Another fancy dinner

Well, this month someone was leaving, so we've been treated to yet another fancy dinner at one of the nicest restaurants in Jerusalem. We sat outside under the stars in the middle of a lovely garden. It was a beautiful night; the temperature was lovely and there were no pests flying around. This restaurant was billed as "American", so the food choices were all things we were used to, but it was still very delicious. Of course, food always does seem to taste better when you don't have to prepare it or clean up after yourself--and especially when you don't have to pay for it. Once again we left there with a check totaling over $600. Our host is always so gracious and never makes us feel guilty for his generosity. Pray for me though -- next is MY turn!!! I knew that I would be hosting large amounts of people in my home for dinner, so I was prepared for that, but the thought of these people having to eat my food is scary. I tend to go overboard in an attempt to make everything perfect, but I know that I should keep it simple --thanks, Heather ; ) I think everyone is in the mood for some good, old fashioned, American comfort food -- any suggestions??

Okay, I need to catch up on some past events that happened while my computer was down. I think I'll start this time with the Shrine of the Book.

This building was specially built to hold the Dead Sea Scrolls. A brief history of the scrolls: In 1947, a Bedouin shepherd entered a cave near the Dead Sea and discovered jars containing seven ancient scrolls. Over the next two decades, fragments of some 800 more were found in 11 caves. The scrolls had been written between the 3rd century BC and AD 68 and were the oldest copies of the Bible ever found. I find it very interesting that before these scrolls were found people were starting to doubt the Bible. They were making the argument that a copy of a copy can never be as accurate as the original. But these ancient scrolls - the oldest ones we have - are exactly the same as our modern copies. Proving that God keeps his promise to preserve his Word. I wish that I could have taken pictures for you, but it just wasn't allowed. Honestly, everything started to look alike after a few scrolls. You really had to think about the significance of what you were looking at. The thing I found most interesting were the few artifacts that were displayed from ancient Bible times. The one that got my attention was the phylacteries. This picture is just one that I found on the web, but the Orthodox Jews living here wear these as well. This is what I imagine when I think of Deut. 6:8 "And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes." But this is not what I saw on exhibit at the Shrine. The ancient phylacteries were tiny, tiny, little leather boxes. The exhibit explained that the Scripture passages that were to be placed inside these boxes were written on a very small piece of paper, and then folded so that it would fit inside this tiny box. This would make much more sense so as not to be just for outward show, but to be a subtle reminder to the wearer.

The other interesting exhibit at this museum was the scale model of ancient Jerusalem at the time of the temple. I didn't get a picture of the entire model, only this part where the temple was.

You can see people walking in the background to give you some idea of how huge this model is. This picture only captures about half of the exhibit. It must have taken a LONG time to build this thing, but they did an amazing job of it.

Okay, that's enough for now. Hope everyone has a great weekend!