Final entry for the Bible Lands Tour

Day 8 Wednesday 30 May 2018

Masada, Dead Sea and Jerash

Our last full day in the lands of the Bible.  We are to move back to Amman for this evening and then to the Airport tomorrow morning.  But we have places to visit and things to see on this day.  To that end, we left at the crack of dawn, wait has dawn cracked?  Is that the Moon? Why yes, it is.  From our hotel window at 6:00 AM. 

We were packed, fed and loaded in the bus by about 7:15.  We drove south out of Jericho mostly along the western shore of the Dead Sea.  Our first stop was Masada. 

Masada is a mountain fortress that was the last place that Jewish Rebels held out against Roman forces in the rebellion that started in 66 AD.  Nero sent a Roman army under the command of Vespasian. The rebellion ended badly and resulted in the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in 70 AD.  A group of Jewish rebels fled to Masada and held out here for 3 or 4 more years. 

Masada was largely built, perhaps on the ruins of a previous fortress, by Herod the Great as both a place of refuge and winter palace.   Herod spent a lot of time and money building places to retreat in case his authority was challenged by the people.  You will recall that he was very paranoid.  So much so that when the birth of Jesus was announced and the heard that wise men from the East were coming to worship the new king he plotted to have the Magi return and tell him where this new king had been born.  They got wind of his intent and returned a different route.  This kind of upset King Herod and the result was the order to kill all the babies under the age of 2.

So, Herod built what he thought was an in penetrable fortress.  It was quiet the place.  The walls were casemate type.  These were double walls with rooms between them where soldiers could be quartered and defend the wall if needed.  Large cisterns were created as well as many store rooms for food.

The snake route up the side of the mountain to the fortress on top was not at all difficult to defend.  It was said that a handful of men on top could hold off a few thousand coming up this way.

The good news is that we tourist, despite the idiots in this picture, can ride the cable car from the bottom to the top and back down.

Lydianne, Nikki, Mariah, Noah, Ethan riding in comfort.

When you get off the cable car the thrill continues as you walk to the gate in the wall.

Masada is a national park and a world heritage site.  They have done a great job of preserving and restoring much of the structures.  If you are like me and have seen pictures or visited ancient ruins (like in Rome or England) you get so used to seeing the bare stone walls that it is easy to forget that the places when in use would not have had those stones exposed.  It is like seeing an old house with just the wood studs and assuming that the people who lived there did not have that covered in something.  In this picture you can see the column and walls that would have been covered in plaster.  The dark jagged line indicates how tall the intact wall remains were when they archeologist began to excavate.

In some of the places they have found preserved the painting on the plaster.  These rooms would have been very lovely indeed.

These were some of the large storage areas for food and arms.

This room was a synagogue.  Some scrolls (Ezekiel’s dry bones) were found in a pit in the back room.  This was likely used as a synagogue during the time of the second temple which was destroyed in 70 AD.

After the destruction of the temple some of the last remaining rebels fled to Masada and began staging raids on Romans from here.  The Romans did not like this and in 73 AD the Romans under the command of Flavius Silva led 8000 Romans to defeat the Jewish rebels.  The Romans built eight camps around the base of the mountain to prevent the rebels from leaving the fortress.

You can see the outline of one of the camps taken from a top the wall.

They then built a ramp of earth ad wood up the side of the mountain to the wall.  They used Jewish conscripts to build the ramp and the Jewish rebels would not fire (arrows not Uzis) at their fellow countrymen and the ramp was constructed.

It became clear that the end of their rebellion was near.  Eleazer Ben Yair the leader of the 960 members of the community gave the following speech to the people.

Josephus Flavius, The Wars of the Jews, VII 8.6, translated by William Whiston.

