Samaria: Hills of Ephraim, Mt. Gerazim. Shiloh.

The photograph above depicts Mt. Gerazim and Mt. Ebal, the mountains where Israel ratified the covenant with Yahweh in Joshua 8:30. As Moses commanded in Deuteronomy 28, the blessings were to be shouted from Mt. Gerazim and the curses were to be shouted from Mt. Ebal. The tribes were divided between the two, to stand at the base of the mountains and listen.

Earlier in the week, Dr. Wright asked if someone would offer to memorize Deuteronomy 28:1-14 and shout the blessings from Mt. Gerazim, where we were going. I raised my hand before my brain fully realized what I was volunteering to do - my body recognized before the rest of me the incredible opportunity to proclaim the blessings from their birthplace. It felt close to the action of remembering and honoring that we practice in the theatre. And so, when we travelled to Mt. Gerazim, I stood behind our group and shouted them out (Bible in hand, since my nerves tend to erase words from my mind). I was trembling so badly I was sure I was about to lose my footing and tumble down the rocks below. It was simultaneously terrifying and exhilarating and holy, and I was so thankful for that opportunity - I'll never forget it.

Then, after I was finished, a deaf student named Noah stood and signed all of the blessings in ASL. For any of you have been to his shows, you know the power and beauty in such an embodied language. The two together brought so much more than just the one. What splendor when languages come together to praise the Lord and remember His goodness!

After, we traveled up to the Samaritan community, a Jewish sect which believes the Bible stops at Deuteronomy. They believe in the sanctification of Mt. Gerazim rather than Jerusalem. Conversation with the priest was fascinating. Sometimes listening to all the different beliefs of all the different groups grows overwhelming and confusing, but this time wasn't that bad. The Samaritans' numbers have dwindled significantly - if I remember correctly, I think that there are only 300 people who live in this community on top of Mt. Gerazim! We toured around the community, traveling to an orthodox church where the site of the Samaritan temple used to be, looking out over the land. Below us was Nabilis, a formerly embattled site of Hamas which has since turned its weapons in. We drove down there to go to the church that remembers the well where Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman -- and this time, the church is built over an actual well which might actually be the well Jesus sat at! The abundance of springs in the area mean that most people don't bother digging wells, so there are very few. Furthermore this well is actually from the first century. We got to draw water from it and drink from it!

After Samaria, we went to Shiloh, the site Joshua chose for the location of the tabernacle. It's also the location where Hannah came to pray for a child and received a blessing from Eli, and where Samuel grew up. It's also where the Israelites lost the ark of the covenant to the Philistines. It's a golden, light-aired kind of place, also located in the Hills of Ephraim.

Well, our first exam is soon, and it's over all of the hours and hours of information we've been slammed with over the past week. I'm a little worried, so I'm off to study :) Have a wonderful day!

Oh, P.S.: the photo below is of Sarah Dulin, one of my teammates, at Shiloh. Isn't it - and she! - lovely??

The Wilderness, Benjamin, Gezer, & the Jerichos.

It would make me really happy if a band was named (Somebody) and the Jerichos. Just throwing it out there.

Exploring the territory of Benjamin was fairly relaxed, even though we visited so many sites - mostly because we spent long stretches of time on the bus. It was one of my favorite days, mostly because of the first place we visited.

We began the morning in the Wilderness of Judah - a beautiful, desolate space. (Yes, theater readers, I said it.) We climbed to a crest overlooking the sharp folds and creases in the limestone, settling down to listen to stories about Abraham, Jesus, John the Baptist, and David. It is the land of the shepherds, the land of temptation, and the land of 'forty.' The mountains echo with footsteps from several miles away. Israel had most of its formative times in the wilderness. It's treacherous, yet somehow, alluring.

I was reminded of some of my favorite verses from Hosea 2.

¹⁴Therefore, behold, I will allure her,
and bring her into the wilderness,
and speak tenderly to her.
¹⁵And there I will give her her vineyards
and make the Valley of Achor a door of hope.
And there she shall answer as in the days of her youth,
as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt.

Some Bedouins had spotted us earlier, and offered their camels for entertainment (for a small fee, of course.) But somehow, I managed to get a free ride. I think it was because they had already extorted way too much money from everyone else, and I was last, so they didn't care and decided to be nice. I rode a camel! I couldn't help but post the picture at the beginning. I'm all about the subtle bragging rights.

