I was picked up at 7:15 by Menache (sp?) in a mini van and we soon had ~10 folks from various other hotels nearby. The couple that got on next and sat behind me were speaking Turkish, and it was kind of fun to try to understand what they were saying. Oddly comforting actually. Not that I could understand enough for it even to be considered rude, but I was working on what I could say to them when we got to a mini bus convention and they got out and on to bus 2 which was going somewhere else today. Oh well.
We drove north to Nazareth and visited the church of the Annunciation. It is actually the fourth church on the original site of Mary's house when she got the news that she was going to have a baby. Apparently, she lived in a cave (as did most folks in the small town), and at least part of the cave is still there. The original church (and the two that came after it) were destroyed. (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilica_of_the_Annunciation) The current church on the site was built in the 1960s. Down stairs is a chapel, which is a big open space with the ruins of the first church there along with stairs leading down into the cave. The ceiling there is open to the church above where services are held. There was a smalls service going on while we were there and it was nice to have the singing accompany our visit. The other thing I really liked about this church were the mosaics on the walls from a bunch of different countries that had supported the building of the church. They each sent in or aranged to have made a representation of Mary. These are the pictures I perhaps miss the most from my memory card debacle this evening, so I am borrowing other's pictures.
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| The front of the church. Photo from: http://travelthemiddleeast.com/2012/05/solo-female-middle-east-road-trip-2/ |
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This is the contribution from Japan.
(photo from wikicommons) |
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This is from Canada.
(Flikr: striderv) |
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| Not the service we saw, but it shows the entrance to the cave on the bottom floor. (Photo from wikicommons) |
The church of St. Joseph was being renovated so we didn't get to see that anyway. It is supposedly where the young family came back to after they enrolled in Bethlehem for the census(?) and again after the exile in Egypt when Harod was killing all the kids under 2. (
http://www.nazarethinfo.org/show_item.asp?levelId=63476)
We drove by the church at Kana, but didn't even stop and it was on the right side of the bus, while I was on the left, so again i didn't have a picture to lose there.
Our next stop as at Capernaum, where Jesus's ministry started taking off. According to our guide, Capernaum was the big city, where Nazareth might have been 400-500 people, Capernaum was more like 4-5000*. (wikipedia says 1500: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capernaum). We saw the ruins of the octagonal church and a synagogue that was in hiding as a church after Constantine converted the Romans and made it illegal to be anything but Christian. This was near the hill where the sermon on the mount was given and there is some speculation that the octagonal church gave one wall for each of the beatitudes.
The building that was there apparently looked like a church in order to not be shut down, but there were secret ways of knowing that it was really a synagogue. One being a picture carved into the stone work which 'shows' a cart which may have contained an ark replica that could be wheeled out during services.
*Important note: Except where I am directly quoting somebody or some written source, all history has gone through my leaky/faulty brain, mulled around in there for anywhere from hours (in the case of this post) or weeks (in the case of some others) and shouldn't be taken as actually true. I wont write anything I know to be false (unless it enhances the story) but I am sure much of the history (especially the details) are at least slightly wrong through no fault of the original sources.
I did learn some interesting things regarding temples and synagogues and the diaspora at this site, not all of which I really understand. Apparently, you don't need synagogues if you have a temple, but the second one was destroyed by the Romans in the 4th century. At this point the Jews were kicked out of the area by the now Christian Romans and they dispersed through Europe and started making synagogues as remembrances of the temple. (The original ark was lost at this time too, btw) I don't think there was ever more than one temple at a time, however, but I guess you didn't have to go to the temple all that often, and could do your Torah learning and prayers on a smaller scale. I am sure I will learn more about this during this trip, but if anyone reading this can help clarify, I would be interested in understanding better.
From there we went to lunch, which I did take pictures of. There was a salad bar with hummus (a bit heavy on the tahini for my taste, but creamy with big chunks of nahut, which was a nice touch) and many types of pickled salads which were tasty and a vicious looking fish which was also pretty good. The fish was supposedly the Fish of St. Peter, the same type he was fishing for when Jesus suggested he put down his nets in favor of bigger things.
