Mt. Carmel

View from Mt. Carmel

After clambering out of our parked tour bus, getting its rest in a line of many others, we joined the by now familiar mass of other photo-taking pilgrims.  We entered the gate, wound through a gift shop with reasonable prices, and waited our turn at the overlook on the top of Mt. Carmel.   It felt hard to fathom, that within the expanse of land before us, so many key Biblical events have taken place through the ages.  We were standing on the Mount where Elijah took on the prophets of Baal, and our