Israel – Day 5

Friday, May 14

It seemed like we got up earlier and earlier each day, and if my notes are correct, it’s 7:10AM and we embarked to Masada.

Soon after leaving Jerusalem, you come to understand what the word wilderness means when talked about in the scriptures. This is the Judean wilderness. Not far from Jerusalem, there are still people living in the desert much like they have for over 2,000 years, except for next to their dwellings are parked pick-up trucks.

On the Bus, our guide Jack explained quite a bit (at least 5 pages of notes worth). I really, truly, really, do not do it justice here, but I will briefly touch on a few points.

The Game of the Kings

The “Game of the Kings” was a type of board game for the Roman Soldiers. It was this game that the soldiers played to determine who got to do perform which acts of torture upon the victim. Later on we would see etching in stone of the game dating back to close to the time of Jesus where he might have been mocked by the soldiers. So interesting that their game was called the Game of Kings, obviously, to mock, but if they knew…

Sedition is a Capital Offense

When the people gather to great the triumphal entry of Jesus in Jerusalem, they are in a sense or in fact committing sedition against the Roman Empire. They are welcoming their King. This is something that Rome would not like and would crucify for. Our guide Dina added that his triumphal entry might have been through the Mercy Gate which is the gate currently blocked/sealed through which Jews believe the Messiah will enter.

Jack suggested a possible reason that the crowed turned on Jesus when put later before Pilate is they came to understand that Jesus says his kingdom is not of this world. It’s called revolution when followers win the fight; it’s called sedition/treason when they lose.

Pilate interviews Jesus, and attempts various ways to let him go.

Son of Man

Jesus uses the term Son of Man which is kind of a fuzzy phrase doctrinally among the Pharisees. I person were to say, I am The Son of God, that would be blaspheme and cause for capital punishment according to Jewish law. When brought before the Jewish council, they try him for blasphemy and Caiaphas uses some pretty strong language, and Jesus does confirm he is the Son of God, and they say it is blasphemy which with the Roman approval would mean stoning.

The leaders however take Jesus to the Romans and accuse him of sedition which merits a more terrible and painful death, crucifixion. If the execution were carried out by stoning, it would be done by the people, and the leaders might have an uprising on their hand against a popular prophet.

Apparently, Barabbas, who was released in the stead of Jesus, was accused of sedition. In the case of such crimes and individual and perhaps their whole family would be executed/crucified on the road to their village.

Masada

After the crucifixion of the Savior and Resurrection, there was a revolt against the Romans which lead to the destruction of the Temple in 70AD.

A holdout of zealots stayed in Masada which was Herod’s safety bunker and get-away palace. You know…let’s let Wikipedia fill us in on the details:

Masada (Hebrew מצדה, pronounced Metzada, from מצודה, metzuda, “fortress”) is the name for a site of ancient palaces and fortifications in the South District of Israel on top of an isolated rock plateau, or horst, on the eastern edge of the Judean Desert overlooking the Dead Sea. After the First Jewish-Roman War a siege of the fortress by troops of the Roman Empire led to the mass suicide of the Sicarii rebels, who preferred death to surrender.

The cliffs on the east edge of Masada are about 1,300 feet (400 m) high and the cliffs on the west are about 300 feet (90 m) high; the natural approaches to the cliff top are very difficult. The top of the plateau is flat and rhomboid-shaped, about 1,800 feet (550 m) by 900 feet (275 m). There was a casemate wall around the top of the plateau totaling 4,300 feet (1.3 km) long and 12 feet (3.7 m) thick, with many towers, and the fortress included storehouses, barracks, an armory, the palace, and cisterns that were refilled by rainwater. Three narrow, winding paths led from below up to fortified gates.

According to Josephus, a first-century Jewish Roman historian, Herod the Great fortified Masada between 37 and 31 BCE as a refuge for himself in the event of a revolt. In 66 CE, at the beginning of the First Jewish-Roman War against the Roman Empire, a group of Jewish extremists called the Sicarii overcame the Roman garrison of Masada. After the destruction of the Second Temple, additional members of the Sicarii and their families fled Jerusalem and settled on the mountaintop, using it as a base for harassing the Romans.

The works of Josephus are the sole record of events that took place during the siege. According to modern interpretations of Josephus, the Sicarii were an extremist splinter group of the Zealots who were equally antagonistic to both Romans and other Jewish groups. The Zealots (according to Josephus), in contrast to the Sicarii, carried the main burden of the rebellion, which opposed Roman rule of Judea (as the Roman province of Iudaea, its Latinized name).

