First Samuel, chapter 31, First Samuel, chapter 31.
It's warm in here tonight, Brian, if you don't mind
grabbing that those maps for me and see if we can balance them
again this week. All right, we're going to talk
about Bet Sheehan. BET Sheehan tonight, and it's
pronounced a few different ways, actually.
Beth Sheehan. It's spelled a few different
ways. I've mentioned this before but
it seems like a lot of the different places there in Israel
don't really care how they spell it as long as you say it about
the same way. So a lot of these different
places. You'll see it spelled one way on
a sign. You'll see it spelled another
way on a map. You'll see it spelled a
different way on the on the brochure that they have for the
place. And is all all kinds of
different spellings. The way the Bible actually
spells it is Beth Sheehan All right.
And we have the, oh, I guess I've got the PowerPoint up here,
don't I? You can turn this down just a
little bit. It feels to me like it's a
little bit loud. Bet she in.
There we go. And so it you'll see it in a
couple different ways. And so there we go.
All right. If you can turn.
Is it possible to turn that this way just a little bit?
Very good. I know it's it's kind of
balanced there. Is it going to fall?
And let's put it there you go, put it on there.
Stand it up a little bit more. I think we need a new, a new
stand. All right, let's, let's review
here before we get into this too much tonight.
If it falls, we know who to blame, right?
All right. What is this area right here
called? The negative.
Right. All right.
That whole triangle and then this top part of it is, what is
it? Wilderness of Zen.
All right, you're rusty down here.
Wilderness of Paran. Very good.
What is this Mediterranean Sea here?
What runs down the Jordan River? What is this, That sea?
All right, what is this valley? I have a valley.
Very good. What's down here?
Red Sea, the Gulf of Aquaba, or a lot, right.
What is this area right here known as Judean Wilderness?
Very good. All right, That Sheehan is, is
up here in this area. Just.
I should have looked at it on the map so I can see it.
Here's Nazareth. And then just just to the, What
would that be? Southeast is Bet Sheehan.
I'm going to show it to you on the map so you can see it up on
here and have it actually pointed out.
But Bet Sheehan, oops, went to the wrong one is actually right
there. All right.
So just just a little to the South of of the Sea of Galilee,
not all all that far from the Mediterranean Sea as well.
So there is Bet Sheehan, All right, that's that's not the
entire thing, but that's the main area.
So did anybody look this up? Did anybody look it up this
afternoon? A plus for brother Ryan.
All right. He's the only one that looked it
up. He did his homework.
And so he's got an idea of what happened there.
A couple things happened there, actually.
But but one main thing that we'll talk about and so you see
the I'm not going to tell you what it is.
What what is that called? Do you remember the mound in the
back? The tell?
Very good. Very good with 1L, right.
And a tell is what? What's a tell?
It's a hill, but basically man made hill, right?
It's yeah, cities and top of cities and top of cities until
it eventually gets built up to to something like that.
Right. Now more than likely when they
started, they started on a little bit of a hill in the 1st
place, but that is the tell at Beth Sheehan.
All right. That's the entire thing.
That's obviously an overview of it.
We're going to show you a lot of these different things.
But what you see up here, the whole mound right there, the
tell is what was there originally and what was there in
the Bible times. All right, everything else
that's built up in front of that is all Roman ruins.
But they were Roman ruins that would have been there at the
time that Jesus was there. And being that he was from
Nazareth, it wouldn't have been all that far from where he
lived. So we'll talk about that as we
get a little bit further into it as well.
So let's get right into it. If you're there in First Samuel
31, that's that's the main part that we're going to look at
tonight. But Beth Sheehan, also known as
Bet Sheehan or BET Sheehan, was a major biblical and secular
city for thousands of years. OK, Now we've dropped down to
earth level. All right.
And what you're looking at is exactly what we were just
looking at from the air. That's the hill, all right.
That's the tell that was originally Beth Sheehan before
we had all that addition, additional things put on there.
That's how it's spelled. Does anybody have any idea what
Bet means? Or Beth in the Bible House
House. House of.
Right. So Bethlehem, but is it House of
bread, Right. So Beth Sheehan.
All right. Beth means house in Hebrew.
Beth Sheehan means House of security or House of rest.
It also means House of the tooth or House of ivory.
So I don't know where they actually came up with the name
from, but it could mean any one of those things.
But that's that's what Beth Sheehan means.
It was actually changed to Psychopolis later on.
And we'll talk about that in just a little bit as well.
But there you go. There's the you like that the
graphic draws your attention to right where it's at there and
best she and but the very top up there is actually the Sea of
Galilee. And I know it's it's kind of
hard to tell. But what you see running all the
way down there is the Jordan River.
And over there on the western side is the Mediterranean Sea.
But it's located in the center of several main crossroads
between the Jordan Valley and the Jezreel Valley.
OK again, there's a lots of different names for it.
Israel is how you'll see it as well.
But that's that's where that valley is at and it's it's kind
of right there in that crossroads.
And if you look at it, okay, see where the star is right below
the star is actually Beth Sheehan.
And by the coloring on the map, you can see that that everything
around it is kind of more of a mountain, mountainous.
And so it's actually where Beth Sheehan is at, is actually down
in a valley. And here we go, we got another
one boom right there. It's about 15 miles South of the
southern tip of the Sea of Galilee and about 35 miles east
of the Mediterranean Sea. So, and I've told you this
several times before, does anybody remember what I said,
that the, the nation of Israel is about the size of what state
in the United States say it Massachusetts, New Jersey or
either all about the same, about the same, but about the same
size as Massachusetts. So you're really not talking
about a big place at all, 15 miles.
I mean, a lot of us live that far from the store, right.
So to go 15 miles is nothing now.
So when you think about being that close to the Sea of
Galilee, you see the Jordan River being a little bit closer,
kind of actually gives you a little bit better picture of of
how much it actually is a valley.
But there you see the Jesreel Valley coming through here at
the Kishon River. Do you remember what happened at
the Kishon River? We haven't gotten there yet, but
we will pretty soon. What happened there?
That's one thing that happened. What else?
Somebody. A lot of somebodies were killed
there. You remember?
That's where Elijah killed all of the prophets of Bail, right
after they after they tried calling down fire from heaven.
That's the Kishon River that runs through there, the Jordan
River. But those valleys come together
right there, all right. And you'll notice.
And I'm going to, I'm going to point this out to you now
because I'm going to, I'm going to bring it up later.