"Since we, long ago, my generous friends, resolved never to be servants to the Romans, nor to any other than to God himself, who alone is the true and just Lord of mankind, the time is now come that obliges us to make that resolution true in practice. And let us not at this time bring a reproach upon ourselves for self-contradiction, while we formerly would not undergo slavery, though it were then without danger, but must now, together with slavery, choose such punishments also as are intolerable; I mean this, upon the supposition that the Romans once reduce us under their power while we are alive. We were the very first that revolted from them, and we are the last that fight against them; and I cannot but esteem it as a favor that God hath granted us, that it is still in our power to die bravely, and in a state of freedom, which hath not been the case of others, who were conquered unexpectedly. It is very plain that we shall be taken within a day's time; but it is still an eligible thing to die after a glorious manner, together with our dearest friends. This is what our enemies themselves cannot by any means hinder, although they be very desirous to take us alive. Nor can we propose to ourselves any more to fight them, and beat them. It had been proper indeed for us to have conjectured at the purpose of God much sooner, and at the very first, when we were so desirous of defending our liberty, and when we received such sore treatment from one another, and worse treatment from our enemies, and to have been sensible that the same God, who had of old taken the Jewish nation into his favor, had now condemned them to destruction; for had he either continued favorable, or been but in a lesser degree displeased with us, he had not overlooked the destruction of so many men, or delivered his most holy city to be burnt and demolished by our enemies. To be sure we weakly hoped to have preserved ourselves, and ourselves alone, still in a state of freedom, as if we had been guilty of no sins ourselves against God, nor been partners with those of others; we also taught other men to preserve their liberty. Wherefore, consider how God hath convinced us that our hopes were in vain, by bringing such distress upon us in the desperate state we are now in, and which is beyond all our expectations; for the nature of this fortress which was in itself unconquerable, hath not proved a means of our deliverance; and even while we have still great abundance of food, and a great quantity of arms, and other necessaries more than we want, we are openly deprived by God himself of all hope of deliverance; for that fire which was driven upon our enemies did not of its own accord turn back upon the wall which we had built; this was  the effect of God's anger against us for our manifold sins, which we have been guilty of in a most insolent and extravagant manner with regard to our own countrymen; the punishments of which let us not receive from the Romans, but from God himself, as executed by our own hands; for these will be more moderate than the other. Let our wives die before they are abused, and our children before they have tasted of slavery; and after we have slain them, let us bestow that glorious benefit upon one another mutually, and preserve ourselves in freedom, as an excellent funeral monument for us. But first let us destroy our money and the fortress by fire; for I am well assured that this will be a great grief to the Romans, that they shall not be able to seize upon our bodies, and shall fall of our wealth also; and let us spare nothing but our provisions; for they will be a testimonial when we are dead that we were not subdued for want of necessaries, but that, according to our original resolution, we have preferred death before slavery."

The excavation of Masada led to the discovery of these ostraca, inscriptions on pottery sherds, a group had names including one with Ben Yair.  Josephus recounts that story of the last days.  They drew lots to determine who would be the ones to put to death the willing victims and then one of the ten was selected to kill the other nine and finally fall on his own sword.  When the Romans breached the wall and entered Masada they found it eerily quiet.  All were dead except two women and five children who were found hiding in the cisterns on the mountain top.  They told the account of the events to the Romans and Josephus recorded the events that happened on the 15^th of Nissan the first day of Passover in 73 or 74 AD.  This was the last battle of the first Jewish rebellion.

We left Masada and headed to the Dead Sea or in Hebrew The Salt Sea.  The road we traveled passed by these cliffs to the west of the Dead Sea.  This may have been the cave where King Saul took a dump.

1 Samuel 24 New International Version (NIV)

David Spares Saul’s Life

24 ^[a]After Saul returned from pursuing the Philistines, he was told, “David is in the Desert of En Gedi.” ² So Saul took three thousand able young men from all Israel and set out to look for David and his men near the Crags of the Wild Goats.

³ He came to the sheep pens along the way; a cave was there, and Saul went in to relievehimself. David and his men were far back in the cave. ⁴ The men said, “This is the day the Lord spoke of when he said^[b] to you, ‘I will give your enemy into your hands for you to deal with as you wish.’” Then David crept up unnoticed and cut off a corner of Saul’s robe.

