WANT TO SEE AND HEAR ABOUT WHAT I DID WITH MY MOM THIS MOTHER'S DAY???
It started out a nice warm day. We left the hotel Regency at 8am, and headed out of Jerusalem to visit Masada National Park. It was an hour and a half drive, so we arrived there at 9:30am. Masada is one of Herod's three fortress cities, built between 37-34 BC. Masada not only was one of Herod's winter palaces, it also became the place where in 66AD, a group of Jewish Zealots fled to escape the persecution of the Romans. Under the leadershp of Menachen Ben Yehuda, this small band held off the Roman Legion for 3 years, until finally committing suicide on April 15, 73AD. On this day, 960 men, women and children died in lieu of being ravaged by the Roman army. Several years ago, there was a movie made here in Masada, telling about this exciting historical location. The movie is called Masada, and it stars a younger Peter O'Toole. I believe the movie came out around 1981.
I am really upset with myself, as I didn't seem to take many "good" photos of Masada. It was a blistering hot day, by the time we were on top of the hilltop, where Masada lies. I guess I took more video footage, than camera shots. Between my mom and I, I think we got about 5 good pictures. To arrive in Masada, we had to take a cable car up to the hilltop, from the gift shops and parking. I took a scanned picture of a postcard I purchased. I hope it turns out well enough for you to see on the blog. There are a total of 6 pictures of Masada here.
The picture of the rock wall with the black tape line, is to show us that the rock wall under the black line, is ACTUALLY HOW the wall was found, back from the ancient times. All the rocks above the black line, are the actual rocks from back then, but were used to re-construct the top of the wall. We saw this throughout our walk of the ancient city.
From Masada, we drove to the Qumran, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. We had lunch at a restaurant there, then headed out to see the excavations.
The Qumran was the site of the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, in the spring of 1947, which was the most significant archaeological find of the 20th century. Prior to this discovery, the most recent copy of the scriptures was the 6th century A.D.
This find now gave us copies that date from 300 B.C. to 70 A.D. and exactly match, letter for letter, and word for word with the 6th century copies. Today, many of the scrolls are housed in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, which we visited yesterday.
I have 6 pictures to show you here. After lunch, one of the girls in our group, Katrina, took a camel ride. I love this picture of her!! She is such a sweet girl and I had a lot of fun with her and her husband, Stacy. There is also a picture of some of the clay pots found, the ritual baths, and one of the actual caves where one of the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. (There were many caves here, but this was the best picture we took of one of them) When leaving the Qumran, we ran into more gun/rifle carriers. This time, it was 2 girls (young women) with smiles on their faces.
To end this days tour, from the hot desert hilltop landscapes of Masada and the Qumran, Yuval (our wonderful tour guide)next brought us to the beautiful DEAD SEA. Doesn't that sound a bit weird, the BEAUTIFUL Dead Sea? Just look at the pictures, and tell me that it isn't beautiful. Here I've posted 4 pictures of the Dead Sea and the beach. I purposely DID NOT include any of us floating in the water, because I didn't have any nice ones to post. All the pictures of us in the water showed many ladies in their swim suits, and I don't think they would approve me adding those to my blog. There is one of me in the water, with the famous mud all over my shoulders and arms, but I couldn't crop it down to include it here in my blog. So sorry about that, but I think the pictures I chose to show you, are good enough to give you an idea what we did at the beach. We had to float on our backs, after glopping through that famous mud, which is filled with minerals and made our skin feel so smooth for a couple of days.
Here is some information on the Dead Sea:
(here is also a fingertip Bible, that I was emailed by a friend of mine a few months ago. It comes in handy, when someone wants me to look up Bible verses in a hurry.
http://www.biblegateway.com/versions/?action=getVersionInfo&vid=31
In Biblical times, the Dead Sea was called by several names, the Salt Sea (Gen.14:3, Num.34:3, Deut.3:17), the Sea of the Aravah or Plain (Josh.3:16, 12:3), the East Sea (Ez.4:16, Joel 2:20) and the Former Sea (Zech.14:8). Josephus called it the Sea of Asphalt and i the Talmud it is mentioned as the sea of Salt and the Sea of Sodom. Its name in Hebrew is Yam Hamelach (Salt Sea) and in Arabic Bahr el-Miyet (Dead Sea) or Bahr Lut (Sea of Lot).
The Dead Sea is 1300 feet BELOW sea level and is 47 miles long and a width of 9 miles. It's measurements vary with rainfall and season. It is fed by the waters of the River Jordan and a number of tributaries, most of which run down from the plateau to the east. The Sea has no outlet, yet such is the heat of the valley that, due to evaporation, even at the time of greatest floods, the lake does not rise more than a few feet. Modern research has proved that the Dead Sea exists in almost the same form and area as in the time of Abraham, although in recent decades the water line has retreated due to drought and over-exploitation of the waters by both Israel and Jordan. The waters of the Dead Sea lap the pebbled beach in oily little waves. Its salinity is 5 times that of the ocean, consisting of 23-28 percent of salt and other minerals, compared with only 4-6 percent in the ocean water. The concentration of salt and minerals increases with depth-chlorine, bromine, sulphate, sodium, potassium, calcium, and magnesium are found in vast quantities. These are extracted from by the Dead Sea Works in Sodom and made into fertilizers and chemicals for use at home and abroad. Salt was dug from the area already in ancient times. Bathing in the Dead Sea is a curious experience. Everyone floats and a non-swimmer cannot drown so long as he keeps his head up. If a person were to swallow 1 cup of this water, he will die.
Some authorities assert that the remains of the devastated cities of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen.19:13) lie beneath the waters of the south-eastern part of the Dead Sea. Near the cave of Sodom stands a salt pillar with a human shape. This is known as Lot's Wife, who "looked back....and became a pillar of salt".
Thanks to the above information from one of the fantastic books I bought, while in Israel. "The Dead Sea", which can be purchased off of the jesusboat.com website.
I also wanted to tell you of something kind of funny. While on our way to the Dead Sea beach (Ein Bokek), Yuval was explaining to us Ez.47: 3-12. The Dead Sea has nothing living in it now, no fish, no animals or plant life, but one day there will be dolphins swimming in the Dead Sea, after the fresh water comes to it. Shortly after he tell us this, and as we are driving along side of the Dead Sea, he looks out at the Sea and says, "oh look, there are 2 dolphins swimming over there". Of course, most of us looked out the window of the bus, looking for the dolphins, but then quickly realized that Yuval was joking around with us and checking to see if we were actually listening to him. LOL We laughed. Then, there was one lady (no names I promise here - "V") kept on looking out the window searching for those dolphins. She wasn't getting the joke, even after the whole bus laughed and laughed at the joke. Finally, a few minutes later, she figured out what was happening. LOL So, needless to say, the dolphins swimming in the Dead Sea was an "inside joke" throughout the rest of our tour with Yuval. Now you HAVE TO laugh at that one!!!
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