Page 70 - Bible Geography and Near East Studies - Textbook w videos short

Study Section 10: Southern Israel – continued. Samaria.

10.1 Connect.

Can you imagine going for a walk and having a stranger walk up and join you? Then as you
walk along talking with him, you find out that he knows a lot about you. Weird? You enjoy
your walk so much, you decide to go to a restaurant and by him a meal. During the meal, he
reveals that He is Jesus Christ and then disappears! What a surprise Cleopas and the other
unnamed man had when they finally realized they were eating dinner with the crucified
Christ, now raised from the dead. This happened as they journeyed down the road to
Emmaus. Today, let’s walk down that road and relive that story….

10.2 Objectives:

1. The student should be able to identify what happened in each of the cities we visit.

2. The student should be able to explain how God used the landscape of many places to teach
spiritual truths.

10.3 Southern Israel – continued

The Jordan River

The Jordan River flows from Mt. Hermon in the far
north of Israel, through the Sea of Galilee and then
to the Dead Sea. In a direct line, it is only 70 miles
from the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea, but in the
process of winding its way down through the valley, the water
travels more than 200 miles. Today, dams, water conservation and
irrigation technology keep the flow of the river tightly controlled.
And so much of the fresh water is used for irrigation south of the
Sea of Galilee; very little fresh water finds its way into the Dead
Sea. Not surprisingly, the Jordan doesn’t appear to be all that
impressive to first-time visitors.

How to stop a river
People have long marveled at the miracle (or simply discounted it as a legend) of Joshua leading his people across the dry Jordan river
bed during flood season as they began their conquest of the Promised Land. However, we know of at least three occasions when the
flow of the river has stopped in more recent times (1267, 1546 and 1927) because of earthquakes.

In the most recent case, Israeli geologist Ron Avni and British Jericho excavator John Garstang spoke of the Jordan’s very high banks
(150 feet) tumbling into the river as a result of the 1927 earthquake. The mudslide effectively blocked the river for more than 21 hours.
The 1267 incident apparently involved a similar earthquake and subsequent mudslide very close to biblical Adam, allowing workers to
repair support pillars of a bridge while the river flow was stopped. This Eric Matson photo (taken before the 1927 earthquake) shows the
towering banks of the Jordan near Adam. It’s easy to picture how an earthquake could jostle the high banks, causing them to fall into the
water and form a temporary dam.

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