Galilee-Monday

Day three began with one of my favorites moments of the entire trip- a boat ride on the sea of Galilee. The weather was perfect, the lighting amazing, and the colors bright and pure. We spent some time just cruising around taking in the feel of the sea.

It was stormy and at times started to sprinkle, but we were undercover and so the rain just made it feel all the more realistic and moody.

One of the guys who took us out gave us a demonstration of how the cast net is used. He threw it out over the water a few times and them drew it back in being careful not to tangle the net weights on the end of the net. We discussed the fishing in the sea now and back in the time of Jesus. There are apparently 18 different types of kosher fish in the sea along with several kinds that are not kosher. Someday I hope to return and fish in the sea.

Our next stop along the sea was Kursi, the place where the demon possessed men were healed when Jesus sent their evil spirits into the heard of pigs that were nearby. Kursi has some ruins and an old temple to the pigs.

We then went to a very interesting Talmudic city called Qasrin. Talmudic is the Jewish description of the city while Byzantine is the Christian description. We spend an extended amount of time in an insula, a house that is a box of rooms. We talked about the different elements in the house and how they may have related to Jesus during his time. Dr. Wright spoke of the Christmas story and how it is probably wrong when it says that Mary and Joseph went to an inn and were refused residence. What most likely happened was that Mary and Joseph actually went to stay with distant family and were probably not refused a place to stay but refused a place in the traklin (the common room where guests slept) and instead were given a place in the stable, or back room to stay as it would be more private and conducive to a pregnant woman. Kind of put a different spin on my picture of Jesus' birth.

Random column at some of the synagogue ruins of Qasrin.

The next stop was Capurnum where we saw the church built over the possible residence of Peter, his mother-in-law, and maybe Jesus. We also got to explore some ancient synagogue ruins. It poured the hardest I had ever seen when we first arrived and we all got soaked!

A modern little Russian church in Capurnum as seen through the rain stained window of the church built over Peter's house.

We took a quick stop at the Jordan river-it was kinda dirty and not nearly as impressive as I had imagined.

Kaytlin is "baptizing" me...

...and then I baptized her.

Our final stop was a beautiful climb down the Arbel cliffs. The view from above was breathtaking as we saw for miles and even got a glimpse of a beautiful rainbow. We then hiked, climbed, ran, and slid down the cliffs to the bottom of the mountain. It was a great end to a busy informative day. Ash and me-I love my roommate! and what a view!

Part of the cliff.

Layers- a puddle, a cliff, a city, and the sky beyond.

The colors and lighting were unreal!

See the tiny people climbing down? Don't worry, we had some hand rails to hold onto.