1st Day of Class

Today we had our first day of classroom work engaging the text of the Gospels. The course is set up seminar style so there is a free-flowing discussion based on the work that each of us has done with the texts prior to class. So it moves pretty fast and ranges all over the place. A text about John the Baptist may lead to a discussion about St. Paul or it may lead to a discussion about 1st Century Jewish Customs. We had long discussions today about geography (tribes, Samaritans, exiles, Galillee, Judea). By the end of three hours, my head was spinning. But it is sooooo exciting to be engaging the texts at this level!

I went for two walks today, one right after lunch through the markets around our house. We live in a Muslim district so many of hte shops were closed today for the Muslim sabbath, but that just occasions the setting up of impromptu flea markets on every street. One of my first impressions of Jerusalem is that evey street is a souk (market).

I spent much of the afternoon reading. Then in the late afternoon I took another walk - this time into the old city where Jews were making final preparations for the sabbath. (A funny story: we had been told to pay close attention if we hear hte sound of loud sirens. At about sundown today, a loud siren went off and sqealed for about 2 minutes. The whole time I was wondering if soemthing bad had happened. Well no - it's the way Jews mark the official beginning of the Sabbath). It was a good walk. Afterwards, I came back to S. Etienne and took a lot of photos in the Basilica, which I have uploaded to Picasa: http://picasaweb.google.com/FrBart/Jerusalem2009.