Day 15

THURSDAY 24th DECEMBER
Synopsis of day: Stuff around Galilee
Spiritual Sites visited: Mount of Beatitudes, Capernaum, Church of the Primacy of Peter, Bethsaida,

Biblical Connections:Sermon on the Mount, Capernaum, Traditional site of the breakfast by Galilee, Bethsaida, a 2000 year old fishing boat.

Highlight of the day: The boat ride we took on Galilee to Tiberias at twilight.

Lowlight of the day: LUNCH.

Favourite quote/word: “There was mild to moderate rejoicing”

Favourite photo:

Cultural-shock moment: Gila warned us at the site at Bethsaida not to stray at all from the paths because there were unidentified land mines all around. New food consumed: LUNCH

Favourite purchase: The Bethlehem Herald newspapers I'd read about in the SMH.

The thing I lost today: My memory card – but I knew that I had just left it in Jules from the night before. All photos therefore come courtesy of Kerri's camera.

Random act of crazy: LUNCH. Also the Nigerians who wanted photos of Kerri and the nun who wanted her phone number.

What Arthur did next: Thought the price of a prayer shawl at the Galilee Boat museum was a good price (Kerri and I had got some much cheaper in Jerusalem). The evening before, we had a meeting and I think Arthur was trying to be troublesome because he was asking the sort of questions someone who has not grappled with studies of religion before (and he also was unaware of any secondary evidence for the existence of Christ outside the Bible – honestly, at Masters level theology this should be pre-requisite knowledge! - there were a number of gaping expressions from others when he spoke). Later in the evening he was talking for hours with people about how he thought the lecturers were being heretical. He is such a teapot stirrer.

Something I want to remember: I ate a fish! Also the church at Capernaum is cool.



We started off our morning at a lovely site which formed a natural amphitheatre and therefore is a likely spot for the location of the Sermon on the Mount. In the early brisk morning mist it was a charming place to look down the hills towards Galilee. The environment is quite a contrast from the buildings of Jerusalem, and many people have been commenting on how they enjoy it more here. I feel a little more torn because I think I had such a positive response to Jerusalem, but admittedly I shouldn't like to live there for an extended period.

 A church had been built there more recently and it had a rotunda like design and peephole type windows which opened out onto the view. Inside the church was a bit busy because a busload of Nigerians had arrived. Our attention was of course drawn to the nativity scene in the church, because a woman was decorating the manger with sparkling fairy lights (the amount of tacky in this nation is high).

Jesus with sparkly.

As we were departing from the church a group of Nigerians accosted Kerri and wanted to have their photos taken with her. It got especially bemusing when they kept taking photos including different people too (such as the person who had taken the original pictures). As we were walking out the woman who had been part of the photos asked Kerri for her number. We were a bit reluctant but ended up giving an email address.

The serenity here was lovely.

Our next location, Capernaum (which at the gate was labelled as Capharnaum) surprised me because I was excpecting something smaller and less interesting. The site itself is divided between the Greek Orthodox church and the Franciscans but the property of the latter was what we saw. It was one of the towns cursed by Jesus (Matthew 11) because of its disbelief. It was discovered in 1838 by Edward Robinson (who discovered a number of Holy Land sites) but not conclusively proven to be this township until the 1960s. We read the account in Mark 2 of the opening of the roof for the lowering of the paralytic man (makes more sense when you envisage a mud brick roof) and also saw the building that was the house of Peter's mother-in-law (I missed the explanation for why this was definitely the site). The church constructed to commemorate this was different from earlier ones in that it had a far more modern design (I think Kerri got pics of that) and was built on stilts. The most interesting thing about this church was that when inside it,, there was a glass platform in the centre that the rest of the church was built around. The glass gave a view of the architectural remains and the church itself because of the colour scheme and prevalence of glass felt like a very open and inviting building.

