Most people on our tour received an email stating their covid tests were negative very early Thursday morning. One man had a positive test. Sofi and Emma, along with a handful of other tour members, received invalid results which meant there was a test error. The Israeli government treated an invalid result the same as a negative test, which made no sense from a public health standpoint, but which meant Sofi and Emma could leave the hotel with the rest of us. The man who tested positive and his wife went to "covid jail" to quarantine. The tour had planned an extra day in Jerusalem to give us time to get our test results back. With results back so early, our tour guides tossed their plans out the window and started sightseeing right away. This made for an interesting tour. We went to sights in no particular order, just based on what was open and nearby and where the tour guides could make appointments quickly. It was confusing at first, but we learned to enjoy the spontaneity. We started our tour at a hill overlooking the old city of Jerusalem on one side and the town of Bethany on the other.
Michael Wilcox read to us from Psalms 48, 122 and 137 introducing us to the City of David with the Psalms of David. This viewpoint gave us a bit of an understanding of the scale of the world Jesus lived in. It was easy to imagine Jesus staying at the home of his friends, Mary and Martha in Bethany and then walking over the hill into Jerusalem. The distances are not that far.
Our next stop was Golgotha and the Garden Tomb. You can see why the order of stops was disorienting. The foot of Golgotha is now a bus station which makes for an interesting photo. Our Israeli tour guide, Ilan, felt the bus stop was appropriate because this location was one of the busiest roads, leading to the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem, in Jesus' time, and would have been crowded with travelers, merchants and animals. Although some paintings show Jesus crucified on top of a green hill, Romans actually crucified people at eye level along main roads to heighten their humiliation and warn others to stay docile or suffer the same fate.
The Garden Tomb is beautifully maintained by the Garden Tomb Society. Visiting in the spring felt like resurrection morning. Here's a bit of history: After Constantine I, the emperor of the Roman empire, converted to Christianity, his mother, Helena made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Moved by inspiration, she identified sites where many events from the life of Christ happened, including the site of Jesus' crucifixion and burial. Constantine had churches built at each of these sites. The church built where Christ was crucified and buried is called the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Since Helena's tour took place in the 320s, these sites are remarkable for their age and history, but it's unlikely the sites were accurately identified. For example, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher is located inside the city of Jerusalem and people weren't crucified or buried inside cities at that time. In 1883, a British general named Charles Gordon felt called to find the true location of Christ's tomb. He quickly found a likely candidate for Golgotha, which locals still called "Skull Hill." John wrote that the garden tomb was in a garden in the place Christ was crucified so Gordon concentrated his search for the tomb near Skull Hill. Some searching led to the garden tomb which matches every description from the Bible. Gordon raised money from his friends to buy the site and it has been maintained by the non-denominational Christian society ever since.
The natural setting feels more appropriate than a large church. We were able to enter the tomb ourselves.
A cross dating to the 400s is painted on the wall inside the tomb. Another older cross in the shape on an anchor is scratched into the rocks outside the tomb. The crosses don't prove this is Christ's tomb, but they do show that the site was known to early Christians.
We found this site to be reverent and sacred, perhaps only because of the devotion of generations of faithful believers who have prayed and given gratitude here. While it's not possible to prove where Christ was buried, we know the tomb is empty. "He is not here, for He is risen," Matthew 28:6.
Next we went to the Israel Museum, home to Israel's most significant archaeological finds. Our visit focused on two exhibits. The first was the Shrine of the Book, built to house the Dead Sea Scrolls. The building is full of symbolism. The Essene sect who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls wrote of themselves as the Sons of Light who fought against the Sons of Darkness. This black wall outside the Shrine of the Book represents the Sons of Darkness.
The roof of the Shrine is white to represent the Sons of Light. The roof is shaped like the lids of the jars which the scrolls where found in. The building is underground to symbolize the caves where the scrolls were found. We walked though the Dead Sea Scroll exhibit and found it mildly interesting. It does make us wonder how much world history is still hidden away, undiscovered.
