Traveling for a Week | 6.

Below is a group of photos taken during our week-long trip to Petra, the Wadi Rum, the Dead and Red Seas, Aqaba, Jesus' baptismal site on the Jordan River, among other places. I've had to select only a few photos to upload. Thus, I hope they are satisfactory. The first eight are from various locations in Petra, the ancient capital of the Nabatean empire. The next five are from Wadi Rum, a vast desert where we camped for a night. Our group took a five hour Jeep tour, and during the night saw a meteor streak across the sky from the eastern to western horizons. No picture of that unfortunately. It was unbelievable, though. The final five are from Aqaba, in the gulf of the Red Sea. Many blessings to you all. I have three weeks and four days before I return to the USA. For a variety of reasons, one of which is most exciting, I am ready to be home. Again, many blessings.

Another Installment of Pictures | 7.05.2008

Here are a dozen more photos to view at your convenience. The first eight are from Area B and Area E, where I excavate at Abila. Please don't be alarmed if you're wondering what I'm smoking with our workers. Hookah is a rather important aspect of Jordanian and Middle Eastern culture, similar to sharing coffee or tea together. The tobacco is called sheesha, a mixture of honey, fruit, and tobacco. It's really quite enjoyable. One picture is taken of our second breakfast, a veritable feast. The last five photos are taken from the Madrasa, or school, in Hartha where I live currently, some from the roof overlooking Hartha and some of our courtyard. Well, there's definitely more to come, I promise. Our week long trip begins tomorrow morning, when we'll travel to Petra, the Dead Sea and Jesus' baptismal site, a beautiful desert called Wadi Rum, where Laurence of Arabia lived for a time, a crusader castle called Kerak (where The Kingdom of God was filmed), the Red Sea and Aqaba, among other places. After we return there will be two weeks (ten days approximately) of digging remaing. Then we travel home August 4th.

Week One of Excavation--Area E | 6.22-26.2008

Well, it's necessary that I include at least a small amount of information concerning the area of Abila in which I currently excavate. Area E designates the late Byzantine basilica Umm el Ammad (The Mother of Columns), located at the bottom of the Qweilbah wadi, or valley, at Abila. It is an unusual three-apsed, cruciform church with over thirty basalt and limestone columns lining its interior. I've been working south of the church structure in (officially) Square 78, removing backfill and sediment deposited by a massive earth quake that actually devastated Abila in the mid-eighth century A.D. Work hasn't been nearly as meticulous as it typically is, not as much data to record or artifacts to keep. Thus far, I've found a rusted/corroded spear head, the top of a small Umayyad oil lamp, a lot of glass and larger diagnostic potsherds, and three preserved rat skeletons. My supervisor is Dr. Bob Smith of Roanoke Bible College, whom the Jordanian workers affectionately call Abu Shaitan, which literally translates “The Father of Satan.” The man is, to say the very least and with all fairness, a slave driver. Strangely enough, I somewhat enjoy moving arabay, or wheelbarrows. Like mowing a lawn, it allows me time to think and pray, both of which I enjoy considerably.

Weekend Trip to Umm Qais (Gadara) | 6.20.2008

Historically speaking, the term Decapolis was used to denote a league of ten cities, located primarily east of the Jordan River and the Sea of Galilee, that were connected by social, military, commercial, religious, and political ties for their mutual benefit. The league was formalized by the Roman General Pompey around 63 B.C. when his army occupied Syria and the Hasmonean Kingdom of the Jews. Initially, the region of the Decapolis seems to have been designed as a buffer zone between the Roman Empire and the Nabatean Arabs, but when Trajan conquered the Nabateans in A.D. 106 the need for this buffer disappeared. The region of the Decapolis was attached to a new province called Arabia Petraea with its capitol first located at Petra, and later moved to Bosra, Syria. Though the Decapolis ceased to be a political entity, the use of the name delineate the region continued.

Prior to our initial week of digging, we took our first weekend trip to Gadara, the modern city of Umm Qais and one of the ancient cities of the Decapolis. Excavation at Gadara is extensive, exhibiting Hellenistic and Roman architecture (three theaters, a temple, an octagonal basilica, a Roman bath house, paved streets, vaulted shops and colonnades). The city overlooks both the Sea of Galilee and northern Israel to the west. This is likely the same Gadara mentioned in each of the three Synoptic gospels as the land of the Gadarenes (Matt 8.28; Mk 5.1; Lk 8.26), where Jesus purportedly cast the legion of demons into a herd of swine. I find it interesting to read the biblical narrative of Jesus' interaction with the Gadarene demoniac while keeping in mind the city's proximity to the Sea of Galilee. Matthew records, “And [Jesus] said to them, 'Go.' So they came out and went into the swine; and behold, the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea, and perished in the waters” (Matt 8.32 RSV). Gadara is actually no less than ten miles distant from the sea, meaning the herd of swine would have ran a long distance to the waters below.