Sunday

Sunday we went to Caesarea, a port town built by (guess who?) Herod! Pretty much he built up the entire thing and constructed a harbor where there was none before. We were in the large auditorium, some of which is original and some of it reconstructed and some of it completely new (like all the stage equipment). Apparently it's a really nice venue for artists to play at these days. We talked about the ocean and how the water kind of represents chaos and how that theme plays out throughout Scripture, first with God separating the waters in Genesis and then Jesus calming the waters in the gospels. Then we read Psalm 107 v23-32.

After that we walked around and saw the harbor and where they had chariot races and stuff. Must have been the premiere resort destination way back in the first century day!

Then we drove up the coastline and through this one mountain pass and visited Tel Megiddo, where the ancient town of Megiddo once stood. Megiddo is a pretty cool place because of it's unique location. It's situated at the crossroads on the Carmel mountain range and multiple ancient highways pass through there. It's also the place mentioned in Revelation 16:16 when it says Armageddon. My understanding is that Armageddon comes from Khar Megiddo, or Mount Megiddo. So theoretically (with a literal interpretation) the armies of the world would gather where we were. Megiddo also had a cool tunnel that was carved for water storage that we walked through. There were 78 steps at the end of that tunnel even though the sign said there would be 80 steps (the sign was trying to help people determine if they should turn around or keep going). I remember that it was 78 because I counted it twice. After I reached the top someone dared me to go run back down to count them so I counted once on the way down and again on the way back up, running the whole time. Pretty good workout that was =].

After that we drove up to Mount Precipice, which is very close to Nazereth and overlooks the Jezreel Valley. We read Luke 4:14-21 where Jesus is in his hometown of Nazereth and they chase him up a cliff, possibly the very one we were on, or similar. The views up there were very striking, you could see all the way across the valley to Tel Megiddo. We also read Judges 4-5, where the Israelites gathered on Mount Tabor on one side of the valley and fought the Canaanited who were gathered on the other side. It was cool to overlook everything and think about the battle playing out in the valley. We also saw and talked to a Korean tour group up on the mountain.

Later that evening we went to our hostel in Tiberias which is on the Sea of Galilee and had dinner at a place that was only memorable to me for the really tasty roasted, pureed eggplant that I ate like hummus and the mint lemonade, which was very refreshing.