A Trip to Israel: Capernaum, Beatitudes, Jordan, City of Dan

Today we are visiting Capharnaum, or our English version, Capernaum

Capernaum is the harbor city where Christ spent much of his life, as well as a place of many biblical miracles and significant events. Our guide listed a few: it is near to the homes of James, John, Matthew, Andrew, and Peter and the place they were called as apostles. The fish with the coin in his mouth happened here, as did the healing of the woman who touched his garment.  The synagogue is the place Christ taught, and in the city he cleansed the man of the palsy, who had to be lowered through the roof because of the crowd that had gathered. 

The most striking site here is the synagogue, one of the oldest in the world.

 Of course, like almost every single building here, it is a synagogue built on remains of an older synagogue.

The "new" synagogue dates back to the 4th or 5th century. 

An artist's rendering of the way the synagogue may have looked, with an upper floor reserved for women.

One of the things that makes this synagogue so unusual is that it is surrounded by the remains of very simple homes made of black basalt. The synagogue is made of white calcareous stone from distant quarries, meaning it would have stood out rather dramatically because of color. In addition, all of the homes would have been one story, with the two story synagogue towering over everything.

This must have been a beautiful place in its day.

This is one of those sites I thought about how Christ must have walked in the very places

 I was walking.

 I read that all the trees in this area were imported from Australia and planted by Franciscan monks between 1895-1902.

Ancient synagogue through old-ish Australian trees.

These places tend to have a lot of beautiful ancient bits and pieces of important buildings they set off to the side. Presumably someday they will be returned to their rightful place, but restoration is an expensive and time-consuming process.

This place included a George Jetson-style church, built over the top of the home of the apostle, Peter.

 The church is built in such a way that you can look under to see the remains of Peter's house.

or you can go into the church and view it from the top.

Around the 5th century, an octagonal church was built atop of Peter's house as a way of making and preserving the stop, and the ruins that remain are not Peter's house, but from that church.

I think this unusual church must be a nod to the octagonal church it replaces.

Peter, overlooking the harbor.

This city is on the Sea of Galilee.

It must have been a perfectly appealing place to live.

 I cringed just a little to see graffiti craved into the leave of a plant.

 Enjoying some of the sea air.

Near to Capernaum is one of the possible sites of the Beatitudes.

I'm not sure what this statue depicts-a monk picking oranges?

 We saw this international don't sign everywhere, with the unusual addition on the left--a reminder to dress modestly.  I've been a few places in the world where I wish someone would post this sign.

 There's Stan, heading toward the Catholic church's monument to the beatitudes.

 This area is up on a gentle hill, now covered with vineyards. I've always picture the Savior up on the hill speaking down to the crowds, but Michael pointed out it made sense to use the hill as seating for the crowds, with Christ at the bottom, creating a natural amphitheatre. 

 More of those Australian palms.

I found the outside of the building to be much more interesting than the inside,

 which included things like this donation from Pope John Paul on the occasion of his last visit,

 and this goofy mat, showing you the exit.

I'd rather enjoy the view from the veranda.

There was a beautiful tile floor next to the church's building.

 We came across this interesting water feature

 with a reminder to drink the water, just not THIS water.

We moved on to the Jordan, which as you can see is not always the slow moving, gentle baptismal spot we think of.

 We walked to a quieter place to cool off and listen to Michael talk about the story of Naaman the leper, and the importance of doing things the Lord's way.

 We came to this Cananite wall protecting the ancient city of Dan.

Archeologists say this city dates back to 4500 BC.

 The entrance was configured to confuse the enemy. It was not straight, but zig zagged inside the entryway to slow down enemies. It gives new meaning to "straight is the gate and narrow is the way".

We've learned that Israel is home to a zillion rocks, making the materials for this wall easy to obtain.

This picture is taken from above, and shows how incredibly thick the wall is.

 The area of this city is unusually green because of the melting snow that passes through on the way to Jordan River.

 Inside the city is an area used for sacrifices.

We ended up today's journey at the nearby Herman Stream Nature Preserve.

No place is complete without a tourist shop.

 The people got a little off-track and built a temple to the Roman Emperor Augustus around 19 BC

which included a Holy of Holies dedicated to the god Pan.

 Part of a stone floor below the temple.

 Once again, there was a field of antique bits and pieces, including parts to wine presses

and building details. 

 We returned to our hotel in Tiberias,

but decided we hadn't seen enough for the day. We are heading toward an old mosque we spotted.

Along the way, we passed this spiked tree. Apparently, not even the leaves liked this tree.

This is the mosque we were looking for.

It's in pretty sad shape.

At least the cats have a sanctuary.

 We stopped for some seriously disappointing gelato.  If only it tasted as good as it looked. 

As soon as I saw it was Nestle's gelato, I knew things would not go well. It's so bad, it made my hair stand on end.

Time to call it a day!