And I don't know if I actually have it on a map that you can
really see it, but you notice the Herod Valley running right
through there. And it's not spelled the same
way. It's HAROD, not HEROD.
But the Herod Valley is is significant as well.
And I'll tell you about that in a second.
OK I did point it out but it's located bet she in Beth she in
is located on the Harrod stream provides that area with a lot of
water which almost never did they build a tell that was away
from water. They had to have a source of
water coming in for them to even be able to build city on it.
So obviously it's it's usually going to be by a pretty
significant source of water. But the Harrod Stream is the
same stream that originates at the Harrod Spring.
And the Harrod Spring was where Gideon selected his 300 men.
And we're going to talk about that the next time, next Sunday
night. But that's where that's.
So that was, that was all right up in that same exact area.
But there's the Harrod Valley that runs down through there.
All right. Oh, man, disappointing.
All right. So this is, this is kind of an
overview. All right.
Mountain Gilboa is going to be pretty significant in this in
just a couple minutes. What happened at Mountain
Gilboa? Do you remember?
Killed himself, right? Yeah, That happened on Mount
Gilboa. All right, So Mount Gilboa is
over there at the Hill of Mora. Mora is here.
Mount Tabor. Somebody know what happened at
Mount Tabor? I'm asking you a lot of things
that we're going to get to here pretty soon.
All right. We've been talking about a lot
of things in the southern half of Israel.
We're moving up north, and we're going toward Galilee.
But does anybody know what happened at Tabor?
Deborah Barrick? Does that ring a bell?
That's where they were stationed, if you will, when
that battle took place. But there's Mount Tabor.
And so all of this, this whole bottom half is actually part of
Beth Sheehan, the Harrod Valley area.
But there's the tell with 2L's, there's the tail there.
I didn't, in my defense, I didn't, I didn't type this one
up. All right.
But this is the Paladius St. and we'll, we'll talk about that.
You'll see some of those things. But that's that's actually a
really significant part of the Roman ruins.
There's the tail, but but that's kind of an overview of that
whole area and you can see how the mountains are up there
around it and then you come down into that valley.
So it's the Harrod Valley there. All right.
Now it was in the territory belonging to the tribe of
Manassa, but they didn't conquer it.
And we'll actually see here, this is the map that shows us
the tribes of Israel. And here is the the tribe of
Manassa. All right, that's where it was.
They actually didn't conquer that.
Judges chapter one, you don't have to turn over there.
I'll read it to you. The Bible says neither did
Manassa drive out the inhabitants of Beth Sheehan and
her towns, nor Tanak and her towns, nor the inhabitants of
Door and her towns, nor the inhabitants of Iblium and her
towns, nor the inhabitants of Magetto and her towns.
But the Canaanites would dwell in that land.
Now that's a sad thing, because God gave them that land that was
supposed to be theirs. They were supposed to drive
everybody out, and they didn't. And the fact that they didn't
meant that that was not their land.
The Canaanites were going to dwell in that land.
And a lot of those places that we just mentioned, we're going
to look at later on, not tonight, but at a different
time. But it was controlled by the
Egyptians, the Canaanites, the Philistines.
It belonged to Manassa, though, and and they should have had it.
It should have, it should have been theirs.
Now, a few other things here before we get into this.
There's the ruins of the temple mentioned in First Samuel 31 and
verse #10, it says. And they put his armor in the
House of Ashtaroth and they fastened his body to the wall of
Beth Shan. Now it's another way that you'll
see it. All right, Who are we talking
about here in First Samuel 31? Saul, right.
So Saul and I don't want to get ahead of myself, so I'm not
going to. But first Chronicles 1010, and
and actually first Chronicles 10 verse 10 says.
And they put his armor in the House of their gods and fastened
his head in the temple of Dagon. Now, where do you see Dagon?
Do you remember that? Philistines, right.
What happened to Dagon? Fell down a broken half, right?
That's the same God. So they they, they they took his
head and they fastened it in the temple of Dagon.
That's what we're talking about. So ruins of that temple to
Ashtaroth and Dagon have been discovered on that hill above
the Roman bet Sheehan. So the Roman bet Sheehan is the
bottom. What we're talking about is the
hill at the top. They had a Canaanite temple that
was up there on the top of that, this, this idolatrous stand and
circle with the serpent about 13th century BC, which would be
the time of the judges. All of those things happen.
There's a reconstructive drawing of the Astroth Temple at
Bethshi. And so a lot of a lot of
different things that were happening that were obviously
very ungodly. Now, here's a reconstructive
drawing of the top of that hill, All right.
This is what the city would have looked like on the top of that
hill at the time, pretty much when Saul was killed or or
killed himself, if you will, on Mount Gilboa.
It was a whole city up there, right?
And and really the center was kind of made for the for the
worship of the God. So that would have been the the
temple to Ashtaroth. But you see and and I'll show
you a little a few closer pictures, close up pictures of
that tell and you'll be able to see kind of where all of that
stuff might have actually been have been located.
But this obviously the the the whole city is gone.
There's ruins that are there. I'm going to show you some of
those ruins but the city itself is is no longer there and
actually here's some this is what this is what it looks like
on top of the the Beth she and tell now and really it's just
there's just not much there. I mean it's a it's a lot of
ruins they found some really they they did some extensive
excavation up there. I'll show you a picture from I
think it's like the early 1920s of what the tell actually looked
like before they started doing their excavations and they just
I mean they found they found I think 20 different layers of
civilization on top of that tell but this is what it looks like
now and and of course they've they've pretty much gotten
everything out of there that they feel like they need to to
not really necessarily preserve anything else anymore.
But you can actually see if you look closely you can actually
see some of the some of the remains of the of the
foundations of the houses that were up there and some of those
other things there as well. So this was pretty interesting
one of I didn't. I was not.
I went to the top of it actually, and and I got some
really good pictures of the entire Roman ruins below it.
But a couple of the people that were in our group went to the
other side, which by the way, you can get a picture of how big
this is. I don't know if you can see
these or not, but you see where that little Bush is in the top
corner, Go over just a little bit.
There's two people standing over there on the top.
All right. I know it's very, very hard to
see, but it's sometimes it's hard to get a picture of just
how big or small something is unless you have something else
to compare it to. And if you can't see the people
that'll tell you how big that place actually is.
But a couple of the people in our group, instead of spending
anytime in the Roman ruins, went to the top and walked all the
way around and did a bunch of stuff at the top and they
actually found a Copperhead snake up at the top of that
thing. I was a as a long Copperhead
too. I think they said it was about 5
or 6 feet long and I got a picture of it and got out of
there is what they did. But anyway, very interesting.
