We drove to the hill where Moses saw the holy land today.
The Bible says that Moses saw the promised land from here on Mount Nebo. The Jordan River is 127 kl or nearly 79 miles from Mount Nebo. There are two peaks here. Moses never made it to “the promised land” from what I’ve heard.
He lived the rest of his life here and his body may be buried somewhere, near by.
Like Moses, we could see the Dead Sea and the Jordan River Valley from here. The haze is from the dust blowing down below us. But it is a fine sight.
I have been to Israel and seen the “The Jordan River.” Where I saw it it was less than a stream and a mere trickle. I have also floated in the dead sea.
We walked through The Memorial Church of Moses or Maqam Nabi Musa here and saw the ancient mosaic floor of the temple that stood here in the distant past. It was built in the second half of the 4th century CE. Is Moses under here somewhere?
CE stands for common (or current) era, while BCE stands for”before the common (or current) era. These abbreviations have a shorter history than BC or AD, although they still date from at least the early 1700s, or so says Google.
Complete silence is required here and of course that is a difficult order to fill as many are aw struck and rightly so. There is “shusher” here to quiet us down when we get out of hand. It happens often. I didn’t see him, but he made his presence known over his microphone more than once. “Sushsssss.”
By the way, this may be a good time to talk about some etiquette issues.
You young girls and women are so cute. I get that. I love females.
But please, when you go into a church or other religious building, cover up.
You are an ambassador from your country whether you like it or not. Show others that you respect their culture and that you have a functioning brain. Don’t wear shorts and do bring a scarf. Remember, no bare shoulders. Is it really that tough?
We then drove to a mosaic art center run by women to help them and their families. Some of the workers were handicapped and have been taught a trade and work here.
We saw many beautiful works of the mosaic art for sale here. The skill and time needed to create these works of art is enormous.
We saw a demonstration of the process as we looked around for something to bring home. Nothing caught our eye, but others did purchase some items. Thankfully we are traveling in a large bus.
We then drove to Madbaba. This is where we saw the Byzantine church of Saint George which has the oldest map of the holy land ever found is in the mosaic on the floor. It is something else.
We then had a fine lunch nearby in an open air restaurant under a roof of timber and twigs.
Guess what we had for lunch?
We then left Madaba for Petra. We drove a few hours through the hilliest land that I have ever seen. This would have been a difficult land to conquer due to the geography, just to start with. How long and difficult would it be to bring an army and all the needed supplies to this area?
We arrived for dinner at our hotel.
One of our fellow female travelers is from Wisconsin and one is from Colorado.