Day 3, Part 3

We are encouraged to load ourselves onto the buses.  We have more to see.  We are ascending "Mt. Hermon" in the "range of mountains" sense.  We travel further to the north and a little higher in elevation.  We don't travel far.  We debus in a large parking lot which seems pretty full of cars and other tourist buses.  This is a popular place to visit.  There are people from several different nations here.  There are school children on a field trip acting as obnoxiously as I would expect American school children to act, loud, borderline unruly and unconcerned that they are not the only ones here.  

We are beginning to get the drill about the restrooms.  Because they keep us moving all the time, you begin to scout out the location of the restrooms as soon as you get off the bus.  Call it self preservation.  In my case I am scouting for Indiana Jolie more than myself.  We see a restroom sign with an arrow.  I alert Indiana Jolie and we head in the direction of the arrow.  We walk and walk and walk and walk and begin to doubt we are on the right path.  But yes, for some reason, the restrooms are about as far away from the rest of the place as possible and we feel better about our situation.  

We join the rest of the group.  So this is Caesarea Philippi.  Wow. I am finding out there are a lot of places with the name, or title, "Caesar".  It was a way that the lesser kings who ruled in Israel could suck up to the big boss.  Name a really nice place after the head dude!  The other name for this place is the "Temple of Pan".  In fact this is an extremely pagan place.  Not only is there a temple to Pan here but about 8 other gods, including Caesar.  These temples were built right next to each other, some on top of each other as the centuries went by.  

They have largely excavated these temples and from different vantage points next to the mountain, you can see the layouts quite well.  The walls have long disintegrated, but the foundations and the niches in the mountain wall are still quite well defined.  

Pan was a frightful deity.  Pan is the root word in "panic."  He incited terror in people and they sought to appease him by building a temple to him in this beautiful place.  He was also a fertility figure (most of these gods seemed to be) because the water that flowed out from under his temple was considered the source of life.  How panic and fertility blend together I'll never know. Walking around these temple ruins gives the place a sinister feel.  The ruins are fascinating nonetheless and we take lots of pictures.  

Some dispute whether or not this is the place where Peter spoke the revelation that Jesus was the Christ (Matt. 16:16, Mark 8:29).  Our main guide, Dr. Marc Turnage is quite certain that Jesus, a rabbi, would never be in such a pagan place of worship like this.  He points out that the gospels say that Jesus was "in the region of Caesarea of Philippi."  I don't know what to think.  The place is beautiful and if I were on a retreat this place would be high on my list.

If Dan is on the headwaters of the Jordan River, Caesarea Philippi is the spigot.  Literally.  We are at the foot of Mt. Hermon.  The beautiful, clear, streams of water that flow here come literally out of the bedrock of the mountain.  I have never seen anything like it.  You see the stream and it comes right out of the rock.  Go any further and you are walking on the bedrock of Mt. Hermon.  The snows and rain that fall on Mt. Hermon must flow down inside the mountain, not down the outside like I have seen all my life.  How this is accomplished I have no idea, but there are no rivulets, or waterfalls or cascading streams splashing down the mountainside.  The water flows directly out of the rock at the foot of the mountain.  

Over the years the stream has been made into a series of pools that are wide and somewhat shallow, but host schools of fish.  I so wished for my fly rod.  This would be such an idyllic spot for making some epic casts and fooling some fish.  

Once again, we wish to linger here in the shade of the trees next to the water.  Sitting on a stone walkway near the stream, I see little groups of people in semi-circles with their leader speaking to them in languages I do not understand.  I am guessing Koreans, Nigerians, Italians, middle eastern people and obnoxious school kids.

Another thing we are told is that it is likely that here or near here is the location of the Transfiguration (Matt. 17:2, Mark 9:2).  Tradition places the Transfiguration much further south on Mt. Tabor which we saw from Mt. Carmel.  We are told that this is unlikely because the Transfiguration took place only 6 days following Peter's confession here at Ceasarea Philippi.  It is very unlikely that a journey on foot that far south could have taken place in such a short time.  Both gospels that mention the transfiguration also specifiy it was a high mountain.  You don't get any higher than Mt. Hermon in Israel. Mt. Tabor doesn't impress as a high mountain.  More of a "big bump."  It is surmised that in Byzantine times, it was much closer to direct holy land pilgrims who came to Jerusalem to Mt. Tabor than to Mt. Hermon.  So the Byzantines built a chapel, the Church of the Transfiguration at Mt. Tabor to cash in on the easier tourism dollars.  

It's time to go get lunch.  We wind further up steep mountain roads to another Druze village.  You guessed it, our choices are falafala or schnitzel.   Let's just say "its the same song, just another verse, sounds a lot like the first." The air temperature is not exactly warm here.  It is curiously chill.  Not what I expected.