So let's let's go to First Samuel then and look at First
Samuel 31. And we're just going to read
this whole story because if you've heard it before then
you'll semi know it. But if you reading it again kind
of kind of gives it to us in a little bit different light.
So the Bible says this in first name of 31 and verse #1.
And they now the Philistines fought against Israel and the
men of Israel fled from before the Philistines and fell down
slain in Mount Gilboa. All right, there's Mount Gilboa
over on the top left corner. And the Philistines followed
hard upon Saul, and upon his sons.
And the Philistines slew Jonathan and a Benedab, and Mel
Kishua saw sons, and the battle went sore against Saul, and The
Archers hit him, and he was sore wounded of The Archers.
Then said Saul unto his armor bear draw thy sword, and thrust
me through there with lest these uncircumcised come, and thrust
me through, and abused me. But his armor bear would not,
for he was sore afraid. Therefore Saul took a sword and
fell upon it. Now before we continue on this
is, you know, the Canaanites were one of the ones that were
known for being a very brutal people to their enemies and
catching, capturing a king, especially the king of the
nation of Israel. They hated God.
They hated, you know, because they because the the Israel did
not worship multiple gods the way these other others did.
They saw God do miracles. They knew that that Israel had
come in and we're overtaking all the land of the Canaanites,
right? So when when Saul is very
wounded, he knows he's not going to be able to make it.
He knows he's not going to be able to get very far on his own.
He says kill me because I don't know what they're going to do to
me and I don't. He didn't want to stick around
to find out. So he told his armor bearer
killed me. And his armor bearer said I'm
not. I'm not killing you.
And I don't blame him. I would.
I mean, you're killed the king, you know.
Oh, sure, he told you to kill him, right?
That's that's exactly why he would be afraid of killing the
king. The verse number six.
So Saul died and his three sons and his armor bearer and all his
men that same day together on the men of Israel that were on
the other side of the valley and they that were on the other
side. Jordan.
All right. Now, do you understand what
we're talking about? There's the Jordan Valley.
Beth Sheehan is in the Harrod Valley.
All right. All of those come together.
And there's Mount Gilboa. So picture what we're talking
about here. When the men of Israel that were
on the other side of the valley, and they that were on the other
side, Jordan saw that the men of Israel fled and that Saul and
his sons were dead. They forsook the cities and
fled. And the Philistines came and
dwelt in them. And it came to pass on the
Morrow when the Philistines came to strip the slain that they
found Saul and his three sons fallen in Mount Gilboa.
And they cut off his head, and stripped off his armor, and sent
into the land of the Philistines round about to publish it in the
House of their idols and among the people.
And they put his armor in the House of Ashtaroth, and they
fastened his body to the wall of Beth Shan.
And when the inhabitants of Jabesh Gilead heard of that
which the Philistines had done to Saul, all the valiant men
arose and went all night and took the body of Saul and the
bodies of his sons from the wall of Beth Shan and came to J Besh
and burnt them there. And they took their bones and
buried them under a tree at J Besh and fasted 7 days.
Now this is a really interesting story here now this is actually
Mount Gilboa. This is looking at Mount Gilboa
from the hill of Bethshi and where bodies where Saul's body
was taken. Now you saw how tall that hill
was and I'm going to show you a couple of close up pictures with
some people in there. It's a really, really tall hill.
And they have this, this, this massive fortification on the top
of that. For the men of J Besh Gilead to
go and take the bodies of Saul and his sons off of that wall
was a very, very dangerous thing, a very courageous thing,
because they could not stand to see and think about how far.
All right, think about how far you'd be able to see those
bodies hanging on that wall. It was such a disgrace to Saul.
It was such a disgrace to Israel.
And the men of J Besh Gilead said they were not going to
stand for it. And they went and took the
bodies off. Now there's Mount Gilboa on that
far side over there where that arrow was pointing.
And of course, there we're standing at the top of Beth
Sheehan and looking out over all those Roman ruins and everything
else. But you see the distance to
Mount Gilboa. I mean, anybody that was
standing on on Beth Sheehan would have been able to pretty
much see what was happening with the battle.
I mean, I know they would have been tiny specks, but you can
see armies moving and you can see a whole army running away.
You could see all of that happening from where that was.
And it's a decent distance from there.
But that's that's the mountain, Mountain Gilboa where Saul and
all of his sons fell, as the Bible says.
And what a, what a sad thing that was.
Now this is actually the city. And I, if I had to guess, I
would say that so the ancient city of Beth Shan, that's where
we're talking about. That tree up there marks the
spot where Saul's body was hung on the wall.
So you remember that? That drawing.
All right, let's go back to it real quick.
I know it's going to be right here.
All right. So where that little tree is
would have been right about where the gates to that city
was, which is why they would have hung his body there and why
it would have been pretty obvious to anybody looking at
it. And obviously, there's no blood,
there's no DNA evidence. There's nothing that says that
Saul's body was right there, other than the fact that they
would have hung him near the gates to the city.
And obviously if you're looking at that, you can see that right
about in that spot where that tree is, would have been where
they hung the bodies of Saul and his sons.
And where the men of J Besh Gilead would have come and taken
their bodies off of that wall, but that that little entrance
way that you see we've gone all the way up the front and right
about where that's at would have been pretty close to the city
gates we're at. So there's a little bit
different angle of that same place.
But you can see just how big that hill really is and how,
how, how courageous it must have been for those men of J Besh
Gilead to actually go all up there and take their bodies off
the wall. I mean, you know, I mean, I
don't know how Saul was head and shoulders above everybody else.
He wasn't a small guy, right? And to take his body off of that
wall and the bodies of his three sons and carry them away would
have been a pretty big undertaking.
And but they did it. They did it.
So we have a few things that that happened in the history of
Beth Sheehan. So David, when he rained from
10:10 to 970 BC, he conquered Beth Sheehan that became part of
Israel's territories. And so they they had it for a
time. And by the way, one of the one
of the things that that Bible critics have loved to hold on to
is that there's no evidence in the archaeological record for
King David. I mean as as as well known as
David is in the Bible, no evidence in the archaeological
record for King David. Well, in the last 10 years and
maybe even less, they have, they have found some some very
astonishing archaeological evidence for King David,
including where his palace is and including a lot of the other
things around that they they they're starting to find more
and more things that have King David's name mentioned in it.
And so all of these Bible critics that have said for so
long that no, there's that, you know, the King David is just a
made-up story. You know, it's it's just an
Israel folklore, whatever they want to call it.
