Pictures! Finally.

Maybe it's just me (... but I don't think it is, as other people that have been to MT verified my opinion)  but don't those hills in the background look very Montana-esque? I love it here, but seriously, that was making me homesick. Hardcore.

Soon I will be back to give more information about what these pictures mean and where they are. For now, though, I wanted to at least get some up so that everyone can see a little bit of what we're doing here! These are all from our field trip earlier today. Thanks to mommy and daddy for getting my camera cord to me!! :)

After first arriving at the Tel. See the fortress in the background?

On our way to the fortresses! Epic sign.

Sacrificing Rebecca at the Sacrificial Altar

A close up to capture the intensity. Sacrifices were no trivial thing in the ancient days.

At Tel Avdat, in the remains of an ancient Christian church. 

A sampling of what some of the remains looked like

Jumping picture... classic.

Megan and I (somewhat unsuccessfully) mimicking the archway

3/4 of the Roommates Picture :)

So let it be written, So let it be done

Last week was our first full week of classes. They all went really well, but they also made it very obvious that this is most definitely not a vacation. I usually try to only take three or so classes that are going to require lots of work, and then fill the other credit hours with more manageable classes so that I don’t spread myself too thin. However, here we are all taking a very full fifteen hours. As hard as that might be, it will definitely be worth it. I can already tell that I’ve learned a lot, and things are still just starting.

More than just dealing with the hard classes, though, is the issue of time management. Sitting down to read 50 pages on Orientalism is a lot more difficult to do when you know Jerusalem is just down (and then up) the hill. Thus, I’m finding there is an art in balancing trips to the city and finishing homework.

In Old Testament we finished the book of Genesis, and we’re now wading our way through Exodus. Genesis is a book I’ve always felt like I’ve read a thousand times (every New Year’s Resolution to read the Bible cover to cover starts there…), but going through it in an academic setting revealed to me that I had much to learn. What’s been really interesting is the parallelism and mirroring between the Old Testament and New Testament, which Dr. Huntsman has been pointing out for us. For instance, the story of Abraham and Isaac in Genesis 22. Abraham is commanded by God to sacrifice his son Isaac as an offering to the Lord. However, at the last moment, God stops Abraham and provides a ram to be sacrificed instead.

There are many interesting things we’ve learned about this. The first being that Mount Moriah, where this occurred, is the Temple Mount, where Dome of the Rock is currently located. Which means that it’s right out our balcony view, and a 30 minute walk from the JC. What’s also interesting is a kind of foreshadowing that this has of the New Testament and the Christ story. Abraham was going to have to sacrifice his son, but instead offered a ram. Heavenly Father sacrificed his only son, the Lamb of God, so that we would no longer have to offer sacrifices. The last insight (and, in my opinion, the most interesting) is that Isaac would not have been a young boy when this happened. Imagining Abraham pinning his small son down on a rock to slay him has always bothered me. However, we’ve learned that Biblical scholars put Isaac at 35 or so. This means he would have easily been able to overthrow his elderly father, if he chose to do so. Rather, Isaac realized the will of God and was willing to give everything to fulfill it. This fact colors the story in a whole new light.

We watched Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments on Friday as part of the Friday Night Film Series here. I was amazed by how many new little references I was able to recognize after just being here for a week and a half. It made the whole film a lot more enjoyable (which is good, when you're sitting through four hours of a movie... :)

My two other favorite classes are Israel/Judaism and Palestine/Islam. Each of these classes is taught by a professor from here, and is, respectively, an Israeli Jew and an Arab Muslim. In these classes we go through the history of the struggle of the groups, as well as getting a basic versing in the religions. It’s one thing to read about the facts of the issue, but quite another to have a passionate, educated individual who is actually affected by the situation teach it to you. Not that we don’t have fun in there too. In our Israel class on Tuesday we were going over the basics of Judaism. Professor Yarden asked us to say some phrases that came to mind when we thought of Judaism. After various suggestions of Hanukkah, kippahs, etc., someone raised their hand and said, “I don’t really know how to describe it, but it has to do with doing something over and over again; like handing something down…” and Professor Yarden said, “Tradition?” Suddenly 80 renditions of “Tradition” from Fiddler on the Roof rang out through the forum. Then in our Palestine class on Thursday we were all feeling rather exhausted after a day full of classes. So, right after our break in between the two hours of the class, Professor Bashir asked us if we liked to dance. We replied (like most BYU students would) with many enthusiastic cheers. So he told us we could have two minutes to have a dance party. We stared blankly at each other before volunteering Sterling to beatbox. Then commenced the most legit impromptu dance party I’ve ever had the pleasure of participating in. I promise I’m learning lots too – but the point is that everything is enjoyable in so many ways.

