Acts 16:6 – 18:18
In October of 2018 my son James and I traveled to Greece to follow part of the Apostle Paul’s Second Missionary Journey. We picked up Paul’s trail in Neapolis (I will be using the Biblical names) in what is now northeastern Greece. Like Paul, we also visited Philippi, Amphipolis, Thessalonica, Berea, Athens, Corinth, and Cenchreae. We had a wonderful time together in Greece. We got to see a lot of wonderful sights, a good many of them were sights which Paul would have seen as well. I learned a great deal about Paul’s first trip into Europe and over the next two or three weeks I would like to share some of that with you. Come, travel with Paul and me through ancient Greece.
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Read: Exodus 47 (www.biblestudytools.com/nrs/exodus/47.html)
Sing: God Be with You till We Meet Again, UMH 672 Though the three Great Pyramids are the most famous and prominent monuments at Giza, the site has actually been a Necropolis almost since the beginning of dynastic Egypt. A tomb just on the outskirts of the Giza site dates from the reign of the 1st Dynasty Pharaoh Wadj, and jar sealings discovered in a tomb in the southern part of Giza mention the 2nd Dynasty Pharaoh Ninetjer. But it was the 4th Dynasty Pharaoh Khufu who placed Giza forever at the heart of funerary devotion, a city of the dead that dwarfed the cities of the living nearby. The advantages of Giza for a burial site are numerous, and it is fairly easy to see why it was chosen. It is high and flat ground overlooking everything. Any monument placed there would be seen from far away, especially if traveling via the Nile. It also has a ready supply of limestone on-site, eliminating the need to transport the blocks over a protracted distance. Since around the 5th Century BC, and up until recently, stone from the monuments were taken and used to build buildings in nearby Cairo. First the polished white limestone "casing" was taken, then the softer core stones. Many of Cairo's oldest buildings are built partly from stones from the pyramids. This destruction continued well into the 19th Century until preservation efforts and a resurgence of national pride put a stop to it. The Great Pyramids There are no more famous ancient sites within Egypt, or for that matter elsewhere in the world, than the Great Pyramids at Giza. They are, without question, the icon most associated with Egypt. They have been both the main destination for tourists, and a source of imaginative thought to the world for over three thousand years. How the Great Pyramid of Khufu was built is a question that may never be answered. Herodotus said that it would have taken 30 years and 100,000 slaves to build it. Another theory is that it was built by peasants who were unable to work the land while the Nile flooded between July and November. They may have been paid with food for their labor. The flooding waters would have also aided in moving the casing stones. These stones were brought from Aswan and Tura and the rising water would have brought the stones right to the pyramid. The Great Pyramid is thought to have been built between 2589 - 2566 BC. There were over 2,300,000 blocks of stone with an average weight of 2.5 tons each. The total weight would have been 12 billion pounds and a height of 482 feet. It is the largest and the oldest of the Pyramids of Giza. The encasing marble which covered the outside of the pyramid has eroded or been removed over time. With this casing off, the pyramid lost 33 feet off all of its dimensions. The top platform today is over 1,000 square feet. The base of the pyramid is 754 feet square and covers 13 acres. We only got to spend about twenty minutes of free time at the base of the Great Pyramid. That allowed us to climb up to where some folks were entering the pyramid. We also got to go look at the West and East sides and take a few photos. We did not stop at the other two pyramids but went up to a place above all three where we could get some good photos or ride a camel. The Great Sphinx In a depression to the southwest of Khufu's pyramid sits a creature with a human head and a lion's body. The name 'sphinx' which means 'strangler' was first given by the Greeks to a fabulous creature which had the head of a woman and the body of a lion and the wings of a bird. The sphinx appears to have started in Egypt in the form of a sun god. The Egyptian sphinx is usually the head of a king wearing his headdress and the body of a lion. There are, however, sphinxes with ram heads that are associated with the God Amun. The Great Sphinx is to the northeast of Khafre's Valley Temple. Where it sits was once a quarry. Khafre's workers shaped the stone into the lion and gave it their king's face over 4,500 years ago. The sphinx faces the rising sun with a temple to the front which resembles the sun temples which were built later by the pharaohs of the 5th Dynasty. The figure was buried in the sand for most of its life. Pharaoh Thutmose IV (1425 - 1417 BC) placed a stela between the front paws of the figure. It describes when Thutmose, while still a prince, had gone hunting and fell asleep in the shade of the sphinx. During a dream, the sphinx spoke to Thutmose and told him to clear away the sand because it was choking the sphinx. The sphinx told him that if he did this, he would be rewarded with a kingship. Thutmose carried out this request and the sphinx held up his end of the deal. Read: Exodus 46 (www.biblestudytools.com/nrs/exodus/46.html)
