Galilee- Days 4 and 5

Day 4- Lots of Class, but also with time to relax and have fun on the beach. At night we went to a fish restaurant and we had the famous St. Peter’s fish, a fish that congregates in large schools at the north part of the Sea of Galilee during one part of the year because it is warmer. It’s thought that was the fish Peter ate a lot. It’s actually tilapia, and native to the Sea of Galilee, although there are other varieties from other places. See etymology at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilapia .

 Day 5- We went to a neat ruin called Gamla. Gamla means camel, in Aramaic I think. (Maybe Arabic.) It’s based on how the hill looks that this city wasb built on. In any case, to get there we drove up into the Golan Heights where we saw old tanks, and when we were in the national park they had some places marked off we couldn’t go because of mines. On our drive there were saw some very ancient stones that had been placed on each other. The culture is thousands of years old, and scientists know nothing about it other than they erected stones. Later on, however, we reached Gamla. Basically this was a city that was considered part of the area around Galilee and so in when it says Jesus went around preaching in the areas around Galilee there is a very good chance he came to this town. What this town is most famous for is its revolutionary nature. Galilee was a hot-spot for anti-Rome rebellion and Gamla was the heart of that. It was basically a one period site, with ruins only from the time of Jesus. It was destroyed in 72 A.D. when the Romans’ attacked and put down rebellion there. Many of the people were so zealous when the Romans broke through the wall more people jumped off the side of the fortress and killed themselves than the Roman’s actually killed from the attack. One of the Jews at Gamla who participated in the revolution eventually decided it wasn’t worth it to fight the Romans and that it would be better to work for them rather than against them. He served as an interpreter and eventually historian. He would come to be known as Josephus, a very famous historian from which we draw much of what we know about the period from. Gamla was actually really cool. It’s built up on a hill with a spectacular view of the Sea of Galilee and the countryside around it. When Christ taught about “a city set on a hill cannot be hid” he may have had Gamla in mind because it’s seeable from that area of the Galilee and it was Jewish. The neatest thing for me there was a black (basalt again) synagogue. It’s the only synagogue that is remaining from the time of Christ. (There are only foundations from others at that time.) We got to sit in it and contemplate what it was like for the Savior to go around to synagogues and teach about his divinity and Messiahship.  After that we climbed all over the place, checked out the ruins, and took some neat pictures.

After that we went to two old churches, one of which was built to commemorate the casting out of the demons into Swine. One of the places was called Kursi. I think it’s evidence that I’m slowly getting tired of visiting archeological digs or ancient places because I didn’t write down much about that place or remember much either.

That afternoon was more fun on the beach, and then studying like mad at night when the beach was closed to get homework done we needed to do.

A super old civilization (Neolithic or Early Bronze age) erected these stones on one another. No one knows why!

That's Gamla behind me!

Me and my guns. Recreation of Ballista.

Golly gee isn't Gamla great? P.S. I think this place looks kinda like Central Washington at this time of year.

Here I come to save the day!

At the synagogue I mentioned in my blog.

At Kursi-> our teachers call that hill in the distance "Piggy hill" because of its proximity to the gentile city Hippos and possible site of casting the devils into the swine.