They're finding more and more evidence for King David actually
being a real person and a real king and being as powerful as
the Bible says that he is. But David rain there and he
conquered Beth Sheehan then in 732 BC.
What happened in 786 BC, you remember?
So this is 732, obviously, we're counting down 786 BC was what?
I'm sorry, not 780-6586 BC, 586 BC, right?
Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonians.
The temple was destroyed, right? And obviously it was rebuilt and
it was destroyed again in 70 AD. But here we are, we're counting
down toward that time. So in 732, the Assyrian king
take take a laugh Pleaser destroyed Beth Sheehan after
defeating the northern Kingdom of Israel.
Remember you have a northern Kingdom and you had a southern
Kingdom. They they split right, the
divided Kingdom, the north and the South.
Which one followed God mostly Judah, which was the South,
right? The two tribes, only two tribes
that actually followed him, 10 tribes in the north that went
off after other gods and everything else and really
didn't want anything to do with God.
And then you had the the two tribes in the South and they
lasted for just a little bit longer but that's that's right
around the time when Israel was destroyed.
Now in the 4th century BC, Hellenistic or the Greek new
settlers established a steady state in Beth Shian and during
that period that's when the city was named Psychopolis and and on
and technically the city is still called Psychopolis today,
even though it's not really you know nobody lives there but then
in 63 BC, so now we're now we're getting closer to the time of
Christ, right, 63 BC. So we're only we're just a few
decades really away from when Christ is coming.
But in 63 BC, the city was conquered by the Romans and
became one of the cities of the Decapilis.
Now that's an interesting thing as well.
Let's, let's go look at Mark chapter 5.
Turn over to Mark chapter 5, and let me let me give you this.
I'll show you, I'll show you this little map here.
But Beth Sheehan became an important city when Rome ruled
Israel, and it was the capital of the Decapilis in Jesus's day.
Mark chapter 5 and verse #20. And he departed and began to
publish in the capitalist how great things Jesus had done for
him, and all men did marvel. Now the capitalist is the name
that was given in the Bible by the ancient writers to a region
in Palestine. That was that that that was
lying to the to the South of the Sea of Galilee.
And it took its name from the confederation of the 10 cities,
Deca right, The capitalist, the confederation of the 10 cities
that dominated its extent. So the de capitalist in the New
Testament, it's actually referred to in the New Testament
3 different times. One of them we just read in Mark
chapter 5 and verse 20, but it's also mentioned in Matthew 4 and
in Mark Chapter 7, the de capitalist.
And and maybe you know about it, maybe you've maybe you remember
reading it, maybe you don't. But this Beth Sheehan was the
capital of the de capitalist. It was a very, very important
city. And obviously the fact that it's
still there after all of these years just kind of goes to show
you how big it actually was. That's a reconstructive drawing
of the Roman city, the Roman city of Beth Sheehan, All right.
It's an old, the old Philistine Canaanite city is on the hill in
the background. And you can kind of see that
that would have been where the gods were and everything by that
time. It was obviously well past
destroyed. I mean, when it was actually
when Saul was there would have been about 1000 BC.
So by the time Rome took it over, we're talking almost 1000
years later. So the the, the city as we know
Beth Sheehan in the Bible was not the Beth Sheehan of the
Bible by that point. It still was.
But but you know, not a lot of things that we have in the Bible
after that after King David took it and David didn't really do
anything with with Beth Sheehan. But there's a reconstructive
drawing and you're going to see some of these.
Try to try to put that away in your memory a little bit if you
can. This is actually what we see at
Beth Sheehan. There's a reconstructive model
of Beth Sheehan. And it's actually, I think it's,
I don't know if it's bronze or what it's made out of, but they
actually have this this really big, this really big model there
at Beth Sheehan. And so where the arrow is,
that's the original city that's on the hill in the background
and oh man, I ruined it. There we go.
All right, So there's there's a reconstructive model of it, just
from a little bit different angle.
I'm going to point some of these things out to you.
You'll see them a little bit closer up, but but just kind of
keep an eye on, keep this in the back of your mind.
So there's the, the, this is the Roman amphitheater.
This is the Roman theater, OK. There's a way that you can tell
the difference between an amphitheater and a theater.
What's the difference? Yeah, an amphitheater goes all
the way around. The theater does not, right.
So the amphitheater is on the is over here and honestly you you
have to drive to get to that. And I mean it's it's a decent
walk, but drive driving in and the entrance and all that stuff.
Then you come to the theater and then you have the Cardo Maximus,
which we're going to show you in just a little bit and then you
have that big hill. So that's a reconstructive
drawing of it that that area right there is pretty much what
you see when you're. And so.
So if you were to follow this street down there's your hill
all right the the far left side is the hill that was the
original Canaanite city of the capitalist and all of that
stuff. All right.
So we'll continue on with this and let me let me show you this
as well. I'm going to zoom in and and
give you a little bit more of this but there's the tell Valley
Street runs through there. Palatius Street is actually the
Cardinal Maximus and it's, it's all of this has been
reconstructed. When they found Beth Sheehan,
there was one pillar standing. Now there's there's hundreds of
maybe not hundreds but a lot of pillars that are standing.
Now all of the pillars that they've used for the
reconstruction have been found there at Beth Sheehan.
So they are, they are pillars that were there.
I mean, it's like taking this massive, you know, tons and tons
and tons and tons of pieces of puzzle and putting them all
together, which is what they've done because there was an
earthquake that destroyed this. And I'll show you some of the
pictures of that. It's still very, very evident
that there was an earthquake there that destroyed everything.
But down in the kind of the bottom corner, you see the
theater, Pilatia Street is the Cardinal Maximus.
I'm going to show you Sylvanus St. because that's actually
where a lot of the shops and, you know, all of that stuff was.
And and that's a lot of that is reconstructed as well.
So if you're standing on the top of that tail and and if you're
standing with the tail behind you, Mount Gilboa is is over
here on this side. All right.
Just to kind of try to put it into perspective for you a
little bit. Now here's what the hill
Israel's done an excellent job of of uncovering and preserving
those ruins. And I mean it it's such they've
done such a good job of that and and reconstructing a lot of the
things. So Sylvanus Street is the one
that runs this way. Palladia Street or the Cardo
Maximus is the one that runs this way.
And I'll show you a little bit closer up of those in just a
minute. That's what the hill actually
looked like in 1922 before the archaeological work began.
