"Trip with NCC / Omega : The Wilderness" Dead Sea by JoanPhua

Beit ‘Abara (Subject to Israel Army Clearance) is the place where the Lord Jesus Christ was baptised by John the Baptist (Matthew 3:13-17).

This event also took place very close to where Joshua (Joshua 3), Elijah and Elisha (2 Kings 2:6-8, 13-15) crossed the large loop in the Jordan River opposite the ancient city of Jericho.

In New Testament times, it became known as Bethany, the village of John the Baptist.

It is a mix feeling to stand at this site, with so many things happened at the same place. Cant help to wonder if i were there to witness - Mark 1:11 And a voice came from heaven : " You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased."

We met a group from Romania who performed rituals at the bank of river with their videographer. We took a picture with them.

The 2,000-year-old Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in a cave here by a Bedouin shepherd chasing a stray sheep in 1947.

Consolidated from scrolls found in some 11 caves, every Old Testament book is represented except Esther.

The texts are of great historical and religious significance and include the earliest known surviving copies of biblical and extra-biblical documents, as well as preserving evidence of great diversity in late Second Temple Judaism. They are written in Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, and Nabataean, mostly on parchment, but with some written on papyrus and bronze. These manuscripts have been dated to various ranges between 408 BCE and 318 CE. Bronze coins found on the site form a series beginning with Hyrcanus 1 (135-104 BCE) and continue without a gap until the first Jewish revolt (66–73 CE).

Most of the scrolls can be found online in high resolution imagery either on the Israel Museum site http://dss.collections.imj.org.il or on the Israel Antiquities Authority site: http://www.deadseascrolls.org.il/.

Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_sea_scrolls#Biblical_books_found

Biblically known as the Sea of the Arabah or the Salt Sea, its mineral content is so high that nothing lives in it. With a salt concentration many times higher than that of the world’s oceans, the density of the water in the Dead Sea is so high that anyone can float in it.

Everyone can float! It is too painful to have the water get into eyes and throat!