⁵ Afterward, David was conscience-stricken for having cut off a corner of his robe. ⁶ He said to his men, “The Lord forbid that I should do such a thing to my master, the Lord’s anointed,or lay my hand on him; for he is the anointed of the Lord.” ⁷ With these words David sharply rebuked his men and did not allow them to attack Saul. And Saul left the cave and went his way.

We also made a stop at Wadi David.  This is one of the locations of Ein Gedi where David hid from Saul when Saul was dead set on killing David.  It is also the location from where water was carried to Masada.

For the life of me I could not figure where the source of the water was, for the springs that feed these water falls.  Surrounding these hills are deserts.  There are some hot springs in this area so the source may be far underground where volcanic forces bring the water to the surface.  I guess this is a case of looking a gift horse in the mouth.  If I was wandering around in the desert a nice spring would undoubtedly be welcome even if I could not figure the source.

We had been driving by the Dead Sea all day and now we got to stop. 

This location was a popular beach site for both locals and tourists. 

The surface of the Dead Sea is 1400 feet below sea level.  This is about 100 feet lower than what it was in the 1960s when Jordan and Israel began to divert much of the water of the Jordan River, the main source of water flowing into the Dead Sea.  The water level continues to drop about 3 feet per year.  As the waters recede the shore line expands leaving what was the extraordinarily highly concentrated minerals at the bottom of the lake exposed.  There are some minor fresh water contributors on the edges of the lake.  This water is seeping in and dissolving the shore line resulting in massive sink holes.

But I digress.  We came to the Dead Sea so some of the not so wise among us could get in and float.  Personally, I am not a big fan of the salt water you find at the normal ocean beaches of the world.  I have been to a lot of them. This water is 9.6 times SALTIER than ocean water.  I was certain if I got in that the salt would remain on me for some weeks to come.  I did not get in.  But several of our traveling troupe did enter the waters.

Elvin walking down the Beach to the water’s edge.  But look he spots some one engaging in a common practice of slather Dead Sea mud all over yourself.   This is supposed to make you beautiful.  Obviously this means after you wash it off.

Elvin and the Mud-Girl from the swamp.

Elvin adjusts his wing flaps as he enters the water.

Plopping in next to Kendra.

As soon as you take the weight off the feet they pop to the surface.

Some of the crew decided to just wade in the water.

Shhh! Don’t tell Elvin that water comes directly from the Dead Sea!

Leaving the Dead Sea we made our way back across the border from Israel to Jordan.  The first crossing from Jordan into Israel was very very through and careful.  Going back into Jordan was less fastidious.  They did make us carry all our luggage through the building and it was loaded on the Jordanian Bus.  We were reunited with our Jordanian tour guide (still nice but also still worthless) and we got a Jordanian armed tourist policeman.  Dr. A said he was there to make sure we did not harm any Jordanians.

As we pass back into Jordan I am reminded of the very noticeable difference in the amount of litter and trash you see when you are in Israel proper vs a Palestinian or Jordanian region.  You see trash everywhere you go in Arab community.  In one of the Palestinian towns I saw a shop keeper sweeping the front of his store but rather than pick it up he had piled the trash just off the edge of the step where there was a considerable pile of trash accumulating.

Denise and Bruce Hoover who were traveling companions live in Saudi Arabia.  I asked Denise about this phenomenon.  She said the same thing was true in Saudi.  She theorized two possible explanations.  One might be pride in a convoluted sort of way.  That taking care of garbage is somehow beneath them. The other theory was that it is perhaps a holdover from the Bedouin history.  Bedouin were and still are a nomadic tent dwelling people.  In the past the Bedouin people created very little if any non-biodegradable trash.  They bought nothing and reused most everything.  So about the only thing to dispose of was some bones and sinew.  Those could be tossed out the door of the tent and the animals and insects would dispose of them quickly.  But in today’s world there are plastic bottles and bags, cardboard boxes and all manner of other packaging.  These do not biodegrade but they still get thrown out or dropped on the ground.

