Monday: Capernaum to Gaberden

20140227, Thursday

Leonardo Jerusalem Hotel

Jerusalem, Israel

1650

 

We just returned from a long day of walking around the Holy Sites in Jerusalem and we have a few moments to put our feet up before a 6:30 dinner. I'll leave the narrative on how we got to Jerusalem to the chronological narrative, so I'll get to it right now.

Back to Monday: our first stop was at Capernaum. The archeologists have uncovered the synagogue where Jesus taught. Everything in Galilee is made of stone, Capernaum being no exception.

 

 

We read the scriptures related to the events at the time and pondered how to make those lessons applicable to us.

The tradition is that Peter and his mother-in-law lived at Capernaum and another church is built on top of their home. It is a beautiful setting on the shore of Kinneret and the weather was dry, mild with just a light breeze: wonderful.

 

I was reminded about a conjecture of the prophecy in Isaiah that the Messiah would come dwell with "people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined" (Isaiah 9:2) with a commentary that this "darkness" might refer to the basalt rock that is found in the northern area of Galilee, especially around Capernaum. The original synagogue was built using the black basalt stone. In addition all of the buildings of that time were of the dark stone. At some later time another synagogue was built on top of the original structure but this time they used limestone. The contrast is easily seen in the pictures.

 

 

The weather was so nice and the setting by the lake so wonderful that lingering here was a joy. I hope that the pictures do it justice. But we had to leave.

 

 

 

 

Next stop: Tabgha, the traditional location of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes.

 

 

The church there is nice, a mosaic on the floor with loaves and fish and an alter covering a rock upon which Jesus is traditionally thought to have sat.

 

 

 

Steven Perry is very musical and loves to have his groups sing in these wonderful acoustic chapels.

Next: Traditional site for the Mt. of Beatitudes. Again it is a beautiful location. The church has protected the area and made it available for worshippers. The actual location though was most likely lower on the slope to the shore in a natural amphitheater. We again read the appropriate scriptures and thought about the lessons, I'm not doing the era justice with these brief comments about our stops. I hope that the addition of the pictures and videos will add some depth.

 

Following the Mt of Beatitudes we went for lunch in Tiberias at a waterfront restaurant called The Deck where we were served St. Peter's Fish, which is a type of Talapia which grows in Kinneret. Outside of the restaurant we found fishermen using nets to catch the fish and saw just how many of these St Peters fish there are!

 

Following lunch we took a boat ride on the lake. This gave us a different perspective on the areas where He walked and the paths He would have had to travel. We sang more songs and Asher taught us how to dance. A very enjoyable treat to be on the water.

 

We turned our bus toward "home" but we had time for one more stop. An unscheduled stop at another ruins. It became and still is a ruin: Chorazin, one of the three cities that Christ cursed because of the people who lived in those cities rejected him even after witnessing miracles that even the people at Sodom or Gomorrah would have believed if they had been witnesses to the same miracle.

 

Our very last site for the day was Gaberden: the site where Christ allowed the evil spirits to come out of the man and into a nearby herd of swine. We did not stop because according to our guide there is nothing to see but the cliff off of which the swine ran and drowned in the Sea. My question was answered about how could they have drowned in the Sea when the water was so far away from the cliff. Apparently there is good evidence that 2,000 years ago the Lake was much larger and actually did come up to the base of the cliffs.

 

Since neither Judy and I can recall anything that we did on Monday night I'll assume that we worked a bit on this log, had dinner and went to bed early.

 

It's now just before 6:30 so it's time for our dinner tonight.