The First Day, we looked at approaches to Galilee. First, we went to Caesarea, an ancient city on the Northwest coast of Israel. This city was straight up Roman. It had theaters, a hippodrome (place where they could have chariot races or fight gladiators), Aquaducts, a Sea Palace (For Herod), and a Prison. Incidentally, in the 1st century, this prison held a jewish man from a place called Tarsus (in Modern-day Turkey). Apparently, he was going around to cities and stirring up a group of people who followed Jesus. Once he was put on trial, this man revealed that he had roman citizenship and was promptly shipped off to Rome. His boat crashed and he kept on preaching about Jesus. Later that day, we went to Mt. Carmel, Meggido, and other sights in the Jezreel valley. We spent the night in a Hotel overlooking Nazareth.
The second day, we continued from our resting spot, to a first century Roman settlement, which I can't remember the name of right now. The one with the Mona Lisa mosaic.... ZIPPORI! I remembered. We continued and looked over Nazareth, and eventually moved to the Cliffs of Arbel. From here, we could see the entirety of the Sea of Galilee. We climbed down these cliffs (actually literally climbing at parts), and ended the day south of the Sea at a Roman Settlement called Beth-Shean. This place was huge, and very VERY Roman. Corinthian Columns and everything. (As you can probably tell, we focused on the Helenization of Galilee for the first few days). We ended the day, staying at basically a resort right on the Sea of Galilee. We saw, ate dinner, watched the sunset over the Sea, and swam some more.
The Third day, we traveled north. (Just a note. The night before, some Syrian protesters decided to try and cross Israel's boarder. This happened up on the Golan Heights... which is where we ended up for the afternoon on the Third day. We went through an impromptu check-point, and overall didn't feel very threatened.) We say places like Hazor (the head of all the cities in the North), Caesarea Philipi (where Christ asked the Disciples who they thought he was), and saw from a mountain the place where that guy that I talked about earlier (the one in the roman prison, and ship wreck) would have been heading to Damascus to persecute Christians (the people who he would eventually come to lead and instruct) and would encounter Jesus. This day, my foot hurt the entire day. I'm not sure what happened to it. I woke up in the morning and the entire right side of my right foot hurt when I walked. (Yes dad, I know... just walk it off.) I limped through the day, avoiding putting a ton of pressure on that side of my foot. By the end of the day, the right side of my foot was feeling a little better, but the left side, where I had focused most of the pressure, was riddled with blisters. Not really sure what was wrong with it in the end, it was probably just a muscle strain from climbing down the cliffs. I wasn't going to complain about it though. Too many people on this trip have already gone to the hospital. I'm beginning to think that the professors are a bit over-cautious. In the end, my foot felt even better this morning and other than the blisters, it feels pretty normal now.
The final day (today), was our climax for the time in Israel. We spent the entire time circling the Sea of Galilee seeing sights. We saw the place where Christ cast legion into the pigs and they ran off the cliffs into the sea, we saw the place where Andrew, Peter, James, and John were supposedly from (we also talked about how these men were fishermen and might have lived multiple places along the Sea), we saw the Jordan river up close and personal, we saw the Mt. of the Beatitudes, we saw Capernaum, we saw the place where the feeding of the 5,000 took place, we saw the place where Jesus asked Peter 3 times if He loved Jesus, and we finally saw the 2,000 year old boat that was recovered and preserved. Quite a day. Feeling overwhelmed and tired, we returned to JUC finally after 4 long days. But Paul Wright was right. Today was the climax of our time here in Israel. I have really gained a better view of who Jesus was and who the disciples were.
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