I’ve now been in Israel almost 6 weeks taking a Greek course (see last post.) I wanted to share a few more pictures from my class here. I’m flying home next Monday.
People occasionally ask me, why would a person study Greek in Israel? One reason is that you can go to the sites of New Testament events and read the original text right as you stand on the spot where it happened. You can see the things that the text is describing right in front of you. And also, the ancient sites are full of Greek inscriptions. Everywhere we go we have fun reading the texts that have been there since the time of Jesus.
Last week we had a three day field trip to northern Israel. We stayed at a hotel on the Sea of Galilee and swam there each night after long days of touring sites in the north. Many archaeological sites are full of Greek inscriptions, so we stopped and tried to read each one.
Here are some pictures from Cesarea Phillipi, near Dan. There used to be a large temple for the god Pan there, and around at the cave entrance that was the source of the Jordan river, there are many niches (carved shelves in the rock for shrines). 
I’ve been there before and seen the niches, but this time we noticed that each one had a Greek inscription below it. We couldn’t read all of the text but we could make out the words “To theo Pan” (to the god Pan). It is on the second line, just to the right of the middle. So we ourselves can read that these were dedicated to the god Pan. That was kind of cool.
We walked through the ruins of cities like Beth Shean and Caesarea Maritima and read the ancient mosaic floors. It’s neat to learn the language from the land itself. 
