We were glad to have one more opportunity to attend church services at the BYU Jerusalem Center. We took the #75 Arab bus part way up Mount Scopus. (Israeli buses don't run on Saturday.) This is our new "shortcut" up the mountainside to the campus. This is part of the reason my knee isn't getting better, but at least it's paved and the stairs aren't too steep!
It's a spectacular view, but difficult to get a good mid-day photo because of the high contrast.
At the back of the concert hall is a fabulous organ, said to be the largest in the Middle East.
A married couple serve as conductor and organist -- part of a volunteer church service mission. They are fine musicians, and are regularly featured in the Center's free public concert series. The organist needs a rear-view mirror because the conductor stands on the stage.
Pete says this is the first men's bathroom with flowers that he's ever seen. I can't argue with that!
We met Jeff Chadwick, a BYU professor, and a woman who had been excavating at Megiddo. We are interested in the Megiddo dig because of signet ring that was found there many years ago in a different part of the site. In 2007, we attended a meeting of the Biblical Archaeology Society in San Diego. During a panel discussion, the noted archaeologist and editor David Noel Freedman was asked what he thought the most significant recent find was. Dr. Freedman said it was a signet ring found at Megiddo in the late 1920s. For years, scholars could not quite decipher the meaning of the letters on the ring. Then someone finally realized that the "mem" or "M" had been rotated sideways, and that the lettering said "Mother of Sisera". This woman is referred to in the Song of Deborah in last few verses of Judges 5. The Song of Deborah is widely regarded to be one of the oldest sections of the Old Testament (from a literary point of view), so to have an artifact that corroborates the passage is amazing. Surprisingly, this has never been published in a scholarly journal. Dr. Freedman said that the ring and other artifacts are at the University of Chicago. We tried to find it when we were there last year, but no one seemed to know about it.
Sad to see your dig coming to an end. Have enjoyed your posts.
ReplyDeleteI like the rearview mirror-clever idea!
ReplyDeleteI'm impressed by the BYU Center. It seems that unusual care was taken in its design, and that it is extremely well-maintained. How fun would it be to serve as that organist/chorister couple???
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