Sep 12 2015

ISIS poster discovered in Nazareth in 2011 by Google maps

Look at an old blog article of mine, and comparing it with a Google Steetmap view image from 2011.

This offensive banner arrogantly says not following Islam is for the losers.

But worse still, when I’ve been past this street corner three different times I didn’t realise the black logo with familiar Arabic on it.

ITS THIS LOGO OF ISIS.

Where as a politically correct thing people will say its only a minority of Muslims that promote terror the rest of the Islamic world will not challenge it.

Nazareth is an Israeli controlled city (not part of the West Bank) in the Galilee with a entirely Arab population, about 70% Muslim and 30% Christian. I would say the Nazareth is still a safe area. One of the hostels I did stay at was actually owned by an Israeli Arab policeman. I think back in 2011 ISIS were not really known , so Israel’s police and security forces would remove such offensive posters, though not the idiotic banner above.

We are only saved thought Christ. Not from being a cowardly liberal pretend Christian who think we are saved from being nice, or using a combination of bits of different faiths.

Muslims today have the freedom to reject this doomed system and accept the loving arms of their Lord and saviour Jesus, and more and more are doing so today.

Old blog post by me

https://britinjerusalem.com/2011/12/10/return-to-nazareth-2-the-uglier-sides-of-nazareth/

Feb 6 2013

Take out coffee and Transfiguration

These don’t seem like related subjects do they?

I didn’t think so, until the beverage I got from Aroma had this interesting message on top of it:-

It’s made in a factory in Tavor (Mount Tabor, V and B are often interchangeable in Hebrew) funny as this is also the mountain considered to be the most likely place of Jesus’s transfiguration.

It’s also an exciting sounding place I’d like to go. I am waiting for two new PCs to arrive at work, then I need to visit Karmiel to install these are some other maintenance then I will visit some of these places.

I think the town at the foot of Mt Tavor is Arab. I’m now curious if the little hole is to let the heat out slowly, of it could be a symbol of something implied over Tavor? 🙂

Actually now you can see it on Google Street Map View!! I’m not sure if this ‘spoils’ visiting biblical places or not, you could see it like a spoiler in a movie or trailer to get an idea what to expect – in this case Mount Tabor on your computer is more of the latter as you can’t see much pass the car park when you get to the top.

Matthew 17 (I have added some colours for emphasis)

After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. ²There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light. ³Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus.

⁴Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish, I will put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.”

⁵While he was still speaking, a bright cloud covered them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!”

⁶When the disciples heard this, they fell facedown to the ground, terrified. ⁷But Jesus came and touched them. “Get up,” he said. “Don’t be afraid.” ⁸When they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus.

⁹As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus instructed them, “Don’t tell anyone what you have seen, until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”

¹⁰The disciples asked him, “Why then do the teachers of the law say that Elijah must come first?”

¹¹Jesus replied, “To be sure, Elijah comes and will restore all things. ¹²But I tell you, Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but have done to him everything they wished. In the same way the Son of Man is going to suffer at their hands.” ¹³Then the disciples understood that he was talking to them about John the Baptist.

The climb up the hill goes in a zigzag fashion which looks not too difficult to do, or you can go up in a car or bus. Interesting enough, although three shelters were erected on here, there are two churches (Catholic and Orthodox) at the top today. Its not guaranteed if Tabor is the exact place of the transfiguration, but seems the most likely place by biblical historians. The other mountain in the north, Mount Hermon is covered in snow a lot of the time, I think Jesus would of mentioned this if it was there. 🙂 This part of the world has had earthquakes so maybe the shape of the landscape could of been different then, which Jesus mentioned in Matthew 17 : 20 that mountains aren’t necessarily a permanent fixture.

Oct 6 2012

Ships on the Galilee coast

I am on the edge of the Kinneret (the Sea of Galilee) in the city of Tiberias, on the coast of the lake its easy to see how fishing his been part of the economy for years.

Sadly this fish processing plant looks kind of derelict, although when I walked back to the hostel when it was darker, the lights were on.

A lot of the fish I see in Jerusalem supermarkets comes from Norway. There is however plenty of small restaurants serving fish caught in the lake to Christians who want an authentic biblical meal.

This boat looks like a lot of the vessels for taking Christian pilgrims around the lake, but its up on blocks for service. I remember my grandad telling me its important to paint the bottom of your boat each year (or at least for a small sailing dingy with a wooden hull)

Wonder what conversations went on during Jesus’s time during the times when boats were being repaired and maintained around here.

This is an odd looking machine, some kind of drill or milling machine I guess.

One of the unique things about the middle east with scarce rain, is most of the year your yard can easily become an outdoor lounge, workshop or kitchen, with appliances and furniture (that aren’t worth stealing) not in danger of getting wet, only by sand from the dusty atmosphere.

