Galilee Day Two

June 29
Today we began the day at Hazor, which is the largest Tel in Israel (200 acres). It is right next to Lebanon, so I could see Lebanon’s hills from where I was standing! The archaeologists there are looking for two archives from the 1800s and 1400s BC, which would be letters written on clay tablets. They would give all sorts of information from this time period, confirm things in the Bible, and enlighten our reading. The archaeologist who gave us our tour was very excited about this prospect.

Then we went to Dan, which was really green with streams of water. There was an inscription at the top that said “House of David,” which would be the first archaeological evidence of David ever to be found. One of the teachers in our group had written an article on this and was really passionate about it, so he got to speak about it. It’s amazing how these details can be so significant, and how scholars get so worked up about them!

Afterwards we went to Banias/Paneas, which had remains of pagan worship. One of the remains was the entrance to the underworld. Creepy. This was also the region where people believe the transfiguration happened. We also went to Golan and Qatzrin.