My Holy Land Trip: "Dead Sea, a Wonder of Nature"

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"Dead Sea, a Wonder of Nature"

Israel

Tuesday, ‎December ‎24, ‎2013

Fourth Day of my Holy Land Trip, Mount Zion, Jerusalem

My Holy Land Trip

"Dead Sea, a Wonder of Nature"

Israel

A Panoramic view of Dead Sea:

The Dead Sea is the lowest point on earth in any land mass (417 meters below sea level, to be exact). The quantity of water that evaporates from it is greater than that which flows into it, such that this body of water has the highest concentration of salt in the world (340 grams per liter of water).

On the way to Dead Sea, Jericho:

It is called the Dead Sea because its salinity prevents the existence of any life forms in the lake. That same salt, on the other hand, provides tremendous relief to the many ailing visitors who come here on a regular basis to benefit from its healing properties. All these and more make the Dead Sea so fascinating, so different and so interesting.

On the way to Dead Sea, Jericho:

The Dead Sea which is also known from its other names such as the Plains Sea, the Salt Sea and Primordial Sea, all of which are included in many old texts in historic documents, specifically those pertaining to different religions. It has always held its own importance dating back to the biblical time period and to the current times, where it still holds not only a religious importance but also a historic one. The Bible, being one of the religious books and also a historic one, contains many passages which tell about the important events that took place near or at the Dead Sea.

A sign board of general information about the Dead Sea:

The Dead Sea in the Bible states some very important events, and many the Dead Sea is already known for, being that Jesus was baptized in the Dead Sea by the Baptist, John. And how a war was fought by Abraham there, of how David took refuge in this area while hiding from the King Saul and the place where visions were witnessed by prophet Ezekiel to many other countless.

The shore of Dead Sea:

However the Dead Sea in the Bible is portrayed in various events such as:

The war of Sodom and Gomorrah

In the Genesis, it is told that a war was conducted by four kings in opposition to five, the Dead Sea being the location. Abraham’s nephew, Lot, was taken as one the captors in this war, and so Abraham went out to the Dead Sea to release him and bring him home.

The Dead Sea in the bible states that the Kings Sodom and Gomorrah, fell into pits in this area and the rest that were left, ran away to hide in the mountains near the Dead Sea.

The shore of Dead Sea:

David finds refuge from King Saul Another important event of the Dead Sea in the Bible is of David, and when he ran away from the King Saul, the ruling king of the time, and came to find refuge in the Dead Sea. Also, a cave in this area is where King Saul was asleep later, where David cut off a portion of the king’s clothes, to prove that he was not interested in harming the king.

A wooden walkway to the bank of the Sea:

The visions of prophet Elijah and Baptism of Jesus A very important incident that took place in the Dead Sea in the bible, and other religious books also, is that the prophet Elijah received his visions in this area, and is said to have soared away to heaven from this spot as it is stated in the bible in reference to the place where John baptized Jesus. The two are interlinked in terms of the location for these two important events occurring, thus increasing the importance and symbolic significance of Jesus and Heaven

The shore of Dead Sea:

The Dead Sea, unlike the Sea of Galilee to the north, does not figure prominently in the biblical narratives. It’s most important role was as a barrier, blocking traffic to Judah from the east. An advancing army of Ammonites and Moabites apparently crossed a shallow part of the Dead Sea on their way to attack King Jehoshaphat. Ezekiel has prophesied that one day the Dead Sea will be fresh water and fishermen will spread their nets along the shore.

The shore of Dead Sea:

The Dead Sea is located in the Syro-African Rift, a 4000-mile fault line in the earth's crust. The lowest point of dry land on earth is the shoreline of the Dead Sea at 1300 feet below sea level. That the lake is at the lowest point means that water does not drain from this lake. Daily 7 million tons of water evaporates but the minerals remain, causing the salt content to increase. Figures for the Dead Sea's salinity today range from 26-35%.

