June 25

Today was an exciting day with seeing Masada, swimming in the Dead Sea and in a fresh water pool, and going to Qumran.

Masada is where Zealots (Jewish rebels who were against Rome) held out against Rome after the Jewish revolt in 66 AD. Josephus writes about it in The Jewish War and the excavator Yigael Yadin confirms this history and brings it to life with his findings. In 72 AD the Roman procurator of Judea, Flavius Silva, tried to capture the Zealots living in Masada. After battling, the Zealots saw that they were going to lose. Rather than turning themselves over to captivity and slavery, they decided to kill themselves. When the Romans came to capture them, they found 960 dead.

When walking around Masada, we saw some of the ruins from when Herod owned Masada as his palace. We saw his Graeco-Roman bath complex, where there was a sauna heated by clay pots in the floor. When looking at Masada from a distance you can see three levels cut out of the mountain, making three terraces for Herod’s personal leisure.

After Masada we went to EnGedi where the Dead Sea is! The ground was so hot walking down to the water that I couldn’t go without shoes. Large red umbrellas were scattered on the sand with people lying under them in the shade, though unable to escape the heat. As I approached the water the ground turned into smooth rocks with a salty film over them. I could see rocks of salt where the water met the rocks, and covering the lifeguard’s paddleboard. I eagerly put my feet in the water, as quickly as I could get them off the scalding hot rocks. The water was refreshing, though it was probably 75 degrees. After wading through the shallow end I pushed my body into the water, and immediately began to float on my belly. I could stretch out my arms and extend my legs out of the water, all without sinking at all. We laughed at each other as we bobbed along, twisting around with very little effort. After a while the salt began burning my skin too much, so I braved the heat and rocks once again.

After lunch we hiked through another Wadi, though this time it led us to a beautiful fresh water pool under a waterfall. We all rushed into the water enthusiastically, this time in water that was actually cool and refreshing. Hiking into this area was dry and desert, but it slowly got greener and greener until we found this wonderful pool!

We concluded the day in Qumran. I didn’t realize it could get even hotter than it had been. I heard that it was 115 degrees in this area, and I don’t doubt it. Qumran is where an Essene community (a sect of Judaism that separated themselves from mainstream Jewish culture to be purified) collected scrolls and stored them in surrounding caves. 29% of the scrolls were the oldest remaining manuscripts of scripture that we have. Some of us hiked up to some of the caves, which involved climbing straight up a rocky mountain and looking around inside (its not the cave in the picture. That is cave four where the majority of the scrolls were found). The earth was really soft on the inside and it was smaller than I had imagined.

After Qumran we headed home to Jerusalem!