Our travel in Israel took place in October; just past the peak of summer, so that we would be spared the highest of the temperatures (and it still got plenty hot). Israel, like the Cape Town area, gets its rain in winter, as so we were right at the very end of the dry season. And, like Cape Town, Israel is a water scarce region. But, driving north, the landscape changed. We were not in the desert of the area around Masada, Qumran and the Dead Sea; neither did our surroundings look like the dry, but habitable, Jerusalem. No; despite not having tasted rain in months, what we saw outside the windows of our bus were green trees and lush shrubbery. It was not a succulent jungle, to be sure, but here was life and abundance. We were in what the gospels refer to as the land of Galilee. Read more …

In October I was privileged to join the Origins of Christianity tour to Israel, led by Dr. John Dickson. This was something which I had been looking forward to and planned for a long time, and it really was an awesome experience! I have already done one presentation of the tour for TGIF Stellenbosch; here I want to document my experiences so that I can share it with more people.

This article will be a general discussion about the tour and my experience of it; after it there will be three more articles which recount the tour on a day-by-day basis. Read more …