Galilee Day 2 - October 27 - Justice and Discipleship

Today we spend the day around (and ultimately in) the Sea of Galilee. I feel that there is a lot that can be discussed with the stories and things that happen around in this area and in a way, some way that most of them tie together. Yesterday I talked the water and creation imagery and also about the question of what do we do with the Romans. Today we continued our conversation about what do we do with the Romans, but I feel as if the themes that stood out to me were justice and discipleship.

We started out on a hill near Bethsaida where it is suggested that Jesus taught the Sermon on the Mount.  Here the world, the major road passes right by. The Romans are stationed here. And Capernaum, the city just a stone’s throw away, is the city where Jesus retreats to after speaking in Nazareth. In Nazareth his reallocated the promise that the Jews thought was just for them for everybody, including the Romans who they considered their enemy.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

“Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

The people that Jesus calls blessed do not seem to fit into the groups that already exist in Jewish world. The Sadducees, Pharisees Essenes or Zealots don’t hold all these attributes, rather these seem to stand out of all of them.  A Biblical definition of Justice can be taken from Zechariah 7:10. It commands the people of God to look out for the widow, the orphan, the poor and the stranger in the camp. These commands are spoken throughout the Bible.

            In the Sermon on the Mount it seems that the people that Jesus is calling blessed are not the powerful, the free, the ruling, the wealthy or any of the groups that the Jews have already set in place. He turns their expectations of blessed on its head. 

Peace-makers, it isn’t just compromising and letting things slide for the sake of peace. It isn’t the passive avoidance of conflict but rather the aggressive pursuit of true peace, turning the other cheek and in do so turning the shame to those who fight. Those who mourn cover all of the people that are found in this place. The Jew, the Roman, the poor, and the rich are all included.  Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness: each of the groups claims to be chasing after righteous in the best way.

So Jesus presents this to everybody. Promises that now include the whole world and calling blessed those who relate to the world in such a way.  Justice working out in practical ways to care for those who can’t care for themselves, the Romans, and the despised included. We also looked at Isaiah 58 and Ephesians 2:14-22.

In connection with the creation imagery that we talked about yesterday, I found it interesting how God stands existentially apart above creation and in a similar way God is calling us to be existentially apart from humanity, to be in the world but not of the world. 

found a boat anchor, rocks with holes bored through them which could be strung together and used to as an anchor.

Just like the land of Israel was filled with many different opinions and perspectives both friendly and hostile towards each other, the guys that Jesus called to be his disciples seems to be a mix of those groups.  There are some zealots, and some religious Jews, there is a local tax collector and fishermen from nearby who didn’t like (or went to some length to skirt around) the local tax collector, there were some brothers who have a Greek and Jewish name....., and a couple more that we are not sure where their background is. Whatever the case, Jesus chose some interesting characters to have as his close disciples. 

olive press

building methods

inside a reconstructed house

I had heard before the Jesus was likely a stone mason or builder because the word for carpenter is ‘tacton’ and that is better translated to stone mason and fits better with the lack of abundance of trees in the area. I find it interesting the idea that Rabbis still had a day job, they were not only Rabbis. Jesus being the son of a tacton would also learn that trade and ultimately end up working that while he was being a Rabbi. It is interesting how a job like that would keep Jesus right in the middle of the day to day lives of the people to whom he is speaking. If Jesus was living and working in the area, did he already know his disciples as kids growing up? Did he have his finger on the pulse of the people in the area?

inside of a roof/second floor of a house

This past year I heard a pastor speaking at a young adult worship service who worked part-time as a pastor of a local church and part-time in the trades. He actually went through an apprenticeship and was at the point of taking on apprentices himself and was using that as an example of discipleship. It was interesting how he pointed out that being part-time in the trades kept him touch with what was going on in the community and gave opportunity for evangelism in a very practical way. 

            It is interesting to think about the way that we look at and view ministry. My dad has reminded us again and again that ministry can happen anywhere and maybe that is what Jesus was getting at too. The God places us in certain places. God placed Israel in a land that has the world passing by and through it so that the world could know who God is.

Galilee Day 1 - October 26 - Water and Rome

            Today we started looking at the region of the Galilee specifically starting with the Jezreel valley. We looked at many different concepts and ideas, I found many of them to thought provoking and still have many questions about how God has acted in history and how that speaks to us today.  There are many different things that I could write about, but I will only focus on a couple right now.

