Israel Information!

So I guess the purpose of this blog can now be my trip to ISRAEL!  I will be gone from May 30 to June 25.  I am going with a group of about 16 from Truman, led by Dr. Appold.  I took a class with him last semester, and he is actually, for those who don’t know, the pastor who baptized me. 

 

A brief outline of our itinerary:

June 1-14

Working on the Bethsaida dig-site

            Bethsaida was a community located north of the Sea of Galilee.  According to Wikipedia (which means it may or may not be true…), Peter, Andrew and Philip resided in Bethsaida.  Peter was even born there (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bethsaida). 

            There seems to be some debate about the actual number of Bethsaidas.  It is mentioned several times in the Bible, and some scholars argue that there were two Bethsaidas, one north of the Sea of Galilee and one east of the Jordan River.  If you want to read more about that issue, see the above article. 

            Each day we are working, we will arrive at the dig-site at 5:30 a.m.  We will work until 8 and then break for breakfast.  We continue working again until about 11 when we take another break before working until 12:30 before heading back for lunch and our afternoon activities.  These afternoon activities include swimming in the Sea of Galilee and floating on the Jordan River.  In the evenings we have a lecture series and will be doing pottery readings.  I don’t know what exactly that means yet, but I will let you know when I find out.

            In addition to working on this dig-site, we will be living in a kibbutz.  I am pretty sure the kibbutz is the only successful form of socialism, or socialist living (there might be a difference), in the world.  Probably because it is only on a community level, not a national level, and participation is voluntary. 

            The first kibbutz (again, according to Wikipedia (which is a fine source for a blog, but is inappropriate for academic papers)) was established in 1909, which I thought was very interesting (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kibbutz).  They have been around longer than I realized.  With my feeble math skills, I was able to deduce that they have been around for 100 years as of 2009.  (Fun Fact I just noticed in the article: The Hebrew word for husband ba’ali literally translates as “my owner.” In the 1920s and 30s, the women on the kibbutz used the ishi instead which means “my man.”)

            In addition to working on the dig and living on the kibbutz, we will be doing other fun things such as swimming in the Sea of Galilee, rafting on the Jordan River or visiting the museum which has a display of a first century fishing boat.  Also, on the weekends, we will tour places such as Qatzrin, Gamia, Nazarath, Cana, Caesarea Maritima (where Pilate lived) and Mount of the Beatitudes.  I will post pictures either here or on facebook when I return. 

June 15-25

            The next couple of weeks, we will be traveling around Israel and Jordan.  We spend a couple of days in Bethlehem; we will visit the Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem University, and hopefully spend a day volunteering on a Palestinian farm.

            After Bethlehem, we are traveling to Jordan.  We are going to spend a couple of nights in Amman and travel to places such as Petra, Mt. Nebo and Machaerus.  (To be honest, I am not 100% what all of these places are.  I will have more detailed descriptions later, once I have been there.)  Of course, all of these are somewhat up in the air.  Weather conditions and time will factor into what we do when we are actually there. 

            The last leg of our trip consists of 5! days in Jerusalem.  We originally were scheduled to leave on the 23 June, but Dr. Appold found a cheaper flight that leaves on the 25 June.  So we get two extra days in Jerusalem.  While we are here, we are visiting places such as Church of the Redeemer, Dome of the Rock, the Wailing Wall, Mt. of Olives, Hezekiah’s Tunnel (something about walking a ½ mile through waist deep water was mentioned for this location as I recall) and the Holocaust Museum.

            We fly home June 25, when I will start on the three papers I get to write by the end of July.  Not the part I am looking forward to J.