The shore of Dead Sea:

Nearly ten times as salty as the world's oceans and twice as saline as the Great Salt Lake in Utah, the Dead Sea is rich with minerals. The Dead Sea Works company on the southwest side of the lake employs 1600 people around the clock to harvest the valuable minerals from the water. Potash is the most valuable of those extracted today and is used in the manufacture of fertilizer. The best article on the minerals in the Dead Sea is in the Encyclopedia Britannica.

The other side shore of Dead Sea is Jordan:

The unique concentration of the Dead Sea waters has long been known to have medicinal value. Aristotle, Queen of Sheba, King Solomon and Cleopatra were all familiar with this and modern doctors as well often prescribe patients with skin ailments to soak in the waters of the Dead Sea. Because of the dropping level of the Dead Sea, the southern end is no longer under water, except for that which is channeled by aqueducts for the purpose of extracting minerals.

The other side shore of Dead Sea is Jordan:

The Dead Sea Scrolls are a collection of 981 texts discovered between 1946 and 1956 at Khirbet Qumran in the West Bank. They were found inside caves about a mile inland from the northwest shore of the Dead Sea, from which they derive their name. Nine of the scrolls were rediscovered at the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) in 2014, after they had been stored unopened for six decades following their excavation in 1952. The texts are of great historical, religious, and linguistic significance because they include the earliest known surviving manuscripts of works later included in the Hebrew Bible canon, along with deutero canonical and extra-biblical manuscripts which preserve evidence of the diversity of religious thought in late Second Temple Judaism.

The Dead Sea Scrolls:

The texts are written in Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, and Nabataean, mostly on parchment but with some written on papyrus and bronze. The manuscripts have been dated to various ranges between 408 BCE and 318 CE. Bronze coins found on the site form a series beginning with John Hyrcanus (135–104 BCE) and continuing until the First Jewish-Roman War (66–73 CE).

The scrolls have traditionally been identified with the ancient Jewish sect called the Essenes, although some recent interpretations have challenged this association and argue that the scrolls were penned by priests in Jerusalem, Zadokites, or other unknown Jewish groups.

Halite deposits along the Dead Sea coast:

Due to the poor condition of some of the Scrolls, not all of them have been identified. Those that have been identified can be divided into three general groups: some 40% of them are copies of texts from the Hebrew Bible, approximately another 30% of them are texts from the Second Temple Period and which ultimately were not canonized in the Hebrew Bible, like the Book of Enoch, Jubilees, the Book of Tobit, the Wisdom of Sirach, Psalms 152–155, etc., and the remaining roughly 30% of them are sectarian manuscripts of previously unknown documents that shed light on the rules and beliefs of a particular group or groups within greater Judaism, like the Community Rule, the War Scroll, the Pesher on Habakkuk and The Rule of the Blessing.

Panorama of the Dead Sea from Mount Sodom:

Remarkable Finds

In early 1947 (or late 1946) an Arab shepherd searching for a lost sheep threw a rock into a cave in the limestone cliffs on the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea. Instead of a bleating sheep, he heard the sound of breaking pottery. When he investigated, he found seven nearly intact ancient documents that became known as the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Mount Sodom, Israel, showing the so-called Lot's Wife pillar (made of halite like the rest of the mountain):

Three of the scrolls, including the Book of Isaiah, were acquired in Bethlehem by Eleazar L. Sukenik of The Hebrew University just as the United Nations voted by a two-thirds vote to partition Palestine, thus creating a Jewish state for the first time in 2,000 years.

Sunset on the way from Dead Sea:

The other four scrolls were acquired by the Metropolitan Samuel, the Jerusalem leader of a Syrian sect of Christians. When he was unable to sell them in Jerusalem, he took them to the United States, where they were displayed in the Library of Congress. Still unable to sell them, he placed a classified ad in The Wall Street Journal offering them for sale. Through fronts, they were purchased for Israel by war hero and archaeologist Yigael Yadin, Sukenik’s son.

A special museum, The Shrine of the Book, was built in Jerusalem to house the scrolls.

Jerusalem, on the way from Dead Sea to Bethlehem: