A Thursday Evening

So I'm sitting here outside on a cool night, looking out at the hills. I've been here coming up on two months now, with about another 7 weeks to go before I head back to the States. Even though I've still got a bit of time left, it feels like the semester is almost over. I started getting ready to register for classes next semester, which always means the end is looming on the horizon. But as I've been looking at the calendar, my time is starting to become limited. In a couple weeks, we are off to Galilee for I think around 8 days or so. After a week back here at YadHashmonah, the week of travel study break begins, meaning I'll be in Greece for almost 10 days. None of that is bad by any means, but I'm starting to think about the papers which are going to be due that last week. My first one for History of the Modern State of Israel is coming along nicely, and should be done hopefully by this weekend. My other paper, the larger one, I haven't yet started on and is probably going to be quite heavy. Its going to be a joint paper for my History of Ancient Israel/Life of Christ classes, and I'm planning on analyzing the atoning death of Christ through the eyes of the Old Testament sacrificial system.



Everything else is great. We went on a trip to Samaria yesterday. It seemed quite a bit shorter than our others. Although, taking a four-day trip to the wastes of the Negev has a tendency to do that. I didn't take many pictures, so I probably won't put any up. But I did see a few cool things, like the ancient sites of Ai, Bethel, Shiloh, and Shechem.

Negev Pictures

Before I go on with the rest of this post, I need to tell you about this awesome incident which happened on the boardwalks of Eilat last week. As myself, Eric, and Cam were exploring the area, we came across a band playing traditional Jewish music on keyboards over and over with no stop, and a circle of Orthodox men dancing around and clapping. As we stood their watching them, they grabbed our hands and pulled us in. To make a long story short, we dancing, pranced, and clapped with Orthodox Jewish men in a circle for about 20 minutes. You have no idea how happy I was.

So just as I promised you earlier here are a few of my pictures from my trip to the Negev last week.

This is a well at the site of ancient Beer-Sheva. Its not the well that Abraham dug in making a covenant with Abimelech, but its similar.

Cam, Eric, and I are standing atop a facsimile of the altar which was found at Beer-Sheva. We're wearing hardhats because we're hard at work.

This is the holy of holies at the high place in Arad.

Some of us men and Adventure Bill standing at the top of the Nahal Zin after climbing out of the canyon.

The sun behind the clouds was beginning to drop when we were at the ruins of Avdat.

A cloudy sunset at Mactesh Ramon. You can somewhat see the dropoff of the cliff.

Since the Wilderness of Paran is so large and desolate, the military uses it to test and train with tanks, artillery, and bombs. They do a pretty good job of letting you know that, but I like to live dangerously.

The sunrise from atop Masada.

These are some columns, frescos, and mosaics remaining from Herod's palace on the north end of Masada.

Yeah, I climbed that.

One of the caves at Qumran. I believe nearly half of the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in this particular one.

This is a model of the tabernacle that we visited.