Day 10

Above is Ein Harod (Ein or En means springs) which is also called Gideon's Spring. This is where Gideon as hiding and later had to choose a small group of soldiers of 300 to fight against the Midianites. In the Bible, it tells how those who cupped the water to their mouths were the ones who stayed to fight. All others were sent home.

This is a Roman aqueduct located near Ceasarea. We were able to walk down to the Mediterranean Sea and collected some sea shells. After that, we traveled to Ceasarea (below).


This is one small part of the hippodrome - a stadium where horse and chariot races took place.
We sat on the seats which date back to the time of Christ.

Horse and chariot racing was a man's only sport - even as spectators. At the entrance of the hippodrome were these toilets - very open and very public. I think water ran through the trough below the seats to wash away the offal.

The men on the tour sang "Ye Elders of Israel" to the women, seated in the stands. Even the nonmembers joined in and they sounded wonderful. Other tourists came over to take their picture while they were singing.

Herod's Palace - part of it anyway

Herod's swimming pool

The Roman theater that Herod built.

Our Jewish guide, Joseph Goldman, and our lecturer Micheal Wilcox.

An Israeli Raven

This is one of the signs that greeted us.

To enter Bethlehem, we had to go through a security check point. Bethlehem is part of the West Bank and there are a lot of Palestinians there. While most are good people and peaceful, there are hot heads who thought it was a good idea to blow up people in the rest of Israel. The security wall (see above) is hated by the Palestinians. But I can also see why the Israelis built it.

Bethlehem is a very hilly city.

This is Manger Square. There is a large church built there, built over the traditional site of Christ's birth. (I keep wondering who was taking notes about the exact location.) This church is actually three churches in one. The oldest and largest part is a Byzantine era church belonging to the Greek Orthodox. It originally had a very large door (about 20 ft high). Then they closed a large portion of the door and gave it an arch. But that was still too big - horsemen could ride into the church. So they closed it off even more. Now even short people have to stoop to enter. (see below) They call it the "Door of Humility."



This is the central Nave of the Byzantine Church. It looks very worn and old. Sometimes we wondered if there was any maintenance work done. The second part of this church is an Armenian church. It is much smaller and less ornate than the Byzantine part.

This is the chapel of the Catholic Church. It is much newer - built in the 1880's. There is a large cave believed to be the birthsite underneath the churches. The Byzantine side had a wait of 2 hours to get in. Since there is a man-made wall dividing the two parts of the cave, we opted to visit the Catholic side.


This is our Palestinian guide. President Clinton negotiated a deal when he was in office. Part of that deal was that tourists who visit Bethlehem have to have a Palestinian guide and they have to stop and shop. (Yes, we stopped and got a few souvenirs.) Above, you can see our group in the cave as he is explaining things.

One little section of the cave with an altar.

After we left the church, we stopped in this beautiful cloister. There we read the Christmas Story and sang Christmas carols. The acoustics were very good and we sounded GREAT! It was fun to watch the faces of other tourists as they walked through while we were singing. They would get huge smiles on their faces and often join in with us. It was a very nice experience.