I did spot some people fishing after all, in a more casual non business fashion, an Arab father and son here.

Its kind of funny that these cats sit her awaiting, it seems they are used to getting the fisherman throw them the small ones not worth taking home, but there was some discarded pizza, so I think they get fed quite well!! 🙂

Sep 19 2012

Megiddo – The end of the world welcomes careful drivers

After traveling this part of northern Israel before in the Jezreel Valley, famous for where the end of the world will happen, I got a chance after I finished working for a few days in nearby Karmiel to actually have a proper visit of this historical site.

I came not to speculate at the very place the book of revelation says the last battle will happen, but to make sense of a particular scripture I have read that I have been trying to make sense of:

Zechariah 12:10-12

10 “And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son. 11 On that day the weeping in Jerusalem will be as great as the weeping of Hadad Rimmon in the plain of Megiddo. 12 The land will mourn, each clan by itself, with their wives by themselves: the clan of the house of David and their wives, the clan of the house of Nathan and their wives

Question; this future prophesied repentance and revival is parallel with a place and/or event in history of the “Hadad Rimmon”, I am curious what this is, and why it is after some searching, no one knows what it is.

My primitive knowledge of Hebrew tells me that Rimmon is a pomegranate, but thats all I know. By going to the Megiddo historical centre I thought maybe I could shed light on this.

I had to ask the manager of my youth hostel how to get to Megiddo,which advised getting the bus to Tel Aviv. Megiddo is not mentioned on the bus stop schedules, I had to ask the bus driver to let me off at the right time. Actually I had to get off at a bus stop at the side of the highway and walk for a mile, along this junction to the visitor centre.

By the main road is a large prison. There has been some talk of tearing it down and rebuilding elsewhere as more significant archeological discoveries were found not long ago – possibly the oldest Christian church ever found.

The end of the world welcomes careful drivers….

I had my iPod with me and I was in the mood for some 80s rock, so I had this apt track from Def Leppard’s ‘Armageddon it’ its funny that Armageddon which is derived from Ha Megiddo, has become quite common in language as a modern phrase for any big impending war.

Anyway, once at the outside of the visitor centre I just paid 28 shekels to go in.

I found out that Megiddo became an Israelite city sometime between the 10th and 9th centuries BC and functioned as an administrator centre for the fertile Jezreel Valley, many parts were added later.

These drawings on the walls I think are from Canaanite period. The drawing of a giraffe is quite interesting, didn’t think there was those here in Israel, but then again there were lions in the bible which aren’t there now, there are a small number of wild cats, leopards in Negev but they are very rare. On the right is a picture of the Pope which someone has scratched on graffiti in Hebrew.

From the top of the site you can see all across the Jezreel valley, the plain of Megiddo, a wide open space with a busy main road that goes to Afula. There is two petrol stations and a McDonalds along the fields of Megiddo!!

There were mostly people in one big group here, so I was a bit cheeky and stood close to the historian who was speaking, as I think it costs extra to hire him to guide you.

Like a lot of other ancient parts of Israel like Masada, there is a complex underground system built to provide fresh water. I went down the steps to see the tunnels.

>>> More on Megiddo on the next chapter…..

Sep 14 2012

Karmiel September visit

Although it may seem summer has finished in UK, its still extremely hot in Israel and this time of the year.

I have a list of about 9-10 IT related jobs in our large warehouse at the north of the country in Karmiel again.

Therefore I schedule a time to do some preventative maintenance up there, and get all the small jobs fixed. I had to set up PCs for a two new members of staff, one of the PCs has the VNC remote software not working so it required a site visit. In the picture I am changing out defective cooling fans in PCs as the heat and dust puts extra strain on our PCs here used for keeping inventory of our food distribution, databases of families we help and donations amongst other things.

Lunch time. For me, I stretch lunch break very slightly to do some procurement of parts. I got 3 new cooling fans for the PCs here, two I ended up using straight away, also a hardware store just by this nice junction meant I could get some insulation tape some electrical plugs also.

I needed to set up and test Skype with the other two buildings, also install Dropbox and few other apps, test and inspect two small UPS systems which are defective and need to scrapped. I have two more UPS units I can send up from another building.

This is outside our Karmiel warehouse, it doesn’t look that big, but it contains a lot of space on the inside.

Later, I went and stayed with one of the volunteer staff from this site:

Outside the place I stayed. All these flats look brand new. Karmiel is a fast expanding city. this balloon thing in the distance is a fancy sign post advertising flats for sale.

Unlike what you see in the news, this part of town has Arab Bedouin families but they seem to live side by side without any troubles.

Getting up in the morning I can hear people using power tools and roosters crowing.

The outskirts of the town, more construction going on. This is a Jewish neighborhood with most of the people working in construction are Arab.

Arab towns (several less than a couple of miles away) are expanding too of course.