We also headed to both Jerichos: New Testament and Old Testament Sites. Herod the Great built a summer palace here, along with a massive aqueduct that brought water to his pool and bathhouse. Old Testament Jericho is an oasis fed by the Wadi Qelt, a spring which dumps a thousand gallons a minute into the valley. It is the lowest city on earth, at 853 feet below sea level. Its earliest remains have been dated 5000 years earlier than the rest of cities humans have excavated, also making it the oldest city on earth. We climbed to the top of the Tel (the word for the mounds formed by collected layers of city building) to discuss the history and archaeology of the place. Contrary to popular belief, they have not actually found evidence of the walls that Joshua brought down.

Finally, we went to Gezer, an embattled city during Biblical times. Coveted for the access it provided to Jerusalem and the Coastal Plain, it was fortified by Solomon, and then destroyed by Egypt after his death.

We have defined the land as being 'between.' It is meant literally; the land is a convocation of routes, both trade and otherwise, through which all of the major empires had to pass in order to relate to each other. But the theme of 'between' is present in so many other ways. The Wilderness is a land between lands, simultaneously empty and full. Jerusalem hovers between abundance and famine, given just enough to survive. Jericho and Gezer are gateways between Jerusalem and the outer world. Old Testament Jericho is suspended between Biblical knowledge and archaeological evidence, forcing believers to live in the tension of not knowing for sure.

Living in the between, in the tension, in the question, is something we're afraid of; yet it's also something we are subjected to in our existence between past perfection and the promised future perfection. We long for certainty. We simplify and codify, making things 'sure' in order to hang on. As I have been learning over the past two years, there is something in asking the questions that have no answers which forms and flexes us beyond the rigid mold of certainty. As Dr. K says, you have to be willing to question everything, because otherwise, you know nothing.

Mount of Olives, Hills of Judah, and Bethlehem

Here’s some places of note where we went today:

Mt. of Olives:
We looked over the city of Jerusalem, and visited a Jewish grave, a garden of Gethsemane (most likely not the one where Jesus wept), and the church which commemorates the agony of Jesus. We traced the two potential paths of Jesus down the Mt. of Olives into Jerusalem for his triumphal Entry
Threshing Floor
A threshing floor in the hills by Bethlehem, almost exactly like the one described in the Ruth when Ruth slept at Boaz’s feet.
Heights of Rachel
Another archaeological site of a former Israelite summer palace.
Herodium
The location of Herod’s temple, palace, and tomb, by the towns of Tekoa and overlooking the Wilderness. It was massive, and quite a hike to the top of the hill! There was even a theater tucked inside the hill
Bethlehem (Church of the Nativity)
Our visit here was very brief. Surprisingly, Bethlehem is Palestinian territory – we had to pass through a checkpoint to get in. We stopped at Bethlehem Bible College, and spoke with a Christian Palestinian professor. It was very interesting to hear about the wounds he has received from Zionist Christians.

When David wrote Psalm 23, he was heading into the wilderness – or, as it is also referenced, the Valley of the Shadow of Death. Today, I looked down from Herodium onto that very wilderness where David claimed that the Lord would restore his soul beside still waters. The Judean Wilderness is nothing but pale, skeletal hills for miles - utterly dry and empty. They are the color of death. Yet, it is into the wilderness that the Lord repeatedly led his people. It is out of the wilderness that Abraham, David, and Jesus came.

The paradoxes in this country repeatedly uproot my childhood pictures. Jerusalem the Gem, the high and lofty city? In actuality, it was located on a tiny hill, surrounded on all sides by looming mountains – incredibly vulnerable and resource scarce. Building, protecting, and maintaining Jerusalem could only be done in the power of the LORD, not by any resourceful king who may try and protect it from

Again, today, I looked out over the Wilderness over which David spoke this Psalm, and felt something unhinge deep inside of me. The promises that the ancients proclaimed were hardly ever visible to their eyes. The God that they followed led them into the shadow of death, with only the promise to provide enough. Enough. Not too much, and not too little. And sometimes, our ‘enoughs’ are certainly not his.


7 am to 7:30 pm. Round Two of our field studies tomorrow: to Jericho!