Sing: Day Is Dying in the West, UMH 687 Saqqara is one section of the great necropolis of Memphis which stretches for nearly twenty miles along the Nile. Saqqara is best known for the Step Pyramid of Djoser, the oldest known of Egypt’s 97 pyramids. There are tombs from the 1st Dynasty through the New Kingdom. It is also known for the famous “Pyramid Texts,” spells written to help the king ascend to the heavens and descend again, which reveal the relationship of the king to the gods. Saqqara is also famous for its private Old Kingdom tombs which contain beautiful and revealing scenes in their decorations. During the New Kingdom Memphis took second place to Thebes as Egypt’s capital. Yet even with the government established at Thebes, officials who ruled Upper Egypt lived in Memphis and were buried at Saqqara. The Pyramid of Teti The small hill in the main Saqqara pyramid field with a panoramic view of the whole necropolis is actually the pyramid of Teti, the first ruler of Egypt's 6th Dynasty. It is called "The Place of Teti Endure,” though this pyramid has not endured very well. This pyramid was originally 175 feet tall and had a base of 262 feet square. We were all a little leery of going inside/under this pyramid. The outside looks completely degraded but the corridor leading down to the burial chambers was in excellent condition as were the interior chambers themselves. The Pyramid Texts were everywhere. Hieroglyphs covered all of the walls and on the outside and inside of the sarcophagus. They were beautifully carved and I was impressed with how neatly they were arranged. Djoser’s Pyramid – The Step Pyramid Although the 3rd Dynasty actually began with the pharaoh Sanakht, of whom little is known despite a reign of eighteen years, the real founder is considered to be Djoser. Perhaps only in the case of Abu Simbel and Ramses II has a pharaoh been so closely identified with his architectural monument as is Djoser with Saqqara. The majestic Step Pyramid of Djoser, at the center of the funerary complex of Saqqara, is the oldest structure in the world entirely built of stone and the oldest pyramid yet found in Egypt. Originally it was constructed in the form of a normal mastaba. The mastaba (Arabic for “bench” or “shelf”) was the tomb of nobility and court dignitaries, rectangular in shape with slightly inward leaning walls. A second mastaba was added on top of the first, then a third and several more until a pyramid of six gradually diminishing layers existed. As it stands today, the pyramid is 203 feet in height and the base measures 358 by 410 feet. The burial chamber of the pharaoh was located almost at the center of the pyramid, at the bottom of a large vertical shaft 92 feet deep. From here a labyrinth of rooms, corridors, chambers, and passageways protecting the eternal rest of the sovereign spreads outwards over a length of more than three miles. The Mastaba of Idut Discovered in 1927 by the English archeologist Cecil Firth, this tomb was actually built for a vizier who lived at the time of pharaoh Unas at the end of the 5th Dynasty. At the time of the 6th Dynasty, princess Seshseshet, better known as Idut, took over the burial chambers and entirely altered the original decorations. For me, it was much more interesting to see the carved reliefs of this mastaba where they belong instead of in a museum. I am so grateful that we are allowed to enter these places and see these wonderful works of art that are over four thousand years old! As with the hieroglyphs of Teti’s Pyramid, I was very impressed with how well these engravings were planned and executed. I have seen on the History Channel how they would have many different people work on these carvings: first someone would develop a plan of what they wanted on the walls; then they would sketch what they wanted on the flat wall; rough carving would then be done followed by the finish carvers and then the painters. It is simply amazing to me that some of that paint is still on these walls today. Though you will not find the Mastaba of Idut on any list of major tourist sites in Egypt, I highly recommend it for your viewing pleasure. Read: Exodus 45 (www.biblestudytools.com/nrs/exodus/45.html)
