Israel Itinerary
Sunday 15th February
Caesarea
This is Israels premier archaeological site celebrating the megalomaniacal achievements of the Herod the Great, founder of Caesarea. Until his time, Jaffa had served as the port for what little seafaring was done by the Jews. Herod chose this site 50km up the coast, and sunk thousands of cubic metres of stone into the sea to create an artificial harbour. He then erected a palace, theatre, hippodrome and a great temple dedicated to the emperor Augustus to let Rome know how lucky it was to have him as a viceroy. Rome responded by making Caesarea the new capital of Palestine – which it remained for 60-0 years – and the residence of the governor of Judea once Herod had died. This was initially a small Phoenician settlement in the 3rd or 4th Century BC. Herod inherited the site and set about building his city in 22BC. Herod aimed to build the most grandiose city imaginable. For several years hundreds of builders and divers worked round the clock to complete the project.
Following Herods death Caesarea became the local Roman capital and Pontius Pilate lived there as prefect from 26 – 36AD and his name appears on an inscription found in the ruins of the theatre. Acts 10 records that Cornelius, a Roman centurion serving at the garrison here was the first Gentile to be converted to Christianity. It was this port that Paul used on a number of his missionary journeys, and here that he was imprisoned on his way to trial in Rome.
Acts 10 : 1-48
Acts 23 : 33 - 27
Megiddo
The mountain of Megiddo or Armageddon is the symbolic site of the final decisive battle between the forces of good and evil. Megiddo guards the vital pass through the Carmel range of mountains through which all north-south traffic must pass from Damascus to Egypt.
Exodus 20 : 25
1 Kings 9 : 15-19
2 Kings 23 : 29-30
Revelation 16 : 12-19
Nazareth
This is the town where Jesus grew up as a child and then spent thirty obscure years as a builder’s apprentice.
The Annunciation Basilica was built in 1969 replacing a 200yr old Franciscan church which collapsed in 1955. The newer building allows clear access to the rock cave which has been venerated since the 3rd C AD as the dwelling place of Mary, mother of Jesus.
In Nazareth we will also see the Synagogue Church, a small crusader vaulted building which a late tradition associated with the synagogue where Jesus proclaimed his determination to bring the Good News to the poor and set the downtrodden free.
Zephaniah 3 : 14-17
Luke 1 : 26-31
Luke 2 : 39-40
Luke 4 : 16 – 31
Cana
The actual site of the town in which John places his symbolic first story about Jesus is disputed as several places lay claim to being Cana of Galilee. The village of Kfar Kanna is the only one pilgrims visit.
John 2 : 1-12
Monday 16th February
Boatride on Sea of Galilee and 1st Century Boat
From Ein Gev to Nof Ginosar across the Sea of Galillee in a replica 1st Century boat. At Nof Ginosar there are the remains on an original 1st century boat that was recovered from the 1986 drought-induced low waters of the lake. The timbers have been carefully dried and have been on display at the adjacent museum since 1986.
Capernaum
In New Testament times this was a vibrant border town and Jesus chose it as the headquarters for his Galilean ministry and its synagogue was the scene of much of his preaching.
Matthew 9 : 1-9
John 6 : 48-59
Mount of Beatitudes
The gospels make no attempt to locate the Sermon on the Mount. This site, chosen by Franciscan Sisters, is an ideal spot on which to imagine the story.
Matthew 5 : 1-10
Nazareth Village
This small village on the outskirts of the modern bustling town, attempts to authenticate Nazareth in the time of Jesus. Visit the people in their houses, watch them at work and experience life as it was 2,000 years ago.
Galilee Experience
This multi media experience brings to life the last 4000 years on the shores of the Sea of Galilee in a 35 minute presentation.
Tuesday 17th February
Beit Shean
Beit shean occupies an important crossroads, where the valley of Jezreel finally empties into the Jordan, and links the Mediterranean coast to the East. It has been occupied since the stone Age (5000 BC) and the 18 cities built on top of each other since then have produced an archaeological mount 80m high. It was too well fortified for Joshua’s invading army, or even for Saul (whose headless corpse was displayed on the walls by the Philistines) and didn’t become part of Israel until the time of Solomen. Under the Greeks it was known as Scythopolis and under Rome had more inhabitants than Jerusalem.
The main exhibit is the best preserved roman theatre in Israel. It was built in AD200 and could seat 7,000.
1 Samuel 31 : 8 – 2 Samuel 1 : 20
Genesis 22 : 1-13
Genesis Land
This is situated in the Judean desert on the way to the Dead Sea. It enables visitors to experience life as it was in biblical times and brings stories of the bible to life in the place where they happened.
Wednesday 18th February
Temple Mount
This is the name given to the esplanade that occupies a fifth of the walled city of Jerusalem. It is the work of Herod the Great, but on the site chosen for a Temple by king David and his son Solomon. The building at its centre is generally referred to as the Dome of the Rock.
The First Temple was totally destroyed in the Babylonian invasion of 586BC and the Second Temple with which the returning exiles replaced it 70 years later was never regarded as continued Gods presence or glory in the way the First Temple had.
