The Brow of the Hill

Luke 4:30

And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read. And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written,The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,To preach the acceptable year of the Lord. 20And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him. And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears. And all bare him witness, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth. And they said, Is not this Joseph’s son? And he said unto them, Ye will surely say unto me this proverb, Physician, heal thyself: whatsoever we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in thy country. And he said, Verily I say unto you, No prophet is accepted in his own country. But I tell you of a truth, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land; But unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow. And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Eliseus the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian. And all they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath, And rose up, and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong. But he passing through the midst of them went his way,

According to Moshe, our guide, sites in Israel are of three types. A Site are those where most everybody is sure an event took place in an exact place. B Sites are those where the area seems sure, but the exact spot is questionable. In B Sites you often see the Catholic and Orthodox churches laying claim to being the exact place an event occurred. C Site are those just considered to be commercial places pandering to tourists where it seems certain no historical even actually occurred there.

The brow of the hill was our first A Site. Nobody disputes this was the very place that the Nazareth villagers brought our Lord to toss Him off this very hill after He preached there.

Wow. This was the very first place we stood where it was clear that Jesus Himself had stood 2000 years before.

Nothing has changed has it? Jesus preached truth, and was hated. Those who preach truth today are hated also.

Below is a likely B Site. That is the Church of the Annunciation, purported by the Catholic Church to be the place Mary was residing at the time it was announce to her that she would be the mother of the Messiah. While this is likely not the exact place her homestead was really located, there are reports that some things have been found under the area that are likely from the Nazareth of Jesus’ time. Interesting eh how archaeology has “disproved” the Bible?

Which raises a great point, and I will blog about some of that later. The Holy Land is pretty much one gigantic potential archaeological dig. Thousands of potential old sites exist, just waiting to be discovered. In the next post we will visit just such a place.

We didn’t stop in Nazareth, as I guess things aren’t always friendly for tourists there.

The Muslim Mosque in Nazareth