So what is the biblical significance of this site. Well none actually. It is another Talmudic site and gives us insight into the life of Jews in the second century which should give us a look into Judaism in Jesus' time. The more I hear this stuff the more I tend to disbelieve it. The Talmud was codified post-Jesus. That much is clear from our visits to Zippori and Beit She'arim. Was the codification an accurate reflection of rabbinic tradition in Jesus time? Who knows. Supposedly the Dead Sea Scrolls provide the answers. Well I have a good book on the scrolls now so I will let you know. But as I have stated before I am concerned that non-inspired writings are being used as the all encompassing hermeneutic for interpreting the inspired text. This is not good!
One thing of interest that I did learn is that the second century Jews were midgets. Most of the doorways required me to duck to enter the very small dwellings. I missed much of the teachings inside as having twenty people in such an enclosed space where I could not stand upright made me a little claustraphobic. I did learn about the roller they used to flatten the roof of their houses and rabbinic rulings on what happens when your roller falls off the roof and kills someone. The decision they came up with was nothing new as any modern exegete can come to the same conclusion by just applying the Bible to the problem without consulting the Talmud. Another thing that came up was that when your child married and then came to live with you with their spouse an extra room would be added to the house. This was then applied to "In my Fathers house there are many rooms. I go to prepare a place for you". As if God is unaware of how many rooms he is going to need and makes a new one when someone gets saved. How ridiculous.
Yes you are looking at another ruined synagogue. Boy there are a lot of them! One interesting thing I learnt here was that in an earthquake the columns fall in the direction of the epicenter of the quake. This helps archeologists to track which earthquake caused which ruin! There was also a lens at the site that when you look through it it puts a roof on the ruin. A little gimmicky but fun none the less! And yes I have a picture. As long as those morons at the airport don't confiscate it I can show you!
And now for something completely different. Wine. We went to the Golan Heights Winery. No there is no historical significance except of course it could not exist when Golan was part of Syria. They don't do wine.
We were given the standard tour. When you come from wine country it's same-old same-old but at least we got to see it. The lady leading the tour mentioned that the wine needs to be kosher. Not sure what she meant by that and forgot to ask. I was starting to feel a bit under the weather at that point so I was not thinking straight. We also has the obligatory wine tasting. We had three wines. One white, one red and one dessert wine. The white tasted good, the red didn't strike my fancy and the dessert really hit the spot. So much so that I bought one.
Not really sure what to do with it. Don't want to take it home. Too much pt. So I will need to drink it before I leave. Will have to share. :) Tastes amazing though:)
They even gave us a free gift of a bottle opener. Very handy tool!
Now we were ready for lunch. We made a quick stop at a museum to give us an introduction to the afternoon program. This was interesting because Josephus mentions this place called Gamla and tells of what happened there. It was one of the Jewish strongholds that the Romans destroyed in 70AD. I would actually like to read his account and since I have it on my computer I might just do that.
At this point my stomach was really bothering me so I skipped lunch and made do with a coke.
The drive to Gamla after lunch was not long and we made it there in one piece.
Just before we started our walk to the lookout point over the site, we encountered a small whirlwind. Very interesting. The site of Gamla is on a steep hill. The buildings were so constructed that the roof of one was the porch of the upper one. Thos caused the Romans some problems as their weight with armor and all was enough to colapse the roof killing many of them! They eventually succeeded in sacking the town and noone save two women were left alive. One other feature of Gamla is it's birds of prey. Particulary a vulture. It is believed by some that the passage where those who wait upon the Lord will rise up with wings like eagles, the eagles were actually in reference to these vultures. While the Hebrew word in that passage can be translated as such I am unconvinced that this is the correct translation in this case. But who knows? The darn birds would not comply and come closer so we could only see them from afar at the vulture lookout. There is a waterfall at the site that some wanted to walk to. Since I was not feeling 100% I decided to wait behind. I was not the only one. The excessive heat of the day scared off many of the others. It was a small group that made the journey. A beer and a bunch of photos of small birds later and the intrepid adventurers had returned. After that it was onto the bus for the ride back to the hotel.
Since as I write this a day later I have fully recovered so there is nothing to worry about. Tomorrow I will tell you about yet another synagogue we visited. Oh Jerusalem how I long for you!
Good night from Galilee.
-- Post From My iPhone
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