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Comment: This is a slide show of sights from around Israel taken during our summer 2000 visit.

These next few shots are taken from a place called the Biblical Gardens, a mini biblical theme park in Ein Karem just outside Jerusalem. In this picture we see a miniature of a city gate which functioned not only to let people in and out of the city but also as a place of assembly where the "elders at the gate" would meet (cf. Deuteronomy 25:7, Ruth 4:11, Psalms 69:12, Jeremiah 39:3). The gate was where the important people sat, not lowly guards. It is interesting to do a search for "gate" in the book of Esther (occurs 11 times) and see what it indicates about Mordecai's status.
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11/5/05 5:05 PM
This is a crane for lifting heavy rocks in quarries or on construction sites. You can see the rock in the lower left. In this park they also demonstrated how the rocks were quarried. Unfortunately our pictures of that didn't turn out but the method was to chisel out some of the rock and hammer in wooden planks or stakes. They would then wet the stakes which would expand and slowly split the rock. Eventually they would be able to pull out a block like the one pictured here.

These are our children, Esther and Daniel, peeking out of a model tomb. At the time Esther was 2 1/2 and Daniel had just turned 4.

Here's a shot of Daniel coming out of the model tomb. My sense from the Garden Tomb is that this model is about half size.

This is Esther in the same pose.

This is what I call an Abraham tent. This shot is a bit dark but these tents would generally have one wall that could open up wide like you see here. They would pitch them facing the east which was regarded as forward (the south was regarded as to the right and the north left with west behind or towards the sea). Pitching the tent toward the east allowed them to open the front side and catch the morning rays to warm up after the cold night. Then as the day progressed and grew hotter the interior of the tent would be shaded by the back and side walls. The Tabernacle in the wilderness also opened to the east and the most important people, Moses, Aaron and his son's, camped in front of the Tabernacle on the east side (cf. Numbers 3:38).
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© Charles Grebe
This slide show is dedicated to my mother who made possible our summer 2000 visit to Israel.