South to the Dead Sea

Today we made our track to Masada. While not a biblical site, it represents so much in biblical times. The people of Masada were the last stand against the Romans. Herod the Great built Masada and with his influence Masada had much of a Roman flavor. The people of Masada at the time of the Roman siege were after the time of Herod. As the Romans came to conquer the great mountain city they encamped around it in eight different places. Ultimately they used Jewish slaves to begin to build a ramp to conquer. Josephus records the final words of one of the chief leaders. One of the men made a compelling speech inspiring the Jews to take their own lives rather than be tortured and killed by the Romans. Our guide shared an amazing thing that took place in the synagogue. As they were doing the dig in the area they had realized was the synagogue, they found a scroll that was open to Ezekiel 37. It was open to the place that speaks of the dead bones coming back to life. It was as if the individual who left the scroll wanted the Romans to know that one day they would thrive again. Almost 2000 years later the nation of Israel is thriving again.

On our way to Dead Sea

Cable Car up to Masada

1 of 8 Roman Encampments around Masada

On Top of Masada

This is my buddy Maxine.  We are standing in the synagogue at Masada

En Gedi was the place that David hid from Saul. You wouldn’t think this place would be out in the wilderness. There are trails you can take all throughout the preserve. As you go up near the top waterfall you get a great view of the Dead Sea.

 

Richard continues to call our group the Riverside 5. Today as we asked someone to take our picture, there was what seemed like cameras everywhere taking a picture of our group. We were laughing thinking that they probably thought they needed to take a picture to explain to others about the crazy redneck group from Alabama.

Riverside 5

Qumran is where the dead sea scrolls were discovered. This is where the Essene community lived that I mentioned earlier when we went to the Shrine of the Book. Here we got a chance to see the actual cave and also the actual room where they copied the scrolls. When doing the dig they found the actual ink jars and the ink in them matched up perfectly with the ink on the scrolls.

The Scroll Room

Cave #4- Main cave were scrolls were found by Bedouin boy

High Quality Latrine

 

I got to meet one of my favorite preachers tonight. Chuck Swindoll has a large group here from Texas. It was very exciting to get a chance to meet someone that God has used in my life. Tomorrow we may not get to go where we were planning. There is some turmoil that has been taking place in the Old City the last couple of days and today the temple mount area was closed. We shall see. Hope everyone has a great night!