Today was Shabbat, Saturday. Yesterday morning we awoke to fog. Today there was no fog, but clouds formed and dissipated repeatedly. We decided to make it a day of rest: no exercising and (almost) no studying. We also decided to go into Jerusalem for a second time to see a few things.
On Fridays, the Muslims have their quiet day and their businesses are closed. On Saturdays (beginning on Friday night, of course) the Jews close their businesses, which makes public transportation a bit difficult, and the Arabs are open. On Sundays, many Christians close their businesses and the Arabs and Jews have a normal work day. Our schedule at the Ulpan gives us Saturday and Sunday for rest, homework, and exploring.
Our fees include two meals a day (normally breakfast and lunch), seven days a week, at the cafeteria. The food is always excellent. I've explained about what we eat but someone asked me about chocolate cake at lunch (I'm not sure why they asked me about chocolate cake!). There are some sweet things served at breakfast, including rolls, yogurt, etc., but none at lunch. Why? The cafeteria is Kosher. The main thing is not to mix milk and meat. Breakfast includes dairy and eggs and even fish, but no beef or lamb, etc. Sometimes a nice cake is served. Lunch is the meat meal. Since cakes and rolls tend to have milk, they are not served at lunch time. This separation extends to the point of using different pots, pans, and utensils in food preparation. Even the forks we eat with are different: white handled forks forks at breakfast and browns handled forks.
Since Sunday is a normal work day in Israel, a number of Christians meet on Saturday. David and Amanda arranged for a Shrut (I'm not sure of the spelling; it is a large van or a small bus) to take us in to Jerusalem. We filled every seat, 15 or 18 people. We all went to the Bible study led by Randall Buth at the Narkis Street Congregation (www.narkis.org). It was pretty typical of American adult Sunday school classes: Hebrew Bible, Greek Septuagint and Greek NT, plus a couple of Jewish commentators, Ramban and Rashi (Randall translated all into English). One class member, probably a Palestinian Christian in his upper 60s or more, had his Arabic translation.
For our benefit, Randall reviewed last week's lesson was on Num 25 when Phineas killed those who had violated the Lord's worship and was rewarded with a priestly rank. This week's lesson was on Ps 106:28-31, which recalls that incident. In particular, v. 31 says, "And it was credited to him [Phineas] for righteousness." The word translated "and it was credited, hearkens back to Gen 15:6, which is typically translated something like "And he believed in the Lord, and he credited it to him for righteousness." The author leaves us to identify all the pronouns, which is not very difficult. The first word translated "and he believed," however, is of a form in Hebrew that indicates that this action is not a completed event. A better translation would be, "And he was believing ...," an ongoing activity. The "it" that the Lord credited to Abraham for righteousness was his state of believing. This led into a discussion of Paul and James and the ideas of faith and works. It was all very interesting, and of great importance for Christians to understand. None of us has perfect faith. But we must all continue in our faith and continue to grow in it.
After the class, Peter and I headed out into the Old City of Jerusalem again. We entered at the Jaffa Gate, got maps of the old city at the tourism center, walked a long time. The shops are small and packed together. This morning the sidewalks in the Christian (Greek Orthodox and Latin churches), Armenian, and Muslim quarters were very crowded with people, including numerous tourist groups from all over the world.
We went to the wailing wall. Along the way we took this picture, because photography is not allowed at the wall (at least on Shabbat), so as not to disturb the worshippers. To go down to the wall we had to pass through a security checkpoint, where they searched our backpacks and had us walk through a scanner. We actually went down to the wall, which dates back to the time of Herod, and touched it while we prayed.
From there we went to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. This photograph looks directly at the church. We entered through the large open door on the left. It was very crowded and actually quite massive with many things to see. Unfortunately, without guide or guidebook (I left the one I am borrowing in our room), there were many things we did not understand. Armenian, Syrian, Greek and Latin Christians have their sites.
Enclosed within the building are the supposed places of the crucifixion and the burial of Jesus. Some have thought that the Garden tomb is better because it is outside the city walls, but more recent excavations have shown that this tomb was outside the walls in Jesus' day. This tomb is not that of Jesus. However, according to Peter, its excavation is what confirmed the location of the ancient walls. The first photo below is of the entrance. In the second Peter stands just inside to give you perspective of the small size. The third is of two hewn grave sites, which archaeologists call loculi.
We left through the more quiet Jewish quarter. Some Jews were coming from or going to synagogue services. We got a little turned around, trying to orient ourselves to the map. Along the way we passed next to the Cardo Gallery for a second time. Because Jerusalem is so thickly inhabited, very little archaeological work has been done. The Cardo is an area that has been excavated. The columns and pavement date back to the time of Jesus. Note how deeply this period is buried after 2,000 years.
We also visited one of the shops of a Palestinian Christian we had met last Sunday. Peter had known him from before and he was a good friend of Paul and Rhoda (see the blog for day 4). He has a real heart for winning Muslims to Christ. He pointed out the universal truths that the scope is one by one and the method is showing the love of Christ. May the hearts of us American Christians follow these same principles in our culture.
After walking for several hours we decided to go back. We knew buses were not running until the end of Shabbat, but we didn't want to wait five hours for them to start. We had to take a taxi. Not many of them were running where we were. So we left the Old City and walked about two miles on Jaffa Street to the Central Bus Station. We flagged a taxi and rode home.
After all that walking, we decided we really had not had that much rest. We decided to veg out and watch a little TV, which we have very little time for otherwise. You can watch shows in English, French, Russian, and of course Hebrew. Almost all of them have captions in Hebrew, sometimes in English.
Tonight we watched a few episodes of "King of Queens," which is translated into Hebrew as "King of the Neighborhood." This illustrates one of the difficulties of translating. If they had translated "literally," the Hebrew speakers would have completely misunderstood; they would have thought "Queens" meant "queens" instead of a burrough in New York. So it is correctly translated as "neighborhood," but then of course the Hebrew readers miss the pun of "King of Queens."
This is why I repeat the adage that "studying your English Bible is like kissing your date through a screen door," to which I add, "the act is the same, but the sensation is completely different." Our English translations are excellently done. When we read them, we are getting the very message of God. The closer we want to study, though, and the more accurately and precisely we want to understand and proclaim God's message, the more important it is "to kiss without the screen." Wherever we are in our walk, let us encourage one another to do better in our study of Scripture and its languages, for the love of God.
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