I mean, think about, I mean, you see, you can see how much dirt
is stacked on top of all right. And I can't say 100% for sure,
but somewhere right in this area right here is about where the
top of that tail is today. So I mean, think about the work
that it took them to get just to the layers where they're at now.
And then there's layers and layers and layers underneath
that as well. So pretty amazing thing.
But the biblical tell of Beth Sheehan has around 20 layers of
civilization that have been discovered.
And what they do in a lot of these places, actually, because
if you'll uncover a layer of civilization to get to the
bottom layer, essentially you destroy the layer that's above
it, right? You can't keep all 20 layers.
So what they'll do a lot of times is they'll take a piece of
pie essentially and take one whole slice out so you can see
all the different layers of civilization and they'll try to
get in there and get as much of it as they can out there.
But there's probably, you know, I wouldn't say billions but
probably millions and millions and millions of dollars worth of
artifacts that are that are buried in these hills that they
just can't get to without destroying everything.
So and and probably lots of archaeological evidence too that
they can't get to without destroying everything.
So it's a it's it's kind of, I guess maybe you could say like a
catch 22, you know, how do you know when to stop and and how do
you know if there's a layer underneath of it that's more
valuable than the layer that's above it?
And but in Beth Sheehan there, they found about 20 layers of
civilization. Now this is an interesting thing
as well. Beth Sheehan was not far from
Nazareth. And it's very likely that Jesus
as a young man, worked there in Beth Sheehan with his father.
It's not. He was a Carpenter and the
Romans were the ones that ruled the world.
And Beth Sheehan was a big city, a big Roman city, right.
You know at Nazareth was very very small.
I'm going to show you all pictures of Nazareth and
everything else. Do you remember how many people
I said were about were in Nazareth about 400 people.
Nazareth was a small place right.
So to be able to go and do your work in a big Roman city that
was bustling and and and had people doing stuff.
It was not far for Jesus to walk from Beth Sheehan to Nazareth
that was only a few miles. So very undoubtedly Christ
ministered here. He walked by it on a regular
basis and and what have you know it's it's just so interesting to
think that Jesus was probably there that he walked down the
Cardo Maximus. I don't know did he go up to the
top of Beth Sheehan when he was a kid when you know his dad
would go do some work there and he was visiting and go go play
on the hill. You know who knows.
I don't know what happened but it's it's interesting to think
about it because very likely Jesus would have been there and
would have done some work there with his father Beth Sheehan.
That's Beth Sheehan today with the Roman ruins exposed in the
foreground, the Canaanite city up there on the hill.
And you can kind of see that that's a pretty good picture
actually of of what's exposed on the top of the of the on the top
of the hill today. But this is the Roman city.
It's on the plane, the Canaanite Palestine, Philistine city,
sorry, was up there on the hill. And again world class
archaeological digs that they've done there, Beth Beth Sheehan
and Ancessory and Meritima, which I'm going to show you a
bunch of pictures from Cesory and Meritima as well.
Some of the most extensive archaeological discoveries in
both of those places that really have uncovered exactly what life
would have been like really during the time of Christ.
But then obviously following after that and even into the 1st
century with this churches and and everything else but this was
this is, this is, this is an unparalleled look at Roman
culture during the time of Christ.
And to to actually be able to see Beth Sheehan in the way that
it is. Now, obviously it has biblical
value because Beth Sheehan is mentioned in the Bible.
But even more than that just would have been there and he
would have been around that. And that's that's the culture,
the Roman culture that he would have grown up around.
Now obviously he was Jewish and he would have been Jewish, you
know, had had Jewish culture that was the religious side of
things. The Romans were the ones that
ended up allowing Jesus to be crucified, right.
The Romans were the ones who crucified him.
And so the fact that all roads lead to Rome made it possible
that the gospel was very easily able to be spread from where
Jesus was at there. And you know, just the fact that
Rome ruled the entire world, the known world at that time, made
it possible for the gospel to be able to get out in a language
that people understood. And and I mean there was there,
there was no better time in history for Jesus to have come.
And obviously that's looking at it from human standpoint.
He's God, he knows. But if you look at it from human
standpoint, the way the Romans ruled the world, there was no
better time in history that Jesus could have come than when
he did. And actually, so let me back up
and just show you this is the entire Roman ruins are most of
the Roman ruins that are exposed that you can actually get to
with that hill in the background there.
And there's the Cardinal Maximus.
The Cardinal Maximus would have been the bustling busy middle
St., where everything was at and where where a lot of the the
work was done, if you will, of of buying and selling and all of
that stuff. And so there's there's a picture
of it as well. Like I said, none of those
pillars were left standing. All of those have been
reconstructed, but they've all been reconstructed from what was
there. And so I mean, could you imagine
putting a putting a puzzle together that's that heavy,
right? I mean you get it all the way up
there and you're like stink. That's the wrong one, take it
back down, the bottom piece is wrong, you know.
Right. But that's the way they do it.
And there's I mean this it's it's hard to see.
I'm gonna. I'm gonna show you some pictures
with people in it. Actually there is a person in
that one this there's a person standing right here.
I don't know if you can see him but it just it's just it's it's
very very very big compared to what you what you know what you
might be thinking and pretty interesting there.
There's the Cardinal Maximus. And all of that would have been
for the most part covered. And I showed you the drawing of
that of the reconstructive drawing and then the
reconstructed model of that as well.
But pretty interesting as well. Okay.
There's there's people on the street there that was our group
and that and that just kind of gives you a picture of how tall
these things actually are. There's a person kind of
standing a little bit farther back and you can see how tall
the pillars are. Very, very impressive.
This is at the end of the street.
There's the the tail in the background.
But art streets they they had you know they were very much
more sophisticated than we give them credit for a lot of times.
We think we're the smartest generation that's ever lived and
we've got some pretty good technology but they had some
great technology as well. That's why that's the original
Roman roads are still there in a lot of places.
That's one thing that they did very well at.
But they had those arch roads let the water run off and
drainage and everything else and they actually had drainage even
running down the middle of the street and everything else.
So, but but you can just get a picture of how big that place
really is that that might be a better picture of the of the
size of it as well. There you go.
There's a picture of it from the top.
I don't know. Well, there's a person standing
all the way in the back corner. It's just a little dot.
You probably can't see it unless you're up here but in the
background. And I'm going to show you this
in just a second. But in the background is the
Roman theater. All right.
