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The Village Church
History is alive and well in Israel-Palestine.
History Lessons
BY REV. ANDREW HAWKINS, PH.D., SENIOR PASTOR, THE VILLAGE CHURCH
A group of us, 17 in all, mostly from Shell Point, visited the Holy Land back in April and May. Among the dozens of sites we visited, three stood out to me.
We visited Tabgha, situated on the northwest corner of the Sea of Galilee. It is the traditional site of Jesus’ multiplication of the loaves and fishes. Also on the site is the supposed location of Jesus’ final postresurrection appearance to his disciples, the occasion when Jesus restored Peter through his three-fold “Do you love me?” interrogation. There are ancient churches on both sites—the Church of the Multiplication and the Church of the Primacy of St. Peter. The former church was originally constructed in the fourth century, then reconstructed in the fifth century with beautiful Egyptian mosaics, including one depicting the loaves and the fishes.
We also visited Qumran, a desert enclave located about a mile from the northwest corner of the Dead Sea. This ancient community dates from the early Roman period, first century BCE to first century CE. It was likely occupied by an obscure Jewish sect known as the Essenes. The Essenes appeared to be a monastic priestly class, highly secretive and private, who prided themselves as scribes preserving ancient religious manuscripts. The earliest complete text of Isaiah is among the numerous scrolls of remarkable archeological significance.
And we visited the Nazareth Village. Located just a few minutes’ walk from downtown Nazareth, the Nazareth Village is the reconstruction of an agricultural community which dates to the first century CE—the very time when Jesus would have been growing up in that community. Included in the Nazareth Village are a wine press, a sophisticated irrigation system, terraced growing farmland, and watchtowers, all of which date from the first century.
What those three sites have in common is that all three have been discovered through archeological explorations since the 20th Century! The original mosaics of Tabgha were only revealed in 1981. The Qumran discovery (the Dead Sea Scrolls as they are commonly known) were discovered in 1947 when two Bedouin boys looking in caves for lost sheep stumbled upon seven scrolls stored in earthenware jars. The discoveries of the agrarian Nazareth community were only excavated in the 1990s.
It struck me that history is alive and well. Even after thousands of years, we are still learning much about the life and times of Jesus of Nazareth, and of his Jewish forebears. And so much of what we are learning, even in recent times, confirms the authenticity and accuracy of the biblical narratives.
Tabgha Mosaic Qumran Cave
Nazareth Wine Press