Our second stop was the giant model of Jerusalem constructed to represent Jerusalem in 66 AD. The creator, Avi-Yonah, used the best information available in the 1960s, including histories written in the Mishnah and by Josephus to build as accurate a model as possible. Jewish scholars weren't allowed into the old city of Jerusalem until after Israel won control of Jerusalem in the Six-Day War of 1967 so Avi-Yonah couldn't make direct measurements or observations. Since then research has shown some inaccuracies in the model, but we don't know of any plans to update the model. Research also confirmed some choices Avi-Yonah made, such as including a Roman theater in the city. The most prominent feature of the model is the temple, completely overshadowing any other building in the city with its size and grandeur. The temple and most of the city was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD.
We stopped for lunch (that is Magnum ice cream bars) at a snack stand at the museum. Before leaving home, our tour told us that we would be on our own for lunch and to bring snacks which we did. However, we didn't realize that we wouldn't be stopping for lunch and would need to eat our snacks on the bus. As our tour progressed and our snacks from home depleted, we had interesting lunches of ice cream, chips or candy bought at snack stands like this. Luckily, we had healthy and delicious breakfasts and dinners.
From Jerusalem we drove to Bethlehem, a short 20 minute drive on paper, but one complicated by checkpoints since Bethlehem is in territory controlled by the Palestinian Authority. Modern Bethlehem is home to 60,000 Christian and Muslim Palestinians. Our Jewish tour guide, Ilan, was not welcome in Bethlehem and was replaced with a Palestinian guide named Farage.
The Church of the Nativity is one of two churches built on top of the caves where Queen Helena said Jesus was born. This definitely falls in the category of traditional site, probably not the actual site. The church is the oldest complete Christian church in the world. A priest inside the church acted angry to see us and continually scolded at and shushed our group. After two years without tourists, most sites were very happy to see a trickle of visitors return. This priest was an exception.
The entrance to the cave was through a narrow doorway. We hurried in quickly before the priest kicked us out. We think he was getting ready to start a mass, although no one was in the church except for tourists.
This silver star marks the exact spot where Jesus was born. Hmmmm.
And this marble manger with the candles on the right is the very manger that Jesus was laid in, which is remarkable for many reasons, including the fact that marble is not native to Israel and must be imported. It's very old, at least, even if it isn't original.
The Church of Saint Catherine is built next to the Church of the Nativity and shares the caves underneath the two churches.
While its connection to the true birthplace of Jesus is impossible to confirm, Saint Catherine's truly is the place where Jerome wrote his translation of the Bible into Latin, the common language of his time. He was originally buried in Saint Catherine's church in 419, but his bones were later moved to Rome. Jerome's translation is called the Vulgate and is still used by the Catholic Church today.
After experiencing churches very different from our own faith tradition, we were thankful for the chance to sit in the courtyard outside Saint Catherine's church and be taught from the scriptures. Michael Wilcox shared stories of people from Bethlehem: Naomi, Ruth, David and, of course, the Savior.
This was a gentle, restful hour capped with singing Christmas carols together.
Bethlehem was a highlight of our tour, less because of the elaborate churches and more for the spirit and unity we felt as we thought about the Savior and sang together.
We're not great shoppers, but we were looking forward to a stop at the Nissan Brothers shop. Ignore the glassware on the shelves, the Nissan Brothers are known for their hand carved nativities made from olive wood. We picked out several and had them shipped home so we didn't have to try to pack them into our suitcases. It will feel like Christmas when they arrive in a few weeks.
We'll end with a note about the buses. Our tour group was divided between two groups, the red bus and the yellow bus. We were on the yellow bus and had yellow tags on our luggage and followed the yellow flag when it was time to move. Throughout Egypt, our family of 5 plus Emma always got the back of the bus. This meant some extra bumpy rides and always being last in line when we got off the bus, but we were younger than the other people on our bus and it seemed better to take the back of the bus rather than taking more desirable seats from an older person. When we got to Israel, the back of the bus became our little palace. We took up two rows which meant plenty of room on the day Emma hurt her leg and needed to elevate it or if someone wanted a nap. There was also a back door in this bus, right in front of Sofi in this photo, so getting on and off the bus was a breeze. So while we took one for the team in Egypt, we were richly rewarded in Israel. By now everyone had their spot on the bus and switching seats would have felt like switching pews at church.
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