Tours of Bible Lands: Highlights and Disappointments

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I highly recommend any tours to Greece, Turkey, and Israel.

My 2 Greatest Surprises:

(1) My "Footsteps of St. Paul" Tour of Greece and the Ephesus area in Turkey was more spiritually inspiring than my tour of the holy sites in Israel (Immanual Tours).

(2) The spiritual highlight of each tour was not what I expected.  I will describe both highlights in my next planned post.  If you have taken either or both tours, please feel free to post your highlights and disappointments from either region.

Then I will post my major disappointments and resulting recommendations for a Bible lands tour you might plan at a future date.  I understand that George leads tours of Israel.  I know nothing about his tours and would be especially interested in his reaction to my perspectives.

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The unexpected highlight of my "Footsteps of St. Paul" Tour came on the first day.  Our bus toured the ancient walls at Thessalonica and then headed east towards the Turkish border, passing sites visited by Paul along the way.  We arrived at a gorgeous overview of  the most gorgeous harbor in Greece (Neapolis). where Paul, Silas, and Luke first landed in Europe for their mission in Macedonia and Greece.  The nearby island of Samothrace (where Paul and his team stopped over en route) loomed large.  We gazed down at Neapolis from the top of a huge 4-story Roman aqueduct and looked down at the Via Ignatia, the Roman road over which Paul and his companions walked to Philippi (Acts 16:11-12).   I asked our tour guide if we could walk on that Roman road.  At first, she protested that it was too hard to get to it from our lofty perch, but when I said, "Pulease!", she consented and I'm glad she did.  

As we walked over that ancient stony road, I was overcome by awe and wonder and felt as if Paul and his missionary companions were walkinh beside me!  I thought of what lay ahead for them at Philippi--beatings, imprisonment, deliverance caused by an earthquake, and the conversion of the Philippian jailer and his family, followed by the conversion and baptism of Lydia (the exact spot of which we visited at Lydia's shrine along the Gangites River).  As I walked down that road, I pondered how the seeds were now being sown to make Christianity a world religion.   The Holy Spirit's presence rested mightily upon me.  To my dismay, no site in Israel or Greece moved me like that Roman road! 

I noticed the olive and almond trees along the way and realized that such trees provided nourishment for Paul's team in the absence of Burger Kings and MacDonalds!  https://worthychristianforums-h45go6maxh5rpepgu.netdna-ssl.com/uploads/emoticons/default_smile.png

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There was an emotional and an intellectual highlight of my tour of Israel (Immanuel Tours):

(1) The unexpected emotional highlight was the traditional site where fishing disciples spotted the risen Jesus on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee when they were fishing at dawn (John 21).  The risen Jesus cooks breakfast for them.  This site is traditionally identified as a huge round flat stone over which a tiny lovely Franciscan chapel was built to commemorate the event.  I was skeptical of the site's authenticity, but when I stood the shore in front of this stone, I was overwhelmed by a sense of the Lord's presence and felt the excitement of the disciples fishing nearby.  This experience taught me that it is not the objective nature of the holy site, but how the spirit works in our hearts while we are present that creates the emotional highlight.

(2) For me, the intellectual highlight occurred while we were staying in a one-floor hotel on the west side of the Sea of Galilee opposite Tiberias.  When we had breakfast there, a friend pointed out the mountain beside our hotel and I realized that this mountain is probably the one where Jesus fed the 5,000 (John 6:15).  I say this for 2 reasons:

(a) Boats from Tiberias came to this mountain site looking for Jesus, who had already left for Capernaum (6:23-24).  Tiberias is directly across from this mountain.

(b) Jesus approaches the frightened disciples, walking on the stormy sea about 3-4 (=25-30 furlons) miles from the mountain site.  That would nicely place their boat about half-way to Capernaum (6:19) .  This distance makes no sense for other alleged feeding sites.

I suspect this is the same mountain as the "appointed" mountain "to which Jesus had directed them" where the risen Jesus appears to His disciples in Matthew 28:16-20.  John tells us nothing about what Jesus said at breakfast; so Matthew 28:16-20 may disclose the rest of the story.

btw. I'm glad our tour stayed at the hotel across from Tiberias rather than the more customary hotels in Tiberias itself because the lights from Tiberias made the Sea of Galilee shine like a pearl, as we gazed toward Capernaum on the north shore. My awareness of all this made our boat ride to Capernaum the next day in an authentic replica of a first-century fishing boat all the more meaningful.

