Where Jesus Read the Isaiah Scroll

Happy New Year!

I never get tired of walking the streets of ancient Nazareth. Each time I learn something new! And, I planned to share this as my first post for 2023 a while ago, having no idea that The Chosen's Season 3 Episode 3 would feature the events that took place here, and the location for this week's posts. 

AMAZING!

This time, I got to visit a completely new (for me) place: a church built over the synagogue where Jesus read from the Isaiah scroll in Luke 4:

Like we talked about a lot on this blog, in Israel things are built on top of the original buildings, which is why you can often see ancient foundations at sites. An excellent example of this is the synagogue at Capernaum, whose white synagogue is from 4th century AD, but is built in the same location as the original synagogue. So tradition holds that this is the location where Jesus read those words, but not the same building. It's beautiful to see, even on a rainy day:

Can you just see it it happening here? "The Spirit of the sovereign Lord is upon me..."

Of course, because of this, the townspeople tried to drag Him out of the town and throw Him off Mount Precipice.... but that's Wednesday's post!

Stay tuned...

The Isaiah Scroll

The final day of our trip was a free day. My friend and I went to a local shopping area, as well as to the Israel Museum to see the Isaiah scroll. 

It was so neat to see the oldest remaining whole Isaiah scroll—1000 years older than any others' previously found!

The museum also had a model of the Second Temple, which was pretty cool to see!

Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls

The caves of Qumran (there are so many!), where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found.

A group called the Essenes lived here and copied both Scripture and other writings. When General Silva sent 10 legions (12,000) soldiers to Masada in AD 70-ish, they stopped in Qumran on the way. The Essenes had hid their scrolls in jars in caves, planning to come back to them. Instead, they were all killed.

In the 1940's, a shepherd was looking for his sheep in an area, and threw a rock into a cave... and heard something breaking. Finally, the scrolls were found.

On our last day in Israel, my friend and I went to the Israel Museum and saw the Isaiah scroll, the oldest copy in existence. SO COOL!!! #israel #apictureadayofIsrael

Also, fun fact- if you stand at Qumran and turn around, the mountain directly behind you (the last "green" one in the distance in the picture below) is Mount Nebo in Jordan, where Moses died.