Bible Lands Museum

Only a handful of museums are open in Jerusalem and the buses don't run. So, unless we wanted to take the day off completely (and if you think that, you clearly don't know us very well!), we needed to do some careful planning! We decided on the Bible Lands Museum, though we weren't sure what to expect as this museum is not usually high on the list in tour books, etc. Turned out to be an awesome choice (and there were several Birthright tour groups there, so I guess it isn't quite as "off-the-beaten-track" as we thought.)

Outside the museum

It's an unbelievable collection of archeological artifacts organized to show about the lives of various cultures described in the Bible. We followed the family tour, which started with Abraham leaving Ur (we saw the only known example of of a Chaldean horned helmet from that time/place) and led through the Israelites going to Egypt, the return to Israel, various conquests, through the time of Jesus and the talmud. We listened in on some of the tours too - and heard some great stories. One tour guide explained the part of the Exodus story where it talks about Pharaoh agreeing to let the Jews go and then changing his mind, and in the common translation it says that God "hardened" Pharaoh's heart. But in the Hebrew it says that God made Pharaoh's heart "heavy" which refers to he Egyptian beliefs about weighing a person's heart against a feather to see if they were good or evil -- of course Pharaoh's heart was made heavy and he would be judged as evil.

Walking to the park

We spent the afternoon relaxing at home, watching movies/TV, generally taking it easy. Abe took Jonah and Sylvia out to the playground, I made eggplant parmesan, and Ella uploaded her photos (she is taking some awesome photos!). Later Jonah amazed me with his understanding of Hebrew on TV. He was picking up phrases and words that couldn't be deciphered just from the context or images. If we just had 2 months in front of the TV in Jerusalem, he'd be fluent!