Random trips into the city are one of the best parts of being here. We ventured out in between classes a few times last week. When time is limited we usually just go into the Old City, which is a twenty minute walk (or a three minute bus ride) away from the center. There we wander through street vendors and talk to locals. Once last week we skipped lunch at the JC , and went into town to get fresh falafel, before rushing through the rain back to class. It still seems surreal.

Sunday was our free day (after the most intense game of Mao I've ever played on Saturday, including ninja poses and nose goes), and so Sarah, Crystal, and I went all over the city, starting at the Dome of the Rock. Wow- what a magnificent building. It’s beautiful from far away, but it’s breathtakingly beautiful up close. There’s blue mosaic all over the bottom, and the grounds are peaceful and beautiful. We then started a day of wandering through the city. Rather than do the kind of exploring strictly governed by a map, we took whatever streets looked interesting to us. We ended up venturing out of the Old City and into West Jerusalem (the nicer, safer part of town). There we ventured up Ben Yehuda street, down to the Artist’s house, and ate lunch in a random park. We also got some awesome gelato on Ben Yehuda street. We made our way back to the Old City and found hidden little parks and cool galleries on our way, before making our final stop at the “Arab Costco.” It was fun to explore the city without the pressure of schedules.

Okay, well this turned into a much longer entry than I had expected. Thus, I will write about today (Monday) later, maybe tonight, or maybe tomorrow. 

“Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the LORD thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.” Joshua 1:9

-Claire Rose

Jerusalem Overlook

Today we went on our Jerusalem Overlook field trip. We drove around to different parts around the outskirts of Jerusalem and looked in on it, noticing particular points of geography. We started out at Nabi Samwil, which is also close/at Gibeon. The site there has a large set of ruins; a Byzantine church was built upon the holy site, and then a Crusader church was built over it. The ruins were really neat, but the site of Gibeon had been a known holy site since Old Testament times. The coolest part of this field trip was that we could see these sights, and then pull out the scriptures and read about these sights that were were seeing. For instance, at Gibeon we read from 1 Kings 3:4 - "And the king went to Gibeon to sacrifice there; for that was the great high place: a thousand burnt offerings did Solomon offer upon that altar." We read that, and though it sounds ridiculous, the simple statement of "that was a great high place" was able to really click in my head standing there on the hill. Because Gibeon is, itself, a high place. From there you can look over the West Bank as well as all of Jerusalem. It was so neat to be able to make even that small connection.

Group picture at Gibeon

From there we went to the Augusta Victoria Church, a Lutheran Church built by Kaiser Wilhem - one of three churches built by him in Jerusalem. This particular church was really beautiful. The basilica was incredibly ornate, and there were beautiful paintings all around. There were great acoustics in there, and we sang some of the more Lutheran hymns in the hymnbook, including A Mighty Fortress is our God. 

Augusta Victoria Church

We then went to a variety of other cool sites around Jerusalem, but my favorite was easily the Greek Orthodox Monastery. From that site, we could look out over Bethlehem. We then read some scriptures and sang Christmas carols. We got to the third verse of Angels We Have Heard on High - a song I've sung for years, and one I sung extensively while in Teen Tones - and I had a surreal experience. The third verse starts out, "Come to Bethlehem and see..." and all I could think was, "I did! I'm here! I came to Bethlehem!" That line made it sink in just a little bit more that I am, in fact, in Jerusalem. I know, obviously, that the song is referring to people at the time of Christ's birth. However, I felt like it still could apply to me today.

Group pic with Bethlehem in the background

Our first field trip was definitely a success. The combination of seeing sights, combined with reading the corresponding scriptures, and then singing hymns makes for a really powerful experience. 

Jerusalem Overlook

(All pictures taken from Dr. Hunstman's blog (so just copying a URL, not uploading and using bandwidth...), until I can get to Hebrew U to upload my own. Don't worry mom- I'm following all the rules. :)

Let my prayer rise up, like incense before you...

