352.January 14

The students of Richard Simon Hanson's religion 71a class would like to let Luther know that we are all alive and well in the Middle East. Formalities aside we are having a great time in the holy land. We are staying in Tiberius, which is located on the Sea of Galilee. We have landed a nice hotel called the Jordan River. From there we leave each morning in our own private tour bus to examine the places in the Bible. This gives a totally new approach to Scripture, because we are asked to imagine the stories and battles that took place millenniums ago on this very ground.

Tiberias will be our home all but the last three days of our trip, which will be spent in Jerusalem to study the city and Bethlehem. We are quite happy to stay at the same hotel for two weeks because all of the Galilee is less than an hour away from Tiberias. If you think of the desert when you think of Israel you can't picture the Galilee. We have had rain all but the last two days. Israel has two seasons dry and rainy. We have probably come during the less desirable of the two, but we haven't had to cancel any of our trips because of the weather yet.

From our hotel windows we can see fishing and tour boats on the Sea of Galilee. The heights of Golan are often visible across the small sea. We took a boat across the Galilee on the first day where the apostles had fished and Jesus had walked. Shabat was a new experience for all of us for Friday at sundown until Saturday evening nothing is supposed to be open in his all Jewish town. Israel cuts over 50% of the world's diamonds. We're allowed to visit one of the large diamond factories and got a chance to buy diamonds for our college friends at warehouses tax-free prices Armageddon the battle of all nations at the end of the world was prophecy did take place in the jazz rail Valley named after Meggido an ancient city located on the trade routes through this valley. We toured the site on the sixth day there are's 27 layers of civilization here I'll piled up on top of each other these layers build a mound of earth called a towel archaeologist are slowly unearthing the history of this city once and it was a college in the Galilee region have in common is its limestone both Iowa and Israel were covered by ancient seas at the same time therefore that the rocks that make up many of the mountains here also make up the small hills at Luther.