Twenty years before Christ, Herod the Great ingratiated himself with his Jewish subjects by embarking upon a rebuilding project so spectacular that is transformed this Second Temple. This project was still in realisation in New Testament times, when Jesus was preaching in the Temple precincts. Jesus’s own attitude to the Temple echoed the reserve expressed by many of the Old Testament prophets, for who the true Temple of God was in the hearts of men. He worshipped there with the rest of his Jewish countrymen, but he did not hesitate to suggest that he himself and his body of disciples could replace it as the dwelling place of God among men. For tis apparently blasphemous claim he was put to death.
Herod’s Temple was not finished until the year 64AD, and stood for only 6 years before it was again totally destroyed, this time never to be rebuilt. The 7th century Caliphs built the present Dome and the el-Aksa mosque, which the 12th century Crusaders turned into a church and a palace. The buildings reverted to Arab use after the defeat of the Crusaders, and have remained Muslim holy places ever since.
2 Sanuel 24 : 18 – 24
2 Samuel 6 : 1-15
1 Kings 5 : 2 – 8
Jeremiah 7 : 2 – 4
Ezra 3 : 8 – 13
Psalm 84
Haggai 2 : 3 – 9
Luke 1 : 5 – 2 :46
Mark 11 : 9 – 13
John 2 : 19 – 21
1 Corinthians 3 : 16 – 17
Ephesians 2 : 19 – 22
Acts 3 : 1 – 8
Jewish Quarter
The district immediately to the west of the Temple is known as the Jewish Quarter. Since 1967 is complex network of streets has been sensitively restored on a scale and in a style Jerusalem has not known for centuries.
Thursday 19th February
Israel Museum
This adjoins the Hebrew University campus. The main display is the Shrine of the Book especially built to display the documents discovered in and around Qumran.
Model of Jerusalem
This is model of the City of Jerusalem as it existed before its destruction in the Jewish War of 70AD. Some aspects of it are hypothetical but most of it is very soundly based on contemporary sources and by walking round it, helps get the various parts of the Old City into perspective.
Yad Veshem
This is the memorial to the Holocaust. The name means “hand and name” or monument and memorial”. The hand is a black pillar 24m high and the name a museum which has meticulously documented the Nazi persecution of Jews in the 1930s and 1940s. The approach is lined with an avenue of 400 trees bearing the names of the non-jewish “just men” who gave succour to Jews in this unprecedented pogrom.
The museum is very clear and directs visitors through the harrowing story of Hitler’s final solution. In the oppressive stone bunker which adjoins the museum, its doors decorated with iron thorns, a permanent flame flickers amid the names of the 21 concentration camps where six million Jews died in the 1940s, a million of them children. Ashes from the camps are buried under the paving stones.
Isiah 56 : 5
Psalm : 79 2-10
Friday 20th February
Inn of Good Samaritan
This is actually an abandoned police post, which even in ruins still dominates the road. No one pretends this is the actual spot where the most famous and challenging story told by Jesus took place and, as a story, it doesn’t need an actual spot but it is good to havein somewhere where the story can be read again.
Luke 10 : 30 - 37
Masada
The rock of Masada is like a giant ship in the desert, along the shores of the Dead Sea. It is here that the final suicidal stand made by the Zealots in the Jewish war of the 1st century AD took place. It was only discovered in 1850 and not excavated until 1963.
Herod the Great put Masada on the map even though it had been a fortress since a hundred years before Christ. Herod dug cisterns into the sides of the mountain to hold 170,000 cubic metres of water, and ducted rainwater from the adjacent hills to fill them, enough to allow a huge swimming pool to be built on the summit. He built a massive palace in the centre much of which can still be seen. On the northern tip he built a summer house, catching the best views and the coolest winds – again elaborately decorated. He built 15 enormous storerooms where hundreds of grains and liquid jars were unearthed. After Herod died in 4BD the Roman army took over Masada as a garrison but in the rebellion of 66AD Jewish partisans captured it. Thousands of refugees from Qumran and other centres moved up their and camped out in Herods palace and the synagogue and resisted 5 years of siege. In 72AD 15,000 soldiers of the Ten Legion surround the mountain in 8 fortified camps and started to build a ramp up the western wall face. Firing towers and battering rams were sent up the ramps to breach the walls. The Zealots realised they couldn’t win and agreed to die by each other’s hands rather than become slaves of Rome. Lots were drawn for ten men to kill the rest and then each other. Five children and two women escaped to tell the story to the world.
Ein Gedi
This is also know as the Spring of David and is a small oasis with date palms and vines in a barren area. The spring gushes out and forms a waterful at the top of the cleft and a number of pools on the way down. Rainfall affects the depth of these pools but bathers can always rely on the top one.
Ecclesiasticus 24 : 13-14
Song of Solomon 1 : 14-15
1 Samuel 24 – 1-7
Qumran
In 1947 a Bedouin boy threw a stone to dislodge a goat that had strayed into a cave on the hillside. The brought to light a history hidden for 1,900 years. The stone hit an earthen jar that contained a scroll, remarkably well preserved by the dry atmosphere, the work of a community which had once occupied the ruins of the plateau below.