The last few days have been very exciting. Friday we had our first classes here in the Jerusalem Center. I have Dr. Eric Huntsman for my Old Testament class. He’s great. I had him last Winter for a class in Provo, so it’s neat to get to have him again. It definitely won’t be an easy class, but I know that by the time I’m finished with it I will have learned a lot. We spent our time going over Genesis 1 and 2, and discussing the two different creation stories that can be found there. Genesis 1 – 2:4 covers the traditional “God made the Earth in seven days,” story that we’re all accustomed to, but then Genesis 2:4-25 covers a different version. We also discussed the authorship of the Torah or Pentateuch-- the first five books of the Bible. Though some ascribe the authorship of these to Moses, there is significant evidence that there are multiple influences on these books. Dr. Huntsman reconciled that although Moses may have written them, there could have been multiple editors who went through the material.

We then had an Ancient Near East studies class, which was mostly just introduction into what archaeology is and how it will be affecting our class, as well as a basic history overview. Then, Friday afternoon, a group of us went out into the city. We tried first to go to the Dome of the Rock, but learned that it was only open to visitors on Sundays (and even then, you can only go to the plaza area). So we left there and went to the Western Wall. We people watched for a while- a Jewish ceremony had just finished, so there were plenty of interesting people to see. We then decided to put prayers in the Western Wall. This was a really incredible experience for me. I’ve wanted to put a prayer in the Wall for years, so putting it in and standing at the wall for a few minutes contemplating was a very spiritual experience. We then all backed up from the wall, and headed out of the Old City.

We made our way to West Jerusalem, but soon ran out of sidewalk, and had to walk on the small barriers on the side of the road, which was fun. We eventually made it there, and slowly made our way to Ben Yehuda street. There we found a comforting symbol of home- the Golden Arches of McDonalds. We called the Center to arrange a taxi to pick us up there and went in to get ice cream. Which makes my first official purchase in Israel a McDonalds ice cream cone, haha.

Saturday is the Sabbath here, so not a lot happened besides a lot of scripture study and napping. Then today, Sunday, I was able to go to church. On my application to come to the Jerusalem Center I had to indicate that I was not a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Thus, all of the professors and service couples here were aware of my special circumstance. This is rather unusual for me; normally I don’t really make a big deal out of my religious affiliation and I blend in with all the other students. However, because of my unique faith, Dr. Huntsman offered to take me to a service at the Church of the Redeemer, a Lutheran Church in the middle of the Old City. I gladly accepted, and we were joined by his daughter Rachel and also Rick Elliot, the organist for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir who has been in Israel for the past few weeks. We walked to the chapel, which Dr. Huntsman said has been around since the 1130s! They held a lovely service there. It was really powerful to be attending church in this city where Christ once lived. Taking communion and hearing, “Christ’s blood, shed for you,” is a completely different experience when you know that Christ’s blood was shed close to where you’re standing. We sang some of my favorite hymns, and had a very nice time. On our way back to the Center we stopped in at various churches and went to the Pools of Bethesda. It was neat not only getting to see these things, but also having Dr. Huntsman as a personal tour guide.

Rachel and I in the chapel at the Church of the Redeemer (picture stolen from Dr. Huntsman's blog...)

I can’t believe that we haven’t even been here for a week yet. The way that time moves it seems like we’ve been here much longer than that.

Have a blessed Sabbath,

Claire Rose

Israel, Israel, God is Calling

JFK

I made it to JFK! I think I was even able to see the Brooklyn Bridge out the plane window... We now have a four hour layover before our 12 hour flight to Tel Aviv. My main gripe is that the Iowa Caucus starts literally when we'll get on the plane. So I'll have to wait twelve hours to find out the results... But I guess there are worse problems to have.

How to Contact Me While I'm in the Holy Land!

I will have access to email and can be contacted at clairelarson@byu.net.

I would of course enjoy snail mail. :) The address for letters is:

Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies
Claire Larson
P.O. Box 19604
Jerusalem, 91196 ISRAEL

The address for packages (which are expensive to send so don't bother but I'll put it up anyway...) is:

Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies
Claire Larson
Located on Mt. Scopus
Near Augusta Victoria Hospital
Jerusalem, 91196 ISRAEL

Knowing that I'm going to be leaving home for almost four months has made me realize even more how blessed I am to have such incredible friends and family. I can't thank everyone enough for their support and encouragement in this whole process, and I'm excited to come home and tell you all of the crazy stories. :)