Friday

Well, I'm still having some issues mastering this Blogger control panel. Hopefully I'll be able to figure out how to go back and clean up some of the previous posts. Tonight Sabbath (Shabbat) has begun. The town we are staying in, Tiberius, has almost completely shut down. The hotel has filled up with numerous Jews who we have been told check into hotels so as not to have to do all the pre-cooking required for Sabbath and to have everything they need accessible to them without having to break any of the Sabbath laws. (Currently there is some loud singing happening down the hallway. I don’t know what they are singing but they are having a good time.) The internet storefront I was using has closed for Shabboth, so I've bought some in-room internet access to be in contact.

We started the day with a trip to Cana – the site of Jesus’ first miracle in turning water into wine at a wedding. A reaffirmation of marriage vows was performed for all interested. This angel is on the outside of the church.

We drove by Jonah’s tomb and could only see it from a distance as a Mosque has been built over the site.


Next stop was Tzipori or Zippori or Sepphoris (it turns out that there are numerous ways to spell almost every town’s name over here – Hebrew, Arabic, and English) where we saw the ruins of a Galilean Village. It was a Roman occupied city and had “the four things always built by the Romans in their towns” (said the tour guide) a theater, an amphitheater, a gymnasium, and a hippodrome (race track). Extensive archaeological work has been done there, and it looked like some was still going on. The picture is part of a mosaic on the floor of a wealthy Roman citizen and was referred today as “The Mona Lisa of the Middle East.”

It turns out they also have some very familiar plant life over here.

Nazareth, our next destination, has become a major (possible the largest) Arab city in Israel. Nazareth during Jesus’ time was thought to have about 250 families in it. I’ve been surprised at how small the towns were thought to be and how close together they were. We saw, but didn’t stop at, Mary’s Well which was the only source of water for Nazareth during Jesus’ time. The Church of the Annunciation, pictured, is the non-Orthodox’s choice for where the angel spoke to Mary about becoming Jesus’ mother. The Orthodox church has another option. The local Muslim community seemed to be protesting to get a large Mosque built adjacent to the church, but the word is that local officials are not cooperating because it might hurt income from tourists.

We ended the day at Mount Tabor which was the site of Jesus’ transfiguration where the acoustics were awesome and Jim’s devotional was exceptional. The image I’m showing was taken inside of the church that was built in honor of the event and pictures Moses and Elijah with Jesus. Look it up – Matthew 17:1-8. (Also see Judges 4:1-22 for a less talked about bible story involving Mount Tabor and tent stakes.)








This is my favorite picture of the day. I was trying to take a picture of the artist’s rendering of the synagogue at Zippori and caught Jim S. in as well. No, he wasn’t posing.