The Sicarii on Masada were commanded by Elazar ben Ya’ir (who may have been the same person as Eleazar ben Simon), and in 70 CE they were joined by additional Sicarii and their families that were expelled from Jerusalem by the Jewish population with whom the Sicarii were in conflict shortly before the destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple.

Archaeology indicates that they modified some of the structures they found there; this includes a building which was modified to function as a synagogue facing Jerusalem (in fact, the building may originally have been one), although it did not contain a mikvah or the benches found in other early synagogues. It is one of the oldest synagogues in Israel. Remains of two mikvahs were found elsewhere on Masada.

In 72, the Roman governor of Iudaea Lucius Flavius Silva marched against Masada with the Roman legion X Fretensis and laid siege to the fortress. After failed attempts to breach the wall, they built a circumvallation wall and then a rampart against the western face of the plateau, using thousands of tons of stones and beaten earth.
Josephus does not record any attempts by the Sicarii to counterattack the besiegers during this process, a significant difference from his accounts of other sieges against Jewish fortresses. He did record a raid on a nearby Jewish settlement called Ein-Gedi during the siege, where the Sicarii killed 700 of its inhabitants.

Some historians also believe that Romans may have used Jewish slaves to build the rampart. According to Dan Gill, geological observations in the early 1990s revealed that the 375-foot (114 m) high assault ramp consisted mostly of a natural spur of bedrock that required a ramp only 30 feet (9.1 m) high built atop it in order to reach the Masada defenses. This discovery would diminish both the scope of the construction and of the conflict between the Sicarii and Romans, relative to the previous perspective in which the ramp was an epic feat of construction.

The rampart was complete in the spring of 73, after approximately two to three months of siege, allowing the Romans to finally breach the wall of the fortress with a battering ram on April 16. When they entered the fortress, however, the Romans discovered that its 960 inhabitants had set all the buildings but the food storerooms ablaze and committed mass suicide rather than face certain capture, defeat, slavery or execution by their enemies.

The account of the siege of Masada was related to Josephus by two women who survived the suicide by hiding inside a cistern along with five children, and repeated Eleazar ben Ya’ir’s exhortations to his followers, prior to the mass suicide, verbatim to the Romans.

We arrived at Masada to a relatively new visitor center/museum/gift shop. I laughed as I watched a little boy toss down his hat in the large atrium.

When it was our turn to board the tram, we were first taken into a standing theater (no seats, you stand with an arm-rest railing in front of you), and watched a pretty funny video of a guy wearing glasses that looked just like Harry Potter’s spectacles. At the end of the video he asked what we would have done if in the situation that the zealots upon Masada found themselves and turned his head straight to the camera with a serious look that made us all chuckle. Of course the events at Masada were serious, but the video unwittingly inspired some humor.

After the video, we funneled out of the theater and then board a tram (a very packed tram), and road to the tram stop built right into the side of the mountain.

After de-boarding the tram, we followed a walkway bolted onto the side of the mountain to get to the entrance of Masada.

A few people in our group decided to be adventurous and climbed up the snake path instead of riding the tram. One iron woman in our group made it up pretty quick; the others took 30-45 minutes. We had a couple family members walk down at the end of the time there.

Masada was one lavish palace in its day, and our guide said that Herod visited perhaps only once or twice.

The attack ramp that the Romans had built can still be seen today.

We learned that about 1.3 million Jews were killed during the destruction of Jerusalem.

Ezekiel had a vision that showed water flowing from the temple or under the temple and that that water will heal the Dead Sea. Life from the temple.

Interesting to note that Judas Iscariot was from this area Idumea (and the only one from the original twelve not of Galilee). Some think that Judas Iscariot’s name is derived the Sicarii (mentioned above in the Wikipedia article) which might place him as a zealot wanting a military Messiah.

Sodom and Gomorrah are also identified as being located in this area.

On top of Masada, we passed a columbarium which was a place used to house doves. Little triangular nooks were carved into the walls where the doves would rest and then they could be used for food. It was pretty interesting, but was like nothing compared to what we would see later in the day at Beit Lehi.

