Top: Tabgha Middle: Jordan River Bottom: BethsaidaHmmm, instead of the next night, I’m getting back to the blog five days later. Things have been a whirl, but a very good one.
I ended the last blog entry with the Mohr Mazda searching for a police station in Tiberias. Guess what? We found it on the first try! It looked like a war zone, with barred fences and gates all around topped with barbed wire and razor wire. We found a place to park, and headed for the main door. Susannah thought it was a pretty intimidating place, and asked if she could hold my hand. She sort of clung to me in a vice grip. An officer in uniform stood at the top of the steps, and watched us approach at our tentative saunter. As we got close, he turned and went inside and disappeared. I’m sure he didn’t want to deal with this trio of American tourists at 8 o’clock at night!
So, Randy went into the station first. I followed a few seconds later, dragging the leg that a nine-year-old had lashed herself to in a barnacle cling. Once we got the language thing figured out, with one officer able to speak fairly good English, things started to look promising. Susannah relaxed enough to develop a crush on one of the police officers. And, my goodness, this would be a single woman’s paradise! Enough said.
I was asked to fill out a “Notice of Loss” form. That sounds easy, if the form is in English. This one was in Hebrew, as should be expected. I went through three forms before I filled one out correctly. The person who must have been the desk sergeant was extremely patient with me, and I much appreciated that. I was pretty preoccupied with my paper shuffling, and I knew things sounded noisy and animated around me, but I was focused on the Hebrew form to fill out. Later, Randy commented on the way guns were being “tossed around” casually. Okay. Also, one of the officers worked with Randy and was kind enough to program the telephone number for the US Embassy into our cell phone. In the meantime, Susannah was watching some security monitors nearby, and actually saw a robbery in progress! Film at Eleven!!
Anyway, with an actual police report in hand, things have fallen into place quite well with the whole stolen purse dilemma. Except for the embassy escapade. Randy called the embassy in Haifa the next day, and spoke to a woman with an Israeli accent. She told him that we would need to go to the embassy office in Tel Aviv, and that “it is best to go in the morning.” Sounds good. Randy asked her for directions to the Tel Aviv embassy. She answered, “Where are you now?” Randy said, “Near Tiberias.” You’ll love her response. “Ask someone there.”
So we drove down to Tel Aviv the next day, and arrived about 12:30, only to be told that the office we needed to see was closed for the day. Apparently it closes at 11:00! Tel Aviv is about a two and a half hour drive one way from where we are staying, so that ate up a lot of the day. We had to go back the next day. So we did, and once we had gone through the required lines and security checks, we were helped by an American man about our age, who is Presbyterian! It was a Presbyterian who helped us clear the final hurdles of the whole passport thing, and our replacements will be mailed to us in about three weeks to the kibbutz down by Yotvata.
Whew! As we drove “home,” we stopped at the site of Megiddo, had lunch, toured the site, and then drove on to Mount Tabor and drove to the top of it. More later on all that. Now, I will tell you about some of the very exciting places we have been able to visit, in roughly the order in which we have seen them. The whole stolen purse thing ate up a lot of our time and energy, but at the same time, it was all an interesting experience!
Tabgha
This is a shrine site just up the road from us. It commemorates the miracle of the Feeding of the 5,000 with the five loaves and two fish. It has a very pleasant outer courtyard with vibrant purple and scarlet bougainvillea vines surrounding it, then an inner courtyard with a fish pool, and then a very prayerful and beautiful sanctuary. It is located on the side of the old “Via Maris,” or “The Way of the Sea,” an important highway for trade and communication in ancient times. As a matter of fact, part of the sacristy at the front of the church lies across the old roadbed of the Via Maris.
The centerpiece of the church is the top of a large rock that protrudes out of the old mosaic floor right under the altar. It is said that Christians from Capernaum before 350 AD venerated this rock as the altar/table that Jesus used when he broke the loaves and fishes into pieces to feed the 5,000. Whether or not there is any historical core to the tradition, it is still a wonderful place to pause and ponder how our small offerings placed in the hands of Christ can bring blessing beyond imagination. Being as it is right on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee and close to the site of Capernaum, it cannot be far from the place of the original event.
A pilgrims’ shrine/chapel was built here in the fourth century, and it also highlighted the rock under its altar. There are some windows built into the floor of the current church building that show the foundation stones of this early church. As the years went by, this church fell into disrepair. The Crusaders then built a church on top of this early one, expanding its size and reorienting its alignment. It had exquisite mosaic floors with many varieties of birds and flowers. It has some lotus flowers in it, which are not native to this area, but to the Nile Valley. It is assumed that the artist was Egyptian. This Crusader church also fell into disrepair, but the mosaic floors were repaired in 1936, and the present church building was built upon the Crusader church foundations. It was dedicated in 1982.
On our way out of this shrine, we stopped at a little kiosk by the parking lot. It was HOT, and we needed some ice cream. I had one of the best lemon Popsicles ever!
