Jesus' hometown and the last crusade

Church of the Nativity

This entire week is a holiday in Turkey, which means I used it as an excuse to get out of Turkey.

At the moment, I am sitting in a hotel 800 meters from Petra, the morning's destination.

So far on the trip, I've tooled around, but not toured, Jerusalem, saw Jesus purported birth spot, visited the Sermon on the Mount site and the Sea of Galilee, viewed the Promised Land from Moses' vantage point and spent a ton of money.

Sermon on the Mount site

Since I am tying this on a smart phone and under a time constraint, I'm going to go off photos.

Church of the Nativity.  This is supposedly the exact spot where Jesus was born. I am really skeptical that that is the exact specific spot, but you never know. I followed a large tour group in, and did not get any time to myself in the little room. It's kind of in a cave, which is far more realistic of the actual event than the whole Shepherd field thing. Never actually says in the Bible that the shepherds were close to the site. They probably travel the ways to get to the manger, which was probably in a cave. This church had been built out of a cave. So maybe it is the right spot.

This is the spot off of the sea of Galilee where Jesus gave the sermon on the mount. There is currently a church there now, and it was closed to the public so we couldn't get into see from there. But the view was very pretty and the church at the bottom of the mountain is called the loaves and fishes church. I had gone with a small group, and one of the people had no idea what that meant.  It made me sad.

Temple of Aretemis 

Temple of Aretemis at Jerash. This was another City of ruins that, like Ephesus, was amazing to see. There were ruins of all kinds of things, including three churches that still had mosaics on the floor fairly intact. I forget how far back they dated, probably the second or third century.

Panorama from the top of Mount Nebo. This is the site that Moses would have seen however many years ago when God gave him a view of the promised land. Of course, he could not enter since he had struck the rock out of anger and all. That was why he had to wonder for 40 years and not step foot in the land of milk and honey, but God relented and gave him a view. If you look closely you can see the Jordan River and across that is Israel.

This morning I head out to Petra, where I hope to do the geek thing and ride in on horseback like Indiana Jones.

Mt. Nebo - what Moses saw

I have to sign off now so I can recharge my phone so that I can take a million pictures there.