Exploring The Incomparable Holy Land

Any pilgrimage to the Holy Land, either by putting our feet on the ground and taking a tour or opening the Bible with a Guidebook and reading our way through, involves a life-changing experience! Let's take a Ten Day Tour which is just enough to hit the highlights and become an appetizer for a lifetime study of Scripture.

Enjoy 40 Scripture-based reflections on locations in the Holy Land. Packed with beautiful photos, Scripture verses, and geographical knowledge to help you deepen your relationship with Christ. Whether you’re planning a trip to Israel or looking for a devotional to supplement your Bible study at home, Heart of the Holy Land will enrich your experience and empower you to explore the lands of the Bible. Author and Holy Land expert Paul Wright draws on his decades of living in Israel as well as his geographical, historical and archaeological knowledge to bring fresh, location-centered insights to biblical stories and modern situations alike. Each of the 40 reflections includes beautiful photos and weaves a biblical or modern event into its geographical context, emphasizing the way the Bible is immersed in the landscape of ancient Israel. Gain university-level insights into biblical geography from the comforts of your own house, with this handy guidebook. 4 Key Features of This Holy Land Devotional Highly Visual. Includes over 140 photos of the Holy Land, as well as detailed maps. Bible-Based. Reveals insights into specific Bible passages and characters, and moments in the life of Jesus, including his birth, baptism, ministry, crucifixion, and resurrection. Well-Researched. Contains entries discussing modern holidays and festivals, Arab-Israeli conflict, geographical features, and churches located on biblical sites. Practical Applications. Includes reflections on key Bible locations in and around Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and many more. Perfect for gifts, individual and group study, church libraries, Sunday school, missionaries, Holy Land tour groups, and more!

In life, we can take many journeys, but nothing is like a spiritual journey of a lifetime. I was fortunate to have an opportunity to go on a pilgrimage to Israel with other ministers. We were selected as a group to go on a special trip, a trip that perhaps would impact each of us in a very unique way. We went on the journey to learn, to observe and to be strengthened in our faith. While we were there, we reflected on our ministry and spent time discerning our call and our future. We toured biblical sites that focused on the Jews, the Romans, the Arabs, and particularly on the ministry of Jesus Christ. We traveled several places like Tiberias of Galilee, Jerusalem, Nazareth, Bethlehem, and many other sites. During my time in Israel, I had some interesting moments on the pilgrimage. There were moments at certain sites I felt deeply touched and spiritual uplifted as I walked and looked around. My faith was strengthened as I rode the boat on the Sea of Galilee. I felt spiritually uplifted when I was in Caesarea Philippi. And, I felt touched the most when I was at the Garden Tomb where Jesus was buried. I must say there is something about visiting Israel that will touch your heart. My heart was touched many times and I left with an everlasting impression. If you want to experience or explore the biblical sites and learn about the ministry of Jesus Christ, I encourage you to visit and be inspired and feel the joy in the Holy Land.

Biblical scholar and seasoned pilgrimage guide Stephen J. Binz offers an up-to-date handbook for experiencing the sites of the Holy Land as a disciple of Jesus. Whether contemplating future travel, on the road of pilgrimage, savoring memories of a past trip, or journeying in mind and heart from an armchair, readers will explore the nature of pilgrimage and encounter the places of the Holy Land from a biblical, historical, meditative, and prayerful perspective. This guide will enable Christians to walk in the footsteps of Jesus, confident that their pilgrimage will be both an educational journey and a transforming spiritual experience. Full-color illustrations throughout!

More than an updated second edition, this book combines the best information from the popular first edition with new insights to help you turn your travels into pilgrimages. In this edition of The Pilgrim's New Guide to the Holy Land, Stephen Doyle adds the words to familiar hymns, and maps and photos, and includes new insights gathered from the documents of Vatican II, Paul VI's Decree on Evangelization, and prose and poetry that foster the spirit of prayer. After a brief introduction to each Holy Place, Doyle provides the Scripture passages appropriate to those locations. In offering these passages, Doyle reminds us of Pius XII's statement that to find the meaning of God's word, we must go back to the original languages, determine the intention of the author, and take into account the literary form. Following Pius XII's suggestion, Doyle provides his own translation of Scripture passages. By presenting these passages he offers new meaning by exploring a new experience, in a new context, in a new culture. Doyle explains that there are major differences between going to the Holy Land as a pilgrim and going there as a tourist, or even as a student of history or archaeology. People join a pilgrimage from faith and for faith. This is not the same as a deepening of theological insight, or becoming more knowledgeable about the facts and beliefs of Christianity. The basic vision that distinguishes a pilgrim from a tourist is summed up in a passage by Paul: 'Since you have accepted Christ Jesus as Lord, sink your roots deep in him, build your faith upon him, and overflow with thanksgiving' (Col. 2:6). In The Pilgrim's New Guide to the Holy Land, Doyle brings together the elements that facilitate that vision. Chapters are "Jerusalem, Jerusalem," "Holy Places East of Jerusalem," "Holy Places West of Jerusalem," "Holy Places South of Jerusalem" and "Holy Places North of Jerusalem." Also includes appendices and an index. Stephen C. Doyle, O.F.M., has guided more than one hundred pilgrimages to the Holy Land and to Greece and Asia Minor. He has taught Scripture and biblical preaching at St. John Vianney Seminary, East Aurora, New York; Christ the King Seminary, St. Bonaventure, New York; Pope John XXIII Seminary, Weston Massachusetts; St. Bonaventure University; St. Michael&'s College; and Emmanuel College.