New Testament Walk Around the Old City

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Coming off of three hours of sleep from the beautiful but exhausting night before, the day felt longer than usual. We took another walk around Jerusalem. Today, instead of going site by site and explaining each specifically, I’ll do a quick run-through and then build out from there. Here’s where we went:

1. First, the archaeological museum and sites around the original site of the temple, which included: a museum, Robinson’s Arch (the arch that led into the temple, destroyed by the Romans and named for its discovered, William Robinson), and the remains of a Byzantine house, the shops outside the Temple, a Roman road, and the Temple steps (possibly where Saul of Tarsus was educated, and where Jesus may have taught.) We discussed Herod the Great extensively, assessing his stamp upon the land with the expansion of the temple and the many other building projects he accomplished.

2. The second main site we went to was St. Anne’s Church and the Pool of Bethesda. St. Anne’s church is a church built in commemoration of the home of Mary’s mother. As our group stood in reverence, hymns welled up from our throats and from our hands, echoing in the stone of the domes.

3. Finally, we climbed to the top of a German Hospice to see a view of the city. It was a hazy day, so it was difficult to see much.

Doing so much in one day can be incredibly overwhelming. Once, I jokingly claimed that I had discovered that I would never be an archaeologist, to which a teammate responded, “Why? When you look at things, don’t you wonder how it was made, what is was used for, and who used it?” I claim to love storytelling, and to believe in the importance of cross-cultural story sharing, yet I frequently found my eyes flickering closed whenever Dr. Wright waxed eloquent about the surrounding shapes of gray-white stone. A lot of what we’re doing here is called “historical geography,” a discipline which involves mapping the land according to a certain story line – reaching deep into the bedrock and seeking out the imprints of the peoples come before us. This bit of pottery, that edge of rock, that slope of the land, that rocky outcrop with its former temple, even down to the types of limestone that form the skeleton of The Land Between – these are the curves to which the cloth of the Biblical text is fitted.

For me, a notoriously geographically and directionally challenged person, my sense of orientation is not usually what I turn to when I think of the Bible. But north, south, east, west – here, it means the difference between water or wilderness, safety or attack.

There is nothing like reading Psalm 48 in the place it was actually written, and seeing the hills that the Psalmist raised his eyes to. Lord, may we fulfill the psalm, and count the towers of Zion that we may tell the next generations of your guidance.

The City of David

Due to my crazy schedule yesterday, I was unable to write a post, so I'll be pulling double duty to cover today and tomorrow. Let's just say that yesterday was probably one of the most memorable days of my life. I'll try to touch on everything that we did!

Broad Wall
We began early in the morning, at about 7:30. I was thankful, since it was much cooler than the previous afternoon, though I am beginning to ache from all the walking we're doing. The Bible wasn't kidding when it references Jerusalem as the "a city of hills and valleys." We came to the remains of Hezekiah's wall he built around the tunnel in case of Assyrian attack. It was huge - at least a couple of metres thick. Interestingly, Hezekiah probably had to purchase homes that were in the way of the construction project, just like highways today. You can even see archaeological evidence of the walls of houses that the Broad Wall covered.

City of David
We trekked down the hills to the barely distinguishable Eastern Hill, where the 'original' Jerusalem was located. Today, that Jerusalem is known as the City of David. The recent commercialization and popularity of the area attracts a LOT of tourists, my new favorite group to hate (even though I'm pretty much one as well). Contrary to my usual visions of Jerusalem, the Eastern Hill is barely distinguishable among the piles of white buildings. It's also surrounding on all sides by much more imposing mountains. Also, the City of David only covered a ten-acre space. We looked at Psalm 121 and went through the references to the specific geography of the area. It was amazing.

Hezekiah's Tunnel
Hezekiah dug the tunnel to re-do the city's water system in case of an (imminent) Assyrian attack. Apparently, the system wasn't working correctly, so Hezekiah chose. Since the tunnel's discovery, the Israelis have turned it into a tourist attraction. OurWe're talking a three-foot-wide, dank, dark tunnel through bedrock, many feet underground. Filled with icy spring water, no less. For anyone who knows anything about me, you know that I am scared of the dark. So, when Dr. Wright suggested that we turn off all of our flashlights at once for the 'fun' of it, I was somewhat disconcerted. Instead, it turned out to be a thrilling experience.

Pool of Siloam
For those who don't remember (I didn't), the Pool of Siloam is where Jesus told the man born blind to wash and be healed. After emerging from the bowels of the earth, we visited the remains of the place. The pool wasactually Roman, but is thought to be nearby the "King's Garden" that the Bible references so often in the Old Testament. Folding out ruins and smoothing the edges according to imagination can be a difficult task, but it's necessary for a full sensory experience of the stories we're tracing through the rock.


