3/17/13
We only had four
stops today on our field studies, but they were some pretty impressive and
helpful places to visit. The morning
began with a great view at Mt. Precipice, also known as Jumping Mountain. It actually rained during the last bit of our
time there so we finished our class time in the bus and moved on to
Sepphoris. After Sepphoris we visited
the Beth Alpha Synagogue, a site I hadn't heard of before today. Last, but certainly not least, we finished
the day off at the Old Testament site of Beth Shean, which is also the New
Testament site of Schythopolis.
When we arrived at
Jumping Mountain the view was quite beautiful.
I have really grown to love the rocky, limestone-filled landscape of
Israel. The land is so full of old
gnarly olive trees and fertile terraced hills.
On clear days the typical horizon is swarms with an interesting mixture
of Cenomainian, Senonian, and Eocene foundations, which mold and shape the
everyday life of this land. The wadis
bend around the erosion lines like twisting fingers reaching out into the
wilderness. The view from virtually any
high point is breathtaking. Mt.
Precipice was no exception. In the
distance Mt. Tabor stood tall and prominent with its head wrapped in the
clouds, which were swiftly moving about in the bright blue sky. The tradition attached with the site,
however, seemed a little bit strange to me.
Apparently, local tradition holds that this was the mountain where Jesus
was almost thrown off of (Luke 4:29-30) but escaped by jumping off the cliff. Hmmm…
Afterwards we stopped at Sepphoris, a site just north of
Nazereth. It was fascinating to think of
Jesus growing up not far from this major Greco-Roman city and possibly
contributing to its construction; he was, after all, a builder. It had a nice theatre and several
mosaics. I had seen pictures of the so
called, “Mona Lisa of Galilee,” but it was quite exquisite to gaze at
firsthand. Sepphoris really seemed to be
mosaic land. If there was a theme park
or museum in the ancient world where people came from afar to see a variety of
mosaics I would imagine it being something similar to this city. It was also helpful to stand atop of the
nearby Crusader building and focus on understanding the land from a different
orientation, as we had done on Mt. Carmel, from Jezreel, and just recently from
Mt. Precipice. The shifting perspective
really forced me to look at the land with the concept of a map in mind, but
through the true lens of spatial reality. Before leaving we climbed down into
the water shaft and walked around.
Unfortunately it had some water in it, which didn’t stop some students,
but I preferred not to take off my shoes and trek through the ankle deep
tadpole rich mud puddles. We had already
been to a few water shafts and there wasn’t much left to see of that shaft
anyways. The synagogue was really
interesting as well. I wasn’t really
aware of the zodiacs included in the 1st century Jewish
mosaics. I wish we could do more than
just speculate as to why they were included in what was typically an aniconic
religious tradition, but the lack of textual detail only allows
speculation. It really seems a stretch
to think that these images were simply adopted and adapted to fit Jewish
theology. The Beth Alpha synagogue was
essentially a more complete attestation of the mosaic style found at Sepphoris.
Beth Shean/Schythopolis was huge!
The theatre was originally three stories! It felt a bit surreal walking through what
seemed to be box seats. The cardo really
helped me have a proper spatial understanding of the magnificence of Roman
architecture. Again, the look out from
Beth Shean was very helpful for tracking the geographical nuances of the land.
No comments:
Post a Comment