The Garden Tomb, Samaritan Inn, Qumran and Masada – Israel Day 5!

 

Here's a video from early in the trip (see the snow behind me?), and a couple more that include my mug. This is to prove that I'm actually there and not relaxing by the side of a pool in Tel Aviv. (No, it's not photoshopped!)

I'll take your picture here when we all come.

 

 

In my last blog I talked about the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, that Helena, mother of Constantine, had built in the Old City of Jerusalem. This was believed to be the place where Jesus was crucified, buried and rose again.

In the late 19^th century a British general named Charles Gordon was looking from the top of an Old City wall to the surrounding scenery, and noticed a tall outcropping of rock that looked like a skull. This reminded him of Golgotha, “the place of the skull” in Scripture. Investigation turned up a garden and ancient wine press nearby, and a series of graves carved out of the walls of the local limestone. They had tall round stones that covered the openings, and channels cut in the rock where the stones could roll. Today many believe that this is the place of Jesus’ burial.

 

After visiting this garden and tomb (you can go right inside of it and there is a diagram of its layout), we all gathered in the garden and shared communion. We were led by on of the leaders among us, David Sigel, who is a pastor and also a Sephardic Jew.

 

Next we travelled to Qumran, the former home of the Essenes, and the place where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered. But along the way we stopped at the location of the inn mentioned by Jesus in the parable of the Good Samaritan.

 

Remember that this is a PARABLE, a story, so how could there be an actual inn? It turns out that on this main road to Jerusalem from Samaria, in the long ascent, there is only one level spot, and archeology there shows that it was once the scene of an inn for travelers.

 

This was and is home for Samaritans as described in Scripture. They were a group of people who also studied the Torah, worshipped as the Jews did, but were not one of the “twelve tribes” of Israel. Their priests conducted worship on Mt Gerizim, rather than Mt Moriah in Jerusalem, where the Temple was located. John 4 describes Jesus and his encounter with the “woman at the well.” She was a Samaritan.

 

Today some 700 Samaritans still survive and preserve their ancient forms of worship. Genealogists say that DNA studies show that there has been virtually no intermarriage with other peoples groups since the time of Christ.

 

Following our visit to the place of the Samaritan inn, we went down to the Dead Sea, the lowest place on earth. It is about 1200 feet below sea level, and the Jordan river flows from the Sea of Galilee, rapidly down into this large lake, but there is nowhere beyond this sea where the water can flow, so all of the minerals from the Jordan – and other runoff from the hills – collects here with nowhere else to go.

 

 

Along the shore of this brackish and undrinkable lake is the site of the ancient sect of Essenes. This was a large, prosperous religious group of Jewish monks, who raised their own crops and cattle, managed huge manmade cisterns for water runoff from the surrounding hills, adhered to a strict moral code, studied the Torah rigorously, had baptism, and a ceremony of sharing bread and wine, and kept a huge library of biblical scriptures and commentaries.

 

They had ritual baths or “mikvahs” which were used daily by everyone – summer temperatures reach 120 degrees! - and had all the technology of that day for a rich and successful life apart. They regarded other Jews, especially those in Jerusalem, as being sinful and unfaithful, and followed a “teacher of righteousness.” They imagined a final battle someday between the “sons of darkness” and the “sons of light.” They were the latter.

 

Becoming a member of the community required a two year trial period, after which you were voted either in or out. Many historians believe John the Baptist may have briefly been a part of this group.

 

The community was destroyed by the Romans after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, but not before the Essenes hid their library of scrolls in clay jars in caves above the site of their community. These were discovered between 1947 and 1958, beginning with the first clay scroll jar found by a local Bedouin boy. The largest of these caves, and closest to the site, had a staircase carved out of stone for accessing it. The most ancient copy of the Book of Isaiah, was discovered here. A replica of this is on display of the Shrine of the Book in Jerusalem.

 

Nearby is Masada, an enormous flat-topped cliff that was once home to one of Herod the Great’s many luxury palaces. It is 1200 feet high, and in Herod’s time had to be accessed by a “snake trail” that twisted back and forth up the side of the cliff. Today there is a cable car to the top, with the longest stretch of unsupported cable in the world.

 

 

Near the top of the peak Herod had an enormous and expertly built home, guest house and entertainment facility where the famous and powerful came to visit. It had a commanding view of the countryside and the Dead Sea. In addition it had a complete Roman-style bath. This consisted of a changing room, a small plaza, and three rooms beginning with a small, cold immersion pool, a warm room, and a steam room.

 

 

This last room is a marvel of ancient engineering. It consists of a double floor, the upper one about three feet above the lower. Water is heated by a stove outside the building, and the steam injected in between the two floors. This heats the upper floor, but hollow tiles around the edge allow the steam to fill the upper room, while channels on the walls collect the condensation and return it to the boiler outside. This was built before the birth of Christ.

 

There is also a synagogue on the top of the peak, and in fact it was in use while I was there! There is also a swimming pool, with a room attached and lockers built out of the local stone. The whole facility covers many acres, and was finished out in plaster, tiled floors, guard rooms, countless large storerooms, and enormous cisterns fed by channels cut into the peak and surrounding hills to catch and store rainwater.

 

The top of the peak, some 36 acres, is so large that it can be self-sustaining, with agriculture and animal husbandry. It was here that the last of the Jewish rebels hid out after the fall of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. The 10^th Roman legion went after the rebels who retreated to Masada. The peak was so impenetrable that the Romans had to put it under siege. They surrounded it with eight camps of soldiers, and built a wall on the ground all the way around, with a constant patrol to prevent any attempts at escape. The rebels ignored this, and repelled repeated attempts by the Romans to ascend the peak.

 

The rebels had self-sustaining food supply and plenty of water. The Romans cut off the water supply channels that Herod had built into the surrounding hills, but the cisterns at the top of the peak still held enough water for 10 years!

 

Finally the Romans brought in captured Jews as slave labor and began building an enormous siege ramp up the side. This is basically a straight road right to the top. The defenders would not so much as throw rocks at their fellow Jews, and in 73 A.D. the Romans reached the top and breached the wall. Inside they found 960 rebels, all who had died by mutual suicide, having chosen who would kill whom by lots with their names written on pottery shards. Two women and five children were still alive, hiding in one of the cisterns.

 

The Jewish historian Josephus was travelling with the Romans (that’s a WHOLE story by itself!), and he recorded the full history of the battle, including an interrogation of the survivors.

 

Today Masada is the most visited site in Israel.

 

We finished the day with a short trip down to the beach at the Dead Sea, and a few of us went in and floated. The salt makes it so buoyant that anyone simply bobs at the top of the water. I went so far as to stick my fingertips in, but I didn’t swim!

 

Well, that’s it for now. The adventure continues!

 

 

-Pastor George