Korazin

^{All 3 towns are mentioned here, but not very positive}

“Woe to you, Korazin! Woe to you, Beit-Tzaidah! For if the miracles done in you had been done in Tzor and Tzidon, they would long ago have put on sackcloth and ashes as evidence that they had changed their ways.  But at the Judgment it will be more bearable for Tzor and Tzidon than for you!

 “And you, K’far-Nachum, will you be exalted to heaven? No, you will be brought down to Sh’ol!

^{We are like these towns, grown up with the word}

^{if we don't live it this is our warning}

 Another black basalt town

 The only surviving covered Mikvah

Mikvah is what you do to prepare

like going to synagogue

maybe in our experience prepare for the Lord's supper

 Mikvah is not really in our church experience though

It is not baptism

It is re-dedication of your head, heart, hands and feet

 The Essenes where Mihvah crazy, they had them everywhere

 but Mikvaot are always found when there is a synagogue nearby

 another outside sign of synagogue are uneven steps

so you have to be careful and cannot " run up to God"

 another outside sign is a school, 

here it is behind Marc but looked quite messy

Inside signs of syngogue are:

Behma:

Chief seats:

Basilica design roof:

Moses seat:

 and a torah closet (didn't take a picture of it)

 Next we walked into this complex

It's an insula, a family "household"

250 to 300 people lived in this insula

now a days 23% of people live in isolation, used to be 10%

we all need community, we need insula

 here we stand in the courtyard

looking down on the original floor

 We learned about marriage practises

the whole family would give their loving input

and the fathers would negotiate, the son would come home

and build a room onto the family insula

“Don’t let yourselves be disturbed. Trust in God and trust in me.  In my Father’s house are many places to live. If there weren’t, I would have told you; because I am going there to prepare a place for you.  Since I am going and preparing a place for you, I will return to take you with me; so that where I am, you may be also. 

if the room was ready (father decides) 

the groom would go to the village to marry his bride

 “The Kingdom of Heaven at that time will be like ten bridesmaids who took their lamps and went out to meet the groom.  Five of them were foolish and five were sensible.  The foolish ones took lamps with them but no oil,  whereas the others took flasks of oil with their lamps.  Now the bridegroom was late, so they all went to sleep.  It was the middle of the night when the cry rang out, ‘The bridegroom is here! Go out to meet him!’

they get married (consummate the marriage)

the best man announces when they are married

for one year they spent time together in their room

their sole purpose is "make each other happy"  

^{Maybe that is why the bible says "to the Jew first"}

^{they know the pictures}

 For I am not ashamed of the Good News, since it is God’s powerful means of bringing salvation to everyone who keeps on trusting, to the Jew especially, but equally to the Gentile. 

 

Religious Jews

Sea of Galilee, beautiful in the morning

Typical for Galilee is black basalt, found everywhere

 we practiced:

Religious Jews - triangle

Zealots - Gamla

Pagans - Decapolis 

Herodians - Tiberias

Today is the day of the Religious Jews

The cities of the triangle are:

Capernaum, Korazin & Bethsaida

first up ins Capernaum

 ancient city of the mass fabrication of 

Olive Crusher and Olive Press

 we sat under trees

for a faith lesson Rabbi & Disciple

 only Rabbi's with S'mikah or authority had disciples

you could get s'mikah from 2 other Rabbies who had it

When Yeshua had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at the way he taught,  for he was not instructing them like their Torah-teachers but as one who had authority himself.

They entered K’far-Nachum, and on Shabbat Yeshua went into the synagogue and began teaching.  They were amazed at the way he taught, for he did not instruct them like the Torah-teachers but as one who had authority himself.

where did Jesus get his s'mikah?

He went into the Temple area; and as he was teaching, the head cohanim and the elders of the people approached him and demanded, “What s’mikhah do you have that authorizes you to do these things? And who gave you this s’mikhah?” Yeshua answered, “I too will ask you a question. If you answer it, then I will tell you by what s’mikhah I do these things.  The immersion of Yochanan — where did it come from? From Heaven or from a human source?” They discussed it among themselves: “If we say, ‘From Heaven,’ he will say, ‘Then why didn’t you believe him?’ But if we say, ‘From a human source,’ we are afraid of the people, for they all regard Yochanan as a prophet.”  So they answered Yeshua, “We don’t know.” And he replied, “Then I won’t tell you by what s’mikhah I do these things.

 Capernaum was Jesus' home town

the largest synagogue school ever found is in Capernaum

Jesus lived on the bible belt

Jewish education:

4-5 year old boys began to study Torah

12-15 year old study HafTorah

at 15 the best of the best became disciples

it was a great honor like today play in NFL of NHL if they got excepted

most boys did not and started working in the family trade

^{Girls started with learning Deuteronomy and Psalms}

 Biblical evidence of old disciples is not available

much more likely the disciples were teenagers

what was radical was that Jesus went out and called disciples

He did not go for "the best of the best"

but for those who had a passion

and He had a Zealot and a Tax collector as disciples

He likely expected them to get along

this is very encouraging for us, we can be His disciples

we don't have to be super students

but He is looking for a willingness to follow

to be "just like the Rabbi"

 Likely all but Peter were under 20 years old

temple tax was only paid by boys over the age of 20

only Jesus and Peter had to pay

there are many more clues:

