Again our group comes to a major transition in its journey. Sunday in the early am we part ways and begin our week of independent travel (aka. spring break). Most of us are flying off to Turkey to see the sights that we'll be missing on our official tour later this semester, and a handful are staying in Israel to hangout and volunteer a bit.
I will be going to Istanbul for a few days with 3 other people, then we'll take an overnight bus down to a little village on the Mediterranean Sea for some relaxation, hiking, and general adventure seeking. :)
Although we are parting for a time, our group will be connected by the continual processing of these last 2 weeks. At Jerusalem University College we took an intensive class called Biblical Historical Geography (or some combination of those words...). We spent a few days in the classroom learning about the various rock types, passes, trade routes, valleys, and cities that shaped the Biblical story. Then we went out all over the country looking at these different places.
We were everywhere...
Israel is incredibly small and diverse. One morning we were in Jerusalem, walking through snow to the bus, and by the afternoon we were playing in the surf of the Mediterranean Sea! For educational purposes of course ;) We walked the ancient city of Jerusalem for 2 days (which is not really part of the "Old City" at all) studying the City of David ruins, and the city during Jesus' day. We drove around the Central Benjamin Plateau studing how the Cinomanian rocks and valleys impacted Joshua's conquest strategy. We drove through the Shephelah region looking at how the Eocene limestone rock affected the way Saul and David expanded the Kingdom. We drove through the Biblical Negev looking at the Southern boarder and Abraham's journey. Up the Rift Valley looking at Masada, Qumran, and the Dead Sea scrolls. Then up to Galilee for a few days studying the land that Jesus walked in and the rich basalt rock farm ground.
The Bible takes on a different picture when you read the stories in the place where they happen. We often read the Bible as a Disney story, all rosy characters and fun adventures in a mystical land. I thought I had a good handle on the Bible and the culture and history that surrounded it. But I too, a Biblical Studies major, have been reading the Bible as a story removed from reality. These weeks that has shifted.
The real change happened when we were in the Decapolis district looking at the story where Jesus healed a demonic and the demons went into a herd of pigs. Without going into a debate about demons, we looked at the man who was possessed. He may have been married, certainly had a family, mother father and relatives in the nearby village. He would have been shamed by his inability to hold down a job and provide for his family. Can you imagine what the neighborhood kids said to his children? And the man himself, unaware of when the next fit of possession would take hold, living ashamed, in fear, alone. He became a real person to me, with a real story.
I also began to think of Jesus in a new way. The bible says that Jesus was a carpenter, but the region has little wood. The houses are made of stone. It turns out that the Greek translates better as "master builder" (Tetron I think). Jesus would have been a general contractor, handyman type of guy who could throw around 50-90lbs stones. He wasn't a skinny little guy like we sometimes see. Jesus would have been a pretty strong dude who had a job that let him get to know a LOT of people as he went around hanging doors, and doing little repairs. Back then the builders also did not level the ground before building, so Jesus would have had the eye to build a straight stone wall without mortar on uneven ground that didn't fall. He's not quite your Sunday school Jesus. It was actually customary for Rabbis of the day to have a second job to provide for themselves. Next time you read the gospels imagine Jesus taking a break every so often to help repair a house to help pay for his ministry.
We also learned that the Romans were building a new town (Sepphoris) just 4 miles from where Jesus was growing up in Nazareth during the time Jesus would have been an apprentice. He would have had a lot of opportunity to practice and perfect his skills while meeting people from all over the region. This week Jesus became more human to me.
Many in our group also struggled with their first real exposure to the violence in the Old Testament as it contrasted with the pacifist teaching most of us had been raised with and the assumption of an inerrant and infallible Bible. There are many ways to reconcile the images of God in the testaments, but for now I'll let you, the reader, ponder the question for yourself. Maybe when I get back we can talk about it and I'll share my take on it :) For many the processing is ongoing and will continue as we come back after our week of free travel and spend more time in this small land of Israel.
About halfway through! It's going by soo fast! (Too fast?)
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