We drove on down the road to Capernaum, the town where Jesus lived as an adult. The site had just closed, but, quite honestly, I’ve been there before, and the Franciscans who have custodianship of it really have not displayed or interpreted it well. We weren’t crying with disappointment that it was closed.
On down the road we drove, to see the Jordan River as it enters the Sea of Galilee. It looks muddy, but I don’t know about cold (like the old spiritual). Since we were close to the recently discovered site of Bethsaida, I thought it would be neat to see if there is anything open to the public to see. I was not to be disappointed!
Bethsaida
The site of Bethsaida has been unknown for 1700 years. It is the town where Jesus was headed with his disciples before the 5,000 were fed (Luke 9). John 1:44 also tells us that Bethsaida was the home of Philip, Andrew, and Peter. This is where Jesus cured a blind man (Mark 8:22 ff.), and where he sent his disciples when he walked on the water (Mark 6:45 ff.). It is one of three cities to be cursed by Jesus in Matthew 11 and in Luke 10.
Bethsaida was quite possibly the capital city of the small kingdom of Geshur in the time before Christ. Geshur is first mentioned as a city-state in the el-Amarna letters, found in Egypt, and containing a treasure trove of diplomatic correspondence between two pharaohs, Akhenaten and his father, Amenophis III, around 1352 BC. By the time of the tenth century BC, it is thought that Bethsaida/Geshur allied with King David and his dynasty. Joshua 13:13 mentions that the Israelites could not displace the Geshurites. It also mentions two Geshurite kings by name, Amihud and his son Talmai in 2 Samuel 13:37. We also learn that King David married King Talmai’s daughter Maachah (2 Samuel 3:3), probably to cement relations between the two kingdoms. It was Maachah’s son Absalom that tried to overthrow his father David, after murdering his half-brother Amnon. Absalom fled to his mother’s land of Geshur, and his story becomes quite tragic. Absalom did have a daughter, named Maachah after her grandmother, and this woman became the wife of Rehoboam, the son of Solomon who became king of Judah. Maachah is said to have been the favorite wife of Rehoboam (2 Chronicles 11:21). There are remains of a fortification wall around the city, built to protect it from the battering rams of the Assyrians. It is almost
This is all to say that Bethsaida played a role in the Judeo-Christian history long before we hear of it as a fishing village in the time of Jesus. So, if it was supposed to be a fishing village, remnants of it should be along the shore of the sea, right? But no site for Bethsaida could be found for centuries. It disappeared 1700 years ago. Pilgrims traveling to the Holy Land through the centuries have left shrines and offerings on the approximate stretch of shoreline where Bethsaida should be, but there has not been a town site there.
Then, in 1987, excavations began at a site referred to as “et-Tell,” which is Arabic for “the Mound.” It is located about one and a half miles from the shoreline of the Sea of Galilee. Now, what is a fishing village doing so far from the sea? Well, over time, the course of the Jordan River changed, and the shore of the Sea of Galilee changed, and, in addition to that, a major earthquake in 363 AD was probably the cataclysmic event that brought a landslide of rocks, gravel, and soil across the plain on which et-Tell stands, cutting the city off from the shore of the sea. The fishing village was literally left high and dry.
Well, I hoped to see something of this recent excavation, since we were in the neighborhood anyway. So I was thrilled when we came upon signs to the site! The site of Bethsaida is combined with a “Jordan River Park,” where many people go river rafting and fishing and camping.
As we approached the gate for the site/park, it looked closed. The gates were down, and there did not appear to be anyone in the gatehouse. Even so, we approached the gate, and found a young Israeli woman on duty. She proved to be yet another eternally flowing Israeli fount of information.
The woman was leaning back in her chair, and looked very disinterested in us. Randy said, “What are your hours?”
“We are always open.”
Randy: pause. “What do we have to do to get in?”
Woman: “You have to pay.”
Randy: another pause. “How much do we have to pay?”
Woman: “Fifty shekels.”
So, the money was given, the gate was lifted, and off we went.
Bethsaida is a wonderful site. It is well interpreted, and there are places to sit in shade that take advantage of the beautiful view all the way south down the Sea of Galilee. There are also views from the river park from which one can see remnants of what was once the very impressive city wall of Bethsaida/Geshur.
Well, I need to stop. We are having an amazing and wonderful time! Watermelon has just come in to season, and it is sweet and wonderful. (Randy: her stack of watermelon slices at breakfast is a sight to see!) I’m not going to say when I will log on to the blog next, since I was pretty far off the last time. However, there is much to tell about Megiddo, Mt. Tabor, Hazor, Corazim, and more. We hope to connect with the Sindyanna folks in Nazareth soon, as well as Nora Kort in Jerusalem. There’s lots to do, and time is going fast! Susannah is becoming quite a fixture at the kibbutz swimming pool, having found part of the lifeguard’s goggles this afternoon. A bunch of folks had been combing over the bottom of the pool to find it, and Susannah found it on the first try. They all cheered for her, and made her day. She will miss her new friends when we head south next Wednesday.
I hope all of you are doing well.
Shalom/Salaam,
Mary, Randy, and Susannah
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