Today is what I call a perfect day.
We started out the day Qumran, which is a city that the Essene people used as a spiritual getaway, near the shores of the Dead Sea. Some bedoin boys were exploring in 1946 and throwing rocks into caves until they heard shattering of pottery. These boys found the cave that held the Dead Sea Scrolls. There are a series of 11 caves that held these scrolls. One being the book of Isaiah and were 4 more discovered, being the oldest record of every book of the bible except Ester. I saw the actual copies of these in the Israeli Museum a couple weeks ago.
What they found the scrolls in.
I just love this. and them. Sums up how everyone was feeling =)
This actual place of the remains have no living quarters. People lived in the surrounding complex in tents, huts or over 200 caves in the area. They found over a thousand plates, five fireplaces for cooking, flour mills, a pottery workshop, cattle pens, and rooms for feasting and learning. The majority of the community were unmarried men when they found the cemetery with very few women and children.
While walking through the town we saw so many Mikvehs, which are ritual cleansing pools. Because of these some people believed that John the Baptist was there, but there is no evidence to support it. I thought this was interesting in my professors book, " The people of the Dead Sea Scrolls have been of special interest to some Latter-d-ay Saints. The Qumran leadership consisted of three priests and twelve laymen, as compared to the LDS first Presidency and Council of the Twelve.... Such similarities, however, are largely superficial. The esseenes were very different form the early Christians, and thus from Latter-day Saints. They didn't proselyte, marriage was not a priority, their Sabbath laws were more extreme than even the Pharisees, they rendered no care to the poor or the handicapped, and were taught to hate their enemies. There is no indication that the people of Qumran had anything to do with jesus Christ or his early Church." They were the "sons of light" and were told to love sons of light, but hate "sons of darkness."
Eatin in the mess hall!
The weather was crazy yesterday! Our teachers said they had never been to the Dead Sea area when it was so chilly. The dead sea area gets 2 inches of rain a year, and we experienced the cold and a little bit of rain later! This was the first time we've actually been chilly, and all the girls gathered in groups to get warm, but it actually got me in the mood for Christmas season!
Masada was next... wow. The hebrew word means "fortress" which is the name of a fortress of Herod the Great. This place was made famous by 960 Jewish zealots that held out against the Roman Tenth Legion in AD 73. There are remains of 2 large palaces, three smaller ones, administrative buildings, Roman style baths, storerooms, synagogue, water system, and still has some of the original painting. They would have been gorgeous in their day!
That HUGE mound over there? Yeah, Thats it!
View from the bottom of the tram
Isn't our world GORGEOUS?!
Some people did the hike up. Thank you Brother Jackson for not making us.
Herods fortress!
Actual remaining paints from Herods time!
Oh just some kids we found...
Bath houses!
i want to take a bath in that!... okay maybe not.
The Jewish historian Josephus recorded the history of Masada. These 960 Zealots were stuck on top of this herodian trying to keep the Romans from destroying one more Jewish city. The Romans build a massive siege ramp of 300 ft tall up the to mountain by means of Jewish slaves taking them seven months to complete the task. When they reached the wall they used a 90 foot high armored siege tower with a battering ram and pushed it up the hill. They couldn't get through the wall because of a wood wall the Zealots placed. The romans lit the wood on fire and waited until morning. The leader of the Zealots Elazar Ben Yair convinced his followers to take their own lives rather to be captured at dawn by more than 10,000 Romans. The males of the families killed each member of their family then lots were drawn for the ten men who were to kill the remaining. Before dawn one of the ten was chosen to kill the other nine, then take his own life.
This is the room the lots that the men drew who was to kill every other man were found in here.
Actual columns from Herods time
Scary!
Church, Aust and I
This sight was the most blustery I've seen it in Israel. We're waaaaay up high on a mountain (still below sea level) and the winds blew like crazy. We were all caked in a fine layer of dust, then it began to rain. This was such a big deal because this place only gets 2 inches of rain PER YEAR. We were there for rain! Then a gorgeous rainbow appeared out of no where. The colors were so vivid and magical against the red rock over looking the valleys that were hundreds of meters below. We met a bunch of Jewish high school children, and got a bunch of pictures with them. Lastly hoped back on the tram taking us to the museum hundreds of feet below.
The siege ramp that took months and months to build
"The Zealots burned their supply of food and weapons, leaving only enough to convince the Romans that it was not the threat of siege and starvation that caused them to take their own lives, but their unwillingness to accept defeat, slavery and death at the hands of their enemies" This experience was so humbling and thought provoking placing myself in their position. What would YOU do if you had the decision to make to stay living and your family sold for prostitution and slavery, or death and never have to suffer such long term pain?
Thats the dead sea in the back ground!
The biggest Mikvah, ritual bath, that we saw!
Headin down to a cistern!
Tryin not to get blown away... I was a tiny bit worried...really.
The bus ride between Masada and Ein Gedi was a blast. I'm rooming with an incredible girl from here named Katie Backuss next semester. She has such a cute personality, and we laugh at everything. I'm afraid for my sleeps sake, but we'll have a blast losing it!
Ein Gedi Nature Reserve was next. What a gorgeous place! It reminded me of stewart falls except the one huge fall dispersed throughout 15 little ones... Okay maybe it was just a whole lot of water falls, but it was so fun to hike up there!
The Megans =D
FINALLY.....Drum roll please?? THE DEAD SEA!!! Holy moly. You'll never experience anything like it! I think the only way to explain it is you feel like you're walking on the moon. Because not many of us have done it, it's hard to relate, but that's what it would feel like! I have to say I booked all the way from the bus down the ramp, down some switch backs almost running into people multiple times just to say I was in the Dead Sea FIRST. Then I decided since Cherysh and I were racing we'd get in at the same time. I'm so nice, huh? (bahahah) So, when you put your legs in, its a weird sensation.. nothing immediately happens, but then you get in farther and just sit down, like you're in a chair and you just bob! You bob without doing anything. We went waaay out and just bobbed! We tasted the salt on our fingers and my tongue literally stung. It is SO salty.
Some cool facts about the Dead Sea:
- Its 75 miles long and 25 miles wide
- It shrinks 3 feet per year because of the evaporation
- 6 million tons of water evaporate everyday
- 90% of the Jordan river that feeds into it is now used for irrigation and watering for the surrounding cities
- There is no exit from the Sea
- A regular ocean as 3.5 % salt, The Dead Sea has 30% salt- WHOA!
The famous "healing" Dead Sea Mud. Healing? Whatever it reeked to high heaven. Yuck.
Behind Meg and i... that canyon used to be the main high way in ancient times
Did you know it was really salty? Cause it is. From all this salt you couldn't be in it for too long because any little cut started stingin' super bad. We tried the famous Dead Sea Mud... Gosh, why is it so worked up? It reeks. Smells like some serious poop. This was definitely an experience I won't forget. I loved every second, and i'd love to come back there one day. Not with little kids though. They don't understand that they have to keep their head above water, and some poor little Israeli kids couldn't stop crying because their eyes hurt so darn bad. If you every have the change, GO. Without a doubt. I loved that place.
We came home to the Christmas fireside... It's cold, it's christmas. It feels real now. Every present i've bought for someone has meant something to me. This Christmas is so so different from any I have ever, or will ever experience. This cold is so amazing. It's cold. We're going to absolutely freeze our tails off when we get home. I didn't bring any of my winter coats home from Rexburg. Oops. I love Christmas.
I love life here... 9 days until we leave. Tears come to my eyes just thinking about it.
You are soooo cute!!
ReplyDeleteLove,
sis. whit.