Israeli Museum, May 20, 2019

On Monday, we went to the Israeli Museum with the Earnshaw's, Liffeth's, and Dr. Skinner.  He explained a lot of things as we saw the Dead Sea Scrolls, the city plan of Jerusalem, and museum pieces. 

This is the Shrine of the Book, which houses many of the Dead Sea Scrolls and fragments.  It also has replicas of the Aleppo Codex, which is the earliest known Hebrew manuscript comprising the full text of the Bible, and was used by the King James translators. In 1947 when the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in Qumran, they became the oldest known text.

Below is the top of the building called the Shrine of the Book.  It is fashioned to look like the lid of the containers that the Dead Sea Scrolls were in.

The Aleppo Codex:

 The Codex was written in Tiberias in the early tenth century, looted and transferred to Egypt at the end of the eleventh century, and deposited with the Jewish community of Aleppo in Syria at the end of the fourteenth century. The rabbis and elders of the community guarded it zealously for some six hundred years. During the riots against Jews and Jewish property in Aleppo in December 1947, the community's ancient synagogue was put to the torch and the Codex, which was kept in the synagogue's "Cave of Elijah," suffered damage, so that no more than 295 of the original 487 leaves survived.

In January 1958 the Aleppo Codex was brought to Jerusalem, where it remains until today.

The is a model (miniature) of what Jerusalem looked like during Christ's time and this is the Temple to scale in relation to surrounding buildings. Dr. Skinner pointed out where the pinnacle was where Satan tempted Christ to jump from. 

This is a picture in the museum of the chair is called "Moses Se'at" (see Matthew 23:2) It was the chair of honor in the synagogue where the authoritative teacher of the law sat. It looks extremely uncomfortable--needs a cushion at least!  Above the seat you can see a stone beam.  Dr. Skinner said this stone beam had to be chiseled to texture or shape it and the chips that came off from the chiseling were called motes.

Roses from the Garden of All Nations, near the Knesset building.

Palestinian Christian wedding May 18, 2019

Two employees here were married on May 18th.  They are Palestinian Christians and we were invited and so happy to be a part of the celebrations.  The wedding was held at a local church that they attend.  The bride was escorted by her father, vows were made, but in Arabic, so we weren't exactly sure  what was said.  Afterwards, there was dancing by the couple and wedding party near the limo, then a reception line for greeting the guests.

Mission Call

We went to the auditorium to see Tanna Clegg open her mission call.  The students all came and we had song and prayer, comments from former missionaries and converts, all leading up to the opening of the call.  It was really wonderful to feel the Spirit, to see how positive the students were about their mission and to see how excited Tanna was to be going to Argentina! 

 Lee helping get things set up (only he can move the $160,000  piano)

L

Mother's Day

The Jerusalem Center has hundreds of gorgeous roses on every level and Lee picked some to make a Mother's Day bouquet.  I received phone calls and texts from the children and that was wonderful too.  I talked with my own mother, who had a fun visit from Cameron and Angela and that delighted her.

May, 2019 Mount of Olives

Earlier in May when we were at the Augusta Victorian church, Prof. Ross Barron talked about the Mount of Olives as a Temple setting.  In March, 1873, a group of people including Eliza R Snow, Lorenzo Snow, and George Albert Smith came to Jerusalem to dedicate the land for the gathering of Israel (30 years after Orson Hyde dedicated the land). It is written she Eliza R. Snow particularly felt the significance of joining “the brethren” in a ceremonial prayer circle to dedicate “the land of Palestine for the gathering of the Jews and the rebuilding of Jerusalem. (The First 50 Years of Relief Society 3.23)

In another discussion, Prof. Barron talked about Helen, mother of Constantine, who came to the Holy Land in 326 AD and met with the Bishop of Jerusalem.  She identified several places where Jesus had been, including where he died on the cross and was resurrected.  Of the many caves in the area she said, "There are 3 caves of the mysteries of the faith" She didn't mean mysterious, but was referring to the saving principles of the gospel.  She identified the caves as the cave of Jesus' birth in Bethlehem, the cave of His burial, and the cave where Christ taught the mysteries, in this case, possibly Temple covenants, to the Apostles.  We visited that cave at Pater Noster.

