For those of you who are reading, I'm sorry it's taken me so long to post. I took notes, but it I don't post them to the blog, they tend to get lost. Anyway, we stared the day in the garden of Gethsemane, doing Communion. some say the trees in the Garden are actual witnesses to the Crucifixion, but Josephus and Tacitus, our Roman Historian, tell us that someone razed the entire are for 14 furlongs, which extends beyond the Garden of Gethsemane. Still, there are some VERY OLD trees in the Garden.
1Cor 11: Here is where Paul tells the disciples that he's passing on that which he has received. He's passing on something he received not by hearsay, but by Jesus Christ (which is a hard one for me, since Paul didn't walk the earth at the time of JC. So just where did you get this stuff you're passing on, Pablo? Anyway, I Cor 23 are where e find the words of institution. So we bless and share the bread and wine, we sing a couple of songs, we get our photo ops, and we come down off the mount of olives.
As we head to Masada, we're going to be on the road between Jericho and Jerusalem. There are like two old Roman Roads left, and this one, near Wadi Qelt, is the one like the road used by the Good Samaritan.
We're driving our folk down to the allenby Bridge crossing; on the way back, we'll stop at Wadi Qelt. We'll get good views of the desert from Wadiu Qelt.
Right NOW, we're on the East side of the Mount of Olives. Allezzeria is a modern-day Bethany --- /Alezzeria comes from Alazeron, the burial plot for Lazarus. So Jesus comes up this road, then got=es UP the mount of olives, and then descends into Jerusalem.
On the road to Masada, we're passing by illegal Israeli settlements. We're on Pope Paul VI road, which is the modernized version of the old 'Roman Road. Seeing the stumps of olive trees destroyed ty the Israeli army settlers is heartbreaking.
Now we are qt the "Inn of the Good Samaritan," While it is not historically verified, it IS on the road.
QUMRAN
The significance of Qumran is that the dead seas scrolls were discovered here in 1948? Whenever they were discovered, we know that they were produced here between 150 bc and the time of Jesus. These scrolls, the NAg Hammadi Library, Masada, and King Tut's tomb are considered the most amazing archaeological discoveries of the 20th Century.
What this discovery did was to push back the dating of our existing scrolls by about 1,000 years. Before the Dead Sea Scrolls, the oldest scrolls were thought to be from the 10th Century. These (Dead Seas Scrolls) show our readings of the existing scrolls were accurate.
Most people referred to the people living here as Essenes. Josephus and Pliny the Elder make reference to people living on the North Shore of the Dead Sea, who had withdrawn from society. The texts, however, don't bear this out. Now (in the 21st Century) we call them Covenanteers. They were not from the priestly caste, yet they took it upon themselves to perform some priestly functions. Because of this, they were considered to be improperly usurping authority. From their point of view, they referred to the High Priest in Jerusalem as the Teacher of Wickedness. They referred to their own High Priest as the Teacher of Righteousness.
In 68AD, members of the community became aware of the approaching Roman legions. They took their documents and put them in pots in the caves. As mentioned before, the scrolls are important to help scholars "fix the text" and show that our readings have not been that far off.
After that, we went to the Allenby Bridge Crossing and watched our comrades head on to Jordan, while we headed back up to Bethlehem. We stopped at Wadi Qelt, and I finally got to take my camel photos.
All the photos from the day can be seen here:
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