Petra

Since Petra was such a fascinating place to visit, I thought I should write a little bit more about it. Here is part of an article I found online regarding Petra:

Petra is the Greek word for "rock." In the heart of Mount Seir, halfway between the Dead Sea and the Gulf of Aqaba, there is a valley surrounded on all sides by very steep rocky cliffs, with a few narrow gorges leading inside. In this valley, the city of Petra was built. Its biblical name was Sela. The earliest inhabitants of this area were the Horites, or Hurrians. Later, Esau, the brother of Jacob, settled in the territory south of the Dead Sea, and his descendants, the Edomites, gradually replaced the Hurrians. The Edomites lived here when Israel came from Egypt during the Exodus, about 1445 BC.

About 400 BC, the Edomites were driven out by the Arabian Nabataeans. These people made Petra their capital and controlled the most important trade routes between the East and the West. Caravans passing through this territory had to pay taxes to the Nabataeans, who in this way became very wealthy enabling them to build beautiful palaces, temples, theatres, and tombs hewn out of solid rock in their capital city.

In later centuries, caravans followed other routes between the Orient and Europe. Traffic through Nabataean territory dried up, Petra became deserted and forgotten, and for centuries it was a legendary city. All the references in Scripture were considered by higher critics to be figments of the imagination. They claimed the non-existence of Petra as proof for the unreliability of Scripture.

...Because of the unstable Middle Eastern political situation, visits to Petra were made virtually impossible, and only in recent years has this ancient city become readily accessible to tourists. Obadiah describes the lofty places of Petra and the confidence of its inhabitants. However, Jeremiah predicted that the city would lose its power and become uninhabited (Obadiah 3-4; Jeremiah 49:16-18).

This city was prophesied to be destroyed because of the people's rituals and practices. Interestingly enough, I have a picture of one of the Nabataean gods, as seen below. In this arch you can see two rectangles, which are the god and his virgin mother beside him. There's not much to them except for their square eyes and nose. Throughout Petra there are many other places where these and similar carvings of gods can be found.

Besides the flurry of tourists and Bedouins selling their trinkets for 1 Jordanian dinar , Petra is now a quiet, desolate land, just as was prophesied.

I have more pictures from our trip to the Sinai peninsula here.

Swine flu break is over now, so it's back to school today! Happy Sunday!