Our students arrive in less than 24 hours, which means that summer is over. This semester will be especially busy for me because I’m teaching the field trip course (called “The Land and the Bible”). I’ve added two overnights on to the trips in Jerusalem in the first week and a half, which means 1)… Read More »
I decided that blog format with its narrow width didn’t quite suit tonight’s post, so I’ve put it on a separate page. Today after dropping our three oldest off at VBS, I headed to the City of David with a handful of old photographs that I had printed off. My goal was to get the… Read More »
This is one of those in the “bound to happen” category. I was starting to feel sorry for the Old City hawkers trying to sell film to our groups of 20-year olds, all equipped with the latest in digital technology. Now it seems that they haven’t given up selling Kodak, but they now carry CompactFlash,… Read More »
It’s been one of those days when I can’t take the time to do anything more substantive than recommend three items of reading. I just finished the Caspari Center Media Review, which details the latest in the Israeli media about Jewish-Christian relations in the land. This is especially worthwhile if you haven’t read one of… Read More »
I read The Bible Unearthed more than a year ago but haven’t had the time to sit down and type out my notes and important quotes from it until this month (see my previous post). That I’m finishing now, and I’ve decided to include one section of my thoughts here. On the last page of… Read More »
Anyone who knows the history of Palestine/Israel in the 20th century knows of the many untruths which are spread through the media. One reality is that some of the land that “belongs to the Palestinians” was actually owned by Jews long before 1948 or 1967. From Arutz-7: Jews originally bought land in what is now… Read More »
It’s Friday and the day isn’t going as planned, so a few brief and random comments. I watched 20 minutes of CNN last night about the Gaza withdrawal and was struck by how many dishonest or unfair statements were made. There are two sides to the story, to be sure, but CNN sure botched it… Read More »
From time to time, I am with students who desire to be baptized in the Jordan River. Because Jesus was baptized here, they think it would be special and memorable for them to be also. As a river, the Jordan is not particularly impressive, but there’s enough water to be fully immersed, so it qualifies.… Read More »
Today is Kelli’s birthday. We have a wedding to go to and I have guard duty afterwards, so we probably won’t have too much of a “celebration.” We did have a barbecue yesterday in IBEX Park with American friends and that was enjoyable. We had about 14 adults and more kids. If you want to… Read More »
I’ve been asked by a few how things are here in Israel with the disengagement starting up. Another asked for “my take” on it. The first question is easy: I have to make reminders for myself to go watch the news to learn about it each day. I drove into Jerusalem this morning and I… Read More »