First Century Boat

So, our last stop for the day was at the museum that houses the first century boat, discovered in 1985. It has been carbon dated and is about 2,000 years old.



and here is where the boat was discovered.




We spent about 1 1/2 hours at the museum, which by the way consists of the boat. Nothing else, except for a shop. There is only so long you can look at the boat. Pretty good way to increase sales, keep folks sitting there with nothing else to do, look at the boat or shop.

And that was the end of Day 2 - busy busy. We headed back to the hotel and had the opportunity to try beef tongue. Just couldn't do it, didn't look good, didn't smell good, not at all appealing. The good news is that our hotel had great food, a big buffet every night, and there was always plenty to eat.

Lunch every day was pretty routine. We usually were offered Falafel, which is fried balls made from ground chickpeas and/or fava beans and served in a pita, and you can add lots of veggies to it, or eat with sauces. About 80% of the folks on our tour just loved falafel, so when the guide said where do you want to eat, well, wherever they serve falafel. So, it's not beef tongue, I thought, I'll eat this. Not so great, took a couple of bites and was glad I had a bag of nuts in my pack. Next day for lunch, falafel, or something else I can't recall - but not any better. Third day, falafel. Tim rebelled, said he just couldn't do another falafel, so he goes off on his own and finds food. He said he bought a hamburger, knows it wasn't beef, more of a mystery meat, but hands down better than falafel. Several of us were wondering at his courage, at least we knew they were taking us to clean places, but Tim was determined not to eat it again. As for me, I made sure I had nuts along.

Mt. Carmel

The Carmelite Church is built on the site believed to be where Elijah faced off with the Baal and Ashoreth priests (1 Kings 18:17-40), and Mr. Carmel does fit in with the geographical details in the bible. In Israel, churches or monuments are built on the sites where supernatural events are believed to have occurred.) Baal and Ashoreth were fertility gods.



I tried to capture the view off Mt. Carmel, these pictures can't do it justice. there were sand storms out in the desert, so though Israel doesn't get the winds common in the sand storms, the air gets very thick.

Nazareth

After Tel Megiddo, we traveled to Nazareth. Today, Nazareth has a population of about 70,000, Christian (mainly Greek Orthodox) and Muslims (majority now). Back in our Lord's time, it was very small, and there was only one well for the town.



Here we are walking up to the Greek Orthodox Church of the Annuciation. There were a lot of tourists here, there was an elderly priest who was watching everyone come in and out. He nailed us coming out, gave lots of grief to our tour guide. She said she usually puts in a few dollars in the plate, but thought about doing it on the way out instead of on the way in, he must have thought no donation was coming.



The aprophrical tradition is that the Angel Gabriel appeared to Mary at the Natural Spring, and the Greek Orthodox built a church on top of this spring. It's open in the church (picture) and folks stop and pray and throw in pennies.

Tel Megiddo

Day 2, we traveled from Tiberius to Tel Megiddo, and on the way we saw this first century tomb, cut into the rock on the side of the road.




Tel Megiddo was a large city established about 3000 BC. The great powers at that time were Egypt and Mesopotamia (Babylon), and Megiddo was the main junction on the trade route. It's a large plain, surrounded by hills. More battles have been fought on this plain than on any other place on earth.

"Tel" more or less means many levels of civilization, built on top of each other that grow and turn into a great mound, or hill (tel). At Tel Megiddo, archaeologists have found 23 different layers of civilization. The Hill of Megiddo ["Valley of Jehoshaphat," Joel 3:1 - 15; "Valley of Armageddon," Revelation 16:16] - is identified as the location for the last battle. Joel says that the king of Kings will win at the end of the battle and reign for a millennium.



Solomon (and many others) had a fortress on the Tel and housed an army of horses. There are still ruins of the stables and the mangers (Latin for feeding trough). Our Lord was born in a stable and laid in a manger - picture below - absolutely not what I've pictured all my life, but makes perfect sense.



Inside the fortress walls, they dug wells so when attacked they did not need to go outside of the walls. Today, there are stairs going all the way down to the bottom. We were told that if you have heart issues, knee or walking issues, go back to the bus and don't attempt all these stairs; if you are in good health, the bus will pick us up at the bottom. No one ever said that after the first few flights, it turns into catwalk-type stairs, and it was a long long way down. For those of us with height phobias, it was tough going, but I got control and made it through!





Just a little more Hebrew - "Polis" means city, "necro" means flesh, "acro" means top. Necropolis - city of flesh, Arcopolis, top of the city. "Aviv" means spring, Tel Aviv means Hill of Spring. Megiddo = Add "ar" and "don" (Greek) gives you armageddon.