My Pilgrimage to Israel (2013) - Part Five

Jericho - the oldest city in the world

Leaving the Galilee region of Israel, we drove along the Jordan River that runs along the border of Israel and Jordan.  During the drive, we could see the countries of Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan for a short time.  While the Galilee region is lush with green plant life, much of the area of the West Bank lying east of the mountain range is extremely arid.  The rocky peaks along the road toward Jericho are speckled with caves that have housed people for thousands of years.  At one point during the drive through Samaria, Tsippi pointed to the top of a nearby hill where Jacob's well is located.

Mt Nebo as seen from Jericho

Without much background, the story of Jesus speaking to the Samaritan woman at this well, would not seem unusual.  The meer fact that Jesus was in the vicinity of Samaria was radical enough.  But, to be speaking to an Samaritan woman who had been divorced 5 times and was living with another man was considered outrageous.  Samaritans were considered unclean and not to be associated with - add this background about the woman and you can imagine how scandalous this must have been (even Jesus' disciples questioned him).  But, again Jesus demonstrated that he came not to condemn but to save.  I'm not sure who the Samaritans of our day are...but, I think we could name a few if we thought about it long enough.

Greek Orthodox - Monastery of Temptation

Jericho is the oldest city in the world.  It sits across the River Jordan from Mount Nebo.  You may recall that Moses never stepped foot on the soil of the promised land of Israel.  He stood on the top of Mount Nebo from where he saw this place...and was buried there after freeing the Hebrew nation from the slavery in the land of Egypt.  The city was taken by the Hebrews led by Joshua without military force. Again, God didn't want anyone to be confused about who was responsible for the city being delivered to the Israelites.  God gave Joshua instructions that must have had the Israelites questioning their sanity: march around, blow trumpets, and yell really loud.  That's it.  The walls fell.  God did it.

Sitting above the city, the Monastery of Temptation is carved into the mountainside.  This ancient monastery sits above a cave thought to be where Jesus spent some of his 40 days of temptation in the wilderness while meditating and fasting.  Jesus also healed Bartimaeus of his blindness in Jericho.

Next, we went to Qumran which sits in the Judean desert next to the Dead Sea.  As Jericho is the oldest city in the world, the Dead Sea is the lowest place on the planet.  Outside of the small visitor center, this place seems to be stuck in the Old Testament ages.  That time in history is appropriate because this is where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered.  These scrolls, written by an ancient Jewish sect called the Essenes, included all but one book of the Old Testament and are dated to approximately 400 BC.  

Qumran - photo by James Stewart

The scrolls have helped substantiate the fact that the Bible is the most recounted ancient manuscript known to exist.  It is entirely unique among antiquities in that hundreds of iterations from different sources reaffirm the same stories.  The scrolls were written to preserve the word of God and have also reaffirmed what our Bibles contain.  

Essene Scroll Writing Room (Dead Sea in background)

Within the scrolls, the Book of Isaiah was found to be accurate matching our current translations down to the most minute details.  "But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.  We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all." - Isaiah 53:5-6.  

These words were written by the prophet Isaiah 600 years before Jesus was crucified.  Also, Isaiah 53 is extremely fascinating in that it contains the only physical description of Jesus in the Bible:  "He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.  He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.  Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem."  Next stop Bethlehem...where he was born.