In the Land of Benjamin.

*Many of you have commented about the brownness of my pictures. This is just to show you that some parts of the country are green. In this case, it is Jericho - a true oasis in the desert.

Anyways, we took a field trip day this Sunday to Benjamin. Our class started out walking through some of the Judean wilderness to get a feel for what it would have been like to travel between Jericho and Jerusalem - something Jesus did many times. This is our group walking up the ridges of the wilderness. 

Not exactly the kind of wilderness I pictured Jesus being tempted in, or the wilderness that the Israelites wandered around in for 40 years. We stopped at the top and had class. You know, in our normal, very brown, classroom. :)

On our way back from the top of the wilderness some of the Bedouins were waiting by our bus to try to sell us stuff. This man brought his camel to sell us camel rides. I didn't get a ride, but at least I got a picture.

After the Judean wilderness we spent most of the morning in Jericho - both the Old Testament and New Testament sites. We went to Herod the Great's winter palace in Jericho. As we walked around the ruins, Bedouin children came out and played with us. They were so cute!

Of course, we had to see the old walls of Jericho. (Go back and read the story, apparently the whole wall didn't fall down, maybe just a part of it.) Notice the palm trees in the background. The Bible calls Jericho the city of palms. 

Our last stop was at Gezer - the "front door" of Benjamin. Gezer is important because it gives Jerusalem access to the Coast and the trade routes to the sea port at Joppa. I didn't really get why these were important, but they are standing stones of some sort and no one really knows what they were for. After Dr. Wright made a comment about how girls were better at climbing them than guys were, some of the guys had to make sure that they were the first to get to the top.

The last thing we saw in Gezer was this city gate constructed under Solomon's reign. It had six little chambers inside and a casemate wall. This picture was taken after we took a group picture and then all began to explore the site.