Jordan Experience

So we’re back from Jordan and finished the last of my journeys for our Physical Settings class. We go back to Jordan for Cultural Backgrounds at the end of the semester, but this is the last trip of the learning, tested semester. Sad, but I learned a lot and it was really fun to travel and see pretty much all of the big spots in the Biblical world. What an incredible experience. Just from reading the Bible today, I can finally put names of places with spots and locations that I never knew before. Now I just need to go to Asia Minor and Greek to finish up sometime.

This trip was a lot more relaxed than the other ones. It was a lot more site seeing than learning, which was a nice change of pace. I liked just relaxing a bit and seeing some incredible things- sites and views. There are INCREDIBLE views in Jordan. I was surprised by so many majestic, awesome views. I’ve never been to the Grand Canyon, but I think I could compare some sites with that- or at least that would be most comparable.

I thought entering Jordan was going to be like going to Iraq or Syria, since these countries border Jordan. But Jordan wasn’t so bad. It had some relatively nice spots and cities. The hotels we stayed in were actually really nice. The first night we stayed in Ammon, which was a HUGE city. The second night we stayed in Petra, and the third night we stayed in Kirak, which is right outside of a Crusader castle that we saw the next day.

Jordan had a lot more Roman influence in the New Testament period than I imagined or knew of. It had some pretty incredible cities. The first day we went to a city called Gadara. It was a pretty incredible Roman city. I wish I could describe these thins better, but you just need to see pictures, or see it yourself. It had a bunch of Corinthian columns, had the Cardo (the center Roman road of the city) intact, a couple temples, an amphitheater, etc. It had some pretty incredible views overlooking the Sea of Galilee, too. I thought this was really cool, but the next day we went to Gerasa. This place was like Gadara on steroids. It’s called the city of a thousand columns, and there were probably more. It’s said to be the most put together of the ancient Roman cities in the world- even Rome itself. There was a hippodrome, two theater, preserved streets, stairways, churches, temples, you name it. Again, only pictures can describe. I hope I can upload them, but you may just have to wait till they hit facebook.

Well, that was the first day and a half. More coming.

Sos