And then in the foreground right here and I'm going to point
point this to you, they they've been doing a lot more excavation
on that in recent years and that's actually the temple, the
the the temple that they used to worship there in the, I mean
it's it was right there in the main center where everything
happened. And again that's what they
that's what they did. So Mount Gilboa, it's just out
of sight, but it would have been right over there behind us.
And and so a lot of what they've done with some of these places
to preserve them and to keep them from disintegrating any
further A lot of these areas right here you see the the roofs
on those, they've put those on there because inside there's a
lot of mosaic flooring and things like that and it's all
exposed to the weather. And if you just leave it exposed
to the weather, it just disintegrates and and goes away.
And so to keep that from happening some of those places
and that's why I say that Israel has done a world class job in
the archaeology in this place. There's no, there's almost no
better place that you could go unless you get into Greece and
you know some of those areas and Rome obviously to see Roman
ruins. Then if you're going to see
Roman ruins in Israel here and Cesare and Maritima.
But I would say here is even better preserved than than what
they've done in Cesare and Maritima.
But but just amazing the work that they've done.
And I apologize this video is kind of fast but this will give
you a bit an overview of what everything looks like and how
big it actually is. There's people walking all over
the place down there. They're just so small you really
can't see them. This is the top of the hill
where the Canaanite city would have been.
And right here then is where they would have kind of taken
their slice out. You see that to be able to see
and expose all of the civilizations that are
underneath and actually kind of where we're walking down those
stairs is, you know, it was a perfect place for them to put
the stairs because that's kind of where their slice was taken
out for them to do all these excavations and figure out that
there was actually 20 different civilizations that were on that
hill. Mount Gilboa is right there,
just just to the right. It's right there.
And now it's gone. But that's Mount Gilboa.
There it is again. Take that back.
That's Mount Gilboa, the one on the far side over there.
But you can get a picture of just how big and how massive
this city would have been. And no wonder it was the capital
of the Decapilis, right. There we go.
Now, Roman Beth Sheehan was dedicated to Taiki, who was the
goddess of good fortune. Now this is pretty interesting
as well. Obviously a lot of those places,
most of them did not. Most of them did not believe in
God as the one true God and and even Paul, right Paul delivered
his sermon on Mars Hill to the unknown God.
They they wanted to make sure they covered all of them and so
they they just had an idol to the unknown God right?
An inscription to make sure they covered them all.
But Roman Beth Sheehan was dedicated to Tyke who is the
goddess of good fortune. There's a mosaic from a floor in
Beth Sheehan and actually that's just a reconstruction of it.
They they knew what it looked like from from drawings and and
pictures and things like that. But the original was actually
stolen. How you steal a floor, I don't
know. But that's that's a
reconstruction of it. And so they've got that in
there, that's the mosaic and backed out even more.
That's actually what it looked like.
So where I where I pointed out to you those little those little
coverings that are over those little rooms that would have
been that's in one of those rooms and that's what the
flooring would have looked like. So I think, I think everything
around that centerpiece is actually original.
The centerpiece in the middle was stolen somewhere along the
line and they so they had to they had to redo it.
But lots of different other and I'm just taking a step back real
quick but lots of different other mosaics that are just, I
mean as, as plain as can be and and beautiful beautiful mosaics
of what they did. You know what they had going on
and different things like that. Lots of them that are still
left. And most of those not
reconstructed their original There's a mosaic of a river
scene from a Roman home that was identified as belonging to
Leontis. I I don't know who that is, but
the fact that they're able to figure out that these belong to
certain people, but but to go back then Taiki was one of the
mother goddesses and this is actually very interesting
because she had a male child. Does that sound similar to
anything that that we know about And of course then that was the
devil's attempt to rob Jesus of his uniqueness.
Oh Jesus that you know a mother with a with a child who was a
God and everything else. That's not that's not uncommon.
Right. And so the the interesting thing
though is that's that's really exactly what mother goddess
worship was the basis for Rome's Madonna if you will Tyke and
Mary. I mean, they're the they're,
they're very, very similar. And obviously Rome, Roman
Catholicism did not come around until the really the late three
hundreds, the four hundreds. Who Who was the father of Roman
Catholicism? You know, Constantine, right?
He converted to Christianity, made Christianity the official
religion in the late three hundreds.
What do we know from 500 to 1500 AD?
It's the Dark Ages, right? I mean that is when the Catholic
Church had a stranglehold on everything.
So it didn't take long for that to happen.
But this Taiki was here well before Mary came along and and
you know the Catholic Church and all of that stuff.
Here's the ruins of the temple. I pointed those out to you.
But this is some of the close up ruins of the temple there at
Beth Sheehan. There's not much of it left and
but that would have been the the the Roman ruins of the temple to
Taiki and the the goddess with a with a son that's Dionysus he
was he was well known as well and just some of these different
I mean you can you can just see how ornate and how lavish
everything was there just the fact that you know these were on
the tops of columns and things like that in in that area and
very very much you know that's you know the the Taiki was the
goddess of good fortune right. I mean, it was all about money
and wealth and and and just lavish, you know, opulence and
everything else. That's what Rome was all about,
especially at Beth Sheehan. But there's some idols of bail
that they found at Beth Sheehan. You hear about bail all the
time. There's lots of different
depictions of bail. Sometimes you'll see him as a as
a bull, but when you see bail as a human, this is this about what
he looks like. I mean those would have been
individual like gods that somebody had in their house that
they would have worshiped, you know, the big bull and
everything else that they worshiped at, you know, in their
temples. And all of those things would
have been much, much bigger than that.
And and as to my knowledge, I don't think there's any of those
that that still exist, but a lot of these would have been small
personal idols. Remember the story of Laban,
Right. And he couldn't find his idols.
Where's my idols? Well, there's, I mean they're
they're small. They're not.
They're not these big, massive, you know, everybody's carrying
around a big Buddha statue and Rebecca's sitting on it, and
it's obvious that there's some big thing underneath of her,
right? It's not that.
I mean, they were small. They were pretty small for the
most part. And so there's the Hippodrome
that's actually part of that whole model that they've done,
that they had. But they did chariot races,
other sporting events There. I pointed this out to you as
well. But there, everything in the
background is what we were just looking at.
There's the the tell, and then there's the theater, which we'll
talk about in a minute. All of that Cardinal Maximus and
everything else is all right there in that little section in
the top center. So it just goes to show you how
big this place really was when Rome was rolling, right?
And there's the Hippodrome. And and I'll show you there's
some ruins of that Hippodrome I mean but the fact that that that
place as small as that looks on there that chariot races they
had all kinds of different things.
