'Tel' Jerusalem

 Tel noun: [singular]    (from Hebrew: תֵּל‎‎, also tel or tell from Arabic: تلّ‎, tall)
a.)A tell is a hill created by different civilizations living and rebuilding in the same spot. Over time, the level rises, forming a mound


So this post is gonna be  a Tel, of sorts. Christy posted last night, and I woke up this morning to see that Teresa had already got her post in before me. So really, when you wake up, you'd be up to date already. But, if you don't mind, maybe I can sort of dig underneath the top-soil and show more of the layers below, show more in detail where we've been over the last few days and on the last few posts with pictures, and in doing so, gather my breath. :) It's been go, go, go this whole trip (with a few exceptions) so this morning it's nice to have a little time to absorb!

We've been to a few Tels in the last few days:

Tel Dan,(a long time time ago, it seems, back on Friday) the place where Joash broke down the pagan high places (2 Kings 23:8)and where David sat in the gate after mourning for Absalom:

2 Samuel 19:

"Joab was told, “The king is weeping and mourning for Absalom.” 2 And for the whole army the victory that day was turned into mourning, because on that day the troops heard it said, “The king is grieving for his son.” 3 The men stole into the city that day as men steal in who are ashamed when they flee from battle. 4 The king covered his face and cried aloud, “O my son Absalom! O Absalom, my son, my son!”
5 Then Joab went into the house to the king and said, “Today you have humiliated all your men, who have just saved your life..... 7Now go out and encourage your men. I swear by the Lord that if you don’t go out, not a man will be left with you by nightfall. This will be worse for you than all the calamities that have come on you from your youth till now.”
8 So the king got up and took his seat in the gateway. When the men were told, “The king is sitting in the gateway, ” they all came before him."

The King's Seat in the gate. David's?!?!

                                                            

City Walls

The high place where Jeroboam built golden calves to keep his people from going to Jerusalem to worship. (Also in Tel Dan, a five minute walk from the city of Dan.) This took place within a couple generations after the time of David's reign in the city. It was so challenging to see how fast little compromises and choices can lead to complete idolatry!

Tel Hazor:

(This was on Monday)

Ok. Joshua 11.Joshua's conquest in the land of Canaan. there are a lot of names and places here, but it brings out the incredible army that gathered against Joshua. It's actually really epic.

When Jabin, king of Hazor, heard of this, he sent to Jobab king of Madon, and to the king of Shimron, and to the king of Achshaph, and to the kings who were in the northern hill country, and in the Arabah south of Chinneroth, and in the lowland, and in Naphoth-dor on the west, to the Canaanites in the east and the west, the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, and the Jebusites in the hill country, and the Hivites under Hermon in the land of Mizpah. And they came out with all their troops, a great horde, in number like the sand that is on the seashore, with very many horses and chariots. And all these kings joined their forces and came and encamped together at the waters of Merom to fight against Israel.

And the LORD said to Joshua, “Do not be afraid of them, for tomorrow at this time I will give over all of them, slain, to Israel. You shall hamstring their horses and burn their chariots with fire.” So Joshua and all his warriors came suddenly against them by the waters of Merom and fell upon them. And the LORD gave them into the hand of Israel, who struck them and chased them as far as Great Sidon and Misrephoth-maim, and eastward as far as the Valley of Mizpeh. And they struck them until he left none remaining. And Joshua did to them just as the LORD said to him: he hamstrung their horses and burned their chariots with fire.

And Joshua turned back at that time and captured Hazor and struck its king with the sword, for Hazor formerly was the head of all those kingdoms. And they struck with the sword all who were in it, devoting them to destruction; there was none left that breathed. And he burned Hazor with fire. 

(Joshua 11:1-13 ESV)(emphasis added)

Here are the basalt rocks, the base of the palace walls, that splintered and cracked in the "huge conflagration" archaeology has confirmed. To split this kind of rock requires a heat of 13,000 degrees Fahrenheit!

Incredible. Burn marks from Joshua's conquest 3000 years ago are also visible on the rock behind these rocks.

!

A large pot that split into hundreds of pieces in the blaze.

So these are two of the  Tels we have been at, just to give a mental picture of what a Tel looks like. below the places where these pictures were taken are certainly many more ancient layers, which is what makes a 'tel'. One Tel in Israel, I believe it may be Masada, a huge fortress by the Dead Sea, has 28 layers! It's been razed and rebuilt time after time!!!

Okay, as you may have gathered, I love the archaeology of the land.( I'm sorry if  you don't and this post is incredibly boring to you:)

So you can imagine, I was absolutely thrilled the whole time we were in the Israel Museum on Tuesday, especially in the wing where biblical archaeology is found. At 8 o'clock we were exhausted, but couldn't make ourselves leave. I felt like I was just getting started! Here's a brief, quick, skimming tour:

The Moses seat from a synagogue in Chorazin, one of the cities in which Jesus did most of his  signs and miracles. This put a whole new light on Matthew 23, where Jesus says,'"The teachers of the law and Pharisees sit in Moses seat.." It's not figurative language! In the synagogues, the teacher would stand to read from the Torah, and then sit in the 'Moses seat' to teach.

"...so do and observe everything they tell you. But do not  do according to their deeds. for they say things and do not do them."

For many years, critics and skeptics of the Bible attacked the accounts of Pontius Pilate in the gospels, since there was no archaeological evidence for the existence of a man in his position.In 1961, this rock with his name engraved on it was found in Caesarea!

Caiaphas the high priest's ossuary, or bone-box! Another huge find in biblichal archaeology.

A household footbath for washing the feet of traveling guests from the time of Jesus!

Then we moved to the Old Testament section:

The earliest Scripture writing ever found.  A pendant from between 500 and 1000 years before the time of Christ with the Aaronic blessing:
"The Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious unto you, the Lord lift up the light of his countenance upon you and give you peace"

                                          

Isaiah 6 says, " In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the lord."
This is the 'gravestone' of King Uzziah.

In 2 Chronicles 32, a King named Sennacherib  sent messengers to Hezekiah in Jerusalem, boasting against God in his own strength. We realized at the museum how incredibly proud this dude was! This is a piece of pottery with Sennacherib's boastings and exploits. He calls himself," The King of the World" and talks about how he trapped Hezekiah in Jerusalem" like a bird in a cage."
The Bible says he did, but after Isaiah interceded before God and then prophesied,"He shall not come into this city, declares the Lord,For I will defend this City to save it for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David" God sent an angel and killed the best 185000 men in Sennacherib's camp overnight. He retreated by dawn the next morning, and his two sons killed him in the temple of his false God the next day.



 Time and space in this post keeps me from talking about and showing pictures of Hezekiah's tunnel, which is what he used to keep the water supply inside the city walls in case of Sennacherib's seige (pix on earlier posts) and how we walked down the shaft Joab ran up to strike the Jebusites and become David's chief commander when David's army first captured Jerusalem. Time fails to talk about what we did today in the Dead Sea. But it's been great. I got to look at some of these verses I had bookmarked and got a chance to actually read them and pair them with places, and hopefully you got something out of being reminded that God's Word is Truth. Unchanging and timeless. No one can really argue when it's all said and done, and science just keeps digging up more evidence.

Lastly, some random.
Random stuff.


This is how we open our Coke bottles in Israel:

This is how much we like date pudding with Cool Whip

And here are the Ohio-ans repping for the home state in some 2000 year old Herodian aqueducts.

Thanks, folks! Good afternoon, and I'm gonna go get some sleep.

We're off to Bethlehem tomorrow!

-Zach