Joshua Fought the Battle of Jericho

When Joshua brought the Israelites into the land that had been given them, there was a lot of conquering and then the land was divided among the twelve tribes. Our day was dedicated to the study of the Benjaminite plateau. Right now, Jerusalem is a mix of rock and green. The gardens are blooming and there is some grass that you occasionally see. You really can not say the same for the plateau. It is located in the wilderness and there is a LOT of rock and just enough green/yellow grass peeking out in various places for the sheep and goats to have something to eat. Wandering that land for 30-40 years would give me some concerns about where God was taking me. Think about it. The Israelites left the desert of Egypt, yes, but they also left the very lush Nile Delta. There was water and green stuff and plenty to eat when there was no drought. Then God brought them to the wilderness. Mainly because you can't get to the lush areas of Israel without going through that, but how were they to know? They were miles away from the only existence that many of them had ever known! I used to think that Moses was dealing with a fairly whiny group of people. I am now having more compassion for the people.

Jericho is located in the lush area of Israel. The city was built around a spring that gushes roughly 1,000 gallons of water per minute. It is easy to see that there is water here. The landscape is simply lush in comparison to the surrounding landscape. As a result, no one could resist building at the site and now there are two Jerichos, the Jericho of the Old Testament and the Jericho of the New Testament. We started with the New Testament Jericho and the site of Herod's palace. Like all of Herod's palaces, it was located on a beautiful overlook that strategically protected the city of Jerusalem from attack. From there we traveled down to Old Jericho. While there, we saw the oldest structure in the world. A wall was found at Old Jericho that was carbon dated to be from 8000 B.C. When you see a structure that is roughly 10,000 years old, you get a much better appreciation for why people in this region think that Americans are silly for being excited over finds from the 1700s. Old Jericho is the city that Joshua would have fought and knocked the walls down. We had a long discussion at the site about the archaeology and who said what. Here is the basic summary, they have found two city walls and neither of them shows signs of being knocked down. However, the digging will probably continue once things are a little more settled between the Palestinians and the Israelis. Who knows what they will find once then?

After our visit to Old Jericho we traveled the countryside to see various Tels of Jerusalem. Tels are high fortresses that are built on top of the remains of the fortresses that stood there before they were destroyed. Due to the hot and dry climate of Israel, many of the ruins have been found intact and groups like ours are allowed to run all over them. The vistas are amazing from these locations and it is easy to see why they are so strategically desirable.

The real highlight of the day is that we were the only group to visit the site of Tel Gezer. Tel Gezer is a Solomonic Tel with one of the three Solomonic gates that are still in existence in Israel. By the end of our trip we will visit all three. It's amazing to see how far his kingdom spread! It was such an adventure that even our instructor, who has visited Israel several times over the last 20 years, was giddy like a child. It was a very fun way to end the day.