Dead Sea field trip!!!

Yeah! this week, (yesterday) we finished a sweet field trip today in the Rift Valley (the Dead Sea). First we went to see Qumran, which is the area where they found the Dead Sea scrolls. Apparently a shepherd was looking for his sheep, threw a rock in a cave to see if they were there, heard pottery breaking, went to check it out and found the scrolls in jars. At first they used the leather they found on the scrolls for sandals, but eventually someone took the scrolls to a priest- actually from the St. Mark’s Church where we visited last week. Eventually the scrolls were all taken out/ excavated. We didn’t stay at the site too long- now it’s just a couple caves in the middle of nowhere, as well as some ruins from an administrative building. It seems to have been an community where men stayed to be initiated into a group called the Essenes- probably. There were many Mikvehs or ritual baths there, which led early excavators to think they did baptisms there but they were actually doing Jewish ritual baths. Also some have said John the Baptist was related to them-> there isn’t any evidence for that, except that John lived in the wilderness. A better name for the scrolls is the Dead Sea fragments, since they found 15,000 fragments from 200 different scrolls. They had scrolls mostly from Psalms, Deuteronomy, and Isaiah. The community, while copying scrolls, did not show the same precision in copying as did later Masoritic scribes; researchers found that errors or notes were inserted into the documents as they were copied from manuscript to manuscript.

After that we went down to Masada- one of the last holdouts of the Jewish 70 CE revolt, and former hilltop fortress of King Herod. It was pretty huge, to say the least. A roman siege ramp had been built up the side. They had wooden beams supporting the wall during the Roman siege so the ram that they had didn’t do much damage, so the Romans burned the walls with flaming arrows. We took a huge tram up the side of the hill to the location. There were neat “overhanging” palaces meaning they were on the very edge of the cliff. The palaces had with frescos that still held their faded but original color, they also had Roman baths, lots of ruins of watchtowers and walls. Also there were huge cisterns on top that gathered rain water from the rainy season, and during the dry held water. The zealots when they took it had like 3 years of provisions, but since they knew the Romans were coming through the walls, they decided to take their lives and the lives of their families rather than submit to the Romans and become slaves. Josephus reports that the leaders of the zealots drew lots to decide on 10 people who would make sure everyone was dead, then one person would kill the ten, than that one would take his life. Historians thought this was a fabrication until they excavated Masada and they found 11 pot shards with Jewish names on each one in a room! Masada was a symbol of Israeli independence for awhile “Masada shall not fall!” but recently it’s become less-so I think. People killing themselves isn’t a very good patriotic story.

After that we went to Ein Gedi, a nature reserve with caves and natural waterfalls. Joshua took a city there, also David went there and found Saul in a cave in 1 Sam 23-24. The place is also called Wadi David. It was a cool nature reserve and had some neat waterfalls

After that we went and swam in the Dead Sea! I’ve always wondered what it would be like but never thought I would actually go. Since the sea is about 30 percent salt, our bodies are less dense- so we float! It was weird to be standing up strait in the water and have the water go up to the bottom of my chest. It was also weird on my back to just float right on top of the water. Since you floated you could also swim super fast, but if you got any salt in your eyes you were in trouble and it burned like no other. I had a little ballroom dance in the water with someone since our arms were above the water and we floated well anyway. We also covered ourselves with Dead Sea mud since apparently people come from all over for its “properties.”  The rocks on the sea shore are also covered in crystallized salt! We eventually got washed off, and got on the bus to come back home to the Jerusalem Center! P.S. I drank 6 liters of water that day!

Masada and Qumran jokes….

Do you love me? If so will you Qum-run away with me?

What does a Mexican Zealot eat? Carne mASADA!

Did I say something Qum-wrong?

Cave 4 or 5 where they found scrolls: I can't remember.

In one of the Palaces.

Can't touch this... unless you're a Roman Legion!

Cool view.

Waterfall at Ein Gedi.

Ein Gedi with the Dead Sea behind.

Is it the Red? Is it the Med? No it's the Dead Sea!

Salty rocks.

Exit of the Kidron Valley into the Dead Sea. If the prophesy of water coming out of the temple and healing the Dead Sea is a literal prophesy it would come through here.