{"id":94959,"date":"2022-04-27T12:01:47","date_gmt":"2022-04-27T18:01:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=94959"},"modified":"2022-05-14T23:32:13","modified_gmt":"2022-05-15T05:32:13","slug":"newly-arrived-and-very-jet-lagged-in-israel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2022\/04\/newly-arrived-and-very-jet-lagged-in-israel.html","title":{"rendered":"Newly arrived (and very jet-lagged) in Israel"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Jaffa,<\/a>
A view of the very modern city of Tel Aviv, founded in the early twentieth century, from the very ancient city of Joppa (Jaffa, Yafo), which first shows up in written references nearly four thousand years ago.\u00a0 Petah Tikvah, \u201cThe Opening of Hope,\u201d is just a short distance inland from here and is sometimes known as the \u201cEm HaMoshavot\u201d or \u201cthe Mother of the Moshavot\u201d [cooperative farm settlements],\u00a0 It was founded in 1878, mainly by Ultra-Orthodox Jews of the so-called \u201cOld Yishuv,\u201d who were among the very earliest Zionist settlers here.<\/figcaption><\/figure>***<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019m very happy to report that it is now possible for you to order (or to pre-order) the forthcoming Interpreter Foundation film Undaunted: Witnesses of the Book of Mormon<\/em> through Deseret Book:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

https:\/\/deseretbook.com\/p\/undaunted?queryID=1528e0ef254a335421fef178505acd0b&variant_id=199590-dvd<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

It will be available on 24 May 2022.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s good to be back in Israel for the first time, thanks to the enforced COVID travel restrictions, in at least two but maybe even three years.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Travelers arriving at Israel\u2019s David Ben Gurion International Airport \u2014 which is relatively near to Tel Aviv and which is commonly called \u201cTel Aviv Airport\u201d by travelers but isn\u2019t, strictly speaking, in<\/em> that city \u2014 are often deadly tired and not feeling especially curious. \u00a0Even when their flight hasn\u2019t been delayed several hours, as ours was on visit a few years ago, on top of a day<\/em> of cancellations and delays.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

And, truth be told, although the airport is far, far better than it was when I first came here in January 1978, it still doesn\u2019t seem unusually interesting or historical.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sometimes, though, it\u2019s referred to as \u201cLod Airport,\u201d after the town \u2014 slightly more than nine miles from Tel Aviv \u2014 in which it actually sits. \u00a0And Lod, while certainly not a site of the first rank, is of some noteworthy biblical and historical significance, which is almost never mentioned by guides or noticed by tourists.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

For one thing, Lod is the biblical Lydda:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

32\u00a0<\/span>As Peter traveled about the country, he went to visit the Lord\u2019s people\u00a0who lived in Lydda.<\/span>\u00a033\u00a0<\/span>There he found a man named Aeneas, who was paralyzed and had been bedridden for eight years.<\/span>\u00a034\u00a0<\/span>\u201cAeneas,\u201d Peter said to him, \u201cJesus Christ heals you.\u00a0Get up and roll up your mat.\u201d Immediately Aeneas got up.<\/span>\u00a035\u00a0<\/span>All those who lived in Lydda and Sharon\u00a0saw him and turned to the Lord.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

36\u00a0<\/span>In Joppa\u00a0there was a disciple named Tabitha (in Greek her name is Dorcas); she was always doing good\u00a0and helping the poor.<\/span>\u00a037\u00a0<\/span>About that time she became sick and died, and her body was washed and placed in an upstairs room.<\/span>\u00a038\u00a0<\/span>Lydda was near Joppa; so when the disciples\u00a0heard that Peter was in Lydda, they sent two men to him and urged him, \u201cPlease come at once!\u201d<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

39\u00a0<\/span>Peter went with them, and when he arrived he was taken upstairs to the room. All the widows\u00a0stood around him, crying and showing him the robes and other clothing that Dorcas had made while she was still with them.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

40\u00a0<\/span>Peter sent them all out of the room;\u00a0then he got down on his knees\u00a0and prayed. Turning toward the dead woman, he said, \u201cTabitha, get up.\u201d\u00a0She opened her eyes, and seeing Peter she sat up.<\/span>\u00a041\u00a0<\/span>He took her by the hand and helped her to her feet. Then he called for the believers, especially the widows, and presented her to them alive.<\/span>\u00a042\u00a0<\/span>This became known all over Joppa, and many people believed in the Lord.<\/span>\u00a0<\/strong>43\u00a0<\/span>Peter stayed in Joppa for some time with a tanner named Simon.<\/strong> \u00a0[Acts 9, in the New International Version]<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

