Ephesus - Post 1 August 22

Today, we toured the historic community of Ephesus. In the time of Jesus, it was a thriving sea port between Asian traders in China, Afghanistan, and India and merchants in the rest of the world. Ephesus came to the apex of its power and influence between and second and third centuries (AD). However, several factors led to its demise. The Meandering River changed course leaving Ephesus without connection to the sea and a devastating earthquake rocked the city. When Constantine moved the eastern capitol of the Roman Empire from Ephesus to the city now known as Istanbul (Constantinople when named by his sons after his death), the fate of the city was doomed and sealed.

We decided to make several blog posts for today, because there is so much to share! First of all, we think the cats of the community add much ambiance to this region of Turkey. Many make their homes in the ruins of the ancient city of Ephesus...lounging in the shaded areas between broken Roman columns surrounded and unbothered by the thousands of tourists who visit their world-famous home as if to say: "What's so special about these old stones?" There were two curled up together with one bathing the other immediately to the side of the primary road through the ruins of the ancient city! And of course, the pretty one near the port ships had the advantage of access to real fish which s/he proceeded to toss in the air over and over for fun! Yes, we are missing the furry members of our family...having to settle for the animals left on our bed every evening by our room stewards. This one is for you, Jess and Cade!

Cruise Post 2 - Jonah, Paul, Titus ans Crete

So, the taxi driver in Ashdod (a few days ago), thought we were crazy when we asked him to take us to the site for "Jonah and the whale." He said, "Why you not go to Jerusalem today?" When we explained that we had just spent several days there he understood. The Jonah site was underwhelming! It is the supposed site where Jonah was buried...just a sign and a statue of Jonah. Afterward, we walked to the Sea Mall in Ashdod to board the Holland America shuttle bus back to the boat...a 35 minute walk through steamy, but thriving Ashdod. There is a lot of construction going on in Ashdod with building cranes everywhere. It is also the closest Israeli city to the Gaza area, so the Israeli military frequently intercepts missiles being sent to harm Ashdod.

Today, we went into Crete, the largest of the Greek islands. It is the center of the oldest recorded civilization in Europe, the Minoan civilization. It is also the island where Zeus was said to have been born. We took a tour bus around Irakklion, (Heraklion) the port city, but decided not to fight the tourist lines at the Knossos Palace. We followed the city map to where? A church, of course! Crete is home of the Holy Church of Titus, the Apostle. Here's your Bible history lesson from the brochure: 

"Titus, the Apostle, is the organizer and the first Bishop of the Greek Orthodox Church in Crete. He first appeared in history in about 49 A.D. as a fellow of Paul, the Apostle, and Varnavas (Barnabas) in the Apostles' Synod in Jerusalem. Titus accompanied Paul on his journeys in Asia and Europe. Paul refers to Titus in a way that reflects the very close bond between the two men.

Paul undertook the systematic preaching of Christ's Gospel in Crete on his second apostolic journey in about 62-63 A.D. His stay in Crete was short and he entrusted Titus with the difficult task of organizing the first Cretan Church (we can sympathize and relate to this task). He wrote to Titus: "The reason I left you in Crete was that you might straighten out what was left unfinished and appoint elders in every town, as I directed you,' (Titus 1:5).

Titus' activity in Crete is not sufficiently known because there are no ancient official and verified records about the first period of the Cretan Church. In later times, there was founded in Crete a very rich biographical tradition about the first bishop and patron of the local Church. According to tradition, Titus was Cretan of a noble family descending directly from Minos, the mythical King of Knossus. Titus was a relative of Rustillus (or Rustulus), the Roman proconsul in Crete. He was well-educated and spent some time in Jerusalem where he became an eye-witness of the passion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Later, as a bishop in Crete, he founded nine bishoprics in Knossus, Lerapytna, Kydonia, Chersonissus, Eleftherna, Lambe, Kissamus, Kandanus, and Gortys. According to the same tradition, Titus died at 94 years old in about 105 A.D.