The Dead Sea – Awesome

On the way to the Dead Sea from Masada, we learned a little about Sodom and Gomorrah. Remember Lot’s family, his wife, and the “pillar of salt” thing? Did she turn into a pillar of salt because she looked back as they exited Sodom and Gomorrah? Probably not. She went back. Her “looking back” meant returned back. It’s similar to the man at the plow “who looketh back” means who returneth back. Lot’s wife left family back there and most likely headed back and was unfortunately destroyed with the cities. Although, the movies make it much more dramatic when POOF, she turns into a pillar of salt for looking back at the cities.

It may just be me, but I hope the area looked better back then, because I wouldn’t call this area prime real estate. There were however a couple of resort hotels located there. People come to the Dead Sea for its medicinal purposes.

It was really, really, awesome to float out there. We were instructed to not let the water get in our eyes or nose because it would sting.

We could stand straight up in the water, not touching the bottom, and be completely equalized in our buoyancy. It amazed us, and kept amazing us, and kept amazing us. Totally awesome were other words to describe it.

The water didn’t smell bad either. We expected rotten egg smell, and got a little hint of it as the bus pulled up, but in the water, it was fine. The only really bad smell was in the tiny changing room…yuck. Grab some towels and change outside if you can.

When in the water, our bodies felt like we were covered in lotion. It was pretty cool, and might have been the water sapping out stuff from the skin.

When out only about 4 or 5 feet, we could feel underneath our feet some small ridged pebbles. You could stick your feet down in them quite easily, and we pulled some up with our feet and found that what we thought were rocks were large, very large, chunks of salt granules. The whole floor of the sea was saturated in the stuff; it was, again, amazing! You couldn’t touch dirt at the bottom, it was all salt.

There were out door showers there to rinse the salt off, and our European cousins seemed to think that standing around in Speedos was pretty cool, but other than that, it was an experience of a lifetime.

We learned about salt as the preserver, sign of the covenant, integrity, truth, a purifier, and it adds flavor. Our guide noted that it was interesting that church headquarters are in Salt Lake City…add a little flavor to the world.

We were at the Dead Sea from 12:00 to 1:00 PM. Heading out from the Dead Sea, we climbed in elevation and I took a little video of the lowest place on the surface of the earth. It is held that Jesus was baptized near where the River Jordan meets the Dead Sea…descending below all things.

Beit Lehi – Indiana Jones Couldn’t Have Done Better

Back on the bus we headed to Beit Lehi which is an active archeological dig. Our expectations for the site were perhaps a little low especially as it seemed to take a while to get there. We drove east from the Dead Sea area and Beit Lehi is south and not that far from Jerusalem.

The name Lehi is used in the story of Sampson, the events occurred in the area called Lehi. We passed by Hebron on our way to Beit Lehi which is where the tomb of the patriarchs is located.

We were also very near Sampson’s well. As the sign of Samson’s covenant, he was not to cut his hair. He was also not supposed to drink wine (may sound familiar to some of us).

Our bus took us off the paved roads and we were headed off the beaten path on dirt roads, and got to the point where the bus couldn’t go any further.

The area was a test site for the Israeli Military, so the archeologists only have a short time each year to excavate the site. Students from the States have helped excavate the site.

There are a couple sites where you can learn about Beit Lehi (also written Lei). One is the Beit Lehi Foundation. Included below are some excerpts from Wikipedia. As will all archeological evidence, there can be various interpretations, and as the years pass, new discoveries help to enlighten or discredit earlier findings, so much should be taken with…ahem…a grain of salt (which we had all over us after the Dead Sea visit).

Khirbet Beit Lei is an archaeological site in the Judean lowlands, in Israel. Its name means “Ruin of the House of Lei” in Arabic.
Khirbet Beit Lehi (or Lei) is located about 22 miles south west of Jerusalem and less than 1,000 meters from a location held by archeologists and religious historians as “Samson’s Well,” the spring that God provided to quench Samson’s thirst after his epic battle with the Philistines. The ancient well still flows and has been used as a source of water for cattle and flocks for thousands of years.

In 1961, road construction unearthed an ancient multi-chamber burial cave in the vicinity of Lachish, and adjacent to the Green Line. Aside from eight skeletons interred within, several supplications for the salvation of Judea and Jerusalem were inscribed on the walls, as well as sketches of ships, leading scholars to believe that the chambers were reused by Israelite refugees fleeing the Chaldaean armies in the sixth century BC, probably Levites. Ships are a common motif in ancient Near Eastern burial chambers. The reference to Jerusalem is the oldest such Hebrew language mention:

ה’ אלהי כל הארץ, הרי יהד לו לאלהי ירשלם, המוריה אתה חננת נוה יה ה

Cave inscriptions were interpreted by Dr. Frank Cross Moore, Jr. of Harvard University. According to Dr. Moore, the cave inscriptions read:

“I am Jehovah thy Lord. I will accept the cities of Judah and I will redeem Jerusalem.”

