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 13th 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 13th 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 13th 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.
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