Day 8: Negev/Southern Israel Field Trip

Okay, amazing 48 hours . . . here's the highlights:

We left Neve Shalom on Saturday morning and headed East through Jerusalem and made our way down across the Judean wilderness (remember the days of testing of Jesus after his baptism?) toward the excavated ruins of Qumran. Qumran is site dating to the middle of the 1st century AD and destroyed by the Romans @ AD 70 during the Jewish War. Qumran was possibly inhabited by a group of Jews called the Essenes (I've taught or mentioned much of this to y'all in my classes/lessons). Qumran overlooks the Dead Sea and just across a narrow gully, up in the side of the chalky mountains, are many caves. It was in these caves that a Bedouin shepherd boy discovered what we know as the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS) back in 1947/48. It was very cool to see the caves and the remains of the community and its position overlooking the Dead Sea.

The Dead Sea, by the way, is visible from Jerusalem, as soon as you move over the Mt. of Olives. It has this perpetual haze over it from the evaporation. I'll talk more about that in a minute.

After we left Qumran we headed to En Gedi. En Gedi is an amazing oasis on the shores of the Dead Sea about half way down the western shoreline. Beautiful greenery that follows the course of a natural spring that flows out of the mountains down multiple water falls into the Dead Sea. The Israeli water conservation department as redirected the water before it gets to the Dead Sea (so that it isn't just wasted by evaporation) and uses it for irrigation. En Gedi plays into the biblical narrative on a couple of occasions. One important one is the during the time period of Saul's kingship. After David had become so popular, Saul attempted to kill David. It is in the oasis of En Gedi ("spring of the kid (goat)") that David hid and had an opportunity to kill Saul when he was "taking care of business" in a cave where David and his men happened to be hiding. The walls of the mountains are littered w/caves. There are other stories involving En Gedi . . . can you see if you can find another one(s) . . . let's see how good you are at using your Bible (or google) to look up information.

From En Gedi we went to the Dead Sea to swim. We stopped at a restaurant near the shores to eat, changed clothes, and then went into the water. Most oceans are 4-6% salinity. The Dead Sea is 30%!!!! I know you've heard stories about the buoyancy, but it is totally amazing to experience. The water is incredibly warm (air temperature was 109). The salinity of the water causes every cut or skin irritation to burn like you can't imagine. And it doesn't stop until you wash it off!!!! The water also has kind of a greasy fill to it . . . so many different types of minerals in it. At first the water forces you either onto your belly or your back. You have to force your legs down and kind of kick your legs back and forth (once you've found equilibrium) to keep yourself upright. I experienced it . . . and then got out. No need to hang spend too much time in the water. They actually don't recommend spending longer than 20 minutes in the water (I think that's the right amount of time).

Across the Dead Sea (and it's pretty narrow) is the Moabite mountains. The Moabites were a tribe that the Israelites had a lot of interaction with throughout their history.

From the Dead Sea (and after a good shower that I had to pay 2 shekels for . . . that's under $1) we headed to Masada! Masada, an almost impenetrable fortress built by King Herod the Great, is located on an amazing mesa on top of a massive mountain. We took a cable car up, but the only way of the mountain in Herod's day was a very narrow path called the snake path. 74 years after the death of Herod a group of Jewish rebels, the Zealots, took refuge in the fortress as Rome's 10th legion under the leadership of soon-to-be emperor Vespasian and then his son (and soon to be emperor) Titus began a 3 month siege. From the top of Masada you can see the remains of at least 6 Roman encampments surrounding the mountain. You can also see a siege wall that the Romans built all the way around the mountain so that no Jew could escape. The snake path was impossible to use to take the fortress. The army could only move a couple of men side by side up the path . . . easy to pick them off and thwart an attack. So, the Romans built a massive ramp to the top of Masada. It is still there and truly spectacular. In order to keep the dirt from just eroding away, the Romans built wood boxes and filled them with dirt. This gave them structure and allowed the massive ramp to have serious stability and support (as evidenced by the fact that it is still here). What is also truly amazing is that the Romans had to bring the wood from the western highlands . . . back across the Judean wilderness/desert.

The ruins of Herod atop Masada are impressive . . . too impressive for me to give details. I'll have to share them with you later. Let's just say one knows why "the Great" is after his name. He didn't do anything on a small scale!

Oh, by the way, when the Romans finally got to the top . . . all the rebels had committed suicide, about 800 of them. Only one woman and two children survived.

We walked the snake path back down the mountain and from there west across the Negev (desert) to Arad. Arad was on the fringe of the Negev and was the capital of the Eastern Negev territory. We stayed at a hotel in Arad. The dinner was pretty good. We all walked about 2 miles to a mall. I got ice cream! Yeah! 13 shekel . . . about $4.

On the way back we noticed that the wind had picked up. The air is so hot that it rises with such force it draws massive winds off the Mediterranean Sea (about 40 miles to the West). The winds blew all night long probably a steady 15-20 mph wind with gusts probably around 40 mph! It was amazing! However, the hotel A/C was not working well. I opened my window but that didn't work b/c no other window to draw the air in. I hung out the 3rd floor window for a while but that wasn't working for me. So, I went outside and slept on a concrete bench for about an hour. The lady working the front desk woke me up when she was chasing a massive spider out the door. It apparently eats scorpions (which she said was good b/c that means not too many scorpions around right now) and it only occasionally bites people. The spider as a big as my fist! I decided at that point it would be better to sleep indoors. I opened a window in the lobby and pulled a sofa up to it and slept there. The lady was nice enough to bring me a pitcher of ice water! I slept off-and-on until 5:30 am and then went back up stairs to get ready for the day.

I'm going to continue day 9 on the next blog!

Shalom