“Absolve us oh merciful God. Absolve us oh Jehovah”

However, the simple translation from Hebrew to English of the above quoted inscription is:

“LORD [Y'h'v'h] God of all the earth, the mountains of Judah belong to him, to the God of Jerusalem. The Moriah, you have pardoned, the habitation of Yah”

While investigating the cave, Dr. Joseph Ginat of The University of Haifa met a Bedouin who told him about the remains of an ancient oak tree about 1/4 of a mile away where, according to Bedouin legends and tradition, a prophet named Lehi blessed and judged the people of both Ishmael and Judah. The Bedouin told Dr. Ginat that Lehi had lived many years before Muhammad and that Arab people had built a wall of large rocks around the remains of the tree to protect it as a sacred spot, long known by Arab inhabitants as “Beit Lehi”, meaning “Home of Lehi.” Dr. Ginat shared this information with W. Cleon Skousen whom he had met while studying anthropology at University of Utah and teaching at Brigham Young University from 1970 through 1975.

In 1983 Dr. Skousen and Dr. Glenn Kimber worked with Dr. Ginat and Dr. Yoram Tsafrir of Hebrew University to secure permission and funding to excavate the site. The first excavations began in December 1983. By noon of the first day, archaeologists found an ancient village and well-preserved mosaic floor of a Byzantine era chapel.

Since that time, “hewn subterranean installations, including columbaria, olive presses, water cisterns, quarries, a stable, and hideaways,” have been discovered along with pottery and other items suggesting that the area had been populated from 600 B.C. until the Mameluke period of 1500 A.D. The discovery has been featured in the book Ancient Churches Revealed, published in 1993 by the Israel Exploration Society.

After 1986 the site was covered to protect it until additional funds could be raised and conditions were right to continue future excavations. Dr. Tsafrir, has since retired and according to Israeli law, passed responsibility for archaeological exploration to Dr. Oren Gutfeld of Hebrew University who continues to manage the excavation. Dr. Gutfeld earned his Ph.D. degree in Classical Archaeology from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and currently teaches at The Frankel Center for Judaic Studies, University of Michigan.

Almost every town or city is named for something, a person, an event or a nearby geographical wonder. Beit Lehi is no different. Beit comes from the Arabic word meaning house or dwelling. Lehi means jawbone. Beit Lehi means the “house” or “dwelling” of the jawbone. An odd name without the rest of the story.

The story begins around 1160 B.C. As recorded in the Bible Judges chapters 13-15, Manoah and his wife have no children, but a man of Manoah’s means and stature in the community must have an heir. He and his wife traveled often to a holy place near their home to make sacrifice and pray for a child. That prayer is heard and answered when an angel appears to his wife and tells her that she will bare a son by God’s providence; that he should be a goodly child, of great strength; by whom the Israelites will be delivered from the hands of the Philistines. He was to be a Nazirite, one who takes a vow of dedication to God. At the time of Samson’s birth, the Israelites had been in bondage to the Philistines for more than 40 years.

Perhaps the strongest man in biblical history, Samson’s impetuous nature causes havoc among the Philistines. He ties torches to the tails of 300 foxes and releases them into the fields of the Philistines destroying all their crops. He kills 30 Philistines when they didn’t play fair in solving a riddle. The Philistines seek to remedy the situation by sending an army of one thousand men to capture Samson who is hiding in the cave of a rock at Etam. The army demands that 3,000 men of Judah capture Samson and deliver him into their hands. With Samson’s consent, the men of Judah bind him with rope and are about to hand him over to the Philistines when he breaks free. Using the jawbone of a donkey that lays at his feet, Samson slays 1,000 Philistines.

Exhausted and near death from thirst, Samson prays for water. Miraculously, a spring bursts forth from the ground to revive the champion. “And when he drunk, his spirit came again and he revived: wherefore he called the name thereof Enhakkore (meaning fountain of the crier), which is in Lehi unto this day.” (Judges 15:19). In writing “The Antiquities of the Jews”, the great Jewish historian Josephus (1st century A.D.) confirms the biblical account and notes that the spring remained vibrant in his day. Samson remained at Lehi for 20 years as a judge of the people of Israel.