The Word of God to Jerusalem was that He was extremely jealous for Jerusalem and Zion. He was coming and He would be a wall of fire around her and the glory in her midst.This is reminiscent of His glory in the midst of the burning bush. Moses took off his shoes! At the entrance to the Holy Land Joshua encountered the Captain of the Lord's Host, and he saw YHWH's glory. Joshua took off his shoes. Zechariah wrote that YHWH will possess Judah as His portion in the Holy Land (Zechariah 2:12). From Genesis to Revelation, from the Garden of Eden to the New Jerusalem the Holy Land is a major motif in the Holy Scriptures. This is the estate where God was born as Son of Man. He lived and played, He worked and ministered in the Holy Land. Yeshua was betrayed, beaten, crucified, and He was buried in the Holy Land. He resurrected in the Holy Land and ascended back to His Heavenly Father from the Holy Land. Yeshua is soon to return to the Holy Land to reign as King over the earth. The Holy Land is God's Land. We should take off our shoes! Table of Contents: A Pilgrim's Prayer for the Holy Land; Is There a Holy Land; The Importance of the Holy Land; Holy Land and Other Names; The Temple, God's House in the Holy Land; A Ghost Story in the Holy Land; God was Buried in the Holy Land; Coming Soon, a Temple in the Holy Land; A History of the Possessions and Custodians of the Holy Land; Biblical Trees, Flowers, Monsters, Snakes, and Spiders in the Holy Land; The Holy Land is for the Birds; Mountains of the Holy Land; The Holy Land is a Land of Rocks; Who is Who in the Holy Land; Lost Tribes of Israel Found in the Holy Land; Jewish Holidays in the Holy Land; The Holy Land Today; A New Holy Land for the Last Adam; A Jewish Blessing for Our Journey to the Holy Land; The Holy Sites in the Holy Land from A to Z; Journaling in the Holy Land.

This book takes stock of the relevance of Israel for Christians in the new millennium and provides an informed view of the Holy Land for those visiting--especially those without a spiritual tradition of pilgrimage. Walking in His Steps will help Christians wrestle with the theological and spiritual issues which a visit to the Holy Land raises: Are these really 'holy' places? Can we learn from the 'Desert Fathers'? What are God's purposes for this modern land and for the Jews? As these issues are particularly keenly felt in the UK, the USA and Australasia, an international audience will appreciate the book's content as it covers the history of the Holy Land from the early Church onwards; the traditions of the Desert Fathers, meditation and spirituality; Prophetic issues of Israel and Palestine; the role of an Evangelical witness to Christ in the Land of the Bible; and issues of mission in the Middle East. The book is informative, reflective and theologically backed. It includes an Appendix with food for thought in some particular locations: the Mount of Olives, Bethlehem, the Judean Desert, Golgotha, Galilee and Mount Tabor.

The Holy Land has been an enduring magnet for visitors seeking to retrace the footsteps of biblical prophets, kings and saints and to glimpse the setting of events recorded in the Scriptures. This book offers a selection of over 350 early photographs, paintings, and drawings of the length and breadth of the Holy Land from the rich repository of images in the archives of the Palestine Exploration Fund. As these images were produced before modern development impacted on these landscapes they are an invaluable resource. The pictures are accompanied by 7 maps and plans showing the locations depicted and a commentary describing the biblical context, informed by up-to-date scholarship. The book is divided into five chapters; an introduction which includes a brief account of pilgrimage to the Holy Land through the ages, followed by a series of geographical 'tours' through Galilee, Samaria, and Judea and Philistia, before culminating with a focus on the two main sites of interest for the traveller: Bethlehem and Jerusalem. While often very beautiful in their own right, the pictures also reflect the interest and sensibilities of the photographers and those who collected them, and capture the opposing undercurrents of scientific enquiry and piety characteristic of 19th Century European society. In the case of the photographers engaged by the PEF, a striving for objectivity is strikingly evident in their work.