This area is where my screen-shot of my map was taken…way up north in the Golan Heights, almost to Lebanon and Syria. This place was a place of massive pagan worship to the Roman gods, particularly the Roman god Pan. So Pan had himself a bit of a fetish, he liked to pinch the bottoms of young girls. Given the stories I heard throughout the day about Pan, I feel pretty comfortable labeling him a pedophile. This from a person who is not a fan of labels, but if the shoe fits…in this case, I’m gonna call it like I see it.
So Caesarea Phillipi was a Roman-run city, by Herod’s son Phillip. There were places to worship several Roman gods, and like I said, Pan in particular. This area also is the second of three headwaters of the Jordan River. Where the spring/headwater is here is a site of Roman lore. It was thought that this was the place where the river Styx, the passage to hell, met the living world. As such, it was a place of pagan sacrifice, particularly to Pan. Little girls that would hopefully appease Pan were thrown into the headwaters which bubbled up and then went underground and appeared again a short distance away. If the sacrifice were acceptable to Pan, they would see no blood in the water where it re-exited the stone. If blood from the sacrifice was seen, it was not accepted, and they would sacrifice another little girl. Not really a feel good kind of story, huh. So sad.
Here is where it went down.
We arrive to these gentle falls, a short series of them. To the right is the gift shop and rest room area where they had the fuzzy socks and Bambas. Mmm.
The large hole in the mountain is where the spring used to exit the mountain, that’s the River Styx place. The smaller hole next to it was a place to worship the Roman god Zeus, and there were places to worship other gods up there, too.
This is near where the spring/headwater now exits the mountain, just below.
Here’s where they would sacrifice to Pan, in the spring that was here. So this was basically believed to be the Gates of Hell.
Here’s a closer up picture of the worship site for Zeus.
There were sites to worship 20+ Roman gods here…this is the ruins of that area.
Looking at it from the other side.
So, shift gears for one second…Pastor had pointed out in the Garden Tomb tour an olive tree with new shoots coming from the dead stump. I looked back at the Garden Tomb blog, I did not include it, so I will here…This picture is from the Garden Tomb in Jerusalem:
The sign next to it is difficult to read, it says, “And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse and a branch shall grow out of his roots.” Isaiah 11:7. This picture from Caesarea Phillipi reminded me of the same thing…check this out…right below the River Styx place…
This large trunk looked completely dead, yet there was life, live shoots, coming from it. Jesus is the life that comes from death. Even at the gates of hell. No forgetting. : )
Next began our about 2 hour hike down to Banias Falls. This is a path Jesus and the apostles would have walked for certain…this path has been there for that long. I asked Eitan why there were no orange dots on the trail marker.
He said all of those trails with the orange markers are down closer to Nazareth, but that this would have been the path that they took. Just think…Caesarea Phillipi, a huge center for pagan worship, was the place where Peter first proclaimed Jesus’ identity. (Ref. Matthew 16: 13-20). Remarkable.
We also saw a Roman flour mill. This was pretty cool engineering. Of course they used the power of the flowing water to grind their flour.
Very cool to see how this was done.
Pretty impressive that all of this stuff still stands. With some modern material help, but the grinding stuff itself was from the period.
This was a swimming pool built by the Syrian army, I want to say around 400-500AD, but don’t quote me on that. Old for sure. Only the officers of the Syrian army were allowed to swim in it. It had fish in it that were quite hungry. The powers that be took down some of the wall to keep it more empty so it would not be dangerous for hikers, etc.
As we are walking along, Eitan stops and says, “Look at this plant along the path.” It looks like bamboo, and is in the bamboo family. So the story goes like this. Pan was getting quite the reputation of pinching girls, so the girls would stay away from him. So here is the story from Eitan…
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Cool huh? I mean, not that it happened like that, but I had no idea that was the story behind the word “panic.” I’ll never think of that the same again!
This really was quite the incredible hike. Muddy from all the rain, but beautiful.
This bush is the kind of bush that Jesus crown of thorns was made from. It is definitely a wicked, pokey plant.
We stop along the way and Eitan points out that back in the day, Mark Twain came to visit Israel. He was not a fan, and called it the most ugly country in the world (not a quote, but you get the idea.). He also said that the Muslim fortress on top of this mountain was the most beautiful place on earth.
Unfortunately we were not able to go there to see it, but there it is. A cool story.
Once again, Eitan stops and points and says, “There’s our bus, but how will we get there?”
There is a massive ravine between us and the bus. We can hear the falls from here. The way to the bus is down the ravine and back up again. Oh boy. I will say, it was not as bad as I thought it would be, and my walking sticks were a GODSEND for this bit!
So we go down down down into the ravine, and here are the falls. Eitan says he has only seen them this high maybe one or two other times in his life. They were some angry falls!
Here is the tourist shot. Would you look at how much taller that boy is than me??? Sakes. I’m going to try to add a clip of them roaring…
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Hopefully those are working. Next we make the climb out of the ravine, and at the top we see an old Jeep.
Eitan says that this was once a border back in about 1967, and likely this Jeep got off the path a bit and it hasn’t been moved since. He said there is also an upside down tank from the same era at the bottom of the ravine, same fate.
We exited the hiking path and then stopped at the much needed shoe washing station. Hasim was most grateful we were not tracking all that mud into his bus.
So that’s the story of Caesarea Phillipi. Tomorrow is our last day of touring before we head for home. Whew! Stay with me, tomorrow’s destination is AWESOME.