Mount of Precipice, Sepphoris, Jotapata

Now that we have established Jesus' birth in Bethlehem, we began looking at his life and ministry. We began our day at the Mount of Precipice from Luke 4. In this passage, Jesus went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and began reading from Isaiah in the synagogue. He said, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing," meaning that he was the fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy. When people became angry "they got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff. But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way." The Mount of Precipice is believed to be the cliff that the people tried to throw Jesus off of.

Jesus grew up in Nazareth, a town that Dr. Wright describes as somewhere you wouldn't chose to live. It was small, didn't have many resources, and was closed off. Yet from this cliff, which is right outside of Nazareth, Jesus would have had a view of numerous Old Testament events. In this way, Jesus would have his whole history spread out before him, connecting him to those who came before him and illustrating his heritage. He could see the location of Ahab and Jezebel, Deborah, Josiah, where Elisha raised a boy to life, where Saul raised up Samuel the dead prophet and where he and Jonathan died, where Elijah battled the prophets of Baal at Mt. Carmel, and Gideon (I'm sure there are more, but those are the ones Dr. Wright pointed out). Jesus' early ministry mirrored Elijah's ministry as a prophet, so it is interesting that Jesus would have had a view of where this great prophet performed miracles and carried out his ministry.

When we first arrived at JUC, one of the instructors described studying the Bible in Israel like a board game. Before arriving, you have all the pieces, playing cards, rules, and dice. These give you clues as to how the game works, and you can make deductions and inferences based on what you have. But when you come to the land of the Bible, you are given the board. All of a sudden you know where things belong, how to set up the game, and you can see how things play out. I picture Jesus on the Mount of Precipice as an example of this concept. He had all the stories and histories of Old Testament people, and he had their playing field in front him, in such a way that these people would be very real and present to him.

After this we went to Sepphoris, a town near Nazareth. I think I mentioned before, this would likely be where Joseph went for work, since Nazareth was small and Sepphoris was being built. In that case, Jesus would have accompanied him to help with carpentry work (which would include work with wood, stone, metal, and leather).

Next we stopped at Jotapata, where Josephus (author of Jewish Wars) hide from the Romans during the Jewish Revolt but was caught in the caves. We got to climb around on the hill and look in the caves where he may have hide, which was a lot of fun. The Jewish Revolt was from AD 66-67, after Jesus' life, so I think this was a side trip not following the chronology of Jesus' life.