Bible tour highlighted ministry of Jesus, Jewish history | Along The Way

Masada, the ancient rock fortress, where nearly 1,000 Jewish rebels took their own lives rather than submit to Roman rule, has become one of Israel’s most popular tourist attractions.

Rising nearly 1,200 feet from its base near the Dead Sea, which at 1,400 feet below sea level is said to be the lowest point on Earth’s surface, Masada is accessible by a modern cable car that begins its journey from a visitor’s center.  There one can watch a short film that tells the story of the rebels who represented one of the final elements of organized Jewish resistance to Roman conquest that in 70 CE or AD, destroyed Jerusalem and its temple scattering Jews in a diaspora throughout the Roman world and eventually throughout Europe, Africa, Asia and the American hemisphere.

Having re-established a Jewish state in 1948 that has defended itself against Islamic-based challenges, the Israelis have turned Masada into a powerful symbol of their determination and resilience and one cannot help but be impressed.

Janet and I were privileged to visit Masada as part of a recent 28-person Holy Land tour organized and led by the Rev. Dr. David Palmer, retiring senior minister of the Kent United Methodist Church, the church I grew up in.  The tour consisted of a week in Turkey visiting ancient sites of Graeco-Roman rule over what geographers refer to as Asia Minor.  The visit devoted several stops to tracking the ministry of the apostle the Church calls Saint Paul.

The second week of the tour involved seeing Biblical Israel-Palestine by tracking the public ministry of Jesus, mostly in Galilee and Jerusalem, but also adding some ancient sites important to Jewish history. Together, the sites tell the story of how pagan outsiders repeatedly challenged adherence to a belief in one God and a determination to live by rules deduced from the commandments handed to Moses 1,400 years before Jesus.

Working with an organization called Educational Opportunities Tours, Dr. Palmer had assembled our ambitious itinerary.  We visited Caesarea on the coast where the apostle Paul was held in captivity.  We stopped at Mount Carmel where 900 years before Jesus, the prophet Elijah challenged King Ahab and his Phoenician Queen Jezebel who diverted their subjects away from the God of Israel.

We toured the shores of the beautiful Sea of Galilee where most of the three years of Jesus’ public ministry occurred.  Archeologists have painstakingly uncovered ruins of ancient Capernaum where Peter, the simple fisherman whom Jesus chose to lead Christianity, resided with an extended family.  Archeologists have done the same with the ancient community of Magdala that Mary, the loyal follower of Jesus, called home.  A beautiful modern octagonally shaped church and a visitor’s center stand near the Mount of Beatitudes where Jesus preached what Dr. Palmer called his quintessential sermon.

Our bus headed south paralleling the Jordan River that is sustained by outflows from the Sea of Galilee, a 12-mile by 7-mile freshwater lake.  As we drove, the landscape of fertile hills that capture scarce rainfall from the Mediterranean Sea, became more arid especially around the Dead Sea where some of us took a dip and where we toured the site where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in 1947.  Nearby Jericho, where we also stopped, survives as an oasis on a rare freshwater stream.

Jerusalem, our final destination, is a city of a million people perched on a cluster of steep hills in a harsh desert climate.  It surrounds archeological remains from antiquity that make the city a holy site for Jews, Christians and Muslims. The Dome of the Rock is a mosque built on the site of the destroyed Temple where Abraham, to whom all three religions trace their history, is said to have offered his son, Isaac, as a sacrifice to God.

We mostly visited sites that Christians consider sacred.  We walked down the Mount of Olives, where Jesus ascended into heaven.  It now hosts 22 churches.  We visited the so-called Wailing Wall of the temple, a site sacred for modern day Jews.

Hundreds of what appeared to me to be Orthodox Jews were chanting prayers.  We walked the Via Dolorosa, the so-named Way of Suffering, where Jesus bore his cross.  Hollywood movies usually depict this in a more rural setting.  In modern Jerusalem, it has become a series of alleys full of shops and restaurants.

The Church of the Holy Sepulcher, constructed at the site where the crucifixion occurred, is run by six denominations with the Greek Orthodox Church taking the lead and the Roman Catholic Church a close second.  Pilgrims crawled to touch the site.  In a room in a 12^th century church on Mount Zion, built on a site where the Last Supper is believed to have occurred, our guide, Abu George, told us that since seat back chairs were not in use at the time, the disciples and Jesus probably reclined Roman style on floor cushions, a factoid that will make me look at Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece with a smile.

Bethlehem, a city of 28,000 in the West Bank territory and requiring our passports even though it is on a hill adjacent to one of those of Jerusalem, has the Church of Nativity, built over the site where Jesus was born.  Our guide discounted the manger description and said the Holy Family was likely relegated to a room in the back of a multi-room facility that was full of relatives celebrating Passover.  He said that the process of birth involves blood, which guests staying at the inn would have considered a pollution.

So much information.  So many sites, and Israel-Palestine is less than a third the size of Ohio.  One Jerusalem evening, Janet and I joined Tina Ballentine, her daughter Amanda, Jane Hornyak, Gail Pytel, Chris Webb and his sister, Amy Barefield, in a dinner in a Bethlehem neighborhood with a Christian Palestinian family who entertained us for a modest price because that is one of the few avenues of income available.

The man of the house said his family can prove their title to their property goes back at least 600 years.  His wife, who calls Ramallah home, said she has to get a pass from Israel to visit her family and that passes are limited to major holidays and a few other occasions.  Israel may be thriving as a Jewish state, but its 6.5 million people face a Palestinian minority of 6.4 million, 85 percent of them Muslim. Our hosts called Palestine on the West Bank an open-air prison.

Dr. Palmer and his wife, Mavis, who was so helpful to all of us, included some lighter touches to our trip.  One of these occurred at the Franciscan Wedding Chapel in Cana where Jesus miraculously turned water into wine.  The Palmers invited married couples to recite their wedding vows.  It was a sweet moment in a busy journey of site seeing and visiting that contained some profoundly inspirational moments as well as a hard look at modern Israel.

David E. Dix is a retired publisher of the Record-Courier.

This article originally appeared on Record-Courier: Bible tour highlighted ministry of Jesus, Jewish history