Day Two of the Holy Land, Monday 16th February 2009

Today was our trip down to the Dead Sea, and I really mean down, as this is the lowest place on earth (422m below sea level) and your ears really feel it!!. Its truly amazing how fast the wildness area becomes apparent when you come straight out of Jerusalem, there is nothing growing and you start to see the Bedouin people with their shacks and camels, these people are a people that move around in the wilderness of the Holy Land, but in recent times that have been pushed closer to the city’s as the Israeli army uses a lot of the desert area for military practice, and you can now find a Bedouin with a car or a cell phone and even a satellite dish on there shack!! The area of the Dead Sea is very hot with warm temp all year around and not much rain.

Qumran.

The first stop was at Qumran, this is where they found the remains of an Essen community, and this community was mostly associated with John the Baptist in the New Testament. Amazingly the community buildings are all present. These people are the creators of the famous Dead Sea scrolls. These scrolls were found in 1947 buy a shepherd boy around this area and he first sold them for a pear new shoes. But still to this date not all of what is in these scrolls have not been reviled to the public, what are the Jewish hiding? Could be there writing’s about Jesus inside? And revealing John the Baptist being his herald, who knows, they do…

To this I say ‘Unroll the Scrolls’. The truth shall be revealed!!

The Fortress of Masada.

This amazing build from King Herod the Great shows me the greatness of this man and his will power to impress the roman empire of his Kingdom. This place is truly in the middle of no where, dry and limited amount of water. Perfect for hiding away, and he built this is such a way that he had massive amount of food stored all the time, its own quarry for building and water channelled into the fortress. But the history books are a bit weird on this site, the sad story of the Jewish suicides in the last stand after the temple was destroyed in Jerusalem has always been known to me as what didn’t happen. But wheat we where told that the Roman have no account of suicides when the fortress was finally breached by General Titus. So what is this place? And why is the story kept alive from Josephus account… And then I clicked while I was on this fortress and Amir our guide was talking to us, this fortress is about propaganda for the cause of Israel, as it’s a perfect example for fighting against something especially in today’s political turmoil in the Holy Land. The Jewish people don’t visit this fortress, as it not kosher for them, but all the new recruits for the army swear their allegiances to Israel on the top and say: "Masada shall not fall again." Other than all this, it is really a masterpiece from Herod the Great; sadly a lot of people died building a massive fortress for a King that never used it.


Jericho.

Yes Jericho one of the oldest cities in the world, famous from the book of Joshua, when the Israelites walked around the city until the walls came crushing down, there is no site of this city today, as it came crashing down. It is a Palestinian town in which the Israeli army control who ever travels in and out. For Jesus’ life this was the place where he was tempted up the mountain by the devil while he was in the wilderness before his ministry and baptism. He also visited here and told Zacchaeus the tax collector to come down from a sycamore tree, and healed two blind men outside the city. The city itself is on the Jordon river road that lead up to Galilee so it was a popular place for travelers and crucial for any empire to own for tax and control over the Dead Sea area and its salts.

The Dead Sea.

Well you cannot, cannot go to the Holy Land without taking a dip into the Dead Sea, but funny enough you don’t dip!! You float!! It’s truly amazing, but because its so full of salt you don’t sink and as you are walking through it, you start to feel your own leg bouncing as you walk, making it hard to walk. Plus when you lay on your front, your back arches and your feet and heat move upwards, and if you start rolling in the water you keep rolling… it just amazing. But there is a lot of salt in it and if it gets into your mouth, you might have had poured a hand full of table salt in your mouth yourself, I wouldn’t recommend going in head first. I hope one day you experience what I have just experienced. Let me know how is goes :)