When disciples have learned enough and are "like the Rabbi"

He will tell ; "Go and make disciples"

 Capernaum is a town of Insula or households

where people live together in family units

often practicing a family trade

It was in the religious triangle that Jesus taught

expecting the people to know the word inside and out

we often miss a lot of the clues because

 we don't know the bible as good as we should

 We, went on to Bethsaida

where some of the men starting with the oldest

recited or read the "sermon on the mount"

 We had this beautiful view of the sea of Galilee

 while we listened to Jesus' words

 Bethsaida (house of Fisherman)

some of the disciples came from this town

 Philip was from Beit-Tzaidah, the town where Andrew and Kefa (Peter) lived

It is not sure if this is the exact site, but fishing equipment was found

I didn't take many pictures here

It kind of looks messy with piles of black basalt 

Bus on gravel roads

 our bus got off the paved roads

onto a gravel road

 The sides of the road went straight down

Marjorie, my seat mate was not enjoying this

she was hanging over to the middle of the bus

(as if that would save her from falling off the edge)

 Mike who was sitting on the other side of me took a picture

showed it to our busdriver

"apprehension in colour"

What we went to see here I'll post later 

when it fits better in the story

We arrived at NOF GINOSAR KIBBUTZ

walked right away to the sea of Galilee and took a few pictures

very different from the desert

much more green, also much higher temperatures then I anticipated 

Essenes

our last desert day, and only desert for the first part

We were in Essene country

The Essenes are priests but see them as rebel Saducees

They actually tried to live according to the text:

A voice cries out:

“Clear a road through the desert for Adonai!
Level a highway in the ‘Aravah for our God!

Live obediently in the desert, memorize the text, copy the text

true change - Shuva = repentance

These are the dead scroll people

40.000 fragments only 10-15% translated 

most copied books: Deuteronomy, Leviticus, Isaiah, Psalms

Jesus quotes most often Deuteronomy, then Leviticus, Isaiah Psalms

coincidence? even the sermon on the mount is Essene style

Also John the Baptist shows up very close to this place
and calls the people to Shuva: Repent!
He even sounds Essene 

The Essenes practiced Mikvah, at different times of the day

cover head, heart, hand and feet with water to rededicate

to be obedient

But there is a huge difference between Jesus and the Essenes

they hated Gentiles, wicked and sinners

Jesus included them

The Son of Man came, eating freely and drinking wine — so they say, ‘Aha! A glutton and a drunkard! A friend of tax-collectors and sinners!’ Well, the proof of wisdom is in the actions it produces.”

For the same reason John the Baptist was likely not Essene either

but on many issues they sound the same

Essene practiced baptism

they had a communal meal

missions was important

They dug tunnels through very hard rock to get living water to this place

Todd told us about living with the line:

think of an issue like premarital sex as a line

you can approach it in different ways.

some will try to see how close they can get to the line without crossing

or: stay very far away from the line, this is the Essene way

Especially young people need to see their mentors live as Essenes

everyone who lives in Shephelah needs Essenes in their lives
people who dare to live their faith, even if is costs them,
who stay away from temptations try to live a righteous life

Where are the Essenes of today? are there any?

people that emerge themselves in the text

who live and breath the text

the Essenes hid their scrolls in caves like this one:

We had a choice to go up all the way or go down and explore Qumran

I went up but when it looked like an endless

"one more hill"

I went down with some of the others.

Mainly because the day before I'd run into a "wall"

on hindsight, the morning devos where about regret

regret for not giving it your all

wow, these devotions sure were made for me

I did regret not giving this extra push

half of our group made it all the way up

Hike Dudim Cave

 Just to show how we hiked

 hugging the side on a mountain

 in ancient times they would call this a road

Road Sign

 helping each other

King David hid in one of these caves 

when he was running away from King Saul

 From there David went up and lived in the strongholds of ‘Ein-Gedi

we reviewed the story that David 

cut the corner from Saul's robe 

 along the way was a cave, and Sha’ul went inside to relieve himself. It happened that David and his men were sitting in the recesses at the back of the cave

 Then David stole over unobserved and cut off the corner of Sha’ul’s cloak

Boukje & Laurens

 The teaching about the corner of the robe

the cutting off of the tzittzit

and the wings of protection

How precious, God, is your grace!
People take refuge in the shadow of your wings,

and healing in his wings

 But to you who fear my name,
the sun of righteousness will rise
with healing in its wings;

 back for lunch

 this was very tiring, waiting for our turn to go down

 another hike, another wadi, same general area

 cooling our heads

we were asked to think about 

"what drives you"

I had to say that currently Marc was a big drive

I want to be a good example for him

to follow and to guide

maybe that's why it was easy for me to get my feet wet

 on this hike I ran in a wall

Lori gave me electrolytes and I went on again

this was a day of difficult hikes

At the end of the hike was a waterfall

 we were supposed to go and stand under it, like Andy here

 Lori coached Margaret to go under

I needed coaching too, I was totally done

Jo

Marc was already dry again

He walked back with me as support
he carried my camera 

 one more stop at the En Gedi synagogue

 thankfully, it was very close to the bus

I think we hiked all the hikes on this map

at least it felled like it.

Morning Devos was "give it your all"

I guess I did

We aired our our shoes on the ridge outside our hotel room

 I liked the elevators

The Daniel, tomorrow a traveling day