In the early 6th century A.D., a grand basilica with a wooden roof was erected in Gortys which had been the political and religious center of the island. A local tradition had it that the holy relics of St. Titus were kept in that basilica. We have no information about the worship of St. Titus in the period of the conquest of Crete by the Arabs (824-961). After the liberation of Crete by the Byzantine General Nikephorus Phokas in 961 A.D.., the political and religious center of Crete was moved to Chandax (Heraklion) where another magnificent cathedral, dedicated to Titus, the Apostle, was built at the same site where it stands today. The Skull of the Saint was transferred to the new church." (Church brochure written by Theocharis Detorakis).

Tomorrow, August 22nd, we'll tour Kusadasi, otherwise known as Ephesus to Christians!

Cruise Post 1 - Sunday, Aug 18

Today, we are in port at Ashdod, Israel. We've enjoyed several days on board the Noordam, a ship of the Holland America cruise line. There must have been a drop in the number of tourists who signed up for this cruise, because our cabin was upgraded. No complaints from us about this change! We've been relaxing by exercising and reading. I just finished readIng a book Doreen Lee gave me at our Bon Voyage party. The title of the book is "Rooms." It was fabulous. I think I may offer a short book study on it for New Song women.  

According to the original itinerary, we should have been in Cairo, Egypt, yesterday. Obviously, the cruise line was forced to change the itinerary as civil unrest broke out in Egypt. Today, we'll journey into Ashdod to see if we can find the site where Jonah is said to have been spit out by the whale. We've already seen the rest of the sites in Jerusalem in our previous tour.

Back at home, today is Intern Pastor Kaitlyn's last Sunday. We know this will be a tearful day for many at New Song. We pray tremendous blessings on Kaitlyn as she heads back to seminary! More in a few days.

Marta

Golgotha two and Abraham's Tent

This was our last day with our tour group in Israel. We began with a visit to a second possible location for Golgotha and the garden tomb. It's on the road between Jerusalem and Jericho, just outside the city gate. The walking distance from the Temple Mount is exactly the same as it is to the church of the Holy Sepulcher, the site venerated since the fourth century. This site has a small outcropping that does look like a skull. Golgotha means "the place of the skull." Our host, an retiree from Dallas, related the story. The claim is that the crucifixion took place at the base of this skull hill, which would have made it a very public event on a highly trafficked road. In the same area, is a family tomb that dates back to the time of Jesus. Scripture tells us Joseph of Arimathea made his newly built tomb available for Jesus' burial. This tomb has a track in front of it that would have allowed for a circular stone to be rolled at its entrance. We celebrated communion as a group in the lovely gardens that comprise this spot. 

A word about the tombs of Jesus' day: they were family tombs with several rooms or niches carved into the stone bedrock. There was a larger preparation room where the body was laid out and prepared. Then it was placed in a notch for one year. After a year, the family would open the tomb and place the bones and skull in a bone box and these would be placed in a space where they would accumulate over the years. This allowed for multiple generations of a family to buried in one tomb. The Bible tells us Joseph's tomb was brand new, meaning it had not yet been used.

From here we journeyed out of Jerusalem into the desert to a place called "Abrahams Tent." It is a creative tourist site which invites you back to the time Abraham and Sarah entered the promised land. The focus is on experiencing biblical hospitality. We rode camels down a hill, in costumes, to the tent. In the tent, tables were set low to the ground where we sat on mats and ate the kinds of food Abraham's visitors might have eaten. It was a true feast though our old bones found it hard to sit for such a long time with our legs crossed. All I can say is "thank God for the invention of chairs."

From here we went to visit the traditional site for the Upper Room. It was underwhelming, to say the least. It was just an empty space in part of a church on a second floor. If you didn't know what it was supposed to represent, you'd think it was nothing more than a large room. We closed out the day haggling with merchants in the old city where tons of shops cater to tourists with a lot of the same stuff found in many of the stores.

