Religious Studies News

Shalom! My name is Jodi Linderman. I, along with Curt Conrad, will be updating this blog from here on. I am a double-major in religious studies and history; my primary area of academic interest is ancient Israel and the Near East, so I’m certainly blogging from the right place.

I would like to note that I wasn’t at all disappointed with yesterday’s Syrian bunker episode. I thought it was pretty exciting. Granted, it wasn’t what I was expecting to find while digging in Israel, but I’m definitely curious to know what was inside. Perhaps they’ll let us know.

So we checked out of the kibbutz today and made our way south, towards Jerusalem. Our first stop was Masada, which, from 31 to 37 BCE, served as a place of refuge for King Herod. More remarkably is the site’s Jewish history, in which from 66 to 73 CE, it was inhabited by Jewish rebels who opposed the Roman empire. When attacked by the Romans in 72 CE, the Jews within Masada decided they would not face slavery or death at the hands of the Romans. In 73 CE, when the Romans finally broke through the city’s fortifications, they found that Masada’s 900+ inhabitants had set their city ablaze and committed mass suicide.

Cheerfully, we left Masada and continued on to the Dead Sea. At 1,385 feet below sea level, the Dead Sea (named due to its high salinity, which prevents anything from living within its waters) is the lowest point on the surface of the Earth. This unusually high concentration of salt results in a high density, making it nearly impossible to sink. I also found it nearly impossible to swim, so one just kind of floats (you can even do this vertically, which is kind of a weird sensation). It’s very very cool, although the water isn’t something you’d want to get in your mouth or eyes – ouch.

After showering off the salt, we took our bus to Qumran, the site at which the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered. As the story goes, in 1947, a Bedouin sheep-herder lost one of his sheep, which had wandered into a cave. The boy threw some rocks into the cave to scare the animal out, but instead he heard the sound of shattering pottery. He went inside to find several ancient jars that contained the scrolls. In all, and over time, approximately 800 scrolls have been found, some intact and some in fragments. The scrolls are said (though this is contested) to have been written by the Essenes, a monastic Jewish sect who chose to live in isolation throughout Israel. The scrolls date from 150 BCE to 70 CE.

Finally, we made our way to Jerusalem! I was in Jerusalem last year, and it is a city that I truly love. Our group is staying in St. Andrew’s Scottish Guesthouse, which is really beautiful and within walking distance from the Old City. This evening, we observed Shabbat at the Kotel (the Western Wall or “Wailing Wall” as it is commonly called); that area of the city is rather lively on Friday night.

Tomorrow we visit sites such as the Church of All Nations, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and the Via Dolorosa. I will update this again, hopefully with pictures.