2-November, Sunday: Gideon’s Spring, Beit Shean, Qumran & the Dead Sea Scrolls, Masada, Ein Gedi
Gideon was one of the Israelites’ judges (see the Book of Judges, chapters 6-8). I like Gideon because he didn’t want to do the task God gave him but finally did. Maybe there’s hope for me. Anyway, the Israelites had been back sinning again and worshiping idols and other gods, so God chose Gideon to call their bluff and subsequently free them. Funny enough, though, Gideon wanted a miracle from God before he would do anything – another reason I like Gideon…
36Then Gideon said to God, "You say that you have decided to use me to rescue Israel. 37Well, I am putting some wool on the ground where we thresh the wheat. If in the morning there is dew only on the wool but not on the ground, then I will know that you are going to use me to rescue Israel." 38That is exactly what happened. When Gideon got up early the next morning, he squeezed the wool and wrung enough dew out of it to fill a bowl with water. 39Then Gideon said to God, "Don't be angry with me; let me speak just once more. Please let me make one more test with the wool. This time let the wool be dry, and the ground be wet." 40 That night God did that very thing. The next morning the wool was dry, but the ground was wet with dew. (Judges 6:36-40)
So Gideon did what God told him to do and destroyed the altar to Baal (sounds familiar? I don’t feel so bad that God has to repeatedly destroy my altars to things and ideas that I think will make me happy), then gathered forces to fight the enemies of the Israelites, the Midians and Amaleks that were preparing for war on the fields of “Armageddon”, just down from Mount Carmel. But God told Gideon that he had gathered too many men to fight. Gideon discharged 22,000 men and stayed with 10,000.
4Then the Lord said to Gideon, "You still have too many men. Take them down to the water, and I will separate them for you there." 5Gideon took the men down to the water, and the Lord told him, "Separate everyone who laps up the water with his tongue like a dog, from everyone who gets down on his knees to drink." 6There were three hundred men who scooped up water in their hands and lapped it; all the others got down on their knees to drink. 7 The Lord said to Gideon, "I will rescue you and give you victory over the Midianites with the three hundred men who lapped the water. Tell everyone else to go home." (Judges 7:4-7)
Now, we’re not quite sure what message God was trying to send regarding a man’s character if he lapped up water like a dog versus kneeling and drinking, but God whittled the army down to 300 so that the Israelites couldn’t claim the victory as their own. And this is where I found myself on Sunday morning – at Gideon’s spring, contemplating how often I dismiss and disagree with God. Gideon gave each of his 300 men a trumpet, a torch, and a clay jar, and they quietly surrounded the enemy Midianite camp at midnight, each torch hidden inside a jar. At Gideon's signal, every man blew his trumpet and broke his jar. God confused the Midianites, and they started killing each other by mistake, while those who survived retreated.
This reminds me of one of my favorite scriptures, although it’s from another battle:
This is what the LORD says to you: 'Do not be afraid or discouraged because of this vast army. For the battle is not yours, but God's. You will not have to fight this battle. Take up your positions; stand firm and see the deliverance the LORD will give you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. Go out to face them tomorrow, and the LORD will be with you. (2 Chronicles 20:15-17 with my italics)
Now, if you haven’t figured it out yet, Gideon wasn’t all perfect. (Actually, the only heroic thing he did was direct the army like God told him to – even God won the battle.) He killed two of the Midianite kings as justice for the death of his brothers, had many, many wives, and created a new idol for the Israelites from the gold won in the battle. So after the personal miracle of the dry wool, then the amazing defeat with only 300 men, Gideon leads the Israelites down again, although they did have peace while he was their judge. Always good to see that all these people in the Bible have about as much strength as I do.
After Gideon’s Spring, we headed south towards the Dead Sea. We passed Jericho, but with it being a PLO club house, didn’t stop. Qumran is located in the dry desert on the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea where nearly the entire Old Testament was discovered written on about 900 scrolls, with the first being discovered in 1947. Many scholars believe the Essenes, a Jewish sect which isolated itself in disgust of the corruption of the mainstream Judaism in Jerusalem, lived here, transcribing holy documents. The scrolls were found in a series of eleven caves and appeared to have been ordered and classified with a library system, as if the Essenes were purposely preserving the heritage against enemies that might destroy it.
A Bedouin shepherd found them when he threw a rock into a cave trying to oust a stray goat. He heard pottery shattering and upon investigating, found parchment scrolls wrapped in linen. He took them to a cobbler, so Nir’s story goes, to have new shoes made out of them, but the cobbler kept them and gave the boy a free pair (or even two) of shoes.
In March of that year, the 1948 War of Independence prompted the removal of the scrolls from Israel for safekeeping, mostly to Beirut. Then, the first Dead Sea Scrolls went up for sale with the posting of an ad in the Wall Street Journal on June 1, 1954:
MISCELLANEOUS FOR SALE
THE FOUR DEAD SEA SCROLLS
Biblical manuscripts dating back to at least 200 B.C. are for sale. This would be and ideal gift to an educational or religious institution by an individual or group.
Box F 206 WALL STREET JOURNAL
On July 1, they were purchased for $250k and went to the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York. One of the first scholars to examine the scrolls was also into photography. The pictures he took of the texts are now more coveted than the scrolls themselves, for intellectual purposes at least, since many of the scrolls rapidly faded and degraded once unwrapped. Interestingly, the Beatitudes are also found in the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Nir & Itay had our group pretty well pegged, however, so before we got the tour of Qumran, we got an hour recess for lunch and playtime in the “schmear” factory. With the Dead Sea being 40% salt (and climbing), anyone can guess that this is great marketing for all kinds of stuff that women will put on their faces in the name of youth and beauty. I greatly succumbed to this idol worship, although I was in good company – even Nir was among us, buying from a list his wife had sent along with him.
