O Galilee

Picture 1: a view of the city from up on the tel; you can see the effects of the earth quake because all of the columns are toppled over!
Picture 2: A Roman street at Scythopolis; you can see the tel (hill) where the canaanite city (Bet She'an) would have been in the background

Hello family and friends!

Galilee was AMAZING. We spent ten days at a beach resort at the Sea of Galilee and toured so many of the sites that the Savior would have visited. For the first week we were there, our agenda included New Testament class/free afternoon some days, and field trips to the various sites that Jesus visited on other days. It was really cool to have class and then visit those actual sites the next day!

I wish I could tell you about each of the sites that we visited, but I'm afraid there are just too many! Here is a list of the sites that we visited though:
Bet She'an (a city in the Decapolis)
Nazareth (Nazareth Village, Church of Annunciation)
boat ride on the Sea of Galilee
Ginosaur (museum of an ancient boat that would have been used in Christ's time)
Capernaum
Tabgha (Church of the Multiplication of Loaves and Fishes)
Church of St. Peter's Primacy
Mt. of Beatitudes
Tiberias
Mt. Tabor (possible site of Transfiguration)
Hazor
Dan
Megiddo
Caesarea Philippi
Akko
Haifa
Caesarea

Those are the sites at the top of my head, and I can guarantee that I forgot some!
The last four days of our trip in Galilee were all-day field trips and by the end of the whole experience, I was exhausted!

There were so many amazing sites, but my favorites were Bet She'an, Capernaum, Mt. of Beatitudes, and Caesarea.
I was very impressed with myself because I was very diligent in writing in my journal, so I'll just include a few excerpts from my journal about the different sites we visited. I will do this over a few blog entries so that you guys can actually enjoy the entries and read them all the way through, but there's your update!

BET SHE'AN/SCYTHOPOLIS

FYI - Bet She'an was the canaanite name and Scythopolis was the Roman name

"Bet She’an was so cool! It was a Canaanite city a long time ago (the city was on top of the tel) and then under the Pax Romana reign, the city spread down and out. The Roman ruins were absolutely amazing. There was an earthquake at some point during the city’s life and you can see the destruction from the earthquake because the pillars/columns are toppled over. It was pretty cool. My favorite part was the bath house. I love hot springs so much so I think it would be so fun to go to a bath house. "

Well, we have our New Testament midterm tomorrow morning, and my study group is about to begin, so I'll have to write more later!

-Audryn-