After a long day of “playing tourist” we arrived in Tiberias in the early evening ready for dinner and a good night’s sleep. Tiberias is the largest town on the Sea of Galilee and is considered a resort town with a main shopping area, lots of small restaurants, several hotels and lakeside beaches. It’s amazing how a little time for shopping and wandering can revitalize the spirit!
In the morning we boarded our boat for the requisite ride across the lake. Actually, the Sea of Galilee (also called Lake Tiberias) is Israel’s chief source of water fed by the Jordan River to the north. Since biblical times the lake has been famous for its abundance of fish. Many of Jesus’ disciples were fisherman here, and he did much of his preaching by its shores. No respectable “tourist” could visit the area without having the famous local fare for lunch--St. Peter’s Fish.After crossing the lake we headed north toward the infamous Golan Heights. The Israeli Army has a definite presence on the Golan. We climbed up to a bluff overlooking the valley below--to one side is Syria, the other Lebanon. It’s eerie to look at the Syrian boarder (with a pair of binoculars) and see their boarder patrol looking back at you.
On our way back south toward Capernaum, we took a short detour for the wine lovers in the group --- a tour and wine tasting at the Yarden Winery. Yarden has two large wineries in the Golan and exports quality kosher wines worldwide. The wine tasting was fun, even at 11:00 in the morning.
Capernaum, a town first mentioned in the New Testament, is reported to have been the home of the apostles Peter, Andrew, James, John and Matthew, and where Jesus went after leaving Nazareth. According to biblical history, Capernaum was inhabited from 150 BCE to about AD 750 and was considered a large fishing village and busy trading center on the Sea of Galilee. The ancient city of Capernaum was abandoned about a thousand years ago, but was rediscovered by archaeologists in the late 1800’s. Today it is a major archeological site and is reported to have actually been the home of Jesus himself. 
According to Luke, "Jesus taught in the synagogue in Capernaum," and a building, which may have been a synagogue of that period, has been found beneath the remains of a later synagogue.
We left Capernaum, with our stomachs rumbling, for lunch --- St. Peter’s Fish, at a local seaside restaurant. 
I remember ordering the fish on my last trip to Israel in 2007 and complaining about the number of small bones. The common name for the fish is musht or tilapia. This time I asked the waiter to fillet the fish--it made no difference, it was still full of bones.After lunch we continued our drive around the lake. Many in our group, well versed in the New Testament, were enthralled as we drove along the lake shore and stopped in the towns of Magdala, the home of Mary Magdalene and Tabgha, the traditional site of the Multiplication of the Fishes and Loaves. Not far from Tabgha is the Mount of Beatitudes, where Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount. Israel is really a very small country geographically: only 150 miles from north to south, 28 miles wide at the Sea of Galilee and 54 miles west to east at the Dead Sea. When you look at a map, all the towns, Nazareth, Capernaum, Tabgha, Magdala and Yardenit are probably not more than 10 miles apart.
Shmul actually let us sleep in--our wake-up call was 7:00,on the bus by 8:00. We were heading for Jerusalem, with several stops on the way. Our first stop was Beit Shean, considered by many to be the best-preserved Roman-Byzantine city in Israel. First inhabited 5,000 year ago, it became the most important city between Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean during the Egyptian occupation. Falling to the Philistines in the 11th century BCE, it then became part of Solomon’s kingdom. After the conquest of Alexander the Great it was renamed Scythopolis, and became a flourishing Hellenistic city. In the 1st century BCE the Romans reined over Scythopolis. The Roman conquest brought Scythopolis to new heights and economic importance under the Byzantines, becoming one of the 10 city-states of the Decapolis and a major center for Christianity. An economic collapse, then an earthquake in AD 740, brought an end to one of the most prosperous civilizations along the Mediterranean.The site is amazing. It’s hard to believe some of the structures date back 5,000 years. I can’t imagine anything we build today could last 500 years, let along 5,000 years--earthquake or no earthquake.
We continued heading south to Qumran, best known as the place where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered. In 150 BCE to AD 68 Qumran was the home of a radically ascetic and reclusive community known as the Essenes who believed the arrival of the Jewish Messiah was imminent and spent their days fasting and participating in purification rituals. The Essenes largely vanished from history until 1947 when a Bedouin shepherd boy, looking for a lost goat happened upon a cave full of jars. These jars contained a precious hoard of 190 linen-wrapped scrolls that had been preserved for over 2,000 years.
Today some of the Dead Sea Scrolls, thought to contain the oldest existing version of biblical scriptures, are on exhibit in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. The story of how the scrolls were reconstructed is definitely worth a visit to the museum.We arrived in Jerusalem in the afternoon--a breathtaking sight from high atop Mount Scopus.
The Dome of the Rock shines brightly in the afternoon sun. Join me next week as we begin our exploration of Jerusalem.
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