Herod's Palace, the Judean Wilderness, and Jericho

Yep. I finally visited THE JUDEAN WILDERNESS AND JERICHO! It was so cool! Also we went to go see the ruins of King Herod's palace and we saw where his pools were. We had to take a security guard to Jericho since it's on the West Bank (and as you may know there’s a ton of tension there). Our group is one of the first groups to that BYU-J has been able to go visit the West Bank since they opened back up a couple years ago. Anyways, it was really cool. Jericho was built in 8,000 B.C., one of the oldest ruins still on this earth (even older than the Pyramids of Giza). Much of the ruins were built out of mud brick so it had been decaying drastically over time… but it was still there!

My favorite part though was seeing the Judean Wilderness. One word to describe it - MAJESTIC! It was so beautiful and it was only a desert. But there were deserted mountains as far as I could see that were part of the Judean Wilderness. It just makes me wonder how long it took Christ to walk through it to Jerusalem (which is probably a pretty far walk). We could see Jerusalem, but in the far far distance. There were local merchants trying to sell us products, along with their cute kids trying to get a good price off of some people. They also had donkeys that people could ride there but it would be pretty dangerous, considering how steep it is and also the fact that we were on an overlook of a cliff. Anyways, while my class was observing the wilderness desert, I thought of the song “A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief” as we read the story of the Good Samaritan, since it took place in the Judean Wilderness. It was a really cool experience.

 Judean Wilderness

 Hiking across the Judean Wilderness

 I was scared the donkey was going to bite me

 The ruins of King Herod's Winter Palace

 This is a pretty common site outside of the city of Jerusalem

 Teaching the Old Testament while overlooking Jericho

 Jericho. The city was built in 8,000 B.C.

Old Testament class field trip group