Judges 15: 15-19

15 And he found a new jawbone of an ass, and put forth his hand, and took it, and slew a thousand men therewith.
16 And Samson said, With the jawbone of an ass, heaps upon heaps, with the jaw of an ass have I slain a thousand men.
17 And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking, that he cast away the jawbone out of his hand, and called that place Ramath-lehi.
18 And he was sore athirst, and called on the Lord, and said, Thou hast given this great deliverance into the hand of thy servant: and now shall I die for thirst, and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised?
19 But God clave a hollow place that was in the jaw, and there came water thereout; and when he had drunk, his spirit came again, and he revived: wherefore he called the name thereof En-hakkore, which is in Lehi unto this day.

Abner from the Hebrew University was there on site as was Pablo. Both were jewish. Pablo was from Argentina. Both spoke English exceptionally well. They were sitting the shade eating lunch when we arrived.

There wasn’t much on the surface of the surrounding grounds, a few rocks, some faint outlines of foundations of buildings, but we weren’t going to be spending much time above ground…

Caves were made in the area from 4th to 2nd century BCE (“Before Common Era” -terminology used in the academic world, and refers to the same time BC but allows others who don’t believe in saying “Year of our Lord” to refer to time). There were many findings from the 2nd Temple Period, and then findings to the 2nd century CE (Common Era, same as AD).

The Olive Press Room

We went underground to what used to be an Olive Press. They discovered the area from holes used as hide outs probably from those hiding from the Roman destruction. The cave was filled up with dirt.

The olive press description matched that of the olive press we saw at the Nazareth Village. They found two presses. The floor had been quarried out at a later period and used to be much higher.

We saw a menorah carved in the doorway.

The Mikveh – Jewish Ritual Bath

From the Olive Press Room, we entered the Ritual Bath area/room. This was pretty cool. Little triangular nooks were carved into the wall where participants would set their oil lamps.

Called a Mikveh, it was likely that the workers of the olive press, entered the mikveh for ritual purification to handle the olive oil. Pablo explained the bath to us and showed us the remains of the plaster on the wall.

Those entering the bath would immerse themselves, and to quote a Jewish Archeologist (Pablo): “…like being baptized.” They would cover themselves completely. Pablo also said, “What Jesus did in the Jordan River was exactly this.”

The Giant Columbarium

We nothing prepared us for the immensity of the columbarium.

The columbaria at the site were very likely used for providing doves for the second temple period 200 BCE to 70 CE.

The doves were also used as food and the waste as fertilizer. The doves lodged in the little nooks carved out of the stone.

The columbarium struck us with the sheer volume of sacrifices that the temple performed.

This huge columbarium was one of ten that they’ve found at the site.

When found, almost the entire area of the columbarium was filled with dirt and waste.

Later a structure was built on top of the subterranean columbarium and was used as a garbage pit. There were exit holes in the ceiling where the doves could exit, and these were later used as the garbage chutes.

It again really brought home the work of the ancient temple. Beit Lehi was only about 20 miles from Jerusalem, and with so many columbarium probably a lot of the doves went to the temple for sacrifice.

The Subterranean Stable

From the mikveh, we walked over to another cave which was an underground stable. We didn’t have to walk down too many stairs for the stable. There were troughs for the animals, a drainage area for the animal’s urine, and a place to set a beam to keep in the animals.

Seeing the trough was pretty cool because, it was a manger.

The Byzantine Christian Chapel

The Byzantine Church was built at Beit Lehi around 500-700 AD (CE).

The foundations and floor of the church remain. The floor mosaic was beautiful. Most of the faces in the floor mosaic are scrambled in almost every place there was a face. Called iconoclasm, there was a Muslim (and Christian) movement to remove all images. Rather than wait to have their floor destroyed, the church scrambled almost all the faces. Below is a boat with two fishermen in it.

After Beit Lehi, we headed back to Jerusalem on the bus, and I got about 5 more pages of notes as our guides spoke.

There’s so much, and my fingers are tired, but we learned about Simon the Pharisee that invited Jesus to dinner (took a couple pages of notes just on that story). We learned more about Judas and where his heart was.

To read about the other days in our trip, click below:

The Airport
Israel – Day 1
Israel – Day 2
Israel – Day 3
Israel – Day 4
Israel – Day 5
Israel – Day 6
Israel – Day 7