Monday, February 27, 2012: Day 2

Monday, Feb. 27 - Our first stop of the day is a visit to Herod's great city of Caesarea, with its Roman theater.  Caesarea Maritima (as it is also known as) was a city and harbor built by Herod the Great about 25–13 BC. Today, its ruins lie on the Mediterranean coast of Israel about halfway between the cities of Tel Aviv and Haifa.  According to the Acts of the Apostles, Caesarea was first introduced to Christianity when Peter the apostle baptized Cornelius the Centurion, his household, and his soldiers. This was the first time any Apostle had preached to the Gentiles and before Paul's first missionary journey.   We continued to Mt. Carmel (site of Elijah's story).  Mount Carmel is a coastal mountain range in northern Israel stretching from the Mediterranean Sea towards the southeast. In mainstream Jewish, Christian, and Islamic thought, Elijah is indelibly associated with the mountain, and he is regarded as having sometimes resided in a grotto on the mountain. In the Books of Kings, Elijah challenges 450 prophets of a particular Baal to a contest at the altar on Mount Carmel to determine whose deity was genuinely in control of the Kingdom of Israel. To finish the day, we visited the Jewish catacombs of Bet She'arim.  Bet She'arim (Hebrew: בֵּית שְׁעָרִים‎‎), literally "The Strangers House", is the archeological site of a Jewish town and a large number of ancient rock-cut Jewish tombs.  After the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, the Sanhedrin moved to Bet She'arim. Rabbi Judah HaNasi, head of the Sanhedrin and compiler of the Mishna, lived there. In the last seventeen years of his life, he moved to Sepphoris for health reasons, but planned his burial in Bet She'arim on land he received as a gift from his friend, the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. The most desired burial place for Jews was the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, but in 135 CE, when Jews were barred from the area, Bet She'arim became an alternative.  We continued to our next home, Nes Ammim Guest House. Nes Ammim is a Christian community in the northern district of Israel. Close to the towns of Acre and Nahariya, in the western Galilee region.  It was founded by European Christians as a sign of solidarity with the Jewish People after the Holocaust. That was just day one!  Keep on following and commenting...Till tomorrow, Shalom!