We are writing this blog at 3 am at the Tel Aviv airport, getting ready for our flight to Athens. We will embark from there for our cruise on the Mediterranean and other biblical sites like Ephesus and Constantinople. We've been told we may have difficulty accessing the Internet at sea, so our blogging may diminish over the next week. We will catch you up as we are able to do so!

The Temple Mount and Jesus' last hours

Today we focused on Jesus' last hours. We began our day by visiting the Temple Mount, built on Mount Mariah, which is where the Dome of the Rock is now located. This is the same place where Abraham is said to have been willing to sacrifice Isaac, his long-awaited child. It is also where Elijah ascended to heaven. The Muslims change the story a bit, claiming that Ishmael was the son Abraham was going to sacrifice.  According to their tradition, this is also where Mohammed received the revelation of the Koran. (This gives you a good feel for why there is such conflict over this site.) We passed through security and walked a narrow walkway that took us above the Wailing Wall where Jews pray and often place prayers on pieces of paper into the cracks of the wall. This is the western wall of the Temple Mount and remained standing when Jerusalem as sacked by the Romans in 70 AD. As we entered the area held by Muslims, we found groups of men and women studying the Koran (separately, of course). They were still cleaning up after Ramadan, when a quarter of a million people visited. The Dome of the Rock is built over where the Jewish Temple stood before it was destroyed by the Romans. It was first built by King Solomon 3,000 years ago, then destroyed by the Babylonians. Ezra and Nehemiah brought the people back from the Babylonian captivity and rebuilt the temple. Herod the Great expanded the temple area and added a garrison and quarters to the Temple Mount (called "the Antonia fortress"). This is the temple that existed at the time of Jesus. We saw a life-sized model of Jerusalem before the conquest of Rome in 70 AD at the Jerusalem Museum. It gives you a real feel for how things were at the time of Jesus. Recall that Jesus was arrested in the olive grove of Gethsemane. He was taken by the temple guard to the Herodian fortress that abutted the temple area to be tried. Then he was taken to Caiaphas, the high priest. We visited the ruins of what may have been the high priests' house in the Jewish quarter of the old city and saw a water cistern similar to where Jesus may have been kept as a prisoner while they were deliberating his fate. We then walked the Via Delarosa (the way of suffering) to the traditional location where Jesus was crucified. A couple of observations...the way is completely dominated by shops selling anything and everything. And, of course, a church has been built around the traditional site of his execution and burial. In the church, there is the slab where tradition says his disciples laid his body after his death. We watched many people kneel down and kiss the slab as part of their devotion. It was also interesting to watch a Korean tour group carrying a life-size cross down the way, giving different participants a chance each to bear the cross. There is also a large Lutheran church very near the traditional site of Golgotha. There is, however, debate as to the real site of Golgotha. Today we saw the site venerated by Catholics. Tomorrow we will study the site that has been identified by Protestants. We finished the day with a time for prayer and reflection at the western or Wailing Wall. Men pray in one area and women in a separate area. We explored the full expanse of the western wall through underground visits that took us to the level of the time of Jesus and to excavated parts outside...which shows us where the day of Pentecost happened when 3,000 people were baptized. We also saw the pool of Siloam where Peter said to the beggar, "silver and gold have I none, but what I have, I give you." The man was healed and immediately entered the temple ground, leaping and shouting and praising the Lord. At the end of our day, we viewed an exhibit of the Dead Sea scrolls, the discovery of which has shown that we have incredibly faithful translations of the Bible even today. In other words, the Old Testament scriptures we have today are incredibly accurate to the original texts. 

that existed in the 100 years of the time before Jesus...which makes a strong case for the truth of scripture.

The Lord's Day - Day 4 Revised

Shalom, Shabbat, NEW SONG! It is Sunday morning at the Dead Sea in Israel. Jewish friends concluded their Sabbat last night at sundown. Many shops were closed for business from sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday. We started our day floating on the Dead Sea! Our tour had a late start this morning to allow us time to rest and "swim" in the Dead Sea. However, you can only float, not swim. The Dead Sea is 10 times saltier than the ocean and is over 30 percent made of salt. We took pictures with our camera, so are unable to attach them to this blog. Suffice it to say that this is a "must do" experience in the Holy Land.