Church of the Holy Sepulcher and The Western Wall
We got special permission to visit the Church after hours, from 9 pm to midnight, with the Armenian Orthodox priest Father Samuel. Then, afterwards, we traveled to the Jewish Quarter and then to the Western Wall at 1 a.m. In one night, within a few hours of each other, we visited two of the holiest sites in the world. It was probably one of the most amazing nights of my life, though heavily weighted with questions and the evidence of division. Tradition is bread and breath to the people here, and Protestants usually view it with such disdain. We are often so disconnected from that Dr. Lauber terms the "sacramental imagination" of the Catholics, a deep connection of the body and spirit that has no division for them.

Sometimes I wonder if this trip is opening up more questions than granting answers.

The Old City

After four hours of class and orientation this morning starting at 8, I was well and ready to get out of the doors and start exploring. We began today with a tour of the Old City in Jerusalem, looking first at the geography of the area, including the hills and valleys that shape the contours of the city.We also discussed the locations of the four quarters of the city: Jewish, Muslim, Christian, and Armenian. I found it strange that the Jewish quarter is also the smallest of the quarters. Then, we set out into the sun.

The Upper Room
Visiting this building felt very strange to me, but it is definitely an excellent introduction to the sense of the city. Christians commemorate it as the site of the Last Supper and the coming of Pentecost, though visual evidence is to the contrary: the site also served as a mosque during Islamic rule. As if that weren't enough, it also the site remembered as David's Tomb.

"Tight" or "crowded" are common adjectives, but the city feels more like something piled. Everyone is snatching at the land, and at the old buildings, pointing to their history and claiming the true heritage. Our onsite instructor, Dr. Wright, compared the merging of the three faiths to the intertwining of root systems. Removing one people from the land disrupts and changes the others.Conflicting flags and inscriptions often claim simultaneous space as sacred. I often felt like I was walking in someone else's religion - of course, these sites are as precious to Protestants as to the other faiths and traditions, but I felt very suddenly young and insignificant compared to the ancient blood which seemed to course through the veins of the stone beneath our Teva-clad feet.

The Church of the Holy Sepulcher
I'll admit, I had some preconceived notions about the location that messed with my ability to be present in the space. Before we left, Dr. Johnson had noted, "When I walked into the Holy Sepulcher, it was one of those places that I immediately felt was holy, and I just had to take off my hat." I paused on the steps, both waiting and fighting to wait for that same tidal wave of holiness. It never came - or rather, it seemed to hover just beyond my reach, perhaps beyond the continuous bobbing visors of the largely Caucasian population of tourists. It was so crowded and loud that it felt like something more of a carnival rather than a holy site.

But this was it! The Church of the Holy Sepulcher was built on a site widely believed to be the site of the crucifixion, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. Numerous historical and archaelogical evidence points to this very area, although there are two other sites that also have legimitate possible claim.

The Church itself is divided into six different quarters among the Roman Catholics and the five Orthodox traditions: Greek, Armenian, Coptic, Syrian, and Ethiopian. All of them claim to be the true progenitors of the church.
I know that all of the crowding and claiming has deep religious meaning to all of them - and frankly, to all of us and to me. At many points, I found the need to be "the first" or "the true" upsetting and frustrating. Repeatedly I was often reminded of my comparative rootlessness as an American Citizen, having no continually inherited land or tradition to truly speak of. For us, movement is ceaseless. For them, movement is upheaval - movement is rupture. Movement is unthinkable, even under threat of death.

The Jewish Quarter
We walked through the Jewish quarter, which I thought was the most beautiful part of the city that I had yet seen. The architecture is something out of storybook, all limestone arches and curvaceous stairs, windows fluttering with the Israeli flag open to the clear golden light that filters through the air in the late afternoon. It felt almost like walking through someone's house, taking pictures.

From here, we stood on an overlook and saw the Dome of the Rock and the Western Wall, also known as the Wailing Wall. It always feels strange to see a view so frequently emblazoned on postcards actually gleaming before you. The Dome of the Rock, one of the holiest sites of Islaim, is actually situated on what is almost certainly the site of the Temple before it was destroyed in 70 AD. And just to the South is the Mt. of Olives and the Garden of Gethsemane. The three faiths, once again fighting for elbow room.
__________________________
"Remembered as" was probably the theme phrase of the day. A product of my own culture, I always felt skepticism creep in whenever I heard it. "Remembered as"? Really? So, it's likely that this isn't even the spot. That means people could be fighting over the completely wrong patch of land. People could be kissing and weeping over average stones.

