Duck, duck, goose

I was reading recently of an American Christian who was on a mission trip in Africa. He particularly loved interacting with the children in the country he was in, and expressed his joy over being able to teach them some games. For instance, he and his cohorts taught the children how to play “Duck, duck, goose.” He recalled how the children were initially bewildered, though, because they did not know what a duck or a goose was. They had never seen such animals! So, the teachers had to change the names of the animals to ones familiar to the children. Then it made sense to them and they all proceeded to have fun. The American telling the story cited this as an example of the need to place things in their proper cultural context. In other words, when a missionary goes to another land to preach the gospel, not every “Americanism” will be understood, just as these children did not understand “Duck, duck, goose.”

It was at this point that I put my book down and began to think. Something dawned on me. I thought, “Wait a minute.” I’m an American, and I don’t even understand “Duck, duck, goose.” I’ve never actually seen a duck waddling around a circle of other ducks (and geese?), tapping each one on the head until he arrived at his “victim.” I’ve never seen one chasing another one around said circle. Heck, I’ve never even seen a duck chasing a goose, or a goose chasing a duck for that matter. Do they play together or even hang out together? I don’t know. In fact, I’m embarrassed to say that I’m not 100% sure of the difference between ducks and geese in the first place. Are they related somehow, in a hen/rooster kind of way? I don’t think so. I think I can tell them apart, but sometimes it’s kind of hard to differentiate them. There are a bunch of ducks that roam around my neighborhood all the time, but it wouldn’t shock me if someone told me that they were actually geese.

Well, I’m flummoxed. And what’s more, I’m humbled. I am quick to point out how kids today (i.e. my students over at the community college) don’t know a lot of “common knowledge” type questions, yet here I am struggling over ducks, geese, and a children’s game. I guess I’ll have to do a little research in my copious free time.

May 30th: Baptists? In Jerusalem?

After four days in the desert and southern Israel, we came back to sunny, warm, non-humid Jerusalem for the weekend to rest, study, take our quiz, listen to lectures, prepare our maps for our next trip, do laundry, explore Jerusalem, shop, etc. On Sunday, a group of us went to church in Jerusalem. This was the longest trek that I took outside of the old city wall (our hotel was in the Christian Quarter inside the wall). I was surprised to find a Baptist church in the city of Jerusalem, and pleasantly surprised at the refreshing time of worship that we experienced there.


The first photo that you see is the sign outside the church, “Baptist House,” and the second photo is of the inside. The service was in English, as most of the people there were either American Christians visiting Israel, or American and European Jewish Christians who have moved to Jerusalem. For example, the pastor is a transplant from New Jersey, and I also spoke with an elderly Jewish woman from Connecticut who moved to Jerusalem with her husband in the early 1960s. Moreover, I met an elderly Jewish man who was originally from Germany, who as a boy escaped to England during the Holocaust.

The service itself was much like what one would expect and be comfortable with in a Baptist church in the states—singing, praying, preaching, and the like. There was about 150 in attendance. One interesting tradition at the Baptist House is that all visitors had to stand, one by one, and introduce themselves. It was fascinating to see and hear where everyone was from, and why they were in Israel. We had a group of students from Julliard in New York City; I suppose some of them may become well-known musicians someday.

As church services go, I thought the Baptist House was great. I sensed a real God-honoring atmosphere there, and it was very meaningful to me to be worshipping with so many people from so many different areas, generations, and backgrounds. The funny thing is, after the service I got to talking to a gentleman who recently came to Israel from the Philadelphia area to coach basketball. I grew up in the Philly area, so we struck up a fine conversation, and it was not long until we found out that he had been having prayer meetings at the high school where I attended, with my cross-country coach (a Christian man who is still coaching after all these years). So, it’s a big world, yet it’s a small world.


With all the talking I was doing, my group got tired of waiting and left to return to the hotel. So, I was on my own to get back to Old Jerusalem, which was about a twenty-minute walk. I leave you with a few pictures that I took on that walk. The first is the emblem of Jerusalem (a lion) that was on the side of a building.


The second is “The Holy Bagel Café,” a name that I thought humorous. I didn’t eat there, by the way, so I have no idea how righteous their bagels are.


And finally, many of the streets in Jerusalem are named after famous kings throughout history—King David, King George, etc. I had no idea that one of them was King Kong!

May 28th: The Dead Sea Scrolls

At some time or another, most everyone has heard a reference to the Dead Sea Scrolls. I occasionally hear the scrolls mentioned when someone is trying to make a point about just how old a certain document is. However, I would guess that many people are not exactly clear as to what the Dead Sea Scrolls are, and more importantly, why they are significant.