            We started out at the Jordan River at one of the traditional baptismal sites.  This river, glorified creek has been instrumental in the formation of Israel. Water imagery in the Bible is incredible. In the Middle East water is viewed much differently than in the West. It is necessary and valued for life, but it is also a symbol of chaos and death. In the Egyptian creation myths there is the idea that the land was brought up from the water. In Genesis it starts out saying that the world was formless and empty. In Hebrew ( וָבֹ֔הוּ   תֹ֙הוּ֙) the second word in this phrase doesn’t have any meaning, it is an empty word, that things, even words, without a name or meaning have no purpose. God separates the waters and creates. He names thing, light, dark, day, night, dry land and oceans, giving each a purpose.

          

              Later Abram crosses the Jordan River and afterwards he receives a new name, Abraham. He received promises for the future and purpose for his life. His grandson Jacob crosses the river, probably at a similar point and at that time spends a night wrestling with God where he received a new name. He was physically altered and also received promises. A couple hundred years later the entire people of Israel and some extra leave Egypt and come to the waters at the red sea, here they cross through the waters on dry ground and make their way to Mt. Sinai where they become a people of God.

            Jesus goes down to the River and is baptized by John. He receives a new name in a way when God says “this is My Son in who I am well pleased”. After that his purpose is clear and his ministry begins after fasting 40 days in the desert where he proves himself and withstands the temptations that confront him. 

From there we started making our way up to the Galilee, in particular the Jezreel Valley. The Jezreel Valley is very different from the other areas that we have already looked at. Instead of being even somewhat difficult to travel through, the Jezreel valley is wide open.  We compared it to a roundabout, many different road come into the valley and meet up there. The flat fertile ground is also some of the most fertile land in Israel. With over 330 feet of top soil it is valuable land.

 There are a couple key cities that are situated in the area.  Beth She’an is in the Jordan valley and guards one of the ways into the Jezreel Valley. Megiddo is another city that is important in this area. It is said that taking Megiddo is like taking 1000 cities. With the roads that meet up and pass by it is evident that this city is incredibly important to the ancient near east. In the Iron Age alone there are 10 different destruction layers.

 

Beth She'an a Roman city has Roman things - Bath house

Theater

public bathroom

temples

The road passes right in front of Meggido. 

 It must have been an important city. Found a horse at Meggido.

We continued to look at the idea of, ‘What do we do with Rome?’ Although we no longer have Rome to deal with, we have other groups that we deal with.  Deep down we have ideas of who is and who isn’t worthy of being part of ‘our’ church. We tend to act in certain ways to certain groups of people that are different than us. Certain phrases such as “_______ deserves to burn in hell because.....” is (a severe) example of us passing judgement and choosing how we respond to our ‘Rome’.

The four different perspectives of dealing with the Romans as presented by Josephus were summed up in a simple way. The Sadducees sided with the Romans to make a profit, the Zealots fought and killed the Romans, the Essenes retreated to the desert and the Pharisees didn't know what to do with them.

But the reaction of Jesus is different. On a hill outside of Nazareth we looked at the story of Jesus reading the scroll in the synagogue of his home town. He reads from Isaiah 61. The chapter is filled with a lot of imagery of the prisoner being free, the comfort of God’s people and the prosperity of the nation. These ideas and images were connected to their idea of the Messiah, the one who would come to redeem Israel to their rightful place and kick the Romans out.

Jesus ends off by saying that the scripture had been fulfilled that day. This didn't settle well with the Jews there. The Romans were still there and the Jesus is telling them that it has been fulfilled in that day. Jesus continues to point out other examples of other prophets that were bringing hope to the people around Israel but not directly to Israel. The people get so mad that they are ready to throw Jesus off of a cliff and stone him.

It draws into question how do we respond if God was to come to us and tell us that we got it wrong? That the people we don’t like that the rules and authority that we struggle against are just as worthy of God’s love as we were.

This has made me think a little bit. In the past I have had to forgive certain people in my life. It wasn’t easy, but God taught me a lot through it. At one point I spent a couple months wrestling with the verse, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 8:5)  If God responses with such deep love and care towards someone who is so clearly far below him, far from being worthy of any such love and grace, how much the more are we called to let and encourage others to experience same grace that God is extending to them. 