Slowly, I am learning that there is more. The question that Dr. Kalantzis keeps repeating is, "What makes a space sacred?" After my first full day in Jerusalem, the question weighs heavier than before.




-- b.

Jerusalem

Well, it took a few minutes for me to figure out how to switch my internet from Hebrew to English, but success! And so, we're here - Jerusalem!

We flew to Rome first, which took about ten hours, then jumped on a flight to Tel Aviv. I can never sleep on planes, so I've been awake for this entire time. I'm not sure if it's my actual presence in Jerusalem or delirium from lack of sleep that's making it all feel so surreal.

The city is absolutely beautiful. Apparently, the British mandated that the entire city be built from local limestone, so everything is gleaming stone. The air is warm, but light thus far. We took a walk around a downtown part of the city, Ben-Judah street, which we'll be sure to get to know really well due to its vicinity to the campus of Jerusalem University-College, where we're staying.

Well, we have class early in the morning, so I'll be sure to update more later on some more exciting points of our trip.

Shalom!

Anticipation

Tomorrow afternoon, we will board our flight to Rome, and then Tel Aviv. Here we are - the night before it all begins - the night that travelers savor.

Okay, so that may be hyperbole. Technically, the trip has already begun. Last Sunday, I bid goodbye to my family and flew to Chicago, where my wonderful boyfriend picked me up and drove me to Wheaton's campus. I met up with the rest of our fortysome team members for an intensive week of classes. In 5 days, we surveyed Old Testament, New Testament, Christian Thought/Theology, Catholicism, and Eastern Orthodoxy - 6.5 hours of class in a day, and all kinds of homework and reading. This morning, we had four exams to see what we had managed to absorb from our thunderstorm of a week.

Having refrained from my Bible gen eds until now, this week was certainly memorable. Getting slammed with everything from trinitarian theology, the filioque and the Magnificat, redemptive movement hermeneutics, and Dr. K's infamous theology-as-politics talk (not to mention Dr. Walton's treatise on Genesis One) has been a dousing bucket of water to my otherwise lazy doctrinal studies. It's been wonderful, and wonderfully difficult to understand. I decided to go on this trip I wanted to experience the heat of these places in ways that the frigid Chicago winter would not permit - at our raging pace, it's all I can do to keep my breath.

Despite the rapidity, I have still felt strangely in limbo here on campus. Jerusalem is imminent, yet still only a distant mirage as I type under the fluorescent lights on Crescent St. Packed? Mostly. Excited? ... For what? I have no association with the places I'm going to, except a packet of maps, scrawled notes, my Bible, and my imagination. At the moment, the most I can manage to anticipate is the plane, with its familiar rubber smell. I'd like to create all kinds of images and stories in my head to fill the blank spots, but I have since learned sharply the consequences of dreaming up a destination before you get there. I'm waiting, but I don't know what for.

Dr. Kalantzis read one of my favorite poems in class to kick off our week here. I leave it now with you, as we start our journey. Thanks for stopping by - please remember us in your prayers! Next Post in Jerusalem!

Ithaka

As you set out for Ithaka hope the voyage is a long one, full of adventure, full of discovery. Laistrygonians and Cyclops, angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them: you’ll never find things like that on your way as long as you keep your thoughts raised high, as long as a rare excitement stirs your spirit and your body. Laistrygonians and Cyclops, wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them unless you bring them along inside your soul, unless your soul sets them up in front of you. Hope the voyage is a long one. May there be many a summer morning when, with what pleasure, what joy, you come into harbors seen for the first time; may you stop at Phoenician trading stations to buy fine things, mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony, sensual perfume of every kind— as many sensual perfumes as you can; and may you visit many Egyptian cities to gather stores of knowledge from their scholars. Keep Ithaka always in your mind. Arriving there is what you are destined for. But do not hurry the journey at all. Better if it lasts for years, so you are old by the time you reach the island, wealthy with all you have gained on the way, not expecting Ithaka to make you rich. Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey. Without her you would not have set out. She has nothing left to give you now. And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you. Wise as you will have become, so full of experience, you will have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.

By Constantine Cavafy Translated by Edmund Keeley/Philip Sherrard

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