Day 12

We started off bright and early yesterday (Friday) at 5:00 am to climb up to top of Masada. Masada is a fortress on top of a hill/mountain next to the Dead Sea. Herod the Great is the one who built it up to a large structure during the time of Jesus, but there is some speculation that it could have been the “stronghold” where David hid from Saul in 1 Samuel 22:4-5. We were trying to make it up to the top by sunrise but we didn’t quite make it. It was still a beautiful view just below the top of Masada. Herod the Great in his typical fashion made it very grand. The front top of the mountain was carved out for one of his many palaces. He had a bathhouse and supplies to last years in preparation for a siege. The siege never came in Herod’s life time. But the Jews used Masada during the Jewish Revolt in 73 AD, and the Romans were able to capture it at that time. From Masada, we went north along the Dead Sea to the springs of En Gedi. This is the only fresh water source on west side of the Dead Sea. It has multiple waterfalls and all around it is desert mountains. En Gedi is mentioned in 1 Sam 23:29 and 1 Sam 24 talking about David hiding from Saul. It is a great place to hide because of the fresh water source and the many caves in the desert mountains. Scholars also think is inspiration for Psalm 57 and 142.

From En Gedi went across the street to float in the Dead Sea. What they say is true, you don’t have to swim. You can just float. The only effort you have to make is try to stay right side up, so you don’t roll over and dunk your face in the very strong salt water. We walked down the beach and found some mud to put on our skin (it’s supposed to be good since it is rich in minerals). The rocks on the edge of the beach had a thick layer of salt stuck to them. It reminded me of ice forming on the rocks on the edge of Lake Michigan.

We visited the Qumran ruins, which is where they found the Dead Sea scrolls, which is a mix of Biblical and non-Biblical writings. These scrolls were amazing preserved for hundreds of years in part because of the low humidity around the Dead Sea. One thing that makes the finding of the Dead Sea scrolls so important is, before they were found the oldest Biblical manuscripts we had were from 1200 AD and now we have them from as far back as 250 BC. This allows scholars to do textural criticism and what they found was an AMAZING preservation of the text. The Old Testament texts from the time of Jesus matched the ones from 2000 years later with only few small differences here and there. God is watching over his Word, and we can trust it to be true! Today we are back in Jerusalem for our free day (after the morning quiz). Basically we went souvenir shopping and rested. My arm is all healed from the sea urchins. :) Next week we are off to Galilee!