Sing: Go Now in Peace, UMH 665 The Greek name “Memphis” derives from the pyramid of Pepy I in Saqqara which is “Men-nefer” (Established and Beautiful). The city was originally known as Ineb-Hedj or “The White Wall.” Some sources indicate that other versions of the name may have even translated to our modern name for the country, Egypt. During the Middle Kingdom it was Ankh-Tawy or “That Which Binds the Two Lands.” The location of Memphis lies approximately between Upper and Lower Egypt. The importance of this location is demonstrated by the persistent tendency of Memphis to be the Capital of Egypt as Cairo, just to the north, is today. Memphis had no rivals as the capital of the United Kingdom of Upper and Lower Egypt for over a thousand years (3000 -1938 BC). Originating as a fortress whose strength was the dikes which kept it safe from the Nile, Memphis quickly became the administrative and religious center of Egypt. The city must have been huge, judging from the size of its necropolises which extended for some 19 miles along the west plateau of the Nile. Memphis continued to be an important part of Egypt’s culture through the takeover by Alexander the Great and his building of Alexandria as the new capital. Memphis took another shot when Christianity came to Egypt and reduced Memphis’ religious influence. But the death blow did not come until the 7th century AD when the Muslims took over Egypt and built their capital just north of Memphis at Cairo. Remarkably little survives of Memphis largely because the ruins were quarried in the Middle Ages for stone to build Cairo’s churches and mosques. Today, other than the scattered ruins, most of the city is gone, or lies beneath cultivated fields, Nile silt, and local villages. The fraction we can see of Memphis today is located principally around the small village of Mit Rahina. The remains of Ptah’s Temple bordering the village were at one time probably one of the grandest temples in Egypt. Today, only a fraction of the temple remains. Ramses II is well represented here, with a colossus of himself near the Alabaster Sphinx along the southern enclosure wall. It is hard to imagine what Memphis was for almost four thousand years. Our oldest cities in America are not much over five hundred years old! There is so little left of Memphis today but what they have is magnificent. The colossus of Ramses II is awesome even lying down. The Alabaster Sphinx was having some work done on it while we were there but we could still appreciate its beauty. One thing I missed seeing in Memphis was an Elvis impersonator. Read: Exodus 44 (www.biblestudytools.com/nrs/exodus/44.html)
Sing: Draw Us in the Spirit’s Tether, UMH 632 Old Cairo is so named because it predates what is now Cairo. Some historians believe that there was a settlement here as far back as the 6th century BC. The Romans built a fortress here. It became a Christian stronghold, with as many as twenty churches built within an area of one square mile. There are only five of these churches remaining today. Also in the area are the oldest Mosque in Egypt and the oldest synagogue in Egypt. The Cavern Church – Abu Sarga Abu Sarga, the Church of Saint Sergius and Saint Bacchus, also called the Cavern Church, is the oldest church in Egypt and dates back to the 5th century AD. The church owes its fame to having been constructed upon the cavern where the Holy Family stayed for three weeks during their sojourn in Egypt. According to Coptic tradition Joseph, Mary, and Jesus stayed here on their way back to Israel. This church is dedicated to the two saints, Sergius and Bacchus, who served as soldiers in the Roman Army. They were faithful followers of the Lord Jesus and refused to worship the Roman gods. For their Christian belief, Sergius and Bacchus eventually suffered martyrdom in Syria in 296 during the reign of the Roman Emperor Maximinus. The Hanging Church – The Church of the Virgin Mary It is called the Hanging Church because it was built on the southern gate of the Roman Fortress. Logs of palm trees and layers of stones were constructed with the ruins of the fortress as the foundation. From the 7th to the 13th centuries the Hanging Church served as the residence of the Coptic Patriarch. The wood work and the icons of this church are most impressive. The ceiling inside the church is built as a representation of the inside of Noah’s Ark. This was also done in the Cavern Church. These two churches are proof positive that the Christians of Egypt put a high value on the artistic expression of their faith. And in my opinion we are all blessed to have these churches and these people as part of the Body of Christ. Read: Exodus 43 (www.biblestudytools.com/nrs/exodus/43.html)
