A different perspective

My first two weeks here in Israel were on a tour with a Bible-believing guide and especially looking at sites with Biblical connections.

However, on Sunday (which is a working day for most people here in Israel), I had the opportunity to join some of the students (co-diggers) here on a tour of a couple of sites in Jerusalem. It was a great day.

There were two things that made this tour different from what I had done in the first tour: 1/ The tour guide was one of our resident archaeologists who is an Jewish rabbi who is religious, but skeptical of anything miraculous in the Bible, so it was very interesting hearing his comments from a totally different perspective, and 2/ we went (a second time for me) to the Shrine of the Book (where Israel's national treasures -- some of the most ancient version of the Scriptures -- are displayed) and got a personal tour by the curator.

Tonight we had a lecture from the same archaeologist, who is a very interesting guy. It was an introduction to the story of the rediscovery of Bethsaida -- the ancient town from Jesus' time which we have been digging up. For many years, this place which is mentioned several times in the Bible, was thought by a number of scholars to be simply fictitious because it had never been found. Now we're here digging it up. It was an excellent lecture and I learnt a lot.

Anyway, part of his story concerned the account of Jesus walking on the water. He explained that one end of the Sea of Galilee in those days was a shallow swamp, and Jesus was walking on the mounds in the swamp. Peter got out of the boat and did the same, but was a bit slow obeying Jesus' call then stepped off onto a deep part and sunk into the water. I had to laugh at his explanation because the experienced fishermen wouldn't have thought Jesus was a ghost if he was jumping across high patches in a shallow swamp near their home town (that they would have all known very well). Of course, people tend to believe what they want to believe and it takes the Holy Spirit to open people's minds and hearts.