The shrine of the book

We spent part of a day gonig to the Israel Museum. One of the highlights at the museum is the shrine built in honor of the finding of the Dead Sea scrolls. The exhibit begins down underground; like entering a cave where the scrolls were found just over 60 years ago. You see tools and writing instruments and coins from the Essene community at Qumran, the community which copied and preserved these ancient manuscripts of the Bible. As you work your way deeper into the cave, you finally enter the shrine of the book - a room that is designed to look like the inside of one of the clay pots that held the scrolls for nearly 2000 years. The outside of the shrine can be seen in the picture at the right; doesn't teh white domed roof look like the lid to a pottery jar to you? In a way, we are people of the book; we listen to the Bible as God's word to us, a book filled with words of life.

The Garden Tomb

One of the most moving parts of being in Israel comes with realizing that the events I have heard about since a child happened right here, leaving footprints somewhere here, near my feet.

Like the resurrection of Jesus. We know that he was crucified outside the city gates, outside the wall surrounding Jerusalem; we have a pretty good idea where the old city walls ran. But the exact address, we don't know.

One contender for the site of Jesus' resurrection is the garden tomb. As the garden tomb tour guide said, the resurrection might have happened here or it might have happened 100 meters away from here. Though no one can be certain of a more exact location, what really matters is that Jesus rose from the grave. Glancing over the hill at the garden tomb and seeing the old city wall just a few blocks away, stirred my heart to say: Jesus is alive. It happened here, outside this city. ,With these thoughts in my mind, our tour guide's voice broke into my thoughts: "He is risen!" "Hallelujah," we replied. He is risen indeed!

Sephoris

We are back in Jerusalem after four days in Galilee. One of our many highlights is a visit to the town of Sephoris. Sephoris is just a few miles from Nazareth, maybe a thirty minute walk. The Romans built Sephoris as their new capital in Galilee during the early life of Jesus. It is not difficult to imagine Joseph and his young son Jesus walking over the hills to find work in this new city. There would be plenty for a tradesman to do. Sephoris is filled with beautiful mosaic floors. The Romans loved big banquets and in the floor of one of the sumptuous banquet halls is this mosaic, nicknames the Mona Lisa of Galilee. What these artisans could do with a little colored stone is astounding. It is so exquisite in detail and marvelously shaded, I wondered who could have designed such beauty?