Sing: Jesus, We Want to Meet, UMH 661 The Egyptian Museum of Antiquities is situated at Tahrir Square in Cairo. It was built during the reign of Khedive Abbass Helmi II beginning in 1897, and opened on November 15, 1902. It has 107 halls. At the ground floor there are the huge statues. The upper floor houses small statues, jewels, Tutankhamon treasures and the mummies. The Museum also comprises a photography section and a large library. The Egyptian museum comprises many sections arranged in chronological order: the first section houses Tutankhamon's treasures. The second section houses the pre-dynasty and the Old Kingdom monuments. The third section houses the first intermediate period and the Middle Kingdom monuments. The forth section houses the monuments of the Modern Kingdom. The fifth section houses the monuments of the late period and the Greek and Roman periods. The sixth section houses coins and papyrus. The seventh section houses sarcophagi and scarabs. More than a million and half tourists visit the museum annually, in addition to half a million Egyptians. This was a fantastic museum with so many incredible items – a lot of them were over 4,000 years old! In one stairwell we saw some papyrus documents that were 3,000 years old displayed in simple frames you might buy at Walmart. Our last stop here was the Tutankhamon room – the artistry and skill of the people who created these items easily matches or surpasses what we can do today. The Egyptians have built a new museum in Giza, not far from the Great Pyramids. The Grand Egyptian Museum has more than 258,000 square feet of permanent exhibit space on a 123-acre campus and will open in 2021. Read: Genesis 42 (www.biblestudytools.com/nrs/genesis/42.html)
Sing: Come, Sinners, to the Gospel Feast, UMH 616 The Citadel is one of the world’s greatest monuments to medieval warfare. It is a highly visible landmark on Cairo’s east side and is built on a spur of limestone that had been detached from its parent Mogattam Hills by quarrying. This area began its life not as a great military base of operations, but as the “Dome of the Wind,” a pavilion created in 810 AD by Hatim Ibn Hartama, who was then governor. The governors who followed also enjoyed the site’s cool breeze and view of Cairo for the next three hundred years. Between 1176 and 1183 Salah ad-Din Yusuf Ibn al Ayyubi (Saladin) fortified the area to protect it against attacks by the Crusaders, and since then it has never been without a military garrison. Originally it served as both a fortress and a royal city. Salah ad-Din had come from Syria (a Tikrit born Kurd) where each town had some sort of fortress to act as a stronghold for the local ruler. So it was only natural that he would carry this custom to Egypt. Most of the fortifications you see today were built after Salah ad-Din’s rule, being added to by almost every invader since, some of whom destroyed much of what existed before them. The Mohammed Ali Mosque (Alabaster Mosque) Mohammed Ali Pasha al Mas’ud ibn Agha was the ruler of Egypt and founder of the country’s last dynasty of Khedives and Kings. He had this mosque designed by the Greek architect Yussuf Bushnaq and built in the Citadel of Cairo beginning in 1830. The mosque is his tomb and is known as the Alabaster Mosque because of the extensive use of this material. Two architectural features stand out: first, the fifty-four full or partial gray domes of the mosque including the 170 feet high and 69 feet wide main dome. The second feature that stands out is the two minarets. Each slender minaret is 270 feet tall and yet they are each built on a foundation less the ten feet wide. On the west wall of the courtyard is an iron clock, a gift of the French king, with a tea salon on the upper level. It has never worked, and probably never will. Before we entered the mosque we removed our shoes or bought shoe covers – we are asked to do this in order to protect the expensive carpets that cover the floor. The inside is awesome – for its sheer size and its cavernous beauty. Particularly striking was the interplay of the morning sunbeams coming through the eastern windows and the lights suspended from the ceilings. We also enjoyed the parapet of the fortress to which we exited from the mosque. From the top of the Citadel wall we had great views of Cairo to the west. Read: Exodus 41 (www.biblestudytools.com/nrs/Exodus/41.html)
