Chalk Jumping

Floating in the Dead Sea

Snorkeling in the Red Sea

Dead Sea Mud!!

A nice cool break on a hike

Dead Sea Floating

Avdat

40 minutes in the Wilderness of Paran with my Bible. Just like the Israelites in the Wilderness of Paran for 40 years!

Life size Tabernacle

Masada

We have been excavating!! Like good ole Archeologists. Here at Tel Burna we have a blog if you wanna follow! http://telburna.wordpress.com/

Kate James

The Negev Trip

18/3/12

This, by far, was my favorite trip.  From hiking in deep canyons to floating in the Dead Sea.  But by far my favorite was snorkeling in the Red Sea.  But I want to go into the entirety of the four days.

 We first stopped at Beersheba.  Upon entering the city we found a cistern which dates back to the the Iron Age but not to the time of Abraham.  We then read Genesis 21:22 where Abraham and Abemelich made a treaty with each other where they separated seven ewe lambs to make a treaty with each other.  Therefore it was named the well ofoath.  Well and oath both in Hebrew read sheba. 

The gate of the city consisted of a large open place.  I would have imagined a gate of a city to just be a gate that opens to the city.  But the gate here opens to a large open space.  To get to the city you had to get through another wall.  An example of this kind of gate in the Bible includes Ruth 4:1 where Boaz sits in the gate, Absolome Davids son trying to get the men of the city to sway away from David’s leadership and our well known Proverbs 31 woman who sits in the gate of the city who husband sits in the gates. 

Some of the Bible events that happen here in Beersheba are many but I will try and condense them down. The first involved Hagar getting kicked out of the house of Abraham and wandering in the wilderness.  Genesis 26:23 tells us of God giving Isaac a promise to multiply his offspring.  Last of all was 1 Samuel 8:1-2 where Samuel makes his son a judge over Beersheba. 

The next stop of day one of the Negev trip included Tel Arad. This Early Bronze age settlement sat in the middle of a copper mining trade route along with the tar mining at the Dead Sea.  Therefore people passed through this town to get to another place, like our very well known Lusk, Wyoming.  Even though this was an Early Bronze age settlement, we don’t have to dig really deeply for it.  The tel was right on top of the ground! Unfortunately there are no texts that connect to this place but it is mentioned three times in the Old and New Testaments.  One connection says that in Numbers 21:1-3, Arad was destroyed by Israel.

Arad was first built by Solomon.  Back then when he built it the dialect of Judah was quite different than we expected.  A text was found to prove this, the Arad ausstrica.  Also,  Amos and Obediah wrote to these people. 

In Arad, there is a holy of holies.  This is unfortunately a heathen holy of holies because, even though the people were worshiping God, they also worshiped His so called wife Asherah.  Eventually this place was destroyed by king Hezekiah in 2 Kings 18:4.  

Our third stop of the day included a hike through the canyon En Avedat or Nahal Zin.  Here we hiked through the vast canyon land and discovered the many views it had to offer.  There were many forms of flint fond in the rock face.  Flint was used for many things back in the Bible including, circumcision, fire starting and weaponry.  

Our fourth stop of the day included Avdat.  This was a Nabatean settlement who replaced the Edomites.  Mentioned in Matthew 14:1-12, it says that Herod’s first wife was Nabatean.  But later they converted to Christianity.  Here in Avdat, we watched a movie where it talked about how it was a great trade city.  Travelers from all around would come and rest in this beautiful place.  

Day two of our trip was probably my favorite of all three days. We first walked through the large canyon, Machtesh Ramon, silently after breakfast.  It was amazing to see God’s goodness and majesty through all of it.  I realized how gracious God was.  How could He make these canyon so big?  How could I even question Him saving me? It was in the end such an amazing hike. 

After this silent hike, we drove through the Wilderness of Paran.  Here, Benj stopped the bus and made us wander through the wilderness for forty five minutes.  We then had to read Deuteronomy 8-9.  It talked about the Israelites wandering in the wilderness and God’s goodness toward them.  It was a great experience because it made us realize how privileged we are to have the Lord in our hearts and how gracious He is toward us each and every day.  A Bible event that happened here is found in Numbers 13:1.  Here it says that the spies were sent into the land of Cannon to spy out the land.  Only two spies came back and told truth about God’s promise’s and faithfulness.  In the end only these two got to enter the promise land because of their faithfulness.  As a consequence, the Israelites were made to wander the wilderness like we were earlier that day for forty years.  Only we had to wander the wilderness for forty minutes.  Another Bible reference includes Ishmael, Abraham’s son by Hagar, grew up here. 

We then headed out to the city of Eilat where the Red Sea is located.  A couple Biblical events that happened here include, 2 Chronicles  8:17 where it lists Solomon’s accomplishments, 2 Chronicles 26:1-15 and 2 Kings 16:6 where the men of Judah were driven from Eilat from the Syrians.   In Eilat, we snorkeled, sat on the beach for the whole day.  We saw many Jellyfish and tropical fish.  Our hotel was pretty awesome.  Kelly and I had our own room with an amazing view of the beach.  It was a really beautiful scene.  

