Jordan day 4 November 12 – the last field study (for this class)

So today was the last field study for the Physical Settings class. It has been good looking at the land in such a way as it relates to the Bible and the stories that happen in and around those times. I am continually amazed at the vast differences that are here in the land. The regions are close and play off of each other in interesting ways.

            We started off today at Karak. This is probably the site of Kir that is mentioned in the Bible. There is a crusader castle that is there now. When the Israelites pushed westwards this was one of the areas into which they pushed. There is a story here of a battle against the king of Moab, Mesha.  (2 Kings 3) It ends when a son is sacrificed on the walls of the castle, and Israel returns home. It is unclear about whose son it is that is sacrificed but it apparently is a game changer. 

After this we headed North towards Dibon, the capital of Moab in the Medeba Plateau. We got have way up the other side of the Yarnon Canyon and our bus decided it was a great place to hang out for a couple hours waiting for mechanic and a new bus J. It was quite the view and it definitely struck me how separating this canyon really can be. While we were here we talked about how the different regions push in different directions to get more land. The Edomites push westward to get a hold of the Negev. The Moabites push north to the Medeba plateau. Each nation is trying to push to be able to get more resources, more land and more access to the trade routes that come through here.

The Medeba map is a mosaic that was found on a floor in a church. It is interesting the perspective that the people back then had of the world and how places related to each other. Apparently Jerusalem was a very important city to them.

Jerusalem

 The last stop for today was at the site for Mount Nebo. This was the mountain for which Moses is said to have viewed the entire land and then died. The interesting thing, from this mountain and others in the region it is impossible to see everything that is recorded to have been ‘seen’ from this mountain. The Bible doesn’t explain how something like this could have happened and it is left to question. Maybe God gave Moses supernatural vision and it was a super-super clear day (like the days that don’t really exist) or maybe it was god calling to mind everything that Moses had seen of the land since his time in Egypt.

 

We ended the course with looking over the land. Throughout the Old Testament the land and the promise of the land play a very important role in the lives and the faith of the people. Yet when it comes to the New Testament the idea with the land tends to shift a little. Acts is started with a verse that tells the disciples that they are to go from Jerusalem, to Judea, to Samaria and the Ends of the Earth. No longer is the gospel and salvation limited to a single group of people in a particular land with set customs.

            I appreciate it being pointed out that the land portion of the promise was never fulfilled in the fullest sense of it. The land was briefly ‘theirs’ while those on the coast didn’t challenge them too much. It is a sense of ‘Now-and-not-yet.’ This term was used plenty by a couple of professors that I had in undergrad and I think that it accurately described much of what we experience. We have some of the promise now, but much of it is still to come. Hebrews 12 talks about his as well. The Patriarchs had time where they did not have the promise to the full, they had time and opportunity to walk away from it all and yet they stuck to it and they have been rewarded for it.

            This faith, this gospel is passed onto us and now we have the opportunity to carry it forward. We are no longer bound by geography, we are to carry the message to the ends of the earth, and we have the example of faith from those who have gone on before us and Paul tells us that they are a great cloud of witnesses that surround us. 

Jordan Day 3 – the land of Edom

Today we started in Petra. This old city was considered to be lost for thousands of years after it was abandoned before it was found in the 1800’s. This city was important because it was on one of the main trade routes into and through this region. Many caravans from all over the known world would pass through the area carrying spices and other goods from the west to the coast in Gaza. There are carvings in the walls along the road entering Petra showing a caravan of camels being led.

spices and incense in a shop - the stuff that looks like amber is frankincense

Tucked away in the middle of the desert it is surprising to find such a well preserved city and one of such size. Water for the city was collected with aqueducts and stored to be used by the city. Being cut into the steep rocks of the wadi seems to provide it with a little more protection from the elements as well. Most impressive part of Petra is the buildings and caves that are carved into the rocks at Petra. The most famous one is the ‘treasury’ that is located as you come into the city. Although it never has (except in Indiana Jones) held treasures, it is commonly called the treasury. 

