Day 06 - Galilee: Beth Shean, Megiddo, Mt. Carmel, Caesarea Maritima

Today was an amazing day.  We started off in the lower Jordan River and Pastor Greg baptized twelve people!!!  It was incredible and awesome, and the day only got better after that.

Our first stop was at Beth She ‘an.  Beth She ‘an mean “the house of strength” because it was a very good place to live. It was so sought after because of the location of the place being on the King’s highway which ran north to south in Israel and the East/West Road that ran across the country from the Mediterranean Sea to the border of Jordan or ancient Moab. It was the point of intersection that was used to transport good to Europe from Asia and Africa. It was so sought after, that archeologists found 19 different layers of civilization. In Israel this is called a “Tel”. The problem is when you build a city on top of a city, on top of a city… the building platform begins to shrink. After the Roman’s conquered the land, they felt that they were secure enough that they could build next to the Tel, but they didn’t build just one city, they built ten: The Decapolis. The capitol of the Decapolis was Schytopolis, and it was a huge Roman city. For the Hebrew culture it was very advanced. They built sewers and bath houses and the biggest sauna in the world. They created theaters and brough Roman plays that desensitized the Hebrew culture and began to immerse them into the Roman way of life.  They brought polytheistic thought into the culture through Roman tragedies and Comedies and dramas. It was truly remarkable to see how big and how well the Empire worked to assimilate the Israelis into the Roman way of life.

Next, we went to Megiddo. This was an interesting sight. Once again it was in the valley of Jezreel, so it was a very significant place on the Kings Highway and on the East West Road. King Solomon had a large palace on Megiddo, with stables and a lot of things that he was told not to acquire. Again, there were many battles fought at Megiddo and to this day it is known as one of the most important archeological finds in Israel’s history. This is also the sight on which people believe will be the final battle in the days of Armageddon.

Our second to last stop was a dream place for me, Mt. Carmel. Mt. Carmel is mentioned several times in the Bible, but none as significant as when Elijah challenged the prophets of Baal to a duel of sorts (Read 1 Kings 18). Elijah had a big faith and knew that God would deliver on what He had promised.  God overcame insurmountable odds, in a way that only He could, to prove to His people that He alone was God and only He is worthy of the people’s faith. This is one of my favorite stories in the Bible and I was overwhelmed by how God continues to show up in amazing ways, especially when the odds seem insurmountable.

The last place that we got to visit was Caesarea Maritima. This was incredible. I was blown away by the scope of what Herod the Great built on the Mediterranean coast. It had a theatre, a hippodrome, (a place where they would race chariots) a huge palace with a freshwater pool, within view of the salty Mediterranean. This was a place that Peter would go to the Roman Centurion and tell him about Jesus, and the place that Paul would be tried before appealing to The Emperor to proclaim his fate. This is a large National Park in Israel, and to this day, they utilize it for concerts and other theatre performances. The theatre seats about 4000 people.