At 10:30 am, we boarded the bus to Masada. Allow us to tell you a bit a out this amazing place. This mountaintop fortress was first built by King Herod (who reigned from 37 BC to 4 AD) as a winter palace. After the death of Herod in 4 AD and the annexation of Judea to the Roman Empire in 6 AD, the Romans stationed a garrison of soldiers at Masada. When the Jews revolted against the Romans in 66 AD, a group of Jews called the "Sicarii," took over Masada. Eleazar Ben Yair fled from Jerusalem to Masada and became the commander of the group. Various groups of refugees found their way to Masada when Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 AD. According to Josephus, a Jewish military commander who had been captured by the Romans and then worked for them, Masada was the last rebel stronghold in Judea. In 73 or 74 AD, the Roman Tenth Legion, led by Flavius Silva, laid seige to the mountain. The legion consisting of 8000 troops among which were auxiliary forces, built eight camps around the base, a siege wall, and a ramp made of earth and wooden supports on a natural support to the west. Captive Jews brought water to the troops from En Gedi (an oasis about 10 miles away),as well as food.

After a siege that lasted a few months, the Romans brought a tower with a battering ram up the ramp they had made. When the Romans retreated for the night to prepare for the invasion, Eleazar Ben Yair gave two speeches in which he convinced the leaders of the 960 members of the community that it would be better to take their own lives and those of their wives and children than to live in shame and humiliation as Roman slaves. The community committed suicide and ten men drew lots to take each others lives until there was no one left. According to Josephus,two women and five children who had been hiding in cisterns on the mountaintop told the Romans what had happened that night, on the 15th of Nissan, the first day of Passover.

From Masada, we did a quick tour of En Gedi (see above) and then travelled to Qumran. In 1947, a Beduin shepherd boy went searching for a lost sheep and discovered some jars filled with old parchment scrolls in a cave. They were sold to the Israeli Antiquities for about $90. These scolls ended up being the most significant archeological find of the Hebrew Scriptures in all of history! Known as the "Dead Sea Scrolls," the parchment fragments contain the equivalent of two complete scrolls of the Book of Isaiah and other important Old Testament texts. One of the most fascinating things about the Isaiah scrolls is that they contain word for word the Book of Isaiah as we know and  read the texts today. The Qumran community were called the Essenes. They were a kind of Jewish monastic community that lived in the desert. The on-site film showed the community it's as exclusively male. However, there is speculation that the community included women and children, as well. They sought a kind of purified life away from the trappings of larger, less religiously stringent communities. There may be a strong connection between John the Baptist and the Essenes. Some have even speculated that Jesus himself was an Essene.

The Garden of Gethsemane

The Mount of Olives is East of the Temple Mount. Picture two hills with a very narrow valley between them. At the time of Jesus the whole hill was covered with olive trees. In fact it was not a "garden" of Gethsemane, but a grove. In fact "Gethsemane" means "Mount of the Olive Press." Today it is mostly a Jewish graveyard and some buildings. The Catholic Church has set aside a garden with very old olive trees at the traditional site of where Jesus prayed that the cup would be taken from him as his disciples slept. In the church we witnessed pilgrims sharing mass together and were able to take some incredible pictures of paintings from his time in the garden. Recall, after the last supper Jesus and his disciples went to the grove to pray. It was a place Jesus went to often with his disciples, because it looked directly at the east gate of the temple complex. On Palm Sunday he rode down from this area and entered the temple through the east gate where he then turned the tables on the money changers. The location would have provided Jesus a great view of the whole temple complex as he prayed and wept over Jerusalem. From the garden of gethsemane to the temple we are talking about a quarter of a mile walk downhill and the uphill through the eastern gate. This is where Judas brought the temple guard for his arrest.