And this story, in turn, sets up the epochal revelation narrated in Acts 10, which authorizes the taking of the Gospel to the Gentiles \u2014 and which allowed\u00a0Christianity to be transformed from a Jewish sect into a world religion.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"St.<\/a>
A seventh-century etching of St. George and the dragon
(Wikimedia Commons publiv domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lydda or Lod is mentioned more than once in the Bible (e.g., at\u00a01 Chronicles 8:12; Ezra 2:33; Nehemiah 7:37; 11:35), although its earliest known written notice\u00a0occurs in a fifteenth-century BC list of Canaanite towns inscribed on the wall of Upper Egypt\u2019s Karnak Temple at the order of the Eighteenth Dynasty Pharaoh Thutmose III. \u00a0In the sixth century AD, it was briefly known as \u201cGeorgiopolis,\u201d after St. George, who was born in it in the third century and who later went\u00a0on to serve as a member of the imperial guard of the Roman ruler Diocletian.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The place has had a rather tempestuous history. \u00a0In 43 BC, the Roman governor of Syria sold its residents into slavery, but, two years later, they were freed by Mark Antony. \u00a0Then, in 66 AD, during the First Jewish Revolt, the town was completely destroyed and, in AD 68, its site was occupied by the forces of the future Emperor Vespasian. \u00a0During the so-called \u201cKitos War,\u201d which lasted from 115-117 AD, many Jews gathered in the city . . . only to be massacred by Roman forces; the Talmud specifically memorializes \u201cthe slain of Lydda.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

An\u00a0Islamic\u00a0hadith<\/em> or tradition attributed to the Prophet Muhammad identifies Lod\/Lydda\u00a0as the future site of the battle where al-Dajjal<\/em>, the \u201cDeceiver\u201d or Antichrist,\u00a0will be killed as part of the events of\u00a0the Last Days. \u00a0In fact, the well-known tenth-century geographer al-Maqdisi or al-Muqaddasi \u2014 as his name suggests, he was born in Jerusalem; Jerusalem is commonly referred to in Arabic as al-Quds<\/em> (\u201cthe Holy\u201d) and, rather less frequently, as Bayt al-Maqdis<\/em> (\u201cthe Holy House,\u201d remembering the Temple) \u2014 specifically identified a space in front of the city\u2019s Church of St. George as the place where\u00a0the arch-deceiver would die.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy, in the hectic pressure of gathering up luggage and finding a taxi while suffering from severe jet lag and, now, while undergoing a mandatory COVID test upon entry, to overlook such things.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Whatever else one thinks of Israel, whatever one\u2019s politics, Mark Twain asks a marvelous question here, one that is worthy of reflection.\u00a0 And please recall that he wrote many years before the establishment of the modern state of Israel and long before the disproportionate number of Jewish Nobel Prize-winners became too obvious to ignore:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

If statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one percent of the human race. \u00a0It suggests a nebulous dim puff of stardust lost in the blaze of the Milky Way. \u00a0Properly, the Jew ought hardly to be heard of, but he is heard of, has always been heard of. \u00a0He is as prominent on the planet as any other people, and his commercial importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness of his bulk. \u00a0His contributions to the world\u2019s list of great names in literature, science, art, music, finance, medicine, and abstruse learning are also away out of proportion to the weakness of his numbers. \u00a0He has made a marvelous fight in this world, in all the ages; and has done it with his hands tied behind him. He could be vain of himself, and be excused for it.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed; and made a vast noise, and they are gone; other people have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, or have vanished. \u00a0The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

A believer, I think, might justifiably see something more than earthly here.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Posted from Tel Aviv, Israel<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 *** \u00a0 I\u2019m very happy to report that it is now possible for you to order (or to pre-order) the forthcoming Interpreter Foundation film Undaunted: Witnesses of the Book of Mormon through Deseret Book: \u00a0 https:\/\/deseretbook.com\/p\/undaunted?queryID=1528e0ef254a335421fef178505acd0b&variant_id=199590-dvd \u00a0 It will be available on 24 May 2022. \u00a0 *** \u00a0 It\u2019s good to be back in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[24400,5069,1561,5063,5066,18896],"class_list":["post-94959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-airport","tag-ben-gurion-airport","tag-israel","tag-lod","tag-lydda","tag-tel-aviv"],"yoast_head":"\nNewly arrived (and very jet-lagged) in Israel<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"  ***   I'm very happy to 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