Six months after I returned home from my mission to France, I stepped off a plane in Tel Aviv to spend 18 weeks at that jewel known as the BYU Jerusalem Center, with side trips to Jordan and Egypt.
Entrance to the BYU Jerusalem Center
I had read my scriptures pretty closely and studied a lot as a missionary, but aspired to know a lot more. The Jerusalem experience was influential in sending me to graduate school in Semitics (see some of my story here). 15 years later, nearly to the day, I stepped off another plane in Tel Aviv, this time to act as a tour guide for my wife and parents. They had always wanted to go, and weren’t going without me.This time was different; I’d studied Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic, as well as Greek, history, a little Latin. I had a very portable laptop with thousands and thousand of pages of books in Logos, plus all my notes from reading, studying, lessons I’d taught. And now I was back, to walk the land and share. We spent three weeks there, and saw and experienced an amazing variety of things.
How does visiting the Bible lands change your understanding? Your reading of scripture? Your faith? Your tolerance for dust in your shoes? Your ability to recognize a cistern?
If there’s sufficient interest, then every week or so I’ll put up a post with, not a travelogue per se, but an exposition-oriented summary of a day’s travel and sites, what we learned, comments from my fellow travelers, what’s worth seeing, and lots of our pictures with captions. Let me know if that’s something you’d like to read here.
March 8, 2014 at 10:04 pm
I’d be interested for sure. I went for 9 days about 3 years ago, and I’m still wrapping my head around how the experience affected and continues to affect my study, worship, and faith.
March 8, 2014 at 10:18 pm
Yes. This sounds great!
March 9, 2014 at 1:27 am
Definitely!
March 9, 2014 at 7:24 am
I would love to learn. I can only travel vicariously. I would love to balance my studies with the culture, history, and actual sites. So please fill me in!!
March 9, 2014 at 12:56 pm
Yes. That is how the stories “come alive” for me.
March 10, 2014 at 7:27 am
Would love it. Thanks!
March 13, 2014 at 3:36 pm
Please do share! I was there for the fall semester of 1999 and still think about it all the time – Anything that brings those memories back for me is very welcome.
March 13, 2014 at 8:16 pm
Stuff from where Christ taught.
March 17, 2014 at 12:08 am
Seems like a definite vote for “yes.” I’ll start working on them.
March 22, 2014 at 12:12 am
Oh Hel Not Another Tel. At least that was the common refrain from fellow students when I spent 6 months at the Center in the mid 90s. Obviously they weren’t NES majors.