More Galilee

To continue our journey thru Galilee we had to drive quite a bit one day.  This spring is where Gideon chose his 300 warriors by how they drank the water  out of the stream.

The Sea of Galilee was very low a couple of years ago and some fishermen found an old boat sticking up out of the mud.  It turned out to be a fishing boat from the time of Jesus, and they restored it and put it in a frame in a museum.

We drove up to the far north of Israel, in between Lebanon and Syria, and looked around the site of Tel Dan.  This is one of the two areas given to the tribe of Dan.   The platform in the picture below is where they put one of the two golden calves.  Jeroboam didn't want the people to desire to go back to Jerusalem to worship so he made two golden calves.  One of them was placed here at this platform in Dan.  This caused idol worship again in Israel and set them up to be conquered and taken away into the northern countries. (1 Kings 12:25-33)

There are beautiful springs and forests here at Tel Dan.  It is at the base of Mount Hermon.  Jesus also took his twelve apostles here for instruction in the beginning of his ministry.  I guess you could call it a religious retreat.  Mt Hermon is also one of the possible sites of the mount of Transfiguration.

On the way back we drove back by way of the Golan Heights on the east side of the Sea of Galilee.  This is where the road to Damascus is where Paul was traveling when he was converted.  It is at the base of Mt Hermon and where the border is now with Syria

 In that area also is a large muslim crusader fort up on the hill.  There are still many mine fields in the area from when Syria had possession of the land.  Our tour guide was a former general in the Israeli army and had lots of information about all of the conflicts that had happened between Syria.  We were delayed on our return when the road back was blocked by a truck that had caught fire.