Day 3

Okey doke here we go...We are playing catch-up on this blog so a week into this trip I am going to mention some things we did on Day 3. We are still at our Kabbutz up at the Sea of Galilee and loving it!
We started off in Kursi on the eastern shore of the Galilee where in Mark 5 Jesus cast a legion of demons into swine. This location fits the story as there are steep cliffs here running down to water where the swine would have ran off and died. The Byzantine monastary here at Kursi was found by mistake when they were widening the roads in the early 1980s. Swine is a problem in this story since Jews don't eat pork.....why were Jews herding pigs? The answer....this is probably an early contact that Jesus had with Gentiles in that area....probably a Roman city but definitely not Jewish.
In the monastary there is an olive press for income and to also make oil for annointing. There is a beautiful mosaic floor here and even though it was a Byzantine church you don't see any images. This is probably because they were defaced when the Muslims conquered the land and carried out the Islamic Law of no images.....or destroyed by the Greek Orthodox....you can see where images may have been in the floor but were torn out.
There is also a crypt to the right of the main room where 35 priests who served in this monastary were buried.
Up the hill from the church is a small shrine dedicated to the spot where Christ encountered the demon possessed man. You can see the Sea from the top and its easy to picture how the swine would have run off.

We then made our way up the Golan Heights. What a gorgeous view! It was really chilly on top of the mountain but we had a beautiful view overlooking the Syrian border and Mount Hermon. I encourage you to visit this website to read about the history of the Golan Heights once controlled by the Syrians. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Peace/golan_hts.html

Our third stop was Ceaeserea Phillipi or modern day Baniass. This spot was a cultic site dedicated to Pan- who is the spirit of caves and is connected to water. Herod built this pagan city on the edge of Israel and made a shrine to pan and a temple beside it dedicated to Caeser. Herod Phillipa, his son, made it his capital city. It is within this region that in Matthew 16, Peter recognizes Jesus as the Messiah.
When Agrippa II comes he builds an even bigger palace here and Josephus tells us that Jewish slaves were brought here to be sold after the great revolt. They were also forced into playing gladiator games against one another for sport. It had been called Paniass ( for pan ) but since the Arabs dont have a p sound they called it Baniass.

Off to Tel Dan we go. The word "Tel" is another word for hill or mound. There are many places here that start with "Tel." Dan is mentioned in both Joshua 19 and Judges 18:27-31. We also know that Abraham pursued Lot to Dan in Genesis. We stood at the Canaanite gate that had an arch which Abraham walked through.

We had a delicious buffet style lunch with the most incredible vanilla ice cream I have ever tasted, followed by a very bumpy but awesome Jeep ride up the Golan Heights!!!
Stayed tune for more....