May 6, Nebi Samwil or the city of Gibeon

Nebi Samwil,  was called Gibeon in the Old Testament and is where the 5 kings of the Amorites came to kill the people of Gibeon, who had made peace with Joshua. (Joshua 10:1-14)  God promised Joshua that he would be victorious, and he was.  It was then that Joshua said "Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon,...and the sun stood still".  This is also the place referred to as the "high place" of Gibeon, in 1 Kings 3:4.  Here Solomon made sacrifices and God said "Ask what I shall give thee".  Because Solomon asked for an understanding heart so he could judge the people correctly, God gave him that and added to that lands, riches, and honor.  One of the students said, "God still asks us what we want--He tells us to ask, seek and knock.

The hill provides a good view of Jerusalem and controls the roads leading to the city from the north: the road from the Coastal Plain in the west and that from Samaria to the north of Jerusalem. This area overlooks the land that the house of Benjamin was given, and is still a strategic place, being the area where the 6 Days War led to the triumph of the Jews over the Arabs in 1967.

Excavation of the area shows buildings from the the 1st Temple period, 2nd Temple period, time of Persians, Byzantine period, Crusader times, and  Muslims, who built a mosque, after destroying the Crusader fortress.

While it is called the burial place of Samuel, it most likely is not, yet both Jews and Muslims come here to worship.

May 6, 2019 Augusta Victoria Church

On May 5th, we went with the students on a field trip to see several sites.  The following 3 pictures are from the Augusta Victoria church, which is close to the Jerusalem Center.  The first show Dr. Skinner telling the students about the building (the land was given to Germany by the Ottomans, who owned the land and eventually this church and hospital were built on the land.  There is a beautiful painting of Christ riding to Jerusalem (Palm Sunday).  We climbed 5-6 flights of stairs (I lost count) to the Bell Tower, where I took a picture of the land below.

A Little Snafu!

One of the many adventures we had here!  We had saved out 100 tickets to a concert for May 28th, which the people who reserved them came to the Center to get.  Unfortunately, we gave them the wrong tickets so we had to drive to their music school to exchange them.  That's when the adventure began because we were driving in unknown territory and had no idea what the building looked like.  We couldn't find any places with the address, so eventually we stopped at the Serbian Embassy and asked the secretary who was able to point us in the general direction.  The school had a lovely exterior (picture above) and we knocked on several office doors in the building until we reached the right place.  It took some explanation (the secretary not understanding English well) but we finally made the exchange of tickets.

May 1--New students arrive and the new choir begins!

The new student arrival was really fun--all the teachers, spouses and service couples stood at the entrance when the bleary eyed students came in.  They went immediately into the auditorium for a meeting and were kept up until 11 PM when tours, meeting professors, etc.  One of the new students is Barb Cahoon's niece, Maddy Collier, and she came up to me and said, "I'm Molly Cahoon's cousin and she says "Hello".  It made my day!

 On Sabbath, May 4, Lee had 45 students for choir practice--he was in his element and it's going to be a great choir!

April 28-29 German surprise and a day at Ikea (Tel Aviv and Jaffa

April 28th the biggest surprise happened at a Sunday Concert when this German tour group came.  Lee mentioned that we had served in Leipzig, and the woman next to me said she was Sis. Tilgner's sister and lived in Dresden.  Sis. Tilgner was a good friend and she had us over for Christmas Eve in 2014, so it was so wonderful to meet her sister.  And then the woman next to her (husbands behind them) was in Pres. Kosak's ward.  It was really amazing and I began to feel tears of joy streaming down my face!

The next day we took a trip to Tel Aviv and Jaffa.  We wanted to buy a mattress pad at Ikea and then see some places in Jaffa.

 We made our way to Jaffa with it's beautiful beaches--we could see Tel Aviv from the beach.  Jaffa is where Jonah left for Ninevah and got caught in a whale.  It is also where Peter visited Simon and had a vision of the clean and unclean beasts, telling him to take the gospel to the Gentiles.