Masada (meaning "fortress" in Hebrew) is the former fortress of Herod the Great on a plateau with cliffs (really, sheer cliffs!) ranging from 300 to 1300 feet high. It is absolutely amazing to walk through the ruins and look out over to the Dead Sea. We accessed it, luckily, by a gondola rather than the Snake Path which winds up the east side (the 1300-ft cliffs). Although Itay did say he’d run up it in something like 18 minutes once in his life…
The flat top is huge – it was definitely a city as big as Tel Dan or any of the others we’d seen. Along with all the watchtowers, there were storehouses, barracks, the palace (including a library and private bath house on the northern tip overlooking the desert and mountains and sea), cisterns for collecting rainwater, and public baths.
Herod the Great established Masada as a fortress around 35 BC as a refuge for himself in the event of a revolt – since he was quite a nasty guy, especially to his relatives and wives who frequently turned up dead. In 66 AD when the Jews and Romans began to battle over Jerusalem, a Jewish sect overtook Masada and lived there, even converting one of the buildings to a synagogue. When the Second Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans, more Jews fled to Masada. But in 72 AD, the Roman governor got fed up with them and laid siege. Eight camps were built around Masada by the Roman army, and their walls are still visible from the city. The Romans built a ramp (which also still exists today) against the lowest cliffs on the west side and successfully invaded after many months – only to find the 936 Jewish inhabitants dead from mass suicide. Except for a few women who later told the details of the murders and suicides, they would rather be dead than face certain capture, defeat, slavery or execution by their enemies. In the war of 1967, the phrase “Masada Never Again” became famous, declared by the IDF general Moshe Dayan, although two meanings can be interpreted by the slogan, which is still used. Will the Israelis have victory over their enemies, or rather die than succumb to them?
We also traveled to Beit She’an, a city that was probably founded by the Egyptians around 1500 BC but became the capital of the Roman Decapolis – ten cities that held the essential culture of Greece and Rome. As the capital, it was strategically significant, being located to control the trade from the Mediterranean to the east, as well as from Jerusalem to the Sea of Galilee. The Roman ruins of Beit She’an were even more impressive than those of Cesaria, on the coast. We sat in a 3-tiered amphitheater with the columns on and around the stage still intact. Along the main streets, mosaics, like those I saw in Valubilis in Morocco, were very well preserved and also lined by columns and the ruins of walls of the houses, shops, and city limits. Beit She’an figures in the Bible as the place where King Saul’s body, along with his son Jonathan’s, were hung on the city walls after they were killed in battle against the Philistines. The struggle between Saul and his successor (though not by bloodline) David, is a great example of true chivalry and respect for God’s plan. David and Jonathan were also best friends, and while Saul’s jealousy ruined his relationship with David, it could not dissolve David and Jonathan’s friendship.
In Ein Gedi, meaning “Kid (as in young goat) Spring“ in Hebrew, just north of Masada and on our way to Jerusalem, we remembered how David showed incredible character and obedience to God. Ein Gedi is a little canyon known for the wild goats that inhabit it. When Saul turned on David and was wanting to have him killed, David fled to the wilderness and lived off the land. While obviously not an easy time for David, he writes many of the Psalms expressing his true feelings of loneliness and betrayal during this time of running and hiding from Saul. In Ein Gedi, Saul finds rest in a cave from his pursuit of David, though David happened to be taking refuge in the same cave. While David could have snuck up and killed Saul, he instead snipped a piece of his coat as proof of how close he was, then called humbly out to him for a truce.
Finally, after a long, wonderful day, we ascended the hill to Jerusalem. Nir read us Psalm 122, one of the Psalms of Ascent (Psalms 120-134) which were a series sung by the Jewish pilgrims as they made their way to Jerusalem three times a year to celebrate their feasts and atonement. The Psalms of Ascent cover everything from safety during the travel, reliance on God for direction (“I lift my eyes up to the mountains; where does my help come from?”), the blessings of family, and peace for Jerusalem. The number of psalms, 14, corresponds to the number of the steps going up to the Temple, and pilgrims would sing a psalm for each step they took at the end of their journey. According to Nir, one always talks about “going up” or “ascending” to Jerusalem, the city on the hill. Even pilgrims from Everest would say they were “going up” to Jerusalem.
As our entire group was gathered in the public bath house on top of Masada, Itay told us this was how the Jews passed their leisure time – sweat and gossip. I thought this was an appropriate phrase, especially coming into – sorry, ascending to Jerusalem. Constantine, the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity, sent his mother Helena to Jerusalem in 325 AD to talk to the locals in order to establish the locations of various events of Christ’s life and to gather Christian relics. Many of these sites are owned by either the Catholic Church or the Greek Orthodox Church who have erected elaborate churches on the sites. Some sites are disputed, and often visiting these sights leaves a distaste because so many sects want control over them but often settle for a truce to share the sight. The supposed tomb site, glorified by the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem’s old city, is shared by something like six or nine different Christian denominations, and yet many scholars place Jesus’ tomb outside the city, which correlates to the Jews’ law that the dead be buried outside camp or city boundaries. My friend Julie thinks it’ll be cool when we get to see who had the correct GPS for where all the events in Christ’s life actually happened. But for now, it all comes down to sweat and gossip.
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