Sing: Deck Thyself, My Soul, with Gladness, UMH 612 The Nile is the longest river in the world. It rises south of the Equator and flows northward through northeastern Africa to drain into the Mediterranean Sea. It has a length of about 4,132 miles and drains an area estimated at 1,293,000 square miles. Its basin includes parts of Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Uganda, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Sudan, and the cultivated part of Egypt. Its most distant source is the Kagera River in Burundi. In Egypt the Nile is the source of all life – without its water the entire country would look like the desert plateau that is never more than a few miles from the river. Southern Egypt is called Upper Egypt because it is upstream while northern Egypt, including the Delta is called Lower Egypt because it is downstream. In addition to the Valley and the Delta the Nile also divides Egypt into the Western and Eastern Deserts. Today the Nile flows through the Delta in only two principal branches, the Damietta and the Rosetta. This has been another long day of traveling but I am so excited to be in Cairo! Read: Exodus 40 (www.biblestudytools.com/nrs/exodus/40.html)
Sing: Child of Blessing, Child of Promise, UMH 611 Once we crossed the mid-point of the Ahmed Hamdi Tunnel we were officially in Africa! This is now the third continent I have been in – the first was North America, where I was born and have always lived, the second was Asia, which I visited for the first time just a week and a half ago when we landed in Tel Aviv. I will be going to my fourth continent in just a few days when we change planes in Frankfurt, Germany on our way home. Cairo Cairo is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in Africa and one of the largest cities in the world. Cairo had its start in the 4th century AD as a Roman fortress on the Nile River. In 641 the Muslims moved their capital here from Alexandria. The area started to be called by the name Cairo in 969. By the time we got to Cairo it was dark. But we could still see quite a bit because it is a well-lit city. The photo below was taken in the morning from the Citadel. You can see the smog that was hanging over the city every day that we were here. But that was only a part of the filth of the city. As we drove along the highways we could see that two or three feet of the inside lane was filled with dirt and trash (but don’t think that anyone paid any attention to lane stripes – they didn’t). This was true of almost every street we saw in and around Cairo. Where they had water canals these too were covered with trash. In Jerusalem we were disturbed to see small trash piles scattered around even the nicer parts of the city. In Cairo this was multiplied by a thousand! They have a lot of work to do in order to clean up this city – but there are 22 million people in Cairo – they could do it if they decided to all pitch in. Read: Genesis 39 (www.biblestudytools.com/nrs/genesis/39.html)
Sing: Come, Let Us Use the Grace Divine, UMH 606 Today we are leaving Sharm el Sheikh and going to Cairo. Our route will take us along the west coast of the Sinai Peninsula and then under the Suez Canal just a few miles north of the City of Suez. We will not rejoin the Exodus Route until we reach El Tur about a quarter of the way up the gulf coast. The Gulf of Suez is the western branch of Red Sea with the Sinai Peninsula on the east and the mainland of Egypt on the west. It begins at the south with the Strait of Jubal and ends 195 miles north at Suez and varies between 12 and 25 miles wide. From the highway we could see that the Gulf of Suez has a lot of large ship activity. We also saw quite a few oil rigs, a few refineries, and at least one manganese mine along the coast. El Tur – Exodus 15:27 El Tur is the capital of South Sinai and located about sixty miles north of Sharm el Sheikh. It has also been called Raitho, and in the Bible, Elim. It has always been known as a place where water is available and crops can be grown – it is the only large city in the Sinai with a natural underground water reservoir. Some of that water is now sent to Sharm el Sheikh which has no natural source of water. El Tur is also the place where most of Sharm el Sheikh’s workers live. Marah – Exodus 15:22-26 After leaving the Sea of Reeds, Moses led the Israelites for three days before they came to the spring at Marah (which means “bitterness”) but the water was bitter. The Lord instructed Moses to throw a piece of wood into the water and it became fit to drink. We stopped and found a well whose water was definitely unfit to drink. You could tell that there was other water in the area because of the presence of a variety of trees. When I checked this site on Google Map I could see a rather large underwater delta projecting into the Gulf of Suez where the waters of this oasis flow: this is a good indication that large amounts of water have issued from this area in the past. |
AuthorIn matters of faith, we at First United Methodist Church, Sealy put primary reliance on the Bible. In scripture, we understand that we are all God’s children; therefore, we will be a church that cares for the needs of our church and local community through prayer, deeds, inspiration, and love in the spirit of Christ. Archives
July 2020
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