Today was an absolutely amazing day. We started our Field study on the Mt. of Olives and overlooked Jerusalem. Prof. Wright outlined the major features such as the Temple, and David's city so that we could get a prospective from outside the city. Seeing Jerusalem from a different place revealed a beauty within the city that can only be appreciated from afar. As we continued to another viewing sight I saw my first Camel! I know I sound like I'm in Kindergarden but the Camel was soo cool. You could pay money to sit on the camel and get a picture of Jerusalem, but since I was on a field study, and on a tight scheduale, unfortunately I did not get to sit on it. One of the most fascinating places was the Garden of Gethsemane, which is beside a church dedicated to Christ's prayer and his betrayal. The church was beautiful and was dimmed to make the appearence of midnight which is when Christ would have been praying about.
After the Mt. of Olives we headed for the Herodian which is a partially man made mountain made by, and dedicated to Herod the Great. They have a saying here, " You have not seen beautiful architechture until you've seen that of Herod the Great. When we climbed up this mountain we got the view of both Jerusalem and Bethlehem. On the top is the location of Herod's palace, or oasis. You can see the original ruins and layout of what the palace would have looked like, incredible. Next we moved on to Bethlehem for our last stop and we visited the church of the Nativity. This church is also beautiful and dedicated to the birth of Christ. The entrance is about 3 and a half feet high so when you enter you must get really low. This is to humble people before entering the church, and once we entered we saw beautiful paintings and mosaics and alot of Gold decore.
Again and again I continue to see amazing places that are in Scripture and the word of God comes to life. There is no greater feeling than reading about Christ's ascension on the Mt. of Olives, or reading about his betrayal in Gethsemane, or his birth in Bethlehem. I was told that once you go to Israel you will never read the Bible the same again, and now I see why. If I only learn a few things here in Israel one thing will be to gain a greater appreciation for scripture and hold God as the highest authority in my life. Our verse, or one of the verses today, was Psalm 23, but we read it as we overlooked David's land and it came to life.