Anyway, back to the field trip. Our first stop was at Herod's Winter Palace. He chose to build it in Jericho because it is always warm there. We were there at about 7:45 a.m. and it was probably about 70 degrees. Keep in mind that it was the 5th of February. I was loving it! The palace was huge! He had 2 swimming pools, a hippodrome (where you race horses and chariots), gardens, a spa, spacious living quarters, lavish reception halls etc. We learned a little bit about Herod while we were there. He was basically psycho! He wasn't really a legitimate political ruler so he tried to justify his reign by doing insane things. He built like crazy to demonstrate his power and he married into the last great ruler's family to establish himself politically. Then he proceeded to murder anyone who could possibly be a threat to him including his father-in-law, brother-in-law, all male babies under the age of two and even his beloved wife. It sounds like a pretty crappy life to me even if he did have lots of cool palaces.
Then we went to the Tree of Zacchaeus. The story behind the tree is recounted in Luke 19. It is a story of Jesus visiting Jericho. Zacchaeus was a small man who wasn't tall enough to see the Savior so he climbed into a tree. Jesus Christ looked up to him and spoke to him personally. This story is a good reminder that Christ knows each one of us personally no matter how small we feel and that he loves and cares about each one of us.
Then we visited the Spring of Elias. This is a story from 2 Kings 2:19-22. The water there was not good and the people asked Elias to heal it. He did and to this day the spring puts out fresh water.
Next we went to an archaeological dig site of ancient Jericho. On the way up there we ran into this peacock. It was just hanging out outside of the tourist police building.
Jericho is supposedly the oldest city in the world dating back to about 15000 BC. It is also the lowest city on the earth. It is approximately 850 feet below sea level!
This tower dates to 8000 BC and is the oldest man made structure that has ever been discovered.
While we sat overlooking the ancient site we of course took a moment to study the scriptures and talk about some of the events that took place in Jericho. Our field trips are more or less scheduled to coincide with our study of the Old Testament so it was fitting that last week we visited Egypt and talked about the Exodus and the children of Israel wandering in the desert for 40 years and this week we are talking about Jericho which is the next part of the story. The prophet Joshua led his people to the city and the conquered it after following a series of instructions from him as recounted in Joshua 6. It was a great lesson that if you humbly obey the words of the prophets you will be blessed. We were fortunate to have Josh in our group so we had him blow the horn as we imagined the walls of ancient Jericho tumbling to the ground.
From there we could see a Palestinian refugee camp. It started out just as tents but the people eventually started building permanent structures when they realized that they would be there for a while. The white building with blue trim is a U.N. school. An interesting fact that we learned about Palestinians in the West Bank is that the average number of children per family is 10.2!!! I was floored. That is an amazingly high number for an AVERAGE!!!
On our way out of the site there were a bunch of fruit stands set up and Brother Wilson bought all of us tangerines. They were sooo yummy! I know I say it all of the time but our professors are awesome! They really love us and take good care of us.Our last stop of the day was at the Quruntul Monastery. Quruntul is the Arabic word for temptation. I thought it was interesting that a Greek Orthodox Monastery would have an Arabic name. Anyway, it is called the temptation monastery because the mountain it is on is said to be the mountain where Jesus Christ was taken when he was being tempted by Satan before he began his ministry. The story can be found in Matthew 4. Jesus used scriptures to counter Satan and I took that as a powerful lesson. It is so important to know and understand the scriptures in order to overcome Satan.
Since we were visiting a monastery we also took some time to discuss monasteries and their purpose. They are a place for pietists to go in order to withdraw themselves from the world. It is an interesting concept and I learned another lesson thinking about it. While I don't have any plans of moving into a cave on a mountainside I do think it is admirable to separate yourself from the world in order to study the gospel. I need to take more time to seclude myself and truly ponder the gospel without any interruptions. I think I would learn a lot more if I did that. As a little side note we have monasteries to thank for the preservation of the Bible before the invention of the printing press. This is a picture of the monastery up on the mountain. And yes, we had to hike up there. I am getting tired of hiking all over the place. Hopefully we won't have to take another hike for a while.
This is me on the mountain overlooking the city. I definitely learned a ton in Jericho. It was a great trip!
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