We saw many of the sights we had seen previously, like the Mount of the Beatitudes, Capernaum, and the Seven Springs, but this time from the lake view, which is how Peter might have seen them from his fishing boat.
We took a tour of the museum at Kibbutz Ginosar where the Jesus Boat is located. If you haven’t heard of the Jesus Boat, it is an archeological discovery found in 1986 during a drought when two men form the kibbutz found a piece of wood sticking out of the mud. On closer inspection, they discovered an entire boat of ancient design. The discovery caused a sensation and it was carefully dug up and preserved in the museum now on the kibbutz. They even brought in an American expert on ancient ships from Texas A & M University! It was amazing to see this actual piece of history, an ancient craft much like the one Peter might have owned and Jesus would have ridden in.
We ended the day with a tour of the kibbutz, which is a kind of communal farm started by Jews coming in to Israel in 1948 with nothing. If they lived on a kibbutz, at least they had a place to stay and food to eat. Now, two generations later, the farms have been quite successful, and the people well off since they have no taxes and free housing and schools. Many kibbutzim have expanded to light industry and tourism. At the gift shop I bought WAY too much stuff, including a shofar and a new Talith or prayer shawl, since I lost mine in the move from Missouri. Maybe next spring we can have a Seder dinner at Passover.
If you are interested in the trip from another perspective, one of the other pilgrims, Rev. Amy Dodson from Nashville, has a blog going as well. You can find her site here. I have made arrangements to share photos with Amy and a couple of others as well, so the trip will be well documented. Austin Seminary is also posting information, including, I understand, some video clips, at their sitehere.
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