Jericho..the oldest building in the world. Monestaries. Palaces.

This week has been...claustrophobic?
We've been back from Egypt for nearly one week, and so the insanity has ensued. Really. In my classes, there are 2 midterms this week and a 7 pg paper I just finished on U.N. agreements made regarding the Middle East since the 1920s. Kill me? The free time we had this week was restricted to the center, because of increased violence in the Old City and on the Temple Mt. I could hear the tension from my room as sirens echoed through the city and helicopters constantly flew above. There hasn’t been much commotion though in the past day or so. I took my Jew midterm earlier today and proceeded to barely pass it, much to my dismay. This class is very confusing to me sometimes. The Jewish culture is so completely complex and complicated. Not to mention I have a hard time finding interest in rabbinic writing, literature, etc from the 2nd to 6th centuries. Note to everyone...the Torah is not the law. (Even though our teacher has said that very sentence) The Torah is teaching.

My Old Testament midterm is tomorrow, and I hope that I do significantly better on this test. I love my Old Testament class with Bro. Emmett. We just finished reading Deuteronomy.

Yesterday we went to Jericho and visited the tell there, which would have been the Old Testament city of Jericho, where they marched around seven times and the wall fell? It was much smaller than I anticipated. We walked the length of it in just a few minutes.
The oldest building/structure in the world is there at the tell in Jericho. It is a tower…though it is probably 10-15 feet below the ground we stood on.

Jericho is unique, one because it is perhaps the oldest city in the world. There is a spring there, Elijah’s Spring, out of which flows thousands of gallons of water per minute ( I think. Or maybe hour). Because Jericho is an oasis, the agriculture there flourishes. I bought some delicious oranges (which have green peel here in Israel) a mango, and some plums. Along with sycamore nuts which are very tasty.

There was a little store next door to the fruit stand with typical souvenir things from Israel and while some students and I were in there when a younger man came up to us. (Note…this is not an infrequent occurrence. Shopkeepers usually follow us students around while we are looking...which can be nerve wracking…but one gets used to it)
Usually the men approach the blonde girls in our group…or any blondes because the women here have darker hair, so I was surprised when he singled me out and started asking where I was from. I told him America, and he asked if I was Arab. I told him no. And he asked me again if I did not speak Arabic. I told him very little. He was very surprised I suppose, because I truly think he thought I was native. I loved this of course. I love somewhat blending in here. The blonde girls always get hassled more and picked out among the crowd. Maybe by the time I leave, I will be tan enough to come close to look Arab.

Our group also visited a monastery in Jericho which was in the side of a desert cliff, called Mount of Temptations Monastery. (or Ksdjfljskdf…a word I cannot pronounce/remember in another language) We hiked up to it and us girls covered our hair for modesty. It used to be that women were not even allowed in the monastery. It was small and simple, but very interesting. They converted caves into living spaces, rooms, and even the chapel. This was supposedly the place where Christ came for 40 days, fasting and communing with God. It was “here” that Satan tempted Christ.

Herod’s Winter Palace was also in Jericho. Even though only bricks remain, it is easy to imagine how large and lavish his “pleasure palace” was. He even had 2 pools and a spa room! Really! The sites I am able to see and the knowledge I keep accumulating makes the scriptures and history so much more meaningful and personal. It’s wonderful to read the Old Testament when it references Jericho and know what it looks like…and the direction you travel from Jerusalem to get there.