A Crack in the Earth: A Journey Up Israel's Rift Valley° Ashdod ° Elat (Eilat) ° Jaffa ° Haifa
The map below was issued in 1720 by David Funck of Nuremburg and geographically based upon Visscher’s Map of 1659 and De Wit’s Map of 1670. The shoreline runs from Sidon to Egypt along an East – West orientation. Divided according to the Tribes of Israel on both side of the River Jordan.
The title cartouche at the top of the map and features four cherubs, one of which holds the Tablets of Moses or the Ten Commandments. In the Dead Sea (Mare Mortuum) the destroyed cities of Sodom, Gamora, Sebim and Adama are depicted. At sea, 14 ships sail the Mediterranean. All text is in Latin.
(Click on map image for additional views and details.)
The idea of an ancient trade route to the east for spices and precious metals like gold and silver goes back to the dawn of history.
The Jewish historian Josephus, writing in the first century AD, offered his explanation of the Biblical story of Solomon and Hiram’s joint trade mission to the distant land of Ophir. In his Antiquities of the Jews, he said the voyages which began from the Red Sea port of Ezion-geber were destined for the island of Chryse far to the east in the Indian Ocean. (Ezion-geber was near the modern city of Eilat in Israel and the trade voyages took three years to complete according to the Old Testament.)
Greek geographers usually placed the island of Chryse east of the Ganges river mouth. Medieval writings placed it near where the Indian Ocean met the Pacific Ocean. In modern times, Chryse has been equated by scholars with the land known in Indian literature as Suvarnadvipa. Both Chryse and Suvarnadvipa mean “Gold Island.” The latter was also located in Indian writings well to the east of India in the “Southern Ocean” and is identified by most scholars with the Malay Archipelago (“the East Indies”).
Josephus’ theory of voyages to Southeast Asia was supported indirectly about a half-century later by Philo of Byblos who translated the History of Phoenicia by Sanchuniathon. This translation was originally considered a fraud by modern scholars, but discoveries from Ras Shamra in the Levant indicate Philo’s work was authentic. They are important because they come from a different historical source than the Old Testament account.
"Israel is the only nation on earth that inhabits the same land, bears the same name, speaks the same language, and worships the same God that it did 3,000 years ago. You dig the soil and you find pottery from Dravidic times, coins from Bar Kokhba, and 2,000-year-old scrolls written in a script remarkably like the one that today advertises ice cream at the corner candy store."
The people of Israel (also called the "Jewish People") trace their origin to Abraham, who established the belief that there is only one God, the creator of the universe (see Old Testament)). Abraham, his son Yitshak (Isaac), and grandson Jacob (Israel), are referred to as the patriarchs of the Israelites. All three patriarchs lived in the Land of Canaan, that later came to be known as the Land of Israel.
After the exile by the Romans, the Jewish people migrated to Europe and North Africa. In the Diaspora (scattered outside of the Land of Israel), they established rich cultural and economic lives, and contributed greatly to the societies where they lived. Yet, they continued their national attachments and prayed to return to Israel through centuries.
February 20, 1891, Jewish Standard
London, Middlesex, United Kingdom
JEWISH SYMBOLS.
An Extract from the Outlines of a Jewish Symbolic,
by Samson R. Hirsch.
(Translated from the German.)
[ C O N T I N U E D FROM No. 148.]
God's miraculous power was once more to be made manifest through Israel. His holy establishment on Zion should once more be made illustrious as the rock against which the mightiest of the mighty were powerless. The Assyrian Power overwhelms like roaring floods all countries. It tramples under victorious foot the mightiest states of that time. Intoxicated by many triumphs it wishes also to conquer the small, insignificant Mount Zion. But touched by God's finger it was utterly to perish suddenly, and in view of the object of its longing. Almost the whole of Judea has already become the prey of the Assyrians. Five-sixths of the people of God are already fallen before the Assyrian Power, because it had ceased to be the people of God—it had fallen in spite of all policy and international amalgamation. Clad in sackcloth the prophet mourns for his brethren that were exiled into foreign parts. The Assyrian army presses closer and closer. Ashod, in the neighbouring land of the Philistines, was already in the hands of the enemy. Judah awaits trembling the mortal blow. It still clings to the hope—not in God, Whose miraculous power had so often proved effective on behalf of Israel—but in the courage and bravery of two States, who alone still stand erect before the gigantic power. Ethiopia and Egypt still seem to brave the enemy. Judah boasted of a political alliance with the latter. Then, in the year when the Assyrian general conquered Ashdod, God spoke a Word to Isaiah, the son of Amos, and said to him," Go, loosen the sackcloth from thy loins but also take off the shoe from thy foot." He did so and went naked and barefooted. And God spoke: "As My servant Isaiah has gone "naked and barefooted, this shall be a symbol and a token over Egypt and Ethiopia. Thus shall Assur's king bring up the prisoners of Egypt and the exiles of Ethiopia, young and old, bare and naked, to the disgrace of Egypt. Then they will be ashamed of Ethiopia, towards which they look forward; of Egypt, of which they boast. Then the inhabitants of this land will say, this befalls those to whom we have looked forward, to whom we have fled for help, to save us from the King of Assyria! How shall we escape now?
