Common Era?

Posted on November 10, 2009 by Jeff Block

Jesus Christ was the central figure in history. Everyone knows that time before his birth is marked with the label “BC” for “Before Christ”, and counts down to the year of his appearing on earth. “AD” stands for “After Death” and counts up since his birth. So it has been for 1700 years since Constantine standardized the Caesarean calendar.

For the first time this week, I’ve heard these eras referred to differently. Our tour guide has been referring to the era before Jesus’ birth as “BCE” or “Before Common Era” and the period after his birth as “CE” or “Common Era”. I tolerated it for a while, but the longer it goes on, the more it’s really starting to annoy me.

Cutoff (except for quickly posting these entries) from my routine abnormally high dependence on Internet connectivity, I am not sure where this came from or where it’s going. I imagine it’s a Jewish thing, and likely not terribly proliferated in the outside world. But there are dozens, hundreds of examples of this kind of post-Christian shift in the modern world.

Even if not with this specific example, in general, the world has gotten pretty seriously invested in the concept of attempting to eliminate Jesus Christ from the public arena. It’s sad and frustrating, on the one hand, that men are so invested in the (foolish, ridiculous, ultimately doomed-to-failure) attempt to diminish God’s glory as represented by the marks believing men have made on western civilization. But on the other hand, I welcome it. It means, first, that the end is drawing nearer. Second, it means that the church will be strengthened as persecution (the next phase) comes.

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Our Triumphal Entry to Jerusalem

Posted on November 10, 2009 by Jeff Block

I hope that isn’t a blasphemous title, But to listen to the music our driver played as we ascended the mountain up route 1, that’s exactly what it was. This is the route Jesus and all the other pilgrims from the north would have taken, at least three times a year to celebrate Passover, the Feast of the Tabernacle, and some other festival at roughly the same time as Pentecost.

I was stunned at how high the mountain was. I can’t even imagine making that trip on foot, with children and animals. It was obviously hard for the bus to make it up the hill, let alone the walking caravan. Not only that, but it had to have taken weeks to get from someplace like Nazareth to Jerusalem. And three times a year?! Amazing! Brings a whole new perspective to stories like Jesus’ staying behind in the temple to chat with the Pharisees at age 12 (see Luke 2). He would have had plenty of opportunities to do so; did I mention that they did this trip 3 times a year?! I don’t know about you, but my mom would be pretty hopping mad if she noticed at the end of the day (after descending the 5,000 ft mountain) that she had to climb back up over the next two days to find me.

But back to the triumphal entry of the green bus… The driver puts on the “O Jerusalem” song in not one but two versions, and cranks the volume way up. So my ears are bleeding while I watched the terrain get increasingly hilly, waiting with eager anticipation for us to come up over some hill and see a solid gold city nestled in the valley below us.

Instead, it took so long to get there from the moment they started playing the music that to say it was anti-climactic would be a gross understatement. By the time we did start to see signs that we were getting close to the city (you know, buildings instead of rocks), my attention had shifted completely from seeing the city to plotting the death of the bus’s sound system. But eventually, we were surrounded by city, sprawling out over rolling hills and rocky cliffs, on mountain tops and in valleys. The city struck me as absolutely massive, though not nearly as dense as I thought it’d be. There were way more 1-3 story buildings than I anticipated. I guess I was expecting densely packed skyscrapers nestled in a valley. Not so at all. In fact there wasn’t much glass and steal. More stucco and rock and brick. And every roof had the requisite solar heating cells and tank on it.

Between the blasts of “Hallelujah! Jerusalem!”, our guide did explain that getting jiggy on the road to Jerusalem was not a 21st century concept. Even in ancient times, pilgrims would sing songs of ascent as they made their way up the mountain. These are basically Psalms 120-134. Although I can’t imagine the Jews singing “Blessed is everyone who fears the Lord” or “Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord” in quite the same way we heard it this afternoon.

Another Psalm that came to mind during the ascent is Psalm 48:

Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised in the city of our God!
His holy mountain, beautiful in elevation is the joy of all the earth,
Mount Zion, in the far north, the city of the Great King.
Within her citadels God has made Himself known as a fortress.

These mountains give a whole new meaning to this psalm. This city and its temple were so amazing in ancient times. It’s actually still pretty sweet, but nothing like it was in the first temple period in terms of being marvelous to behold by the eyes of the day. And the God who dwelled for a time in the temple is more amazing still, preserving this city and this people for Himself. It was breathtaking more to be in this place that God has called special than it was to behold some aesthetic beauty of the city itself.

Once the music died down, we reported to the hotel, ate dinner (the OIL!), and settled in for the night. This hotel – the Ramada Renaissance – will be home base for us for the rest of our trip.

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Lunch at Ein Herod

Posted on November 10, 2009 by Jeff Block

We didn’t eat lunch until after 2PM. It was really late, and I had forgotten to bring meal bars with me for Jace (my roommate) and I. So, by the time we sat down for food, I was literally weak with hunger. We ate at a Kibutz which had a cafeteria style restaurant; I think attached to a school of some kind. By this time I was getting humus’d and olive oil’d out. When I went through the line, I only saw humus and really oily looking foods. I was quite discouraged until I saw the third station in the buffet — rice, potatoes, and vegetables. Of course, they all had olive oil on them, but it was better than the salads and the meats.

But at lunch I swore on my falafel that I wouldn’t forget the meal bars again.

After lunch, we embarked on a two hour or so trip down the main eastern road along the Jordan border to Jerusalem. This is the route that untold million have taken on their pilgrimages to the holy city. Of course, we drove while they walked. And on the way, we drove past the modern city of Jericho. Unfortunately, because it is controlled by the Muslims, our tour was unable to visit up close. So pictures from a distance had to suffice.

