Day 09

Capernaum is the town where Christ went to live after he was rejected in Nazareth. As you see, the sign spells Capernaum differently than we do.

This is believed to have been Peter's home. The thing above it that looks like a roof is actually the bottom of a Catholic Church built suspended over it. The Catholic Church is trying to protect it from weather and development.

The foundations of homes next to the synagogue.

The is the "White Synagogue". It was built on the foundation of the synagogue that Christ taught in and announced his ministry. Below you can see two pictures of the foundation. The white stones are the "new" synagogue. The black stones belong to Christ's synagogue.

The Sea of Galilee at Capernaum

Our guide, Joseph, had these two ancient coins that he allowed me to hold and photograph. The silver one is an old Roman coin. The bronze one is set in a necklace and is a widow's mite. You can buy these coins in Jerusalem. The ones in good conditions run for hundreds of dollars. You can get one in poor condition for about $20.

This is the ruins of an old Christian Church build here at Ceasarea Phillipi.
This is one of the possible sites of the Mount of Transfiguration.
The church was probably built about 500-600 AD.

Ruins of a pagan temple complex are 2 pictures up. The picture just above is where they kept goats for the temple of Pan. Pan was a god that was goat from the waist down and human from the waist up.

One of the headwaters of the Jordan River. Just to the right of the walkway is the spring where the water comes gushing out of the rocks. This was very near to the pagan temples.


This is from a place called Tel Dan. In the Bible, it is simply called Dan. The "tel" part means that is is a man made mountain or hill that is the result of a ancient city becoming covered by dirt or sand. These are the walls of a Canaanite city, up the hill is where Jeroboam built an altar and a golden calf to worship. Because of his turning the 10 tribes under his leadership to worshiping the calf instead of God, the 10 tribes were conquered, carried away and are now the "10 Lost Tribes of Israel".

Our last stop of the day was in the Golan Heights. Here is one of the many, many herds of sheep and goats that we saw.

Here are some cattle grazing in the Golan Heights. For some reason, I didn't expect to see cows - only sheep and goats. We also saw a lot of warning signs for land mines. These cows were in one of those area. I guess they didn't worry about cows getting blown up.