Francis pens his final post from the Holy Land. Visits to Qumran, Masada and the Dead Sea.

He and Barbara leave with many lasting impressions and memories.

Day 13 was a Friday so the first part could be lived as a normal day but the second half is charged with anticipation of Shabbat / the Sabbath. We started as tourists visiting two sites of interest and relevance to the first century context of Jesus. Our first visit was to Herodium – yet…

Day 12 was a rich mix of experiences around the Temple Mount, the City of David and Bethlehem. Aerial view of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount in Jesus’ time compared to today. Click images for full size. We were woken at 5:45 to get up to the Temple Mount as early as possible. Thursday is…

I have three destinations to share about for Day 11 – which was amazing. We headed north from Jerusalem to Shiloh which was the first longterm site of the Tabernacle after arriving in the land at the end of the exodus wanderings from Egypt. (See Joshua 18:1) The Tabernacle remained in Shiloh for 396 years…

Today was about the way of Jesus into Jerusalem, his crucifixion and burial/resurrection. It was a long day that ended at night with a sound and light show in what was Herod’s Palace in Jerusalem.

We began with a short trip to the Mount of Olives…

Sunday was a day of moving from Tiberius in Galilee via two significant sites to Jerusalem, a name that generates so much expectation. Our first destination lay half way between Galilee and the Mediterranean coast. It’s a place people know in English as ‘Armageddon’ which renders the Hebrew Ha Megiddo = ‘Mount Megiddo’. While God…

The Sabbath dawned quiet in Tiberius. As advised one lift in the hotel would be a ‘sabbath lift’, meaning it did not require buttons pushed and would stop at every floor. As we are on level 12 it took a while to get down to the restaurant, back up to brush teeth, then down to…

As I begin to write this the appropriate greeting is ‘Shabbat Shalom’. Tiberius has suddenly grown quiet as Friday comes to an end, and the Sabbath or ‘Shabbat‘ begins. We have had a momentous day in north-west Galilee [map]. It was another hot day with 60 to 90 minute visits to various sites and activities,…

Day 5 took us to the site of Sepphoris or Zippori, a town the first century Jewish/Roman historian Josephus described as “The ornament of all Galilee” This romanised town had spring water and fertile lands enough to make it prosperous and important but its real interest to us is that it is in walking distance…