After lunch we went to the church built on the hill where the miracle of the loaves and fishes was said to occur. On the way there I swapped my memory cards and so this is where I start to have my own pictures! The church is called the church of the heptagon (yeah for two geometrical figures in the same day) this time named for the seven springs. It is also a fairly new church built on the site of an older church, built on the site of an even older church. Menache told us that if he says a church was destroyed, it was the Muslims that did it so we didn't need to ask every time he said a church was destroyed. My guess is this is a simplification...
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| The church of the heptagon, was not actually heptagon shaped. |
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| The rock under the alter is really the top of the hill the church was built on, where the feeding of the 5000 was said to have taken place. |
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| I am a sucker for a mosaic of a peacock. |
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| These fish spouts are for Ann, cause they are cool. |
Regardless of what had happened there, there was no bread and no fish (to eat), it is a good thing we went there after lunch.
On our way to the south end of the Sea of Galilee we passed the town of Magda or Magdala, which means tower. It was the home town of Mary Magdalene and it is currently in the process of excavation.
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| The excavation site for the town of Magdala. |
Our final stop for the day was at the Baptismal site on the Jordan River. I don't think this is
the baptismal site, but a convenient location. Meneshe had an interesting perspective on the baptism of Jesus, where ever it may have taken place. Of course, Jews are not baptized, so what was probably happening was that John was assisting people with the ritual cleaning of folks before they went to the temple and he offered to help Jesus with that as well. It turned into baptism only later. Anyway, it makes sense to me.
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| The story was told in more than 20 languages, including Hawaiian pidgin, but not Turkish. |
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| Not ready for full immersion, I did dip a toe. |
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| This French speaking group took the process very seriously, singing, dancing, praying ... |
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| and eventually dipping. |
Tonight I am staying at a hotel near Nazareth. It is basically on the side of the freeway, across the street from a gas station, a resturant and a grocery store. I had hopes for the grocery store because with the big lunch I had earlier, some fruit or crackers would be all I needed for this evening, but it was closed when I went exploring before 5 this afternoon. There seems to be a school or an apartment complex down the road, but not interesting and on the other side of the freeway is agriculture. So I stayed in, watched a couple of movies (yeah for English language TV!), lost my pictures (boo!) and wrote this blog while listening to crazy thunder. (The rain has slowed, but earlier the wind was blowing it sideways. I hope it has blown all the way away by tomorrow!)
Now to post this and get ready for bed. Thanks for reading.
We drove north to Nazareth and visited the church of the Annunciation. It is actually the fourth church on the original site of Mary's house when she got the news that she was going to have a baby. Apparently, she lived in a cave (as did most folks in the small town), and at least part of the cave is still there. The original church (and the two that came after it) were destroyed. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilica_of_the_Annunciation) The current church on the site was built in the 1960s. Down stairs is a chapel, which is a big open space with the ruins of the first church there along with stairs leading down into the cave. The ceiling there is open to the church above where services are held. There was a smalls service going on while we were there and it was nice to have the singing accompany our visit. The other thing I really liked about this church were the mosaics on the walls from a bunch of different countries that had supported the building of the church. They each sent in or aranged to have made a representation of Mary. These are the pictures I perhaps miss the most from my memory card debacle this evening, so I am borrowing other's pictures. 
After lunch we went to the church built on the hill where the miracle of the loaves and fishes was said to occur. On the way there I swapped my memory cards and so this is where I start to have my own pictures! The church is called the church of the heptagon (yeah for two geometrical figures in the same day) this time named for the seven springs. It is also a fairly new church built on the site of an older church, built on the site of an even older church. Menache told us that if he says a church was destroyed, it was the Muslims that did it so we didn't need to ask every time he said a church was destroyed. My guess is this is a simplification...
On our way to the south end of the Sea of Galilee we passed the town of Magda or Magdala, which means tower. It was the home town of Mary Magdalene and it is currently in the process of excavation. 
Our final stop for the day was at the Baptismal site on the Jordan River. I don't think this is the baptismal site, but a convenient location. Meneshe had an interesting perspective on the baptism of Jesus, where ever it may have taken place. Of course, Jews are not baptized, so what was probably happening was that John was assisting people with the ritual cleaning of folks before they went to the temple and he offered to help Jesus with that as well. It turned into baptism only later. Anyway, it makes sense to me. 
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