Day 14

This is Sunday's post since we didn't have good internet at our last hotel.---- There was a Jewish holiday this weekend, which caused a lot of shops to be closed. It made souvenir shopping a little harder, but it did give us great traffic for yesterday. Sunday we went to Caesarea, another city that Herod the Great built. As crazy as Herod the Great was at the end of his life (killing his wives, killing his sons, and killing the babies in Bethlehem), he had “great” building plans and administrative skills to carry them out. In Caesarea, not only did he build a Roman city complete with a theater, hippodrome, and a palace, he also built a man-made harbor. The coast of Israel is very straight which makes shipping difficult. Some in Caesarea, he made a place that shipping vessels could safely dock. The harbor last for many years, but eventually fell apart due to earthquakes and rough seas, but you still can see the remains of it today. Caesarea is were Herod Agrippia I (Herod the Great’s grandson) killed James the brother of John and imprisoned Peter (Acts 12). Paul was also imprisoned in Caesarea for 2 years (Acts23:23 to Acts 27:2).

We went farther north to Mt Carmel which is actual a mountain range and not just a single mountain. Mt Carmel is mentioned a few times in passing in the Bible, typically referring to the fact it is very lush and fruitful. The main story that mentions Mt Carmel is 1 Kings 18 when Elijah challenges the prophets of Baal to a competition to see whose god is real. God through Elijah wins in spectacular fashion. It is a great story. Being there, you can see the story come to life. We were on top of one of the mounts of Mt Carmel. We could see the river of the Kishon Valley (vs 40) on the west and the Mediterranean Sea (vs 43-44) on the east. We stayed in Nazareth Sunday night (where Jesus grew up). In the breakfast buffet, they had spaghetti, I opted for cereal instead.