Day 9 - Saturday, April 13 - Jericho and Bethlehem

In the morning we went to Jericho with a cab driver who often comes there and also has friends there, and all went very smoothly. The excavations of Jericho are not very spectacular, from the time of Joshua we only saw one piece of wall. Some kind of tower standing there is clearly not from that time but much earlier.

As far as we know, Jericho is the oldest surviving city in the world and is also called the Palm City. And going up by cable car gives a great view.

In the afternoon we went to Bethlehem with a friend, and there are the usual 'fields where the shepherds lay down at night' that are pointed out to you, and also 'the place where Jesus was born'. This is all thanks to Queen Helena because the delegation that accompanied her trip 'of course' didn't want to disappoint her when in the fourth century she wanted to see all those places she had read about in the Bible, and so very much wanted to 'know' each time exactly where that was so that she could then have a church built above it.

Since the supposed birthplace is a small cavern going down into the ground, it is interesting what was written by W.H. Bartlett in 1842: " the spot is at variance with probability, as although it may occasionally happen that caverns are used as stables in Palestine, this is deeper underground than would be convenient for such a purpose".

Of course a good thing to remember is that "we are walking by faith, not by sight" (1 Cor. 5 verse 7) and "faith" here means "the assured expectation of what is hoped for, the evident demonstration of realities that are not seen" (Heb. 11 verse 1).

For even if those "chosen places" do not all add up exactly, the events themselves remain as they are.

In the evening we attended a meeting in Arabic, and our comments in English at the question-and-answer discussion were nicely translated for us.

It was very late when we got back to the hotel so this time decided not to have very little sleep to work on this website but to go straight to bed. Our friend Marco was awakened by an alarm in the middle of the night and had a restless 15 minutes with sounds like fireworks being shot off. We didn't even wake up when the alarm went off, not even Karin. And the people are generally very calm about it, almost laconic.

The videos:
(1) Desert dunes, (2) Jericho all around, (3) Old Jericho, (4) Going up by cable car.

The photos:
(1) Desert dunes, (2) The oldest city in the world, (3) Mountain view, (4) Panorama, (5) Ron & Karin in Jericho, (6) Old Jericho Tel, (7) This wall with white plate is left over from the time of Joshua, (8) Banksy original in Bethlehem, (9) Here they point out to the tourists the shepherds' field on the night Jesus was born.