 

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I will now share my biggest disappointments in my Israel Tour.

(1) We visited the hillside outside Bethlehem, but not the Church of the Nativity.  This is the oldest church in the world and the grotto in the church has a gripping claim to be the place of Jesus' birth.  Justin Martyr (c. 165 AD) grew up in Samaria and reports that this Bethlehem grotto was a popular tour site for Christian pilgrims.  It is not mentioned in our Gospels, but think about it: how could the shepherds find the manger if it wasn't visible in an outdoor cave.  Our hillside visit was a poor substitute for visiting this church and its holy grotto.

(2) I wish we could have gone to the Church of St. Photina and visited the Samaritan Well (Jacob's Well), the site of Jesus' interaction with the Samaritan woman in John 4.  This is the only spot in Israel where we know exactly where Jesus was sitting!

I will share my biggest disappointment of all in my next planned post.

Mty

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THE BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT OF MY HOLY LAND TOUR:

Our group had Communion at the Garden Tomb (Gordon's Tomb).   The plants were lovely and there was a first-century wine press there.  We gazed at Skull's Hill across the way and were awed by the thought, "So that's Golgotha!!"  But there was only one problem: this was NOT Jesus' tomb! 

(1) Jesus was buried in a "new tomb" in which  no one had previously been buried (John 19:41).  Archaeologists have proven that this was a tomb that predated Jesus' day by centuries.

(2) The ancient Crusaders watered their horses by this tomb because they knew it wasn't Jesus' tomb.

(3) Skull Hill was not Golgotha.  It would take a mountain climber to get to  the top and there was no way a battered Jesus could carry His cross up that hill. 

We were not allowed to see the true burial place of Jesus and the remnants of the true Golgotha.  Those were in the "Catholic" site and we were only visiting the "Evangelical" sites!  But I wanted to see the authentic sites, not the evangelical sites.  What a bummer!   In my next planned post I will explain how scholars know that the Church of the Holy Sepulcher houses the true tomb of Jesus' and the remnants of the true Golgotha.  

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THE GREATEST DISAPPOINTMENT OF MY TOUR OF ISRAEL (IMMANUEL TOURS):

We visited the bogus Garden Tomb (Gordon's Tomb) instead of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the authentic location of Jesus' tomb and Golgotha.

Eusebius and other clerics (c. 323 AD) were eyewitnesses to the rediscovery of Jesus' tomb under the rubble there of Hadrian's Temple of Venus in Jerusalem.   Constantine orders the construction of the original Church of the Holy Sepulcher over Jesus' tomb.  The tomb had been buried there since the early 2nd century and ancient Jerusalem church leaders were eager to get the tomb uncovered.  The 13 foot pile of rocks  that was the remains of Golgotha is in this ancient about 40 yards from Jesus' tomb.  John 19:42 locates this tomb "nearby" Golgotha.  Only 13 feet of the original Golgotha remains because Hadrian had it virtually leveled to lay the foundation for the massive Temple of Venus.   The church stands just outside the location of the Garden Gate (see Hebrews 13:12) and there is archaeological proof that a garden once stood at the site of Jesus' tomb.  

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THE MOST EDUCATION SURPRISE OF MY FOOTSTEPS OF ST. PAUL TOUR:

Our tour entered the ruins of ancient Corinth, stopping first at the museum.  The most shocking artifacts in this museum were all the small clay figurines of phallic symbols that were created as part of the healing ritual used in the Cult of Asklepius,  the most effective source of healing in ancient Greco-Roman religion.  Askleplius temple walls are full of inscribed testimonies of healing miracles performed on people from all walks of life!  Priests made clay figurines of the body part in need of healing and meditation on these figurines was part of the healing process.  A more fascinating part of the process were the patient visions induced by unknown means there in which either psychic healing was performed on the body or herbs were prescribed to aid in the healing.  

Clay phallic figurines were by far the most frequent because sexually transmitted disease was the greatest health problem experienced by Corinthian men as a result of their routine sex acts with prostitute priestesses working for the Cult of Aphrodite, whose temple ruins tower over Corinth on an adjacent small mountain.  When I saw these clay figurines, I gained fresh appreciation for Paul's special warnings against sexual promiscuity to the nascent Corinthian church (e. g. 1 Cor. 6:16-19).