So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said to him, “This is what the LORD, the God of the Hebrews, says: ‘How long will you refuse to humble yourself before me? Let my people go, so that they may worship me.’” Exodus 10:3 The west bank of Thebes is home to many temples to various Pharaohs. After visiting the Valley of the Kings, we poked around some of them. Our first stop was Hatshepsut’s temple at Deir el-Bahri. Hatshepsut was one of the few female Pharaohs. When her husband, Thutmose II, died, his heir, Thutmose III, was not old […]
Monthly Archives: December 2011
Tombs and Treasures
They said to Moses, “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die?”~Exodus 14:11 Our next day (Wednesday) we went across the Nile to the west bank across from Thebes. On the east side they built their cities and palaces. On the west they built their tombs and temples. Just as the sun sets in west and is reborn again in the east every morning, so they would be buried in the west in order to likewise be reborn in the afterlife. I already talked about the pyramids at Giza and […]
Writing on the Wall
– How would you say that in ancient Egyptian?– “Foot, snake, squiggle, squiggle, bird.”– Works for me.– Gee, hieroglyphics are easy! Sam and Max: Season 3: The Tomb of Sammun-mak After driving for a few hours down the Nile, making our way back north and stopping at the Greek temples at Kom Ombo and Edfu, we came to the modern city of Luxor, ancient Thebes – the southern capital of ancient Egypt. Modern Cairo is near the ancient northern capital of Memphis. The area around Luxor has more to see of ancient Egypt than Cairo, in my opinion. While Cairo […]
Hanukkah
Then came the Feast of Dedication at Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was in the temple area walking in Solomon’s Colonnade. John 10:22-23 Happy Hanukkah! I mentioned last time how Alexander the Great took over Egypt and the Greeks ruled Egypt for three centuries under the Ptolemaic dynasty until Rome took control. At the same time, Israel fell under Ptolemaic control. To the north of Israel in Syria, the Seleucid dynasty ruled. There was war between the Ptolemies and Seleucids for decades. Eventually Israel fell under control of the Seleucids, who didn’t end up as lenient as their previous […]
All Greek to Me
While traveling around the Aswan area, we went to the island of Philae containing a Greek Egyptian temple. Everything there had actually been moved from another island a few decades ago because when the dam was put in, it submerged the original island. Therefore, everything was moved to a higher island so we can still enjoy it. Speaking of the dam, the Aswan High Dam was our next stop. This massive dam on the Nile River provides a large amount of electricity to modern Egypt. It’s an impressive modern engineering feat. The next day (Tuesday), we hopped on a bus […]
Transportation Day
Sallah, I said NO camels! That’s FIVE camels; can’t you count? Indiana Jones, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade Sunday evening in Cairo we hopped on a sleeper train to head south to Aswan. This was an efficient use of our crunched time. We were served supper and breakfast and had a nice clickity-clackity sleep on board. Arriving Monday morning in Aswan, we hopped on our new bus for another day of adventures. Our first stop was an ancient granite quarry. Stones were cut here and floated down the Nile to wherever they would be used. An unfinished obelisk was […]
Pyramid Scheme
Teti has purified himself:May he take his pure seat in the sky!Teti endures:May his beautiful seats endure! Pyramid Texts, Utterance 407 Probably what Egypt is most famous for are the pyramids. Our first stop on our second day was the pyramids at Dashur, which is south of the more famous ones at Giza. Two main pyramids are located there that are well intact: the “bent” pyramid and “red” pyramid (from its color). They were built around 2600 BC by Pharaoh Sneferu. We went inside the red pyramid, climbing up some steps to the entrance and then descending a ramp with […]
Egypt Ho!
Then, as the LORD our God commanded us, we set out from Horeb and went toward the hill country of the Amorites through all that vast and dreadful desert that you have seen, and so we reached Kadesh Barnea. Deuteronomy 1:19 I’ve been getting back into the groove of work life again. Now it’s time to begin to tell the tale of my eight days in Egypt. We pulled away from Jerusalem about 6:00 am on Saturday, December 3 and headed south to Eilat, the southernmost tip of Israel on the eastern branch of the Red Sea. To our east […]
A Completed Journey
Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight. Proverbs 3:5-6 I have arrived back. My suitcases are sprawled across the floor with stuff waiting to be put away. My adventure is officially at an end. Unpacking suitcases will be easy compared to the unpacking of what I’ve learned these last 3.5 months. For those who have been praying for me, I greatly appreciate it. My prayer now is for guidance in what to do next. God has plans for me, […]
Goodbye Israel
If I forget you, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill.May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember you, if I do not consider Jerusalem my highest joy. Psalm 137:5-6 It’s hard to believe it, but I’m sitting in the airport waiting for my plane to leave Israel. Security wasn’t too bad. A group of us are waiting for our flights to take us away. Our Egypt trip ended well. It was overall an amazing trip. In the coming week I’ll post the details of it. Saturday morning we hiked up […]