The tomb of King David

This morning we had a tour with the district archaeologist of Jerusalem at King David's tomb. It was interesting to hear what they have found there and what he thinks about it.

We went in to see the sarcophagus, it was separated into men and women sections.

Inside the building it doesn't look like a typical burial tomb, so the question is where were they actually buried. It was suggested that this would be the site of burials for the later kings.

Outside in the courtyard he explained how they could tell the different eras that built here because of the different stones that are used to build. The large ones at the bottom are Roman and may correlate with a building that is recorded that Herod built at the site of the tombs.

 On only a couple accounts have there been an idea that there is a cave underneath the area which is actually the tomb. He was telling us that they did some excavations because of installing a pipe and in the process he found stones that may have been covering a cave, in one of the spots where it was recorded that it should be, but wasn't able to excavate it completely. Ground penetrating radar shows that there is a cave under, the nature and contents haven't been confirmed.  One of the sources says that the tomb extends to under the Greek Orthodox Cemetery, but that been confirmed either.

It is exciting to hear about these types of thing! Too bad that it is so difficult to actually excavate these things because of the religious tensions.

Dead Sea field study October 14

When we started, it was a slight bit foggy. It was beautiful over the Michtash Rammon.

We spent time near the Dead Sea. There were many different people and groups that came out to the desert to run away from people or things that were happening in the North.

            The first place that we visited was Masada. After watching a couple of the guys race up the siege ramp we talked about David running away from Saul. In 1 Samuel 22 we are told that David sends his parents to Moab for safety and then takes up refugee at a stronghold in the desert. In Hebrew ‘Masada’ is ‘stronghold’, so maybe David came to a place like this where he can easily hide and defend himself if Saul comes by. 

We picked up this story again at En Gedi, here in 1 Samuel 23 we are told that David is hiding in a cave when Saul comes in to do his business. Instead of seizing the opportunity David only cuts off the corner of Saul’s robe and shortly after has an exchange with Saul in which he says that he would not lift his hand against God’s anointed. In all things, even when so many men are out searching for him to kill him, David still fears the Lord and does not take matters into his own hands.

At Masada we started to talk about the different groups of Jews in and around the time of 1^st century AD.  In particular we looked at the idea of how they responded to Rome. In those times politics and political situations were not separate from religion, so the question of, “What we do we do with the Romans?”

            The Jews mostly believed in all the same things. On all the major points they tended to agree. It was on other points that there were issues. We see this today too. All the Christian denominations believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus. All the Christian churches believe in the details that were laid out in Apostles’ Creed, but there are other points on which denominations have split and argue over. Is it right to baptize infants or adults? Predestination? Total depravity? What will the end times look like? And the list could go on for a long time. The different ways that the Jews responded to the Romans ruling over them created clear splits between the different groups. 

The Sadducees were the first group we talked about. They were the group that worked with the Romans. They were the ruling class in Israel and had control of the temple and were the priesthood. Their cooperation with the Romans made them wealthy as well. But it was also known that the Sadducees did not have the highest morals. Remains in their houses have been found that they frequently consumed large quantities of un-kosher wine. So much so that because of the frequent bingeing the wooden table legs had to be replaced with metal feet because they were rotting off. 

            The next group we talked about was the Zealots. These people were passionate. They followed Torah and did what they could to get other people to follow it too. They were a more militant group and did everything they could stand up against the Romans, and the Jews who weren’t Jewish enough. They even resorted to killing. This group was one of the last groups standing during the great revolt in 63AD. A group of about 900 had held themselves against Rome, up at Masada, a fortress that Herod the great had built and stocked. The Romans laid siege to the fortress and for much time, methodically built a siege ramp to reach the top of the wall. The siege ramp is impressive. It is quite a feat that they were able to build something so large. The Romans finally broke through the walls but the Zealots had decided that it was better that they die in their own hand than to be taken as slaves for the Romans. So almost everybody in the city was dead by the time the Romans entered the city the next morning. The same pattern happens in another city in the Galilee. The Zealots though it better to kill their own and die than to serve the Romans and were willing to act upon that.