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Bet She’an National Park

Posted on November 10, 2009 by Jeff Block

Bet She'an

Located 30 minutes south of the southernmost tip of the Sea of Galilee, we stopped at Bet She’an as part of our pilgrimage to Jerusalem. This is the site of the largest archeological dig in Israel. It really was magnificent. Acres of ruins from the Byzantine era (a few hundred years after Jesus’ time). .

Millennia before that, however, Saul confronted the Philistines for the final time on Mount Gilboa just to the southwest of this Philistine stronghold. Saul had begun to build up a serious track record of sin against God, and the last straw (evidently) was when he consulted a witch at En-dor before going into battle with the Philistines (1 Samuel 28). Because of his sin, God handed the Israelites over to the Philistines and they slaughtered Saul, his three sons, and a large portion of the Israelite army. After the battle, the Philistines cut off the heads of Saul and his sons, and sent them to various Philistine cities/strongholds to encourage their troops. They then “fastened [Saul’s] body to the wall of Beth-shan” (1 Samuel 31:10b ESV), which today is called Bet She’an, which is the site we visited.

While there, our tour guide taught us about the Roman architectural pattern for “main streets”, which is still in use today in the US and other parts of the world. The Romans would always create two main roads in any city: the Cardo Maximus, which formed a straight line down the middle of the city from north to south, and the Decumanus Maximus, which similarly ran between east and west. A row of shops under a covered colonnade typically ran down either side of these main streets to form the Roman equivalent of the modern “Main Street”. Then, a grid system of Cardo and Decumanus roads are then typically built radiating out from these main roads, similar to the way the roads align in a grid from Michigan Ave (the Cardo Maximus) and Madison Ave (the Decumanus Maximus) in Chicago.

In addition to the maximus roads and the mall (the covered colonnades along the Cardo Maximus), there was also a large Roman bath house, stables, a theater, and an amphitheater. In the distance, at the other end of the Cardo Maximus is a Biblical tel, into which several layers of civilization have been stacked to create a rather large mound. Excavation of this tel is ongoing.

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Yardenit (Baptismal Site on the Jordan River)

Posted on November 10, 2009 by Jeff Block

Baptism in the Jordan River

One unbelievable opportunity presented to everyone on the tour was to be baptized in the Jordan River. Yardenit, just south of the Sea of Galilee where the Jordan exits to head south to the Dead Sea, is a place dedicated to the business (and it really is a business) of getting Holy Land tourists baptized. This is not where Jesus was baptized (there was originally some confusion about this). That’s located many miles down river above the Dead Sea near Jericho. But that’s not really the important part.

A number of our group had not yet been baptized as adults, so for them this was a pivotal moment of professing their faith in Christ publicly. Most people had been baptized, and just wanted to recommit themselves to Jesus and to have the experience of being baptized in the Jordan.

When they presented the opportunity on the boat on the Sea of Galilee the night before, it seemed that there were more people desiring to be baptized than there would be time to baptize. Plus, the logistics of the whole thing were a bit complicated. So, my roommate Jace and I decided to opt out so that those who really wanted to do it could get it done. Truthfully, I didn’t have a desire to smell like fish anyway.

John and Mary asked me to take pictures of them, and handed me their Digital SLR (very nice!). I had fun being their cameraman, as well as taking several pictures of James, Lindsay and Abby, because Kathy MacDonald (James’ wife) asked me to. It was also very powerful to just participate in the worship and watch so many be baptized too. And as much as I’m not a “God is in this place more than that place” person, there was something powerful about all this taking place in the Jordan River. These truly are special places.

One of the things that frustrated me about the place is that there were shops and snack bars galore, all fairly pricy and all selling ridiculous things like bottles of “holy water” scooped out of the Jordan in little plastic vials. Plus, there were (the equivalent of) street vendors approaching me about buying things, and people haggling in the gift shop on prices. I just had that “overturn the tables of the money changes” feeling again. I did laugh when some attendant handed me a discount coupon on the way in. My crack (since they also charge to be baptized) was to ask if this mean that I could get a discount on the cost of baptizm. Ugh!

So overall very interesting. I was a sideline participant, but I still greatly valued the experience. And I was happy to praise God with those who proclaimed publicly a faith and trust in Jesus.

Rock on!

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Pumping Water to Jordan

Posted on November 10, 2009 by Jeff Block

Water Pipes

As we prepared to leave the Tiberias area, driving away from the Sea of Galilee, I pointed out to our tour guide a large pipe running above ground along the side of the road. Sections of the pipe seemed under construction, and others seemed fully functional. I ask what the pipe was for.

Our tour guide explained that Israel has a fairly good relationship with Jordan. Israel has signed a treaty with Jordan to provide water for them for irrigation. There are salty springs to the north of the Sea of Galilee. Israel doesn’t want this water running into the Sea of Galilee, and they’ve discovered that if they dilute this water, it can still be used to irrigate plants native to the Negev region – the dessert to the south. Jordan desperately needs this water. So, Israel mixes the water from these springs with recycled water from the sewer system in cities like Tiberias, and pumps 150 million cubic feet of water (per some time period that he didn’t specify; I imagine “per year”) to Jordan for irrigation.

At another point, earlier in the week, we saw a large hill inside which was the pump station for this waterway. Here’s a picture, though all you’re seeing is the electrical station on the outside of the hill. Still, I think this whole thing is fascinating.

Pump Station

What I didn’t think to ask – either time – is what Israel gets in return for this clearly vital service.

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