Back From the Dead (Sea)

Well, as I suspected, there was no internet access in the Judean Desert.  We stayed in the city of Arad, in the Negev, in the south of the country.  There is much to say about our three-day trip.  So much in fact that I will limit myself to Thursday, which was spent at or around the Dead Sea.

At Arad we stayed at a youth hostel, the Blau-Weiss House (German for Blue-White House).  Before World War II, there was a movement among Jewish youth in Germany to go back to Palestine and explore the land.  The hostels were built to serve that cause.  Of course the tragedy is that many of those young people were killed by Hitler.  Apparently we will stay at another hostel of the same variety when we go north to Galilee starting this Sunday.

Let me say to begin with that Arad and the surrounding area are desert.  By desert I mean no discernible vegetation.  However, the rule of thumb here seems to be that if there's any vegetation at all, they farm; if there's not, they tend sheep.  Somehow the sheep find something to feed on.  One sees lots of little boys out on the hills tending their flocks.  Picture an absolutely barren hillside and a boy wearing a baseball cap in the hot sun: not the funnest job I can think of.  The other animal one sees in these environs is camels.  They are all over the place, pretty much go where they please and occasionally stop your car or bus just like the bears used to in Yellowstone.

Anyway, about Thursday: the bus left the hostel at 7 a.m.  Our first stop was a place called Masada.  Imagine the deck of huge ocean liner.  Imagine it's a mile long and a quarter mile wide.  Then put that deck on top of a thousand-foot high chunk of limestone, with sheer cliffs, overlooking the Dead Sea.  That's Masada, which is Hebrew for "fortress," or "stronghold."  This location may be linked to David, who in First Samuel 22:4 went to "the stronghold" after leaving his family with the King of Moab.

Masada is best-known as the place where a group of Jewish freedom fighters were besieged by the Roman army following the 70 A.D. rebellion that led to the destruction of the Jewish temple in Jerusalem.  The top of the fortress was a palace/storehouse designed by King Herod (the one who met the Wise Men).  It has incredible cisterns (water) and storehouses (food).  The freedom fighters held out for a year while the Romans built a siege ramp from the bottom of the nearly vertical hillside to the top.  The ramp, which still exists, is basically a pile of dirt high enough to reach the top.  No wonder it took a year to build! 

So we hiked up the side of the siege ramp and eventually reached the top.  King Herod, who was the greatest builder in Israel's history (the temple was his chief, but by no means only, accomplishment), had put there a palace, a synagogue, basically a whole city on the top of this great hunk of rock out in the middle of nowhere.

But as I said, the Romans eventually built their siege ramp all the way to the top.  And the freedom fighters faced a choice: be defeated and watch as their family members were raped and killed. That, or commit mass suicide.  They chose the latter.  The men killed their familes.  Then they drew lots to see who would kill whom.  When they were down to ten fighters, they drew straws and the man with the short straw killed the other nine, then himself.  Over 900 people died this way.  A woman and her children crawled into a secret place and survived the ordeal, which is recorded by the Jewish historian, Josephus, in his book The Antiquities of the Jews. 

So we explored the top of Masada for a couple hours, then hiked down the other side.  A thousand feet up, a thousand feet down.  Up was in the shade; down was in the sun.  It was pretty hot.  Then on to our sweet relief for the day, at En-Gedi.  See First Samuel 24 and 27, which indicate that the region of En-Gedi was a hiding spot for David and his men when they were on the run from King Saul.  There is a wadi--stream bed--at En-Gedi that blessedly has water running through it almost all the time.  It runs down the steep cliffs and there are actually pools and waterfalls up as you climb up.  Just a beautiful spot.  I jumped in the water and sat with my head under a waterfall until I felt a concussion coming on, then clambered up to the next pool and swam for 20-minutes or so.  All of our group (forty or so people, mostly college kids) jumped in.  The water was perfect!  We had lunch at En-Gedi (It's the same thing every day, more or less: pita bread with egg salad or tuna for filling; carrots, fruit, pastry for dessert, all washed down by as much water as we can drink.  I go through 4 bottles a day and still feel dehydrated).

Then we went to the Dead Sea.   Its surface is 1900 feet below sea level--the lowest place on earth.  The water has no outlet, so like the Great Salt Lake it is incredibly salty.  I refused to get in (the water feels oily and the only interesting thing about the experience is that it's impossible to sink), but Connie was game.  I suppose it was an okay experience given that the thermometer at the lifeguard station read 41 degrees Celsius (that's 106 degrees Fahrenheit).  But honestly, I don't think I missed a thing. 

By now the heat was taking a toll on us (we hiked about 5 miles that day, mostly under a blistering sun), but the nature of this program doesn't allow for much attention to nature's obstacles.  We were off for our last stop, at an archeological site called Qumran.  A Jewish sect lived at Qumran in the days of Jesus.  It was scattered by the Romans in the years following the destruction of the temple.  But before they dispersed, the community hid its religious scrolls in a cave, inside clay jars.  Then, in 1947, a Bedouin boy threw a rock in a cave and heard a jar break.  He investigated.  Eventually archeologists learned he had made one of the most important discoveries of the century.  Among other things, the scrolls include parts of every book of the Old Testament.  These have given scholars access to the Old Testament as Jesus read it--which turns out to be very similar to manuscripts from a thousand years later.  It's quite a place, but it was hotter than the 4th of July out in the sun where we sat listening to our (very gifted) professor expound on Qumran's significance.  It was with considerable relief that we boarded our bus and headed back to Jerusalem--20 miles away but with a 5,000 feet increase in elevation.  We went from 106 F. at Qumran to 85 F. at Jerusalem--arriving at 6 p.m. following an 11-hour day. 

Today is a day off.  Tomorrow we begin preparations for our journey to Galilee.  We leave for that part of the country on Sunday and we'll stay 'til next Thursday.  It's "Jesus Country" (Nazareth, the Sea of Galilee, Capernaum, etc.) so Connie and I are excited to go.  In the meantime, we're glad to have time off, although we spent the morning exploring the Old City.  We have been fortunate to make friendships with several people from Columbia International University in South Carolina and thay are good company as we climb steps, stop in churches and explore shops. 

You won't believe this, but there's one shop in the Old City that sells Oregon Duck t-shirts in Hebrew!  Donald Duck sticking his head through the "O," and then "Oregon Ducks" in Hebrew script.  I think I will buy one and be the envy of my friends.

Despite the rigors of our trip (the college kids are worn out every night and so are we), we continue to enjoy good health.  We thank God for that.  Something as simple as a sprained ankle could put a real crimp in our style.