Carving of camel caravan, merchants feet

camel feet

'treasury'

a couple camels

The Monastery is also quite impressive. Located a little further up, apparently 850 steps, and tuck behind hills it is a spectacular view. Nearby there is also a lookout that looks out over the rift valley. It is from here, the city of Petra, which the traders would make their trek westwards to get to Egypt or to the ports in Gaza. 

hike up to the monestary

looking out over the rift valley

the treasury after the sun rose a little more

In the afternoon we went to the site of Bozrah. It was another city that was there because of the trade routes coming from the East and cutting into the land of Israel. This was in the land of Edom. This land is talked about throughout the Old Testament as the descendants of Esau lived out here. Out here is where the rain shadow is tapering off into nothing and the land provided barely enough to get by on.

It has occurred to me over the past couple of days that this land is made up of many different groups of people and often people who just end up here. It isn’t an ideal land, it isn’t a land with many resources or easy access to anything, rather it is a land where there is just enough to get by.  

This land was filled with the Israelites who asked to stay on this side of the Jordan.  It was frequented with retreating kings and desert wanders. This land was the land given to the brother who sold his birth-rite and sons of Lot who chose the ‘greener’ land. This land has boarders that shift with the weather and hemmed in by the desert. They have figured out how to survive and even thrive in a land that lacks. 

the children seemed excited to welcome us when we got to the hotel

Even today this land is frequented by those who ‘don’t belong’. A good portion of the population of Jordan is made up of Palestinians who left Israel during the war there as refugees. Today there are over three million Syrian refugees who have left Syria due to the fight there. While we were in the North I noticed that there were quite a few tents that had the UN symbol on them that looked like refugee tents.

a refugee tent in between buildings in Pehel

Israel is located just across the rift valley, although it is a national border today, it has seemed to have been a major connecting point between the two regions in the past. Maybe God placed his children in a place so close to the people on the other side, the people that seemed almost related to Israel (Ammonites and Moabites come from Lot, Edomites from Esau) so that they could have the opportunity to bless all nations, maybe starting with them. 

Maybe the love and justice that we are suppose to bless all nations with starts with loving the estranged brother.

Jordan Day 2 November 10

Today we started out in Amman. This is the current day capital and preserves the name of the ancient city that was located nearby. This capital has a lot of traffic going through it, but does not have an abundance of resources on its own. This city shows up in the Bible as the main city of the Ammonites, who are descendants of Lot. In a way this makes the Ammonites like family although they do not always have the best relationships with the people of Israel. Bathsheba’s husband was killed in the battle that happened here and Solomon married an Ammonite woman.

similar styles to those found in Israel

evidence of the Roman period

 The second stop that we made was at the city of Gerash/ Jarash. This city is popular because it has the best preserved Roman city outside of Italy. Rightly so it is nicknames the city of 1000 columns. Although it was occupied before the Romans the Roman remains are quite impressive. The Cardo and Decuminous   are impressive in length and there are remains of multiple temples to various gods throughout the city. I thought it was really interesting to see the column that could be moved slightly by pushing on it. I’m not sure what caused it to be like this, but is cool to see.

Herod's gate

another gate in the same style

a pepper tree

bag piper. in Jordan???? 

 The next stop that we did was an overlook on the Jabbok River. This wadi/river cuts through the Cenomanian limestone and creates a rugged and steep cut through the region of upper Gilead. It was at this river where Jacob sent his family and flocks ahead of him and remained on the other side and wrestled with a man until day break.  This is a pivitol point in Jacob’s life. Jacob seems to perceive that the man was God an angel of God in the way that he says afterwards that he had seen God face to face and survived.  I find it interesting how it is possible to see the water imagery that we had talked about earlier playing out in Jacob’s life as well.

This time when Jacob is setting out to cross the Jordan God meets him and wrestles with him. It occurred to me that it is a long time to wrestle all night with someone and not have one person overpower the other person. But if God is wrestling with Jacob then maybe God knows what Jacob can handle and although he very well could take over quite quickly he lets it play out and in the process Jacob gets to a point where God can reach in and touch him in a way that will forever alter his live and start a change that is necessary to create a people who will wrestle with God.

Jacob isn’t the only one in the Bible who ‘wrestles’ with God. Maybe the only one who physically does, but there are a basketful of others who seem to be bold with God and not afraid to wrestle it out. Habakkuk pushes back when God tells him what he is planning to do. Abraham questions God when he is about to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. Hannah pleads with God for a child and Chazal has many Rabbis in rabbinic literature arguing with God and getting there way.

