Two Day Trips

Since we have some free time right now, we've been doing some fun day trips around Jerusalem to make sure we see everything we can during our time here. A week or so ago we went to the Biblical Zoo, which is basically just a nice zoo in which many of the animals were mentioned somewhere in the Bible. Charis is still at a borderline age for really understanding going to the zoo, but she definitely loved pointing at the animals and watching them move around (especially the big ones).

One of Charis' personal favorites

Then two days ago we visited the Israel Museum, which is home to a variety of pretty fascinating exhibits. Here are some highlights:

This is a HUGE model of the Old City of Jerusalem during the 2nd Temple Period (the time of Jesus). You can see the Temple area prominently in the foreground of the picture.

The original Dead Sea Scrolls are housed underneath this building. You can't take pictures of the Sea Scrolls themselves, but it was pretty amazing to see them in person (especially the Isaiah scroll, which is a completely intact version of the book of Isaiah). The exhibit is shaped like that because that is the same shape as the lids of the jars in which the Sea Scrolls were found.

Adjacent to this white structure is also a large black wall, and the pair of these represent the "Sons of light and darkness." There is a famous apocryphal passage in the Dead Sea Scrolls that describes these sons, and the exhibit reflects it visually.

The actual museum contained thousands of relics and artifacts from Israel's entire history, and it was pretty incredible what had been unearthed. One of our favorite artifacts was an ankle bone with a nail driven through it. It belonged to a criminal named Johanan who lived during Jesus' time and was crucified on a cross like Jesus would have been. You could still see the blood soaked through the bone, and the nail was still prominently embedded. Pretty fascinating.

Charis got a little tired of the museum after a while, but she did enjoy playing outside while we took turns finishing up.