First, the End. After visiting Caesarea by the Sea (one of Herod’s great building projects, a great Roman city port on the Mediterranean), we traveled to Megiddo. Actually, Tel Megiddo. A tel is a large mound on which ancient cities were built one atop the remains of another. There are 26 layers of this tel. To tell you its age, layer 15 was the layer of the city at the time of Biblical King David. The location has had major strategic significance since ancient times. It overlooks the passage which connected the ancient roads that went north up the Mediterranean from Egypt to the roads which spread further north and east inland to Assyria. Thus, whoever controlled this hill also controlled the trade route. Some scholars have opined that more people have died either attacking or defending the city than any other battle in history. It was first occupied more than 5,000 years BCE and was last occupied in the 5th Century BCE. The last battle fought there was in World War I.
It was a well-defended hill, with a wall and lots of provisions in its design to protect its inhabitants during a siege. The most fascinating include a large grain storage facility and its water supply. The water supply for the city is by a spring which discharges near the base of the hill. Obviously, if there was a siege, you couldn’t leave the walled city to go get water. So, they dug a tunnel straight down 120 feet with treacherous steps that led to a tunnel through solid rock out to the side of the hill near the spring. They disguised the connection to the spring and also found that the tunnel would fill with water if the water level was high enough. Brilliant. They could get water from within the walled city. A precious thing in this arid environment.
So, why is that the end? Well, Armageddon is a Greek word derived from Megiddo. Because of its history as a place of great battles, John, when writing Revelations, talks about the final battle as taking place there. Who knew? A new perspective on the End.
From Megiddo, we went to Nazareth, the home of Mary and Joseph. There is a beautiful new church built there, the Church of the Annunciation built in the late 1960’s. Good thing that the Pope decided to replace the one that was there. There has been a church there since the Fourth Century, commemorating the site where Mary supposedly lived when she learned that she was pregnant. During the construction of the new church, the workers discovered a First Century dwelling (cave) that contained a number of ancient relics which had been hidden there when one of the first churches was destroyed in the 7th Century. There were carvings in the relics hidden there that referenced Mary and Christ, thus confirming that at least as early as those times, this was where they believed Mary lived. Interestingly enough, the people of Nazareth lived in caves, with a living/dining room in the front and a stable in the back. Who knew they lived in caves? So, maybe being born in a manger wasn't that far removed from what Mary and Joseph were used to anyway. Jesus was just born in the back room instead of the front room. Fascinating. Thus, a new perspective on the beginning.
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