They're just goes to show you how big and how massive this
place really was. There's there's what it looks
like from the air. That's a bus sitting in the in
the on the little road right there just to kind of give you a
picture of how big it is. See that there's there's some
pictures of it from the inside just to kind of give you an idea
But then they also had a 4000 seat theater that was that was a
massive, massive theater for especially for that day but a
4000 seat theater that was used for speeches, trials, plays,
gladiatorial contest mostly. Mostly it was used for the
speeches in the in the trials, the plays and that kind of
stuff. But there's a pretty good
picture of the whole thing from the air.
But they've, they've done a masterful job again of
reconstructing this entire thing.
So this is the, this is the theater right here.
Obviously in the background you have the tell and where you see
all those columns and everything else is where we were at when we
were looking at the Cardo Maximus.
And there's people on there and they just look like little dots.
I mean this, this place is very, very big and again, very opulent
and that's that's what they were going for.
That's what they wanted. A part of the stage has been
rebuilt and and actually they still do, they still do concerts
and things like that there, you know, so people can actually
kind of get the feel of what maybe it would have been like
during that time. But that acted as a sounding
board to project the voices toward the audience.
And if you remember looking at the picture, it was, it was as
tall as those columns. That's how big the back of it
was. So it would very easily have
acted as a sounding board. Everything would have bounced
off and the people would have been very easily able to hear
they didn't have microphones and all this stuff back then, right.
But the way they designed these things was just the acoustically
perfect, basically. And so that that would have been
one of the entrances in there. Now here's an interesting thing,
you see this little the little side right there, the little
room. Now, now this is, this is
something that is semicontroversial.
Some people say it's real. Some people say, Nah, it didn't
really happen. But either way our guide said it
was true and and you know, of course he was he was the expert,
but he but, but it's called a vomitorium.
And what these what these guys would do, these Romans were so
gluttonous that they would fill themselves so full of food that
by the time they would, you know, and they would and they
would just keep eating and eating and eating and eating
until they could not shove anything else in.
And on their way into the theater, they would stop inside
that room and vomit. It was a vomitorium.
And then they would go sit down and watch the theater, you know,
and they would do that. They would they would do that
beforehand because you have these gladiatorial contests
where people are getting killed and stabbed and blood everywhere
and animals tearing people apart and all of that kind of stuff.
I mean, you know, so they had a vomit orium where they could
step out if they needed to and go and throw up, but they would
eat so much food that they just could not actually fit anything
else in there. And then they would vomit all of
it. They had a vomit oriums, I mean,
tells you the kind of people that they were.
But there there's a picture of we're standing on the stage here
looking at this auditor at this theater, and it would have been
a couple stories higher than that as well, with extra seating
above that and everything else, enough to fit 4000 people.
But this is pretty interesting. The flat performance area was
called the orchestra, and orchestra literally means
dancing place. That would have all been done
down there. Here's another couple
interesting. There's a there's kind of a
picture of the whole thing and really kind of brings it all all
together in one place. Different different arches and
all of that kind of stuff. You can see where it would have
had different stories and everything else.
Just a beautiful, beautiful, very, very big place.
But the place where the people sat was called the Theatron, the
seeing place or the auditorium, which would be the hearing
place, all right. And we have auditoriums now,
right. And that's what they're for.
They're for hearing. Obviously the hearing place now,
this is this is pretty interesting as well, more the
seating. And again, so this would have
been the seating would have been probably another layer or two
above that, enough for 4000 people there.
But a person received their seat based on their social status.
And the closer the seat, the more noble the person was that
was sitting there. And so for very important
people, the name might be inscribed into the stone.
They've found names inscribed in stones on some of the closer up
seats with people whose names they recognize, which means they
were somebody, if you will, in history and they had their own
seat. So the closer you got to sit,
the more important you were. And there's some evidence of
that right there. Everybody else got to sit in the
bleachers. They got to sit in the those
comfortable stone seats right there.
So there's Beth Sheehan. They had a large, large room in
bath houses as well. That's part of that same model,
that whole massive complex that I showed you earlier.
There's some more of it. This is pretty neat.
They had hot, warm and cold water rooms.
So the hot room was a Calderium, the warm room was a tepidarium,
and the cold room was a frigidarium.
And yeah, could you imagine what that must have been like?
But this is pretty neat and you wanna talk about technology,
especially in a day when we don't think a whole lot about
them having technology. But the heating system was
called a hypo cost and it was used to heat those public bath
houses as well as the palaces. You know, these kings were not
sitting in there in their chambers freezing to death at
night. You know, they had obviously had
plenty of servants that were able to do those things, but
Harrod had those at all of his palaces.
And and again, Harrod, I I don't, I can't say for sure that
Harrod designed these things, but Harrod was very, very well
known for his design and his ability to come up with this
kind of stuff. Harrod had him in all of his
palaces. This is actually a reconstructed
version of it, but I'll show you a little diagram.
That's what it actually looked like before they started doing
the reconstruction. That those are actual.
That was what was there that was.
That's what they found when they started doing their
archaeological digs. But this is what it looks like.
So the hot air is from a furnace that was stoked by slaves.
It was drawn into those open spaces under the floor.
And here we think we're smart because we have heated floors,
right? And oh, you got your fancy
houses. The fanciest houses have heated
floors in them. Well, guess what?
They had this 2000 years ago in Rome.
I mean, maybe not the exact same type, but that's what it was.
So these little small columns wouldn't be made out of tiles or
cement. They would hold the floor up.
But then all of that hot air would come in from that furnace
and that whole thing would be nothing but a hot air chamber.
And then of course, heat rises, comes up through that floor and
the room stays warm. That was that's how they would
keep a room warm. That's how they would heat the
water in these hot area, you know, hot air areas and or
sorry, hot water areas. But that's how they do it.
These small columns made out of those tiles of cement so they're
part of the thick floor can be seen above the hot air space.
Below there's the tile floor that's above it.
There's the hot air spaces underneath the vent.
And of course, all those are reconstructed to just kind of
give you an idea of what it looks like.
This is, again, it's a, it's a partial reconstruction, but this
is Harrods Palace at Masada. I mean that was the 1:00 we we
looked at that, but that's the one that was on the top of that,
that giant hill, you know, and where all those Jewish soldiers
and and people died. But this is a kind of a a model
of it there, if you will. But heat was drawn up through
the walls and the gases were exhausted through pipes or
hollow bricks. I mean talk about technology,
it's amazing what they had back then and and you know what we
think. But then adding a pool of water
in a hot room created a song or a steam bath.