Karmiel isn’t particularly religious city, but religious Jews and religious Arabs with often 5-10 children mean rapid expansion of housing is necessary.

Beautiful rolling hills in the distance from this junction by the industrial estate.

Well got most of the work done, making some adjustments to the wireless routers will be another day as well being able to monitor the VOIP telephone system switch and get a better UPS back up power system.

Time for some much needed couple of days off while I am working away to see a few places….

Off to Tiberias again next……

Jan 11 2012

Return to Nazareth – 5. The replica village of Jesus

Ok the apartment blocks in the background don’t really ‘go’, but this is a garden is part of the museum with plenty of olive trees, is intended to show the outdoors to the visitor of being a neighbour of Jesus.

This actor is demonstrating looking after a flock of sheep and goats.

This tomb is quite a lot like the Garden tomb in Jerusalem, this one is a recently made mock up made to look like what a wealthy Jewish person would of pre-booked whilst they were still living, just like Joseph of Aramathea.

The carpenter’s workshop. Here there is a selection of tools you often see by tradesman today, not shown is a drill which is a bit unusual as it requires the string to be turned using this bow type instrument to drive to tool into the wood. Of course wood is relatively scarce in Israel, so some theologicans think that Jesus and his earthly stepfather Joseph actually did a lot of work with stone as well.

In another room, a local woman is spinning wool, and demonstrating how wool is dyed to get different hues. Onions, pomegranates are used to get oranges and reds here. The bible talks about rulers and rich people having clothing of certain colours being a thing of expensive taste. I learned today that wool with a violet or purple hue is made from certain types of sea-snails that had to specially imported which were costly to buy.

In a more recent (January 2012) conversation with the staff of the museum, I was sad to hear that the museum had be broken into and badly vandelised at the end of last year, there are still grafitti on some of the doors.

I will be honest, and say I was a bit silly and thought this building was a bath house! Its actually a Synagogue! Worshipers sit on the simple stepped seating that covers all around the room. The front of the building is very plain without much decoration. I know there are some grander looking holy places from the same age, just look at Capernaum, but here Nazareth was a very small village back during Jesus’ time.

Its interesting to think, after the highly decorated design of the Basillica Catholic Church in Nazareth’s main city, that this is a much simple design of building where Jesus would of given his teachings then.

1. The Fauzi Azar – 2. The uglier sides of Nazareth – 3. Welcoming the king with palm leaves? – 4. Looking for the Jesus village – 5. The replica village of Jesus – 6. Today’s Nazarenes

Jul 16 2011

Journeys of Jesus – Travelling between Nazareth to Jerusalem

Revisiting part of my trip to Nazareth from a few months ago.

In my job I often have to go up to a warehouse in Karmiel, a large food bank which supplies food for the poor in the greater Galilee area, to service computer equipment which requires me to visit every so often.

One of the unique things I like about my job is going to visit this site to do a few days work and doing some sightseeing around the Galilee, meaning I can see Nazareth, Cana, Akko and Tiberias not too far away. As there is no dedicated IT person based up there, so maintenance requires a fair bit of planning if I need to take a laptop, tools and software CDs, this means I am doing a 2.5-3 hour trip up there from Jerusalem, which makes me think is a trip Jesus would be very familiar with, although Karmiel is much further up than Nazareth.

In Matthew 20: 17-19 the scriptures talk about Jesus “going up” to Jerusalem even though its south of course, part of this is to do with the high elevation that the city is on as well as its great significance for Jewish and Christian people alike.

Getting to Nazareth is quite easy on an Egged bus or even with this above Nazareth based coach operator.

Being in the middle of the Galilee region of Israel, there aren’t railway connections here like all of the (Ashdod / Ashkelon / Herzilya / Yaffo / Tel Aviv / Netanya / Haifa / Akko / Nahariya) coastal cities have in Israel.

I often think about how often Jesus himself traveled between the two locations, if I were some other kind of mobile tradesman and lived here before cars and buses, there is a number of challenges, stopping for food and where to stay overnight, risks of attacks by bandits/robbers, extreme heat, mosquitos, having enough (3 litres a day per person minimum) water for the journey, steep hills, presents all manner of challenges.

I am wondering if people at the time of Jesus owned camels and donkeys or if they were rented.

Arab people in rural parts of the country may have camels (which are still expensive today) or ancient Peugeot 504 pick up trucks are the other favourite, this one is full of sheep.

Some historians have said it takes 3 1/2 days by foot to go from one of these famous cities to the other. I thought I would do some research.

