Northern Jordan

  Pella, Jordan
Friday, June 20, 2008

This morning the meeting time was 07:00 for our departure towards the north of the country. Our first planned stop was the ruins of the Decapolis city of Jerash, about an hour north of Amman. We hadn't originally planned to stop on the way but as we approached what used to be called the Jabbok River (now the Zarqa), David Baker remembered that this river was where Jacob prepared to meet Esau in an attempt to make peace with him. Gen. 32:22 says he had his whole family/tribe cross the Jabbok, and after they went on, Jacob then wrestled with God Himself, Who then changed his name to Israel. We stopped the bus at the Jabbok, read the passage and got out to have a look and contemplate these events.

The Jabbok River

This momentous occurrence took place somwhere near where we were passing.
 
We arrived in Jerash about 9:00 barely ahead of the big tour busses. Jerash, an important Roman city, has been increasingly excavated and reconstructed these past years. After passing under Hadrian's impressively reconstructed triumphal arch (and it was reconstructed at only half its original height!), we arrived at the hippodrome which had not yet been reconstructed when we were here 8 years ago. Signs told us that there were daily reenactments at 11:00 of gladiatorial games in the hippodrome. We came first to the large oval columned forum, a center for public discourse of all kinds

The forum in Jerash

We visited the well-restored south theater, with its surprising acoustics. Someone talking normally in the center of the floor at the base of the stage can easily be heard in the last and highest row of the 3000 seats still here.

The South Theater in Jerash

We walked the colonnaded cardo, stopping along the way to visit a beautiful fountain and a surprisingly well-preserved temple of Artemis (Diana). From there we moved on to the north theater which was not built for performances but for civic meetings. Just down below, work has begun on excavating and restoring the baths, an important part of Roman society. Then we made our way back to the bus after a fascinating 3-hour walk through time. The gladiatorial games were in progress and music from the movie Gladiator was playing over the loudspeakers as we walked by to our bus....
 
We drove on to Ajlun castle, built during the period of the crusades by a nephew-general of Saladin in the 1180s. It was built to defend a key point against the crusaders with their Belvoir castle on the Sea of Galilee. It was also part of a chain of hilltop fortresses that allowed the passing of signals from Damascus to Cairo in a single day - not bad for the 12th century! Before visiting the castle we had a picnic lunch of falafel and shwerma. One friendly fellow dressed in Bedouin garb, who was also picnicking, saw us taking photos and offered to put his keffiyeh headdress, and the black cord, called the agal that holds it in place, on Kristen for a photo.

Kristen in a Keffiyeh

She hesitated but finally accepted gracefully and we had all had some fun watching her pose for photos.
 
After lunch, as we walked through the castle we discussed the crusades and their historical backdrop, some basic elements of medieval military architecture, and even had time for a few Monty Python and the Holy Grail jokes.... The view from the top is beautiful in all directions. It's obvious why this location was selected for the construction.

From the top of Ajlun Castle

 
Then we were off for our third visit of the day. We drove another hour to the far north west corner of Jordan to a place now called Umm Qais, but that in New Testament times was known as Gadara. There are some impressive ruins in this vast area, though only a very small part of the site has been excavated. From the high end of the site one has an impressive view to the north of the Golan Heights, a large mountain plateau located just a few miles across the Yarmouk River valley. Looking to the North West one can clearly see the Sea of Galilee and flowing out from it the Jordan River to the west.

Before leaving the bus, we had read the accounts in Matthew 8, Mark 5 and Luke 8, that record the time when Jesus and His disciples were brought by a storm on the Sea of Galilee to the "country of the Gadarenes." Upon disembarking He was confronted by two men possessed of demons who when commanded to leave the tormented men, asked to be allowed to enter a herd of pigs nearby, which Jesus allowed.  All 2000 or so of the pigs then charged off into the lake and were drowned. From our point of view, we could no doubt see the part of the lake where that striking event occurred.

The view of Galilee and the Golan from Umm Qais

 
The day was starting to fade by this time, so we embarked for our inn for the night which was located in Pella, not quite an hour to the south, and down in the Jordan River valley. We arrived around 6:00 pm at the Pella Countryside Hotel, an inexpensive family-run rest house with a view of the ruins of Pella. We settled into our rooms for the night and showered away the dust and sweat of the day. Then the owner of the Hotel, who introduced himself as Hussein, invited us a few hundred meters down the road to his house for the dinner that was included in our stay. We broke up into two groups and ate at different tables in the family garden. We had mezze, followed by chicken and rice, and fresh fruit for dessert. It was a very pleasant meal that stretched into the very pleasant night. The Jordan valley is far below sea level, and so is extremely hot during the day in summer. Only with the evening time does the temperature cool and become pleasant, especially when a breeze rises as it did this night.
 
After dinner several of the volunteers accompanied Hussein on a restful walk to a high point nearby where he could point out the lights of various towns and cities in the area. Others preferred to head to bed early on this pleasant Sabbath night.