The third group that we talked about was the Essenes. This group was a group that believed that they should separate themselves from the Romans and focus on living right and prepare for the Messiah to come. We looked at the community that was found at Qumran. Although it doesn’t say for sure that this group was Essene, they definitely were some sort of Essene-like community. They had a large emphasis on the scriptures and had many copies of almost all of the books of the Jewish Bible (all except Esther). They also have documents about how they should live and their community rules. The discovery of the scrolls that were found was important in understanding the different influences and traditions that were present during the 1^st century AD. 

            We touched briefly on the Pharisees, they were a group that was more varied and tended to fit more in between the extremes.

            The talk about these four different groups of people got me to thinking, what do we do with the difference of opinion between the different groups that we see today? Is there a healthy balance of trying to avoid or trying to accept and work with those who are influencing us? Is there a place for zealous passion? Is there a place for pulling away from it all and hiding out in the desert?

Biblical Negev Field Study – October 13, 2013

Today was packed full of learning, so I doubt that I’ll be able to touch on everything. We started out at Tel Arad. It is interesting at this site how the different periods of time each have their own area and are very distinct from each other. We started out in the Israelite fortress on top of the tel. The temple that was found there was blocked off because they had been digging through that to see other layers, so we couldn’t walk about inside there. 

At this small temple they found quite a few interesting things. In addition to finding an altar and a holy of holies, there were also two incense altars and three standing stones were also found there. The two separate incense altars seem to suggest that there was worship to more than one deity in this temple.  They know that God was worshipped here, but it appears that there was another god worshipped here too.

            A little ways way they found a storage jar with an inscription reading ‘to Yahweh and his ashera’. I have to say that I found this slightly disturbing, but we talked about the concepts of religions back in that time. The idea that there was many gods was all over the place. Henotheism was in almost every single religion. There was multiple gods and people chose one or any number of the gods to worship depending on what they needed. The idea that there was only one God would be a difficult idea to grasp. It was tried in Egypt once and it didn’t take long after that Pharaoh died that the idea was discarded too.

            Why was this happening? Was it the idea of fertility gods? (it takes more than one...) Was it tolerance of the neighboring religions or influence of them? Was it an idea that was so deeply engrained in the people of that time that their worldview could only see it that way? Whatever the reason change in Israel to what we understand as strictly monotheism happened in the second temple period, and this site was still during the first temple period. We are often too quick to place the 2^nd temple period on the first temple period practices and in reality they are quite different.

            This isn’t a completely foreign concept. The past 500 years have had dramatic change on the way that we view churches and understand theology. Once the church worshipped as one, and now there are many different churches. Our ideas and practices have also shifted and change and each new era believes that they finally have understood what the Bible is really teaching.

The second stop of the day was that Tel Be’er-sheva, the site of Beersheba. This site was quite well constructed and much can be seen. Outside the city gate there is a well. Apparently they have dug at least 80m down and they were still removing fill, there was probably a good 5-6 seconds between dropping a rock in and hearing it hit the water in the bottom. 

There is the story of Abraham securing a covenant at Beersheba with Abimelek the king of Gerar. After that he plants a tamarisk tree. These are quite fun trees! The looks kind of scraggily, almost like a weeping evergreen. The needles of the tree are actually quite salty to the taste. These trees are actually self watering. The salt attracts the water in the air in the morning and it gathers on the needles and waters the tree. The tree still requires some water to survive on, but it can survive quite well in arid places such as Beersheba.

                Trees are an important image in the Middle East. They are quite well connected to deities. If there is a tree, there is water, where there is water, there is fertility, and where there is fertility there is divine activity. They are starting to figure out that cultic sites often precede settlement.  This isn’t new. Trees play an important role since the beginning of time. There were two important trees in the Garden of Eden. And tree motifs run throughout the Bible. 

The other idea that occurred to me is that Jesus says in Matthew 5: 13 “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.”  In Jesus’ reference to being salty could he be thinking of that Tamarisk tree that Abraham planted at the southern part of the Promised Land? Salt that attracts the life giving water. Trees that are a sign that my God is alive and active here! A Tamarisk tree that is planted as a sign of looking forward to the future and settling down here, in the place where God has called us. 

Here are some pictures from the rest of the day.

Beersheba's water system

Ibex

we went for a hike in Wadi Zin

Up the cliff, it is a lot of stairs

Stopped at Avdat there was remains of a Byzantine settlement far in the South. We tried to see how many we could fit in the baptismal. We could have fit more.

Machtesh Rammon - the world largest erosion crater