We were really impressed with it, but I was a bit entertained by the fact that the Jesus in the nativity scene was missing, and Mary and the others were looking adoringly at an empty space. Of course we had to leave the place quickly but we did have the chance to see some native animals (right by the water, a seeming cross between an otter and a seal and a rabbit) and non-native animals (some very cute kittens – there are very few dogs around but you see roaming cats at times, and usually in multiples.

There was a synagogue there which dated from C4 and it was here that Gila explained some things about them. I wasn't aware that they were a development of community gathering probably inspired by the Babylonians, and had just figured them as the local places of worship, frequented by the Pharisees and other worshippers of Judaism, where the laws, esp the Torah, would be read aloud. There was also a seat of Moses within the synagogue, where the law would be read from (we had learned earlier in the day that is was a belief that a person teaching with greater authority would be seated [and that Jesus sat while giving the Sermon on the Mount]). Mary has a couple of themes she has been repeating throughout the course of the tour, and one is that Jesus conducts himself as the New Moses. This information about the synagogues and Jesus' authority represents that.

We also visited a church by the water, the Church of the Primacy of Peter celebrating the events of John 21. It was very small and not that interesting really, but the wrought iron doors were nifty and the colours of the stained glass windows were vibrant (Kerri got pics).

Our visit to Bethsaida encompassed a number of biblical connections, dating between David and Jesus. One of David's wives, Maacah (a princess), lived here, and Absalom retreated here. In the time of Jesus, it was the home of Peter, Andrew and Philip (John 1:44) and many of the houses within the town, which has only been discovered and excavated since 1987, had implements suggesting it was a town of people who worked as fishermen, despite the current location up in the hills quite a distance from the sea. It was one of the other cursed cities.

Walking on some several thousand year old walkways.

Something else was that it was one of the first places we visited that felt entirely like Australia. This was likely due to the number of eucalyptus trees around. These were planted in the last fifty years after the Turks cut down most of the trees in Israel (though some part of me thinks I have these dates a bit off. Some extensive environmental programs have been occurring since then with a variety of plants that can tolerate the soil.

We were looking forward to the rest of our day, which involved seeing a very old boat, and lunch and a boat trip on Galilee. The lunch ended up being on shore, and although we'd heard about the St. Peters' Fish which is quite a specialty in the region, I wasn't expecting to receive a whole fish on my plate. Now those who know me well, or who have swum with me in places that have fish in them know that I'm actually scared of fish which are not in a tank. It was horrifying to see it's eyes staring at me, and I was convinced all the other eyes were staring at me too. Irrational but needed to be acted on in any case. I decided I was going to challenge myself and try to deal with the fish. I also decided that since this fish had died for me and I'd paid for the meal I was going to have a crack at it. It felt wretched to have to pull apart the carcass with my fork and blade. I covered my fish's head and rearranged cups and places etc so that I couldn't see any fish heads near me, or my fish's tail. Because of the amount of work it took to get all the skin and bones away, and the associated trauma, it felt like there wasn't much and while it tasted alright (though others seemed to be ecstacies over it (Kerri of course included – she managed even less than me) I definitely don't want to do something like that again any time soon. Now go ahead and laugh, I can laugh at it too, but I fully acknowledge the wussiness.

Thankfully things were looking up after that. I found the museum about the boat and its 1985 discovery very interesting (as was watching a short documentary which involved some great 80s fashion). The smell of the boat after its nine year program in a preserving liquid was still noticeable.

After looking at the boat Kerri got me a real mocha (when I'm at home, get me to recount the mocha saga to you) and after finishing that in break note speed, we walked down to the jetty and onto our wooden boat, which was deceptively large. The sun was preparing to set and I was really happy with the shots we got of the sky and the water. It was one of the most enjoyable things we have done to date and the time passed very quickly.

We finished up in Tiberias but had decided we were going to go back there as part of our free time at Christmas, which seemed just as well because the time we are allocated to do things is generally a little less than you'd like!


We stayed up and I spent a while on the phone to Shem and family because it was Christmas morning there, and then we headed off to the Christmas Eve Mass.