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Pella and Umm-Qais (Gadara)
After lunch we returned south to Amman where we will be spending our remaining nights in Jordan. Following an early dinner, we divided the group in half for visits to the homes of the Esaouhs (Mr. Zuhir Easouh is a professor of English at Jordan University in Amman) and the Rabadis (Dr. Rabadi is retired from the Ministry of Education, and is a former member of the Jordanian parliament). These visits provided Revs. Winsheimer and Cargal opportunities to reconnect with families that had hosted them during their previous visit, and gave everyone an evening of wonderful conversation and warm Jordanian hospitality. |
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Although
our day began and ended no more than 50 kilometers (roughly 35 miles) apart, we
saw a lot more of Jordan than that would indicate. We left the hotel on the
shores of the Dead Sea and journeyed north up the Jordan Valley. Our first stop
was at the ruins of the ancient city of Pella. A number of villages and cities
have been built on this site since the Bronze Age. It continues to bear the name
of the Greek city founded as one of the 10 city league of the Decapolis. Our
schedule only permitted looking out over the various tels from the veranda of a
coffee shop as we enjoyed some refreshments, but the views were nonetheless
beautiful. This city is in the area of Jabesh-Gilead where Saul, the first king
of Israel in the Bible, was killed in battle.
Still
further north and some 3000 feet above the floor of the Jordan Valley at that
point (but roughly 2300 feet above sea level, since the valley floor itself is
still considerably below sea level), we came to the modern village of Umm-Qais.
It was at this location that Gadara, another of the Greek cities of the
Decapolis, was built. Among the many remains of the city from its Greek and
Roman periods was an octagonal church with octagonal marble tiles in its
flooring. According to Omar, this type of tile was characteristically used in
the construction of Byzantine-era churches in this region to mark sites that
Jesus had personally visited. Biblical scholars have often struggled to
reconcile the stories about Jesus exorcising demons from someone in the
Decapolis (here at Gadara according to Matthew, but Gerasa--that is, Jerash--in
Mark and Luke, and later traditions placing it at Gergesa right on the eastern
shore of the Sea of Galilee). But if this architectural feature has been
correctly identified, it would suggest that Jesus had visited this region, at
least according to the local memories over the first few centuries.
We
enjoyed our lunch on the terrace of a wonderful restaurant with a breathtaking
view of the ruins of Gadara, the Yarmouk river valley that marks the northern
border of Jordan from the Golan Heights (Syrian land occupied by the Israelis
since the 1967 war), and the Sea of Galilee with the Israeli city of Tiberias on
its western shore.