Once the discovery became know people from all over the world swarmed to the area trying to get a piece of these priceless scrolls, selling them by the square centimetre to the highest bidder. They tell the story from 150BC when a group of fifty ultra orthodox Jews left Jerusalem to set up a commune in the desert. They were related to the Essenes, who were very strict religious sect. They were very upset by the secularization of the priestly leaders of the time and denounced them as having lost the faith. The community lived at Qumran for a hundred years until the earthquake of 31BC forced them to abandon the site for 30 years, although they eventually returned to repair and occupy it for another 70 years before the Roman army demolished it at the end of the Jewish War. Those who escaped went to Masada eventually to die with them.
The buildings were used as a community centre, where everyone met for work and worship, the living quarters were in tents and in the caves honeycombing the area. It was to these caves that they consigned their precious jars of hand written texts of scripture, commentaries, psalms and rule books. These are not preserved in the Israel Museum.
Dead Sea
The Dead Sea is part of the Great Rift Valley extending 6,500km from the Jordans sources to the lakes of Eastern Africa. The great fissure in the earth’s crust reaches its deepest point here. The Sea lies 400m below sea level, and at its northern end its salty waters descent another 400m.
Since the Sea’s only source of water is the River Jordan and its tributaries, and since these diminish year by year as more and more water is taken from then the level of the Dead Sea gets lower and lower. There is no exit for the water at the southern end so the water evaporates in to the air producing rich mineral deposits.
Genesis 19 : 17-28
Deuteronomy 34 : 1-5
Mark 6 : 17-29
Ezekiel 47 : 1-8
John 7 : 14 – 19
Saturday 21st February
Mount of Olives
This is a large mountain to the east of Jerusalem. Christians tend to associate it so exclusively withy Jesus that they forget its previous association with David.
Walking down the Mount of Olives on the “Palm Sunday Route” it is easy to imagine the scene 2000 years ago. Jesus, on a donkey, entering Jerusalem for the last time. On the way down we will pass by the Russian Orthodox Convent of St Mary Magdalene and the entrance to the cemetery, ultimate Jewish resting place which occupies most of the hillside. It is here that Joel expected God’s judgement to take place. Robert Maxwell is buried here.
The Church of Dominus Flevit was built in 1955 and its famous chalice window frames a fine view of the Old City. This is the site that Jesus wept over Jerusalem.
2 Samuel 15 : 13-30
Joel 3 : 1-17
Luke 19: 41-44
Gethsemane
This is a very likely spot for the place “in a garden called Gethsemane, on the far side of the Kidron” where Jesus had to make the agonizing decision before his arrest. There are remains of a 4th century Church and parts of its mosaic floor are still visible. Ancient olive trees grow here and some have been carbon-dated as 2,300 years old, others are more likely to be the great-great-grandsons of the ones Jesus knew.
Luke 22 : 39-48
Hebrews 5 : 708
Via Dolorosa
The tradition of following Jesus on his journey to the cross is a very old one. The marking of the route by 14 “stations” is an recent one dating from the 13th century. The traditional route passes through lanes which are noisy and at times thick with visitors, intent on shopping, sightseeing and refreshment. Jesus’ own way of the cross passed through a similar scene.
1. Jesus is condemned to death Mark 15 : 1-5
2. Jesus receives his cross John 19 : 13 – 17
Ecce Home archway
Lithostratos
3. Jesus falls for the first time John 1 : 29/Isaiah 53 : 4-7
4. Jesus meets his mother John 19 : 26-27
5. Simon of Cyrene helps Jesus carry his cross Mark 15 : 21
6. Veronica wipes the face of Jesus John 1 : 10-12
7. Jesus falls the second time Psalm 38 : 6-22
Arab shuk
8. Jesus speaks to the women of Jerusalem Luke 23 : 27-31
9. Jesus falls for the third time Psalm 37 : 23 – 24
10. Jesus is stripped on his garments John 19 : 23 – 24
Church of the Holy Sepulcre
11. Jesus is nailed to the cross Luke 23 : 33 – 45
12. Jesus dies on the cross John 19 : 28 – 37
13. Jesus is taken down from the cross John 19 : 38 – 40
14. Jesus is laid in the Spulchre Mark 15 : 46 – 47
Upper Room
This is not an authentic site as this building was built more than 1000 years after the event which it commemorates – the Last supper.
Mark 14 : 17-28
Garden Tomb
General Charles Gordon was dissatisfied by the holy Sephulcre Church as the site of the tomb as it was inside the walls of Jerusalem. One day he noticed the shape of a skull in the caves which form a backdrop to the present bus station Further investigation revealed a perfectly preserved 1st century tomb complete with the groove for a rolling stone.
There is little possibility of the site being authentic but there is not doubt that it is able to recreate, in a way the Holy Sepulchre no longer can, the kid of garden setting of the tome in which Jesus was laid.
John 19 : 14 – 20
Mark 16 : 5 – 7
