Dyer Charles H. - The Christian Travelers Guide to the Holy Land

2006, 2014 by
CHARLES H. DYER AND GREGORY A. HATTEBERG

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version. NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked NASB are taken from the New American Standard Bible, Copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

Cover design by Tan Nguyen
Cover photographs of the Holy Land copyright 2013 Charles Dyer. All rights reserved.
Photos inside the book were supplied by the authors
Interior Design by Ragont Design
Edited by Jim Vincent

2014 edition by Brandon OBrien

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Dyer, Charles H.

The Christian travelers guide to the Holy Land / Charles H. Dyer and Gregory A. Hatteberg.
p. cm.
The Christian travelers guide to the Holy Land includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-8024-1162-4
1. IsraelGuidebooks. 2. West BankGuidebooks. 3. EgyptGuidebooks. 4. GreeceGuidebooks. 5. TurkeyGuidebooks. 6. BibleGeography. 7. Christian pilgrims and pilgrimagesIsraelGuidebooks. I. Hatteberg, Greg, 1957- II. Dyer, Charles H., 1952- Christian travelers guide to the Holy Land.
III. Title.

DS103.D943 2006
915.6045402427dc22

2005024934

All websites and phone numbers listed herein are accurate at the time of publication, but may change in the future or cease to exist. The listing of website references and resources does not imply publisher endorsement of the sites entire contents. Groups and organizations are listed for informational purposes, and listing does not imply publisher endorsement of their activities.

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This book is lovingly dedicated to our wives,
Kathy Dyer and Lisa Hatteberg,
who share our love for the lands of the Bible.

Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all.

PROVERBS 31:29

Friend,

Thank you for choosing to read this Moody Publishers title. It is our hope and prayer that this book will help you to know Jesus Christ more personally and love Him more deeply.

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Knowing the land of the Bible is as important to understanding Gods Word as knowing the layout of a baseball diamond is to comprehending the game of baseball! Imagine explaining a baseball game to a friend from another culture who had never watched, or played, the sport.

You casually mention the baseball diamond, and your listener pictures a sparkling engagement ring. You excitedly describe a close play at second base while your friend wonders how many bases the ball controls and if the bases are heavily guarded. You cheer when the manager summons the ace reliever from the bull pen while your bewildered companion envisions a victorious matador striding from a pen of bulls.

You may smile at the analogy, but we all do something similar when we read the Bible. We hear the story of Gideon choosing his three hundred men by the spring of Harod, and we substitute our own image of the event. Some picture a small stream thirty feet wide, while others see a broad river hundreds of feet across. Some imagine the water rushing down a steep mountainside, while others envision it meandering across flat plains.

The problem is that in many cases our own images cloud the biblical account and make it harder to understand. What makes perfect sense to someone standing at the spot where it happened seems almost incomprehensible to someone who has never been to the Holy Land and who reads the account knowing only the geography of Pennsylvania, Illinois, or Texas.

Traveling to the places of the Bible helps an individual view Gods Word through a new set of geographical lenses. Simple phrases like going up to Jerusalem jump off the page because they now make sense. Capernaum becomes more than just a name on a map. Israels temptation in the wilderness comes alive when your feet stumble over the desert rocks and your water bottle starts to run dry.

God chose this land to teach His people specific lessons of faith. But why would God select for His people a land of marginal climate that was coveted by larger surrounding nations?

Jim Monson has offered a provocative explanation for Gods choice. In all of these biblical periods, this land served as Gods testing ground of faith. It was here, in this land where both personal and national existence were threatened, that Israels leaders and people were called upon to learn the true meaning of security and well-being, of trust in the Lord their God. It was here that Gods weakness was shown to be stronger than men (James M. Monson, The Land Between: A Regional Study Guide to the Land of the Bible [Jerusalem: n.p., 1983], 14).

If you are reading this book in preparation for a trip to the Middle East, congratulations! You are about to take a journey that will make a profound spiritual impact on your life. You will soon traverse a region where God actively intervened in the lives of men and women where the incarnate Son of God taught, healed, died for your sins, and rose from the dead. You will return a different person. This revised and expanded edition of The Christian Travelers Guide to the Holy Land will help prepare you to visit Israel as well as the other regions of the Holy Land: Egypt, Greece, Jordan, and Turkey.

We suggest you read part 1, , as soon as possible. In that section we offer specific information to help you prepare physically and spiritually for this journey of a lifetime. Once you know your final itinerary, begin reading the information on the specific sites you will visit. This will prepare you to gain as much information as possible from your trip. During your tour, keep this book with you as a handy guide and as a convenient place to take notes, record pictures, and write your impressions. These records will be invaluable to you as you return home.