Week Four – Judea
If your head is reeling having visited so many places already, don’t worry, that’s to be expected. There’s no test at the end! Just let the experiences and impressions sit with you and take away from it what is important to you.
We’ve been in Galilee, the bustling northern fishing villages around the lake.
Then Samaria, the edgy bit you have to travel through.
And now we’re in Judea, the southern third of the country, dry and mountainous, centred on our destination – Jerusalem.
Thursday 18th March Today we’re in Hebron, 20km from Jerusalem in the West Bank.
Hebron is a divided city and a very tense place. It’s the only part of Palestine that has an Israeli settlement within the city. As we wander from street to street, we’ll be asked for our travel documents many times!
So why are we here? This is the second most holy site in the world for Jews and the fourth for Muslims. It’s where the patriarch Abraham and his family are buried.
So it’s worth traversing the ‘peace walls’, blockades, bulletproof screens and fences, and ignoring as far as possible the rubbish thrown across at the other side.
Our destination in this war-torn city is the Cave of the Patriarchs. Now, you’re used by now to finding that all the places associated with Jesus’ life and ministry have big churches build over the top of them. Well, here the cave where Abraham and family are buried is inaccessible to us – but there’s a big mosque and synagogue built on top!
Islam and Judaism both have Abraham as their common ancestor. Tragically, today, the building over his final resting place has to be divided by a bulletproof screen.
We remember of course God’s promise to Abraham:
When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him and said, “I am God Almighty[a]; walk before me faithfully and be blameless. 2 Then I will make my covenant between me and you and will greatly increase your numbers.”
3 Abram fell facedown, and God said to him, 4 “As for me, this is my covenant with you: You will be the father of many nations. 5 No longer will you be called Abram[b]; your name will be Abraham,[c] for I have made you a father of many nations. 6 I will make you very fruitful; I will make nations of you, and kings will come from you. 7 I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you. 8 The whole land of Canaan, where you now reside as a foreigner, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you; and I will be their God.”
Genesis 17: 1-8
When Sarah his wife died, Abraham still was not in possession of the promised land, so he had to buy this cave as a family burial plot. After Sarah, the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were also buried here with their families.
You might know yourself the emotional force of having a family burial place.
For Abraham, it is even more important. This small patch of land is the first to become the possession of Abraham’s descendants. It is a small first step in God’s promise coming true. As God’s people went down to Egypt and back again, in all their journeying, they’d pass by this tomb and remember God’s promises.
For us Christians, of course, the big sign of God’s promises coming true in the world is also a tomb – but an empty one!
He has helped his servant Israel,
From the canticle Magnificat
remembering to be merciful
to Abraham and his descendants forever,
just as he promised our ancestors.
Friday 19th March How do we know that the Bible is true? How come people interpret it in so many ways? Why are there so many different versions and translations?
Our visit to Qumran is a good place to think about these questions. The visitor centre is also a good place to cool down in the air conditioning!
In 1947, a local Arab boy was tending sheep in the caves and hills here, when he discovered a jar of old scrolls. What came to light was that some of these scrolls were copies of the Hebrew Bible that were well over 2000 years old!
Suddenly, we had copies more than a millennium older than the oldest copy of the Old Testament we possessed.
But was it the same? Amazingly, these scrolls prove the reliability of the Bible over time. The site excavated at Qumran contains a scriptorium (copy room) and library shelves. Caves were used for storage, but also to hide valuable scrolls when the Romans attacked.
These are the famous ‘Dead Sea Scrolls’. We have copies of almost every verse of the Bible, as well as lots of commentaries that help us understand how Jesus and his contemporaries thought about things.
I do hope our virtual pilgrimage is helping to bring the Bible to life a bit. Qumran is where we are reminded that it’s also reliable.
Join us this Sunday for worship @CastlerockDunboe 10am, and next week we’ll be in Jericho, with Jerusalem just in sight.
Greek this Week 