The final stop on our four-day swing to southern Israel was the desert caves near the Dead Sea where the scrolls were found. The place of the discoveries is also known as Qumran. The first picture that you see is me crouching just inside “Cave 11,” where many of the scrolls were discovered. I would have gone further inside the cave, but I saw that there were many bats flying around deeper inside the cave, so I thought this would suffice. Getting to Cave 11 required a steep climb of a couple hundred feet. As the designation suggests, the Qumran caves are numbered.


The second picture that you see is “Cave 4,” again, a site where many scrolls have been found. The Dead Sea Scrolls were first discovered in the late 1940s. They are a treasure trove of ancient religious documents. Most importantly, the scrolls include ancient copies of the Old Testament Scriptures. In fact, with the exception of Esther, all or part of every Old Testament book has been found at Qumran. Isaiah has been found in its entirety. Moreover, these scriptural texts have been found in a few different ancient languages. These texts are the oldest known copies of the Old Testament, and they date to the first few centuries B.C.


The third picture that you see is a distant view of Cave 11, the same one where I posed in the first picture above. In addition to Scripture, other Qumran scrolls include extensive commentaries on the Scriptures, Apocryphal books (historical books not included in the Old Testament), and religious instructions. In total, roughly 900 scrolls have been discovered at the Qumran caves.


Who is responsible for this copious amount of ancient material? Well, there was a strict Jewish sect at the time known as the Essenes. The Essenes lived out in the desert, away from the hustle and bustle of Jerusalem and the rest of Israeli society. They believed that living separate from the world would allow them to stay better focused on keeping God’s law and staying away from the temptations of the world. The fourth picture is the remains of an Essene settlement right near Caves 4 and 11.


The last picture that you see is a replica of a scroll of a portion of Psalms discovered at Qumran. Seeing this replica, and being there at Qumran, reminded me of why the Dead Sea Scrolls are significant. You see, most evangelical Christians believe that the original writing of the Old Testament was completed in about 400 B.C. The translations we use in America today are taken from Hebrew texts dating to about 1000 A.D. In other words, we believe that the Old Testament was faithfully and accurately passed down for nearly 1400 years (without the aid of a printing press or copy machine)! But in the 1800s and early 1900s, many critics of the Bible claimed that the Old Testament was not reliable. How, they asked, could men possibly have accurately transcribed the Bible over such a long period of time? It’s equivalent to a millennium-and-a-half game of “whisper-down-the-lane,” and we all know how that game turns out.

However, the scriptural Dead Sea Scrolls, discovered in the mid-twentieth century, are nearly identical to the texts dated to 1000 A.D.! This provides strong evidence that the Old Testament really was faithfully and accurately passed down for all those many years. And most importantly, it means that the Bible that we use today is reliable. It’s not the byproduct of centuries of mistakes and embellishments by a myriad of unknown scribes, but rather, it can be trusted as the reliable Word of God.

May 27th: The Dead Sea

No, this is not the long-anticipated “swimsuit issue” of my blog. It was during our four-day field trip to southern Israel (to include the desert) that we took a brief swimming stop at the Dead Sea. Now, as you might have heard before, the Dead Sea has a very high concentration of salt and mineral deposits. For this reason, a person will float in the Dead Sea. In the first picture, you see that I am floating. In fact, it was very comfortable. I wish that I had had a pillow, because if I had, I could easily have drifted off and taken a nap.


You will notice that I am wearing flip-flops in these pictures. This is because it is difficult to walk barefoot in the Dead Sea. The bottom is covered with at least several inches of what I call “salt cubes,” that is, small chunks of salt that vary in size from that of a sugar cube to about the size of a golf ball. I did not retrieve any of this salt to bring home. However, if you look at the second picture closely, you will notice that on the left hand side, one of the students in our group was collecting some of these salt cubes. He is holding a handful of them.


We went swimming in the Dead Sea for about an hour, which was a much-welcomed break from our days in the desert region. I believe it was later on this day that we asked our bus driver what the temperature was. He said he heard on the radio that it was forty-five. Doing the quick conversion from Celsius to Fahrenheit, I realized that it was 113 degrees!


Shortly after we hit the road from the Dead Sea, we stopped on the side of the road for a picture stop, where I took the last photo that you see. The natural structure that you see is a common sight along the mountains by the Dead Sea. The structure is known as “Mrs. Lot,” because it is formed from the salt-dense water and moisture of the area. The reference is to Lot’s wife, who in the book of Genesis was turned into a pillar of salt when she looked back at Sodom and Gomorrah during her family’s escape from the destruction of those cities. Scholars don’t know for sure if Lot’s wife turned into something that looks like one of these “Mrs. Lots,” but it is plausible. In fact, since I have been home from Israel, I was watching a History Channel show that claimed that she did in fact turn into a “Mrs. Lot” pillar like those near the Dead Sea.