I do not know which if either of these theories is correct but I can say that the trash is far more noticeable in Arab areas. 

While I am talking about cultural differences I would point out another thing I noticed in Jordan.  While driving down the highway in a bus you can look down into the cars passing or being passed.  Sadly, about every 5^th car you pass has a mother in the passenger seat holding an infant in her lap or see a 3-year-old child standing in the floor of the back seat looking into the front.  It looked like 1958 all over again.  It disturbs me when people post memes about sleeping behind the back seat, or riding in the back of a pickup, or not wearing seat belts and saying something about we survived just fine.  The just fine part is debatable but the truth is that thousands of our peers did not survive at all and those that did were sometimes crippled for life. 

This is US vehicle deaths.  The yellow line is the one to pay attention to.  The number of vehicles on the road has increase dramatically so the deaths per 100,000 vehicles on the road is the rate figure and it has dropped ever so much since the 1950s and even before.

Our last stop on our trip was Jarash.  It is located about 30 miles north of Amman.  It is one of the best and largest excavated Roman city sites in the world.  Only a part of the ancient city has been excavated.  This may have been the city in the foreign country which Jesus had in mind as he told the story of the prodigal son. 

Some of the scenes from Jarash.

The Emperor Hadrian visited Jerash in AD 129–130. The triumphal arch (or Arch of Hadrian) was built to celebrate his visit.

There were colonnades everywhere in Jarash.

The main streets would have housed shops of all kinds.

This was the wedding chapel.  The whole structure would have been covered in a marble facade.  The niches contained pagan gods and goddesses that were related to fertility.

The holes in the niches were part of the water works where fountains poured out of these and then into drains on the platform and out structures on the front side of the stage and then into little fish pools.

It would have all been very fancy and lovely. 

Our last supper was not as memorable as THE Last Supper of our Lord but it was pretty cool.  We were served a lovely buffet on the 21^st floor of the hotel.  Arabs are observing Ramadan at this time which means they are fasting during sunlight hours.  So each evening as the sun goes down they will break the fast in a big way.   About 4 families came to this buffet a few minutes before sundown.  A TV was turned on to the live Mosque channel.  At exactly sundown there was a call to prayer on TV and the Imam began to pray.  Not unlike some of the Christians in our churches the families pretty much ignored the praying and went about breaking the fast.

We got up the next morning and ate breakfast in the dining room at the bottom of the hotel.  Loaded our bags and went to the airport.

The check in went fine until one final check of my carry-on bag where I had stuffed my elastic clothes line I purchased from Rick Steves because my old one disintegrated when I tried to stretch it.  The Jordanian security guard asked what it was and I told him.  He then called his supervisor and together they concluded that this was a dangerous weapon and I had to leave it before boarding the airplane. 

The flight home was fine.

Snow in the mountains of some country between Amman and Chicago.

We arrived in Chicago and my first experience of using the Global Entry line went very smoothly and very quickly.  The quickness came to a complete stop when we discovered that the Tram System at Ohara Airport was closed down.  This was the first day of about a year that the tram would not be running and people would be bused from the international terminal to all the other domestic terminals and the parking lots.  On the first day they had not yet worked out the bugs in the logistics of this.

This is just waiting to get to a different terminal.

We had several hours between flight so this was not an issue for us.  But a few people were rather harried with the wait.

I highly recommend a trip to Bible Lands.  It was so very wonderful to experience this under the leadership of Dr. Jim Anderson.  He is so very knowledgeable and he loves our Lord so very much.  What a privilege.

I made it home.  I had a little over 48 hours in Liberty before we were to leave with the family and head to Florida.

  

I will post some pictures and comments about our Florida trip in the coming days.

Thanks for reading.