             In the past couple of years i have thought a lot about arguing with God. It seems that in the western world the concept of being blunt and bold with God is frowned upon. We have dressed up to go to church, we saved our fancy language for praying and we  always act polite. But God repeatedly says that he desires our hearts more than our worship, that he desires justice and grace more than anything we can bring so maybe it is ok to come to God when we are broken in heart. It is the idea that God is God and nothing we can do can change that. God has chosen to love us for who we are while we were still sinners and not even acknowledging his existence, nothing that we bring to him can could stop him from loving us. To me it is the picture of a three year old child throwing a tantrum because he simply doesn’t understand why things happen the way they do and trying to take his frustration on his dad. Nothing that three year old can do or say can physically hurt or change how much that father loves his child, but better it is that the child takes it out in the presence of his father than ignore it all and despise him. If anyone is safe to argue with than it is for sure our heavenly father, but be prepared he might not answer in the way that you want him too, he is our father and knows what’s best. 

final stop of the day was at a place where it is thought to be 'the land of tov'

this is thought to be originally be a large burial building

Jordan Day 1, Saturday November 9: Neighbours connected and a world apart

Today started early, leaving at 6am to make our way north to cross the border into Jordan. These two countries are close together. They physically are only separated by a fertile valley and a very small river that floods maybe once a year.  We discussed in class this week how these two countries, Jordan and Israel, are connected similar in many ways. They are made up of people groups who have similar or related backgrounds. The lands that they are on are made up of the same types of rocks for the most part. Industries are much of the same as well.

Yet even though these countries are similar in many ways and they are technically at peace with each other the border crossing is met with the typical Middle Eastern security things which make North American border crossings seem like a luxury. Part of that whole process was saying goodbye to our bus driver and bus from Israel and after crossing getting on a new bus with a new driver, a Jordanian tour guide and a tourist police man.  I found that having a tour guide with our group changes the dynamic. He brings in a different perspective to exploring the land. I find so far that he knows a lot of the history but the connections and the discussions that we have had in the past he is not as inclined towards. So for these impression reports I’m going to continue to try to draw connections and consider things, but it might not be done with as much ease as in the other ones.

Throughout today we were considering whether the rift valley and the Jordan River provides the two countries with a a connection or with a boundary.  It can be looked at both ways in my perspective.  The two countries both have significant reasons to be in the fertile region around the Jordan River. In a land where water is a valuable resource, none of the water is put to waster, so much so now that the Dead Sea has been going down quite steadily in the past years. Yet at the same time the Jordan provides a boarder. It seems that Joshua and the people of Israel surprised the land of Canaan by being able to cross the Jordan River when they did. In the story of David sending his parents to Moab while Saul was out trying to take his life, David seems to see the land across the Jordan as a different area and an area of less risk for their life. 

cattle transport we saw while traveling

In a conversation that a couple of us had someone pointed out that it seem that from a visual aspect if traveling from west to east the land looks inviting and open. The rain shadow creates a fertile area on the western side of the hills leading into Jordan. But if travelling from east to west the land looks less inviting as the rain shadow creates a significant wilderness everywhere east of Jerusalem up to the Jordan valley.

Pehel looking across to Israel

herding ducks...

We looked at three of the four major crossing of the Jordan River.  There were many other crossings that the locals knew about but the four major ones were used by people from every nation that was on their through this area.  

            The first one was the Bethshean crossing where we actually crossed is one of the biggest.  The city of Bethshean is right across from the city of Pehel/Pella. The two cities were connected and seem to be a link for connecting the different sides of the valley.

            A little further south was the Adom crossing at the Jabbok River. This was the crossing the Jacob took when he returned to the land of Canaan with his wives and also where he wrestled with God. The Farah valley is just a little bit south on the Israel side and leads directly up to Shechem the original capital of Israel.   Succoth was the name of the city that was built there and it acted like a backdoor for the kingdom of Israel, protecting it from invaders from the East and providing an escape for a king who might have felt threatened by things going on in the land of Israel.

            Another crossing that we briefly talked about was the one that goes just south of the Sea of Galilee. 

looking towards Israel in the north

Gesera  - can see the Sea of Galilee from here

hiking up to see the site of Remote Gilead, Israel kind of feels out of place up here

a couple camels nearby, there were quite a few throughout Jordan

flocks of a nearby Bedouin family. there were lots of lambs running around.