Day three of the trip included a trip into the wilderness to Timnah which was Edom because of the stew Jacob gave Esau.  After we stopped at Timnah, we traveled to the life size Tabernacle.  It was interesting to see it in real life and in the middle of the wilderness.  Here we learned about the many things God wanted the tabernacle to look like. It was interesting to learn that the many things God did want the Israelites to decorate the tabernacle with had symbolism to the future.  

We then traveled to Solomon’s Pillars.  Unfortunately it has nothing to do with Solomon but there was a temple to a goddess at the base of the pillars along with an inscription on the rock face that talked about an Egyptian king and his conquering might.  From there we drove to a zoo then to Masada.  

Our last destination was the hostile.  Nearby the hostile there were some chalk hills that had fine very fine dust on them.  Once here we jumped through the chalk hills. 

Day four of our trip included hiking to the top of Masada for a early, and by early I mean 4:45, morning sunrise. 700 or so stairs!!!  Here at Masada we have a sad story that we find.  We find Masada high about all the rest of any fortress and very fortified.  Herod the Great once used this fortress for one of his palaces.  Later on, a group of Jewish rebels lived here and fortified themselves against the oncoming Romans.  Day after day, the Romans tried to find a way to take this fortress but every chance of them trying to get to the top failed.  The Jews on top had plenty of water and food to survive.  But Josephus tells us the the Romans, after much debut and deciding, took local Jewish farmers and put them to work building a siege ramp leading up to the city because it was too steep and hard to lead an army up to the top.  The Jewish rebels on Masada found out that there was no way of escape so their leader, Eleazar, conjured a plan to have all the families and people commit suicide to avoid the mean Roman torture that may follow.  The people of Masada agreed and no one was found alive when the Romans reached the top.  

After the amazing sunset on Masada we floated in the Dead Sea.  The Pacific Ocean apparently has three percent salt in it and the Dead Sea has thirty percent salt contained.  This may show you how salty it was! ON the shore of the Dead Sea you can find black mud.  We smeared this all over our bodies and apparently, this makes your skin soft....and very black.

Qumran the keribit was the last stop of the day. Here, there are many scrolls found in nearby caves.  In these scrolls are found all the books of the Bible except for the book Esther.  

That was my four day field trip!! wooohooo

Kelly and I dead in the Tombs

The Valley of Elah where David fought Goliath

Shephelah trip

             The first place we stopped in the Shephelah was the tel of Beth Shemesh, meaning Son of Shemesh, a border town between Judah and Dan.  On top of the tell we discussed many different things that happened here.  For example, the two heifers with the ark of the covenant came here from the Philistine camp, Aphek.  This is because the camps of the Philistines were being attacked constantly.  Therefore, they put it on a cart after 70 people died because they took a look in it, and shipped it off with two heifers.  It came here to Beth Shemesh and on to Kiriat Jaarim where the college is. The tel is consistent of a cistern and a couple tombs along with the many houses and a temple.  To the right of where we stood was a city called Zorah where Samson was born. He then lived most of his life in the Sorek Valley where we were. 

            The next stop included the city of Gath in the Elah valley between Zocchal and Azekah.  This is the city of very well known character Goliath.  I could see that people of big stature lived there because the tel was a huge tel.  At one point, David flees here with Goliath’s sword to escape from Saul.  He escaped the riots against him there by acting like a mad man.  Another example is Hazzel king of Aram came and captured the city.  At the base of the tel he dug a moat to keep the inhabitants inside the city.  One might think that it was to keep invaders out of the city but instead he wanted the people of the city to starve.  An example of a moat like this can be found in Zukkor with the event written down in the Zukkor tablets.  Inside the city we found an inscription with Goliath written on it.  Some potsherds with evidence of his existence therefore this is where they think Goliath is buried.  Down the hill from Goliath’s grave were ruins of houses or Philistine apartments.  The apartments architecture consisted of a flat roof and pillars to support. 

             The next stop we made was at Azekah.  Here was an over look on the Elah valley.  We could see the chalk troph along with the place they think the battle of David and Goliath took place in 1 Samuel 17.   Here we looked at the different accounts that were written on the battle.  For example in 2 Samuel 21:19 it says that another man killed Goliath.  Benj believes that it was a textual corruption because the words in the original language looked the same.  Going into the valley of Elah, we went into a brook, maybe where David fought Goliath,  and reenacted the fight.  Benj took a slingshot and we practiced our aim.  We learned that the people back in that day used to professionalize in the art.

            We then loaded the bus again and made a quick stop at Maresha.  This might be the hometown of Micah.  We then went to some caves that the Israelites hid in and climbed around in the caves.

            Lachish was where, in 2 Kings 18, was a tel where Sennacharib built a ramp up to the city to push his siege machines up to the wall.  On that day 1850 Assyrians  died.  In the excavations, 100 or more arrow heads were found in consequence of that war.  Two other events that happened here were the conquest of Joshua in Joshua 10 and the Babylonian conquest.   Excavators found the Lachish letters that related to the conquest of Babylon.  The fourth Lachish letter they found explained that the commander could not see Azaka.  This letter was supposed to make it to Jerusalem but never did because right after it was written they were attacked. Historians say that the letter, in context of history and the timeline, was written right after Jeremiah wrote the book of Jeremiah based on the contents of Jeremiahs book.