Today we said goodbye to the Dead Sea and headed toward
Tiberias, making several awesome stops along the way!
First, we stopped at Qumran to see the place where the Dead
Sea Scrolls were found! They found between 600 – 800 scrolls within 11 caves.
There’s the gap in the number because some of them are so fragmented that they
haven’t quite been pieced together and it’s possible they could have fragments
from the same scrolls or different ones. The discovery story goes a little something
like this: a shepherd was herding and pasturing his flock, a somewhat boring
job when all is well. He threw a rock into a cave (maybe he was playing a game
to see if he could make the cave on the cliff? We don’t really know) and heard pottery
crashing. When he went to investigate, he found several scrolls. Not knowing
their worth, he showed them off to friends and family until they finally ended
up with an antique dealer who could see they were valuable. It’s possible that
other scrolls were found during this time and ended up on the black market.
Again, we don’t really know. What we do know is the important stuff. When these
scrolls were found, they became the earliest manuscripts of the Old Testament
by about 1000 years from what had been discovered previously. Even more
astonishing is the fact that our current Old Testament is almost entirely the
same as it was 2000 years ago. There are some minor differences, which are
often noted in current Biblical texts to provide the reader with as much
information as possible. Still, knowing that our texts are 99.5% the same as they
were 2000 years ago is pretty remarkable.
Also discovered near the caves was a monastic society where
the Essenes (a Jewish sect) lived. They were mostly unmarried men, although
there was evidence of several families found there. They spent their days as
scribes, writing the Torah on scrolls made of kosher animal skin sewn together.
They also had strict writing rules where each letter had to be separated (not
cursive) which explains why the Old Testament has been so well preserved until
now!
These are the pottery jars that preserved some of the scrolls
Replica of what a Hebrew scroll may have looked like
Next, we took a quick tour of Jericho and stopped at the mountain
traditionally (which means there's little or no archaeological evidence) where Jesus was tempted in the
desert. Jericho is also considered the oldest city in the world – it’s been
around for more than 10,000 years!
The mountain where Jesus was tempted - there's now a monastery on the top!
Then, we got to see the Jordan River, likely the area that
John the Baptist baptized Jesus! We saw several people get baptized there as
well!
Jordan River
Finally, we went to Bet She’an which has the ruins of the
ancient Roman city of Scythopolis. This was a great stop to learn about the culture
of Roman life because the remains were pretty intact. The city was destroyed by
an earthquake in 749C.E. (I’ve been saying AD – it’s CE now…sorry!). It was
also mentioned in the Gospels and 1 Samuel 31! We got some awesome pictures of the site. I wish I could capture how massive and grand the Roman cities are, but these pictures will have to do.
Our guide demonstrating how to use an ancient toilet
Original Roman Road
View of the city from the Temple - if you zoom in, you can see the modern city surrounding the ruins. It's a great example of how the tel buried the city and they built a modern city on top!
We arrived at the Sea of Galilee in the evening. Tomorrow,
we’re off to explore the northern part of Israel!
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