The day before yesterday, we started out at Tel Dan (that's the tribe of Dan up in the Golan Heights) The tel has been home to about 19 different towns/cities over 4000 years, one rebuilt on top of the other.It's also one of three places where natural springs exists to feed the Jordan River, Sea of Galilee & the Dead Sea. At Dan, the watercourse is quite narrow and so the water flows quite fast and is crystal clear.
We then moved on to Caesarea Philipi, which was a pagan city where human sacrifices were made to the God, Pan. Interestingly, Jesus didn't shy away from going there or maybe he went there for a specific purpose. During the sacrifices, a first-born child would be thrown in to where the spring starts - if it drowns straight away, then the sacrifice is accepted - however, if blood is seen coming from the spring, it's not been accepted - seems pretty hit and miss to me!
Next stop was Capernaum where Jesus would have lived for some of His ministry. They say that he probably stayed at the house of Peter's mother-in-law (as she was a widow without sons). Unfortunately I didn't get a photo of the house but the synagogue was one of the best preserved that I've seen.
The final activity for the day was a boat trip on the Sea of Galilee where we read some relevant scriptures, prayed and did some Hebrew dancing. One of the guys on the boat showed us how fishing was done in the day but, no, he didn't catch any fish!
This was a shot of Reggie (my room mate) and I on board (Reggie the darker of the two)
Yesterday started with baptisms in the River Jordan for those that wanted to take part. Amazingly, for two people who did so, it was there birthday and one of them had been praying to do so for 20 years! I also took part as a way of recommitting myself to Jesus in a setting which may be once in a lifetime. (I also got a DVD of the event if anyone's interested)
Next stop was Beth Shean - this was one of the 10 cities built by the Romans to try and get the Jews to give up their worship of God and become pagans. The amount of excavating that has taken place is enormous. In 749, a huge earthquake flattened the city but archaeologists still don't know what happened to the inhabitants. I walked up a nearby hill, the site of yet another pagan temple, to get this shot.
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