1 This is the book of the generations of Adam. When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. 2 Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and named them Man when they were created. This begins the second “generations of _______” section in Genesis. Whereas the previous…
1 Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, “I have gotten a man with the help of the LORD.” 2 And again, she bore his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a worker of the ground. Having been banished from Eden, Adam and…
Melkizedek is one of the most enigmatic characters of the Bible. A priest of God, a King of a major city-state, and a portrait of Christ to come, in a world where there were very few who still worshiped God. We do not know much about Melkizedek, other than what the Bible says. He appears…
1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” This is of course the passage of scripture where God’s “very good” creation, paradise on earth…
1 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. 2 And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. 3 So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on…
Few figures in the Bible have garnered as much speculation as Enoch, Noah’s great-grandfather. Enoch’s appearance in the Bible is limited to a few verses, stuck in the middle of one of the many genealogies of the Old Testament. This paticular genealogy focus on Adam’s early decedents leading up to Noah, and can be quite…
This was our last full day in Israel, and practically all of it was spent exploring the Old City. We started out on the temple mount, now the sight of the Dome of the rock and the Al Aqsa Mosque. The Muslim population allows non Muslims up for a couple hours in the mornings, and…
We began our day at the top of the mount of olives, just outside Jerusalem. Here there was a brilliant view of the city, where we could see almost everywhere Jesus would have walked. We then made our way the Israeli heritage museum, where they had a 1/50th scale model of ancient Jerusalem, an exhibit…
After leaving the Dead Sea, we backtracked slightly to head to the fortress of Masada, built on top of a large mountain. The fortress was built by King Herod, and was nearly impenetrable, an aqueduct carried water to the fortress (which is in the middle of a desert), it was only accessible through a single…
Today we left the Galilee and traveled south along the Jordan River. We stopped by the ruins of Bet She’an, a really 2000 year old roman city that was remarkably preserved after an earthquake caused it to be abandoned. The city surrounds an ancient Tel, a 4000 year old fortress that at one time was…