Tour of Israel, Feb. 13th

Beth-shan

Our first stop of the day was to see the ancient ruins of Beth-shan, which is actually 2 cities: an original one from the time of 1 Samuel 31 (where Saul's body was hung by the Philistines), and a more 'modern' one rebuilt by the Romans in 160 AD. Seen here is a scale model of the 'modern' city that archaeologists put together based on their findings of the Roman city. The original city was underground at the time when the Romans built the 'modern' city, and is still underground today. In the middle of the city above, you'll see a small pagan temple on the top of the big hill...the entire original city is buried within this hill!

Here is an overview shot of the archeological site. Most of the ruins that you see are from the 'modern' city the Romans built, and the big hill in the background was the original (and still buried) city of Beth-shan. Incredibly, all of these remains were only discovered less than 20 years ago!

The city of Beth-shan, built by the Romans, was extremely modern for its time and had a huge theater (shown here), Colosseum, underground plumbing, and hot & cold running water. The stone seats in this theater are still the original marble stone, and concerts are actually still performed here today in this historic site. Rock on Beth-shan.

Any guesses what these stones are for? (don't scroll down until you have a guess!)

How about now?
You're peeking into someone using a public Roman bathroom. Pretty impressive, although those seats get cold!

Main Street

A view from the top of the hill which the old city is buried under, showing the Theater and Main Street (among other ruins) below.

Gideon's Spring

While not the same as it probably would have looked in the time of Gideon, this spring is said to be the very spring where God had Gideon pair down his army of 10,000 men to just 300 men in the book of Judges. The spring is still active today.

Here's another view of the spring.

Jericho

Our next stop was Jericho, which is in the distance; yes it was destroyed by Joshua, but it was eventually rebuilt and has been inhabited ever since. Still, today there isn't much of a Jericho to look at, and regardless we couldn't get out of the bus to see it closer because it's now Palestinian territory. So here's your one picture.

Camels! We saw these on the side of the road in the desert area near Jericho, with the Dead Sea in the background. There's even a baby!

Dead Sea Scrolls – Qumran

We got to see Qumran, the site where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered! This plaque gives a good description of how it happened.

Here we are in front of an important cave; about 18,000 parchments were discovered in jars here. In these caves a scroll of the entire book of Isaiah was found (33 feet long!), which is now by far the oldest copy of an entire Old Testament book we have to date. When scholars compared it to the next oldest copy (which is about 1,000 years newer), it was found to be amazingly accurate...almost every single word the same. This clearly demonstrates that God has preserved His Word for His people, and we can trust that the Bible is true and accurate.

Dead Sea Swimming

We got to swim in the Dead Sea! It was an incredible experience floating on water which contains 37% salt (compared to the Great Salt Lake, which we are told is only 17%). In these pictures no flotation devices were used, and we were never touching the bottom! When we were in the 'deep end', we thought we had to tread water to stay afloat...but it turns out we could just stand there and not move a single limb to stay up!

Ok so this last one was an indoor heated pool inside our hotel, filled with water from the Dead Sea. But yeah, the Dead Sea was just awesome.