Saying goodbye to Petra, we turned north up the Desert Highway parallel to the Israelites’ route when they made their wilderness journey from Egypt to the Promised Land.  We stopped first at the magnificent Crusader castle of Karak, built on the location of the ancient Moabite capital, Kir Hareseth.  We continued to Madaba, known as […]

Today was devoted to exploring Petra, where we discussed the mysteries of the Nabataean traders and their strategic location along the silk and spice trade routes between the east and west.  We entered the city through the Siq, a narrow slit in the mountains, with walls towering 80 meters on each side.  We spent the […]

After an early breakfast, we crossed the border at Allenby Bridge and began our journey in northern Jordan.  Our first stop was the ruins of Pella, where early Messianic Jews fled during the war with Rome in the First Century. Next we travelled south to the ancient city of Jerash, which boasts an unbroken chain of […]

Pretty well all of us went to church and then spread out all over. Some went to the Israel museum, some walked the ‘ramparts’ (walls) of old Jerusalem , some went to the Jewish ‘shouk’. Craig and I walked around the city and ended up at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre again where we […]

Today we focussed on sites related to the Biblical passages concerning Jesus’ last week in Jerusalem. Our goal is to understand why He was crucified, how He was buried, and what it meant to the Jewish people of the First Century that He was raised from the dead. We began our day with a panoramic overlook […]

Today we studied both a great tragedy and the wonder of the Lord’s redemptive power. We examined the systematic annihilation of six million Jews in the Nazi genocide, God coming to earth in the form of a man to save His people from their sins, and the loving witness of Christians committed to the Biblically […]

Jewish men praying at the Western Wall Via Dolorosa – Muslim Quarter as we emerge from the Temple tunnels On top of the Temple Mount – we feel secure! Dome of the Rock Waiting in line to go up to the Temple Mount Rev. Craig on the Temple Mount David teaching in the tunnels that […]

Our theme today is the wilderness and what it signified to the ancient Israelites. We began our day at Masada, Herod the Great’s magnificent fortress palace in the desert, and the last stand of the Zealots, a Jewish revolutionary group at the time of Jesus. From Masada we drove north to the beautiful subtropical oasis of Ein […]

Today we leave Galilee and journey south down the spectacular Syrian African Rift Valley to the Dead Sea in the arid Judean wilderness. We studied the cultural tensions that existed at the time of Jesus, both between Greco-Roman culture and Jewish culture (and later the early church), and also between the Jewish religious establishment of […]