Here is a map I have made with Google Maps,

You can get a closer look of this Google maps anotation:

This distance of 103kms (64 miles) one is ‘as the crow flies’ and goes across the separation barrier that fences off Judea and Samaria, what we know today as the West Bank. (contrary to what you see in the media only 5% of the boundaries of the West Bank is concrete wall, the rest is a chain link fence)

I have only just noticed when doing this, the line passes straight through the West Bank city of Nabulus. Given the highly mountainous terrain of this country, its unlikely it would be as simple as going via a compass back in Jesus’s time, there were plenty of political issues back then don’t forget, some places would not been safe then, especially given Jesus’s parable of the Good Samaritan, a Jewish man robbed and beaten up was cared for and put into a hotel for the night by a kindly stranger who as a Samaritan an ethnic group then enemies of Jews.

Closer look of this one also:

This one was suggested by Google’s planning system using today’s actual roads albeit a lot longer way around, without going through checkpoints, is quite a bit further at 151km (93 miles)

Look at the link and see carefully the main roads in Jordan, and the shape of the borders between Jordan and Syria create a pattern which looks strangely symmetrical to the route I have sketched out. Quite bizarre.

To be honest though, its hard getting an idea of time and distance of going to and from the two great cities by foot or donkey in any more accurate terms given the challenges or land boundaries, steep hills and uncertain historical road systems, but I think it gives you a little bit of an idea.

Jul 4 2011

Mount of Beatitudes

Towards the end of my trip a quarter of the way around the Galilee, me and my friend stopped at the Beatitudes.

There is a small gift shop and a few picnic tables, visitors seem to come mostly in coaches, there isn’t too many people in terms of individuals here.

There are plenty of these strict looking signs, some of the gardens with the best view of the water front seem to be off limits it seems, not just here but in other places where I wanted to sit to down and admire the water. Signs suggest these are saved for special occasions it seems.

This is the church itself and very nice it is too.

It was built upon the site where Jesus was teaching as in Matthew 5 : 3-12

Conference room and hotel closeby.

The church is small and very square in its shape, there is no real place for a congregation to sit down, its more of a shrine I suppose with a the outside arched walk way around it, although the Pope visited here in 2000, it is still manned by nuns in their traditional garb.

A day in my work in the Galilee – The Jesus boat in Ginosar – The Kinneret Lake – Tiberias evening light show – Preaching and miracles of Jesus in Capernaum – Tiberias city centre and Muriels and Maimonidies – Greek Orthodox Church of the Holy Apostles – Mount of Beatitudes

Jun 24 2011

Greek Orthodox Church of the Holy Apostles

On the road by the side of Galilee, after visiting Capernaum, we travelled a bit further north to see this eye catching Greek pink domed church over looking the Kinerret.

There are some chickens in the garden by the Greek church, I spotted some more exotic pets too…

At the end of this beautiful walkway there are some picnic tables with Arab families having lunch.

Perfect for barbeque next to the Kinerret. The symbols on the metal gates is for the Greek church.

The pink domes are eye catching, and the church design looks really attractive on the banks of the Kinerret.

I am not able find much about the history of it, but I understand its meant to be on the site where Jesus recruited his followers.

The interior of this church is beautifully decorated. Better than anywhere else I have seen I think.

Left; pictures of the saints on the ceiling, Right: there are angels and demons on one side, winged horses and other strange creatures depicted.

http://wp.me/p2CWU-1c5

Jun 12 2011

Capernaum – preaching and miracles of Jesus

Off the side of the main road, onto a short drive down into a big car park is Capernaum

Sign shows there is a dress code here, just as well I forgot to bring my shorts, but wearing trousers in the heat on this day was pretty uncomfortable to say the least.

Gardens inside the gate looks very pretty.

Here are the ruins of the synagogue, as you can see some parts are more complete than others.

My friend Arnold stands by the pillars.

There is one interesting twist with Capernaum, there is a new building built on stilts on top of some of the ruins! Here you can see these steps go up to the elevated new church.

I really like the design of the new building, its spacious up here!

Capernaum of course was home to Jesus after he left Nazareth.

A centurian asked Jesus to heal his servant who was back home in Cana. Matthew 8.

In Mark 1 Jesus lived here after leaving Nazareth and preached at the Synagogue and casted out unclean spirits from people. Mark 2, explains a disabled man is brought in through the roof, by digging into the roof;

Hold on – digging in a roof? When I went to Iceland people (this country was founded in about 900AD) had roofs made of soil with grass growing out, to help keep the house warm, surely this would not happen in biblical houses at the time of Jesus?

I had a look at a web site containing the original Greek NT. Its not readable with Google translator but the English text on the left says they uncovered the roof (covered with felt maybe?) and broken it (the roof up) to get the man in.

Today of course modern regulations means disabled people need ramps or maybe lifts to get into public places, however awkward and destructive it was, it was nice that people took the time to get this fellow in front of Jesus when he was preaching there.

If anyone else is also curious about how the disabled man was brought by his friends into the synagogue I would be interested to know what you think.

Brit In Jerusalem

A Christian discovering the roots in the holy land….

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