Have we not here a symbolical act commanded the prophet by God, in order to arouse and keep awake within the people a certain series of thoughts, to prepare them for years for the catastrophe by which God intended to exalt them. If we understand it rightly, it was meant that Isaiah should awaken hopes for the future by divesting himself from the sackcloth hitherto worn by him for the lost empire of Israel. At the same time he was to walk naked and barefoot as a token of the fall of Ethiopia and Egypt. This exhorted the people not to despair, but rather to conceive hopes that Were well-founded. Their hope cannot come whence they expect it. Their last supports are being destroyed. Nothing is left them except the hope m Him, who remains when everything else has perished. The prophet puts off his sackcloth at the same time that he bares his foot; he commences to hope when the hopes of others vanish.
Jaffa
Jaffa is one of the most ancient port cities in the world.
It's name, which translates to "beautiful" is known variously in The Bible as Jaffa, Joppa, Japho, Jaffe, or Yafo. Historians believe that Jaffa is the only port in the world which can boast uninterrupted inhabitation throughout its entire existence. Its natural harbor has been occupied since the Bronze Age. Through biblical history, the city was in turn taken by the Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks and Romans, during which time it was included in the kingdom of Herod the Great. Roman legions, Richard the Lion Hearted, Napoleon and Turkish sultans all conquered the city; but with the eclipse of the Ottoman Empire, the city's vitality declined.
It is mentioned in an Ancient Egyptian letter from 1470 BC, glorifying its conquest by Pharaoh Thutmose III, who hid armed warriors in large baskets and gave the baskets as a present to the Canaanite city's governor. The city was under Egyptian rule until around 800 BC. King David re-took Jaffa in his time, and when Solomon succeeded his father as king, he developed it into Israel's major seaport. It was to Jaffa that Hyram, king of Tyresent cedar logs (the Cedars of Lebanon) to use in building the original Temple of God in Jerusalem (2 Chronicles 2:11,16)
The News
Frederick, Maryland
May 3, 1895
Jaffa (Hebrew Japho) was a border town of the tribe of Dan (Joshua 18, 46, 47, 48) on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean thirty miles from Jerusalem, and on account of its convenience to Jerusalem it became the principal port of Judea and is still the great landing place of pilgrims. Here the cedar trees for building the first and second temple of Solomon, sent from Lebanon and Tyre, were landed (3 Chr., 3:16;Ezr., 3.7).
Here Jonah embarked for Tarshish, and it is supposed this was the time he encountered a storm, was thrown overboard and swallowed by a whale Here, too, Peter raised Dorcas from the dead and in the house of Simon the Tanner, by the seaside, was taught by a Heavenly vision that salvation was for the Gentiles as well as for the Jews (Acts 9—11). Jaffa was twice destroyed by the Romans during the crusades. It several many times changed hands and in 1799 it was stormed and sacked by the French and 1,200 Turkish prisoners, said to have broken their parole, were put to death.
The present city of Jaffa is situated on a promontory jutting out into the sea 150 feet high, crowned with a fortress. The city is nearly surrounded by a wall. The inhabitants are about half Turks and Arabs and have several mosques; the balance are Latin, Greeks and Armenians, and each have a church and a convent for Pilgrims. The plain of Celicla extends south of Jaffa, and the plain of Sharon north. An emigrant ship had arrived here from the United States a few days before our arrival and had 40 families on board. They came here to settle and make their home in the Holy Land, but were disappointed in their expectations, as the land did not yield to their mode of cultivation. They undertook to introduce the plan of deep plowing to produce large crops of brain, but this was their greatest mistake, for this kind of cultivation is not suited to the climate, as the long, dry seasons, with the hot sun, burns the seed up that is in the soil. The climate and soil here are only suited to the cultivation of fruit and vegetable production, which can be grown in large quantities, but there is a very poor market for them. The speculation of the emigrants was a complete failure, many of them lost all they had and the sufferings of these unfortunate people were great. The larger number of them returned to the United States and what became of the balance I have never been able to learn.
The Weekly Gazette And Stockman
Reno, Nevada,
May 19, 1895
(Special Correspondent of GAZETTE.)
Jerusalem of the Present
CAIRO, March 12, 1895
EDITOR GAZETTE: Since my last from here, 21st of February, and after five days stay, called resting, or rather making believe it is, we started for the Holy Land on the 26th, reaching Alexandria the same day, and on the next steamed oat for Jaffa, a distance of 265 miles, or twenty-six hours run. Distances are computed by hours in Europe, and not by miles; very properly too I think.
We sight Jaffa and the sand dunes of Asia after a pleasant passage. The port of Jaffa is the port of Jerusalem, now as in olden times, and like all the ports we have seen on the Mediterranean, vessels must ride at anchor in the stream, discharge and take on passengers and freight by use of lighters, to which we are transferred, and soon are riding over great waves that carry us to the landing place of Jaffa. The city of Jaffa, like all the old cities and sites we have seen, or expect to see, in Egypt and Palestine, goes to show the mutability of human things and the most eloquent proofs of the vanity of human ambition.
Jaffa of old is no more. We must be content with traditional statements here, as elsewhere in Palestine. The house of "Simon, the Tanner" has been remodeled and ia now a Mosque. If it was here that Peter beard the voice spake "What God has cleaned that call not then unclean," surely this "site" is sadly in want of another
MANIFESTATION OF GOD'S COMMANDto stir up these Mohammedan's to keep their house of worship and its surroundings free of the filth and stench that exist there. Here too Jonah set sail for Turshish. So many important things happened in and about Jaffa, during and after the time of Christ that I begin to realize that I shall fail to see Jerusalem and surroundings, understandingly, in consequence of neglect to read the Good Book industriously in the past; therefore I will only try to interest you with my personal observations observations of the character and condition of things as I find them, never forgetting that from them came the light to guide mankind in his "straight and narrow path."
