East Again

Just studying :) Things are really beginning to wrap up here. Everyone is hard at work studying, but we have done some activities to keep ourselves from working too hard! I am so glad we have, otherwise it would be too easy to let the last couple weeks go by without any appreciation. Tuesday I went to the "Bible Lands Museum" with a few other students, since entry was free over Passover week. It was really neat, there are a lot of cool artifacts there, and a lot of inscriptions. A lot of the stuff there was really old, as in back before the Patriarchs. The fine art etc really makes you realize that people back in the 4-3 thousands BC weren't primative, they left some awesome stuff behind, and had massive cities! The Roses in the garden have been gorgeous this week! That night I tagged along with the Church in the east class for their tour of the Church of the Holly sepulcher with their professor. I learned a lot! Four of us went out to get Falafel before we met ...

Yesterday we returned from a four day study in Jordan. We visited a couple Decapolis cities, like Pella and Gadera, and some key sites in Ammon Moab and Edom. We also went to Petra, which was very fun, I've wanted to go there since even before I decided to study Archaeology. Petra is a Nabatean site, and they carved their houses and tombs out of the soft sandstone. I was glad we got there early before the place was too crowded, and we got a chance to walk around and hike to the monastery, about 45 minutes away. I didn't know how big the site was! We also saw some amazing views up near the monastery. Asside from looking at the land and some bible stories about the trans-Jordan tribes and kingdoms, it was fascinating to see Jordan as another country, and how different it is from Israel just across the rift. In many ways they are similar, but, for one thing, the differance in religion was seen in a ifferance of dress. In Israel, you see many Jews wearing their kippa, or even the H...

Yesterday and today have been rainy, which is excellent because it makes studying easier! Today another student and I walked about 40 minutes to the Israel Museum, so we could begin a project for Jewish thought class. While there I also visited the Archaeology exhibit, the Egyptian exhibit, and the "Shrine of the book" where the Aleppo Codex and Dead Sea Scrolls are displayed. I stayed longer than the other student, but it was worth missing lunch hour! After walking back I stopped at a phone shop to buy a new charger, and then headed to the Old City to grab some Falafel. in 2014, some of the people I was with went to a shop near our hostel which advertised "The Best Falafel." Reportedly, it was very good, and was also cheaper than many places. I found it, and sure enough, it was only 10 shekels (About $2.50) and tasted amazing. As I munched on it and headed towards Zion Gate I ran into some performers, and a group of IDF (Israeli Defense Force) girls dancing along. ...

Standing on ruins of Archelaus  This evening it is raining in Jerusalem, but the air is warm, and it feels good to be back in my room on campus enjoying the breeze after our two days of hiking in and around Galilee. We headed out early on Saturday, but after we had been in the bus not yet an hour, the mirror flew off, and we needed to wait for a replacement bus to come get us. On the upside, we broke down right next to "Archelaus" what is probably the remains of a palace built by Herod's son. So, at 8 AM in the rift valley we explored some ruins, and Melissa even found a bronze coin! We also met several shepherds on donkeys with big flocks of sheep and goats, and even though they didn't speak much English and we didn't speak much Arabic, we communicated some. One of the boys even let Dan ride his donkey around a bit. So it wasn't a wasted detour in the end! Approaching some Bedouin and their herd We visited Bethsaida near the Sea of Galilee, and two s...

My goodness! Once again a lot has happened since my last post, including two field studies and turning 21! I'll just briefly mention our one day study in the Wilderness, we hiked up two of Herod's palaces, Herodium and Cypros. We saw lots of Camels too! I enjoyed the open spaces and rugged terrain, we hiked about ten miles that day! It was tiring but good. This past weekend we spent four days in Galilee, turning to focus on the new Testament a bit more than we had. We stopped at almost 20 different places, most of which I had never been to. These included sites like Hazor, Dan, Megiddo, Jezreel, Sepphoris and Caesarea Philippi, but some of our stops were mostly scenic, where we could observe the territory and talk about geography and history. For instance, we hiked down the Arbel heights, which look out over the Sea of Galilee, and our last morning we were able to take a boat out onto the lake and talk about life as a fisherman in the New Testament. The first time I came t...