Jerusalem. If the Philistine's had taken this site, then they would have had control and direct access to Jerusalem. So it's no wonder that Jesse sent his oldest children to war, even though children were everything to a family because they would take over the family business. Even though his sons may have died, Jesse didn't want the Philistine's coming in, burning his land, killing his fields, and taking over Jerusalem. Jesse decided to send David to the camp site with food, hoping that Saul would further protect his sons. Kind of like a little incentive. So then David comes along – just a small boy, but wise, caring, and tough. Shepherds were by no means weak. They had to do things like protect the flocks from predators and know how to do things like find food and water in the wilderness. And have you ever seen someone use a slingshot that knows what they're doing? People laugh when they hear that David took down a giant with a rock, but slingshots were actually used as weapons for war right next to bows and arrows. They were a highly dangerous weapon. Another thing is that David grabbed 5 stones. Why? He was only fighting one man. Well, Goliath had 4 brothers. So David was being confident and threatening, saying that he would kill Goliath and then his brothers, as well – which he did, in a later battle. Anyways, so you have this contrast between the tall handsome king Saul, who cowered from the fight, and small boyish ruddy David, who took down Goliath proudly.

Our last two stops were at Beit Guvrien and Ashkelon, where we had free will to explore wherever we wanted. So at Beit Guvrien, I mostly explored underground homes there. I guess people there figured a way to dig through the soft underground limestone and practically created a whole city down there to live in. It reminded me a lot of a few Star Trek episodes – Mom :) And at Ashkelon I mostly swam in the Mediterranean – which was awesome! - and then briefly explored the oldest standing arch in history.

Day Two will post tomorrow :)