Lions and Lemons: benjamin field study and Jericho

"Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?"

This penetrating question, asked in Luke 24:32 on the road to Emmaus after Jesus appears to two of his followers post-resurrection and reveals that he is the Messiah as foretold in the Law and the Prophets (Torah), makes me think about how the land here is having a similar effect on my knowledge of Scripture.

We read this portion of Luke while on one of 9 potential sites for Emmaus- yeah. 9. Crazy. You see, during all the different kingdoms and people groups who came into Israel for the past 2,000 plus years a lot of these biblical places have been named and renamed. Hats off to the Crusaders and their poor hermeneutics! We have many sites around here that have been erroneously credited for various events in the Bible. It's actually becoming a running joke around IBEX...so if you call me by the wrong name...we'll just call it a Crusader moment and move on.

The whole point of our trip was to visit the outer rim of the Benjamin Plateau, Gibeon, Gibeah, Geba, (why so confusing?????) and Jericho were all a part of the day's adventures. Honestly, we spent a lot of time on the bus driving to the various locations, most of which we saw from a distance due to their geographic and political location in Palestine. Despite these little inconveniences, the time was so worth it!

Besides spending time with wonderful people, the little stops made a big impact on my understand of the Old Testament and its people.

First we went to Gibeon, mentioned in Joshua 9 during the time of the conquest in the 1400s BC, the Gibeonites tricked Israel into forming a peace treaty so that they wouldn't get wiped out by God's people. We didn't actually put a toenail in the city of Gibeon, something about the West Bank...but we did stand on top of what is thought to be the high place of Gibeon mentioned in 2 Chronicles.

Just so you guys get super confused...next we went to Gibeah- GibeUH.not GibeUN. This is where Saul set up his capital. It was a great location, much better than Jerusalem, for the king to rule from. The agriculture and land are much easier and defensively speaking it is quite useful. The one down side to having the capital here is that it is clearly in the tribe of Benjamin whereas Jerusalem borders Benjamin and Judah. Politically speaking, moving the capital to Jerusalem in the time of David was quite wise.

Another stop we made was at a place called Geba- or near Geba. It's probably hard to picture without a picture (sorry, I completely forgot my camera!). But it's basically several large hills/mountains with valleys in-between. They aren't huge- we climbed up the side of one in a matter of minutes. But they do provide an excellent view and the location for Jonathan's little killing spree of the Philistines in 1 Samuel 14.

Now after all this, we finally got to the place we had been waiting all day for- JERICHO!!! We explored around a little bit and found a cool tower and by "found" I mean we saw it. Some other archeologist spent blood, sweat, and tears actually excavating it for our little collegiate feet to go traipsing over.

We also went on a gondola [for some reason I kept thinking "Gorgonzola"- which is completely false. According to wikipedia that's a type of gourmet cheese) up to the "Mount of Temptation." I didn't feel too tempted but I guess this is one area they say that Jesus was in Matthew 4. Sorry, I'm in a weird mood. Too many fruit leathers I guess.

Anyhow, we finished off the day right with another highly disrespectful stomping on an old place- Herod's summer palace. That was fun. I particularly enjoyed the crumbly stone walls and little places to jump in or on. Oh man oh man...I was so tired afterwards I could barely make it through the hotdog and rice dinner. (I don't know if that's an actual Jewish dinner or just what they serve us...) But I had reading for my "Life of Christ" class that won't do itself. Plus, today we had a test and a paper due for this field study. Tired? yes. Done? no.

Tomorrow is Shabbat- and I'm so thankful! Plus, I get to hang out a little with my small group here in about 15 minutes. How awesome!

I'm going to try and get some pictures from friends so that everyone can see what's going on.

{EDIT}

Here are some pictures- credit goes to Jenna Kim, a wayyyy better photographer...if you want to see more of her stuff check out her blog... http://jennatabithakim.wordpress.com/