Mrs. Encyclopedia

Our tour guide works for the University of the Holy Land. Dr. Ginger Caessens (shown in the photo giving us a lecture beside a Roman milestone) is only a little lady but she certainly has a head full of information. With a lifelong interest in the three fields of history, geography and Biblical studies, she is able to give us a lot of background of the sites we are seeing. The only word to describe this course is AWESOME.


What you have to remember in this country, is that almost every site has many layers of history. For instance, an early Israelite king might have built a building which was later destroyed, and then a later Israelite king might have built something on or near the same site, then that might have been destroyed by the Babylonians, then Herod the Great might have used the site, and then the Byzantine Christians might have built a church there. So archaeologists might be able to distinguish some, or all, or these various levels of history. (Usually older buildings are also found lower down than the newer ones as demolished buildings fill with dirt and rubble and a new building is built on top several centuries later.)

Concerning famous sites, Dr. Caessens is able to give us a reliability guideline for most of them: authentic, possible, probable, or ridiculous. For example, there are three walled fields in modern Bethlehem that are all supposedly where the shepherds were watching their sheep when the angels spoke to them. All three are apparently possible, but of course, who knows exactly where the shepherds were that night.

We didn't actually stop at any of them because there are three main kinds of tours here: pilgrims, tourists, and academic tours. Pilgrims come to Jerusalem for a personal, spiritual experience -- especially orthodox Christians and Roman Catholics. They are the ones that want to kiss Jesus' tomb or say they walked where Jesus walked. The tourists want to see the famous sights like the breathtaking fortress of Masada. Our tour (which is part of a university course) is an academic tour to help Bible translators understand the history and geography of this part of the world. And not just that, but we've learnt about the various animals, and tomorrow we have a lecture from a botanist about the plants that grow here. So we don't have any particular interest in which actual fields the shepherds were supposedly in, but rather to learn about shepherding in general and how they coped with the situations in the different areas.