So you had your hot water and that's how they would, that's
how they would heat their their baths.
And of course being the king or especially being somebody that's
wealthy, you had plenty of people that would go heat that
water for you. And you know, of course they had
these giant bath houses and everything else and you know
public bath houses and everything else, but that's
that's how they would do it. So Sheehan had multiple, had had
multiple seat public toilets and they, the toilet surrounded a
courtyard that was paved with mosaics.
Beautiful place if you want to, you know, if you want to go
where everybody else is. But actually that's what it
looked like. All of those are toilets all,
all around the outside of the edge of that building.
And not, not my idea of what I'd want to do, but that's that was
a public toilet there. And this is actually the
drainage system for those public toilets.
And I was right outside that. So all those toilets would have
been in there and and that's where everything would have
drained out. So more, more power to them, I
guess. But they also found the remains
of a glass factory that were there, uncovered intact.
And the bottles and the wine glasses were stocked and ready
for sale when the earthquake hit, which I'll I'll tell you
about just a second as we kind of bring it to a close here.
They had window panes that were ready for sale.
I mean you don't think about that but I mean they had they
had they had technology and I really think and and I anyway I
just said it but from 500 to 1500 was the dark ages.
It was not just the dark ages for religion.
It was the dark ages for everything.
Everything, everything went hundreds of years backwards.
When when the Catholic Church took over people had no
motivation for anything. People didn't know how to do a
lot of things other than be servants and, you know, and just
just work their farms and whatever else.
And you had your really high upper class and you had your
really low class and there was very little middle class.
And that's why the Renaissance was the rebirth and learning.
I mean, people had to learn how to read and write and do all
those other things again, right? It was the Dark Ages.
And so a lot of this technology, if you will, I think was kind of
lost for a lot of that time, which is why a lot of times in
our mind, we think they were stupid.
They didn't know anything. They were very advanced,
especially the Romans with a lot of the things that they did.
And I and I think even even a lot of things that have been
designed recently have kind of been designed off of at least
semi patterned after Roman designs and things like that
too. Not not a lot, but there's some
funerary busts of of likenesses of the dead that were found in
Roman tombs of Beth Sheehan. And then as I've mentioned a
couple times, in 749, an earthquake destroyed the city
and it was, it was not rebuilt. It says BC, it was not BC, it
was ad but evidence of the earthquake.
You can see it everywhere and again.
So all of those columns that you saw that were standing were all
taken pieces like this reconstructed and stood back up
based on what they think it would have looked like based on,
you know, where they fell and everything else.
I mean, it was not, you know, an earthquake hits and knocks
everything over. They can't just go out there and
stand it all back up in a day. So they essentially just
abandoned the city. It wasn't worth it for them to
do that rebuilding. So you can see evidence of it
everywhere, all these massive, massive columns that are just
laying down there and pretty much, pretty much.
So there's the Cardinal Maximus in the back in the background
there. A lot of these are are just the
the remnants of what's left of the very ornately carved stone
that would have been at the top of a lot of these pillars.
And as we close here it's just a few pictures here that's that's
again, that was a very, very wicked place and that center was
for prostitution and all kinds of other things.
And that was in the dead center of the city.
That's where a lot of those mosaics were at.
And you can see the little roofs on there and things and of
course they would have had roofs back then they don't now but
they've put that on there to preserve it.
And what we're what you're seeing right here in the
foreground is actually the Cardal Maximus.
I mean, that's right there on the Main Street and just a
wicked, wicked place. But that's what the whole Roman
culture, if you will, was all about.
Wickedness, money, power, wealth, opulence.
That's why they love their theater and their hippodromes
and their games and all of that other stuff.
But there's just some of the ruins that are left.
Now, this is Sylvanus Street. I mentioned that if you look in
the background to the right, you can see the other pillars behind
it. That's actually the Cardinal
Maximus. So you come down to the end and
you turn this way and you can see how they've kind of
reconstructed some of this. But that would have all been
like shops and places where you could buy and sell and all of
those things. And so that again, they've done
the same type of thing with the reconstruction there.
There's some people in there that'll kind of give you an idea
maybe of how big a lot of this stuff was.
A lot of these things actually had basements underneath them
and so they would had a room above.
You could have gone down underneath and that's where a
lot of the parties and things like that would have happened
because of the, you know, the temperature and and just, you
know, the men love darkness rather than light because their
deeds are evil. There's Sylvania St. as well.
That's that's kind of the other end.
If you look down at the far corner, that's what we were just
looking at to see where all the shops and everything were, but
just a massive, massive, massive place, columns laying down all
over the place because of that earthquake and there we go.
So, so this just, that's the last one and just kind of give
you an idea again of what everything looks like.
Palladia Street is the Cardo Maximus Savannah St. is where we
turned and what we were just looking at.
There's the what the bath house is over there and again they've
got that all completely covered to to protect what's left.
Valley Street runs out because that's the way out of the city
there. The theater, you can see that in
the front, the Hippodrome would have been, you know probably a
whole slide again over. And then at the other end of
that and then there's the tell Beth Sheehan.
And so it's not mentioned a ton of times in the Bible, but one
of the, one of the one of the more prominent stories that we
have is Beth Sheehan is very, very prominent in that story
with Saul and his son's being hung on that wall.
The men of J Bish Gillian and God blessed them for that, by
the way. But the men of J Bsh Gillia that
went in there and took the bodies of Saul and his sons off
the wall and said, you're not going to let.
We're not going to leave. You're not going to have my king
hanging on that wall. And they went and got it.
Yes. You know, I didn't.
I haven't. I didn't look it up.
Yeah. Yeah.
It does say they traveled all night.
I don't know. I could make up something and
tell you, but I don't know. I'll look it on the map.
I'll see if I can find it on there.
And we'll look at that. But yeah, I I don't know the
answer to that question, but it's a good one.
All right, Very good. Let's pray.
And then we'll sing our song. And then we'll be done.
Father, we love you. Give me thank you for your
goodness to us. Thank you for an opportunity.
We have to look into these things and see how exciting the
Bible really can be and and how much the Bible can come alive.
And I pray that you'd help, that this would be a help to us as we
study and read your Word. I pray that you give us a
greater hunger for your word and God.
I pray that these things would help us as we study the Bible to
give us greater insight into just exactly what you wanted us
to know and what you wanted us to see as we read it.
Thank you again for all that you do for us.
In Jesus name. Amen.
Gwen. Stan.
We'll close in our song. This could be the day that.