June 15, Sunday - Drop that goat

So it is the end of Monday when I’m getting the chance to describe Sunday.  All things considered that is not too bad.  Sunday involved a little more traveling from spot to spot so there were just 3 biblical sites today.  First on the list was Gamla.

It was home to a large group of Zeolots.  These were a sect of the Jewish people who refused to pay Roman taxes and wanted to force the Romans out of Israel.  One of Jesus’ disciples was a Zeolot – Simon.  He would have found it difficult to accept Jesus’ message to love your enemy and turn the other cheek.

As we head for the top

Gamla is often called the Masada of the North because it was both a geographically protected city (on top of a hill surrounded by valley on all sides, but was also eventually overrun by Roman soldiers (60,000 soldiers vs 15,000 Jews) and all the zealots here were killed. 

Walls around Gamla

Our hike took us down a steep path and then up again into the city past the place where the Romans breached the city walls. 

Gamla Synagogue

Within the city is one of the oldest synagogues ever uncovered.  It is very likely that Jesus and his disciples would have visited here considering it is close to other areas and especially if one of the disciples were a zealot
.  We sat in the ruins of the synagogue and discussed the passion the zealots had for God and the main problem was their use of violence against non-Jews.

Looking back to hill we started from

The picture to the right is looking back to where we started (top of the hill).  Notice the steep rocks about 1/2 way up.  These were stair after stair of rock steps cut in the rock.  We have become quite the group of Stair Masters!

The narrow road

John is always looking for word-pictures for us to use to help remember the things we study and discuss.  He used this path within Gamla as the 'Narrow Road' which leads to God.  In a few days we would get the word-picture for the Wide Road.

Israeli outpost on Syrian boarder 

From Gamla we drove on to Caesarea Phillipi.  On the way there we passed through the Golan Heights area and there are still burned out tanks and bunkers from the six-day war.  We stopped at a Druid village to buy fresh cherries (cherry season here too). 

Spring water from Mt Hurmon

Niche in Rock Face

Ceasarea Phillipi was known as a city of idol worship and the gates of hell were thought to have been in the great spring that flowed from the caves (water often signified the devil to the Jews).  There was a temple here to the Greek god Pan.  Jesus brought his disciples here just before he headed to Jerusalem to die.  It was here that he proclaimed Peter the rock upon which the church would be built.  We talked about what things we might be worshiping other than God. 

Cave where spring originated

This was the cave which had the temple to Pan built over it.  Water flowed from this cave until an earthquake changed the passageways through the rock and the spring shifted away from here.

Temple at Omrit

The final site was Omrit.  They only recently found this site and believe it is the third temple built by Herod to honor Caesar Augustus.  At first archeologists were confused as to why a temple would be built so far away from any communities.  Then they discovered that the road to Damascus ran past here – putting this on one of the main thoroughfares in the country.   People would pay ‘tribute’ (taxes) to Caesar as they passed by. 

Inner and outer walls

The temple was rebuilt at least once and you can see the inner and outer perimeters in the pictures.  We discussed Jesus’ comments on whether it was lawful to pay tax to Caesar.  His response was to say to give to Caesar what is Caesar’s (his picture was on the coin used to pay the tax) but give to God what is God’s.  We are God’s and we should live our lives with that in mind.  We also discussed Paul’s conversion on the road to Demascus (he probably passed by this way several times).

Road to Damascus (not excavated yet)

 Today’s hiking totaled only 3 ¼ miles but that brings our total to 29 miles for the trip.  The problem for anyone who was hoping to loose weight on this trip is that they do a good job of feeding us.

PS: ask the person you know here to explain the goat reference in the title. :-)

NOTE: Text and pictures for this day are complete.