Nazareth, Cana, Caesarea, Joppa

November 3, 2009--Tuesday

It was raining again this morning.

Turning left out of the hotel, we passed Magdal (“tower”) where Mary Magdalene was from. We passed Taran (sp?) where Jesus and the disciples were going through the fields on the Sabbath and were hungry. Stephen said they took wheat in their hands, rubbed it together to winnow it, and ate it. The scriptures say it was corn. Doesn’t matter.

The principle was the same. When the Savior was questioned by the Jews, he gave them the example of David and his men eating the shewbread in the temple which wasn’t lawful for them.
Jesus was a son of David, so it was lawful for him to do likewise.

We passed through Cana. There are two churches there, one Greek Orthodox and the other I can’t remember, and they both have six stone jars in them, to represent where the Savior turned the water into wine. Both can’t be right, and it is possible that neither is the correct spot.
Stone jars and dishes are used because they don’t absorb the impurities and other things that make a Jew impure, so they can be washed out and used again. In the restaurant in Tiberius, we were served on glass plates since glass doesn’t absorb anything, and it is cheaper than stone. So they can serve meat on it for one meal, wash it, and then serve a dairy product on it for another meal.

This brings up the subject of kosher. One of our tour members asked for a glass of milk at an evening meal. They were told no milk was served with meat because it wouldn’t be kosher--wouldn’t keep the law about not seething, or cooking, a kid in its mother’s milk. This was an Arab custom or delicacy, but it was considered cruel to do so. Under the Law of Moses, sacrificial animals had to be killed in the quickest and least painful way to be the least cruel. Cutting the throat was the method which took the breath and the blood.

The Jews who keep kosher--and Stephen said about 20% consider themselves orthodox, yet about 50% or so keep kosher, and about 80% fast on the holiest day of the year--only eat meat from an animal that has a cloven foot and chews its cud. With fish, they must have scales and fins. Fowls are like meat so they don’t have them with milk.

Back to Cana, the Savior told Mary that His hour had not yet come, so he would do whatever she wanted him to. His hour with wine was going to be when He instituted the sacrament.
Wine and blood are recurring themes. Moses first curse on Egypt was turning the river into blood, and his last curse was the death of the firstborn. The Savior’s first miracle was turning water into wine. His last in this mortal life was in the death of God’s Firstborn.

We passed a little town called Mished, the traditional birthplace of Jonah. Later in the afternoon, we went to Joppa, which is right by Tel Aviv, and where Jonah took ship to Tarshish (Spain) rather than go prophecy to the Assyrians in Nineveh that they would be destroyed in 40 days. Even though Jonah tried to reject his calling from the Lord, he was still a testimony of the Savior. Jesus told the Jews asking for a sign that the only one they’d get was the sign of Jonah.
Also in Joppa was where Cornelius the Centurion lived who had the visit from the angel. He is told to send men to Peter in Caesarea, which they do, about 25 miles away. Peter has his vision there, and then goes to Joppa and preaches to Cornelius and all his family, who are baptized.
St. Peter’s Church, a Catholic Church, is there in Joppa. We went in and saw it after we read of Cornelius’ experience and after visiting a tel up the street from the Church. The tel had a few layers of buildings from different civilizations. Herod shipped in cedar from Lebanon there for the temple. The great brass doors for the temple came through there. Napoleon took the city from Muslims, and decimated it, and his soldiers were decimated from the diseases from all the dead bodies.

We drove through Nazareth, or Nazareth Elite, which is on the top of a hill. There are about 40 churches there, on spots where incidents in the Savior’s life are mentioned. There are more churches than verses about Nazareth.

There is a Church of the Precipitation, or the Church of Jumping. When someone was stoned under Jewish law, they were thrown off a cliff. Then, the witnesses against him had to go to the bottom of the cliff to see if the condemned was dead. If not, the witness had to take the first large stone and throw it on the chest and crush the heart to finish the deed. You really had to be dedicated to be a witness. After that, stones were thrown on the person to cover them up and bury them. This was done in abandoned quarries.

The Church of the Precipitation stands near where the Savior was taken to be thrown off the cliff after reading about himself in Isaiah in the synagogue and saying the scripture was fulfilled. He escaped, of course.

The main business in Nazareth then and now is stone quarrying. Stephen said the Greek word for handyman has been translated as “carpenter” for Joseph’s job, but it could have been stone mason since that was the main business there, and it would have been symbolic of the Savior as the Rock.

We stopped on the side of a high hill to look out over the Valley of Jezreel and the Valley of Armageddon. To the left was Mount Tabor, where Pres. Kimball said the Transfiguration happened. We couldn’t see it for the clouds. We didn’t go there because there are 18 switchbacks up and 18 down the mountain, and it would have taken us about two hours to do so.
Six days prior to the Transfiguration, Peter had been promised that he would receive the keys and the sealing power. Moses and Elijah came with those keys. He and James and John probably received their endowment there and were told to tell no one. In ancient times, hilltops were used as temples, such as Mt. Sinai.

When Elijah and Moses returned on April 3, 1863 in the Kirtland Temple, they came on Passover.

About lunch time, we went to Caesarea, which is where the rich live today. We drove past a Roman aqueduct that was originally eight miles long. We were only allowed to take pictures from the bus because the wind and sand were blowing hard from the Mediterranean Sea.
We stopped next at Caesarea. We saw a film there about how Herod the Great built a great city there and a protected harbor. He knew that ships had to weather the storms of winter in the Greek Islands. Then it took them three or four weeks to sail back, load up with olive oil, bread, dates, wheat and so on to sail to Rome and other places to sell it. By having a protected harbor, Herod’s ships could get to those cities first and get a better price for their goods.

Caesarea was a huge success as a commercial center. It also had an amphitheater and a hippodrome for chariot races, larger than the one in Rome. It suffered earthquakes, and a Muslim army conquered it at one time and destroyed the town. Crusaders came in and conquered it after that.

There are still parts of Crusader walls to be seen there.

We sat and read the story of Paul before King Agrippa where the government building had been, where Paul probably made his case.

Earlier in the day before Joppa, we drove up Mt. Carmel, which has residential areas and businesses and overlooks Haifa and the harbor. It was at the foot of Mount Carmel where Elijah had his challenge with the 450 priests of Baal, and it was on Mount Carmel where they were taken an executed.

This challenge happened because the children of Israel were secretive--they were worshipping both Yahweh and Baal (which means “Lord“). Elijah had cursed the land with no rain for three years because of this, so he had a throw down, which also proved that his God was responsible for the drought.

We passed over the Brook of Kishon where the priests’ blood made it run red down the mountain.

Side notes: the police have their flashing lights on all the time, as a deterrent rather than trying to sneak up on people; the bathroom sinks are round with flat bottoms; and there are two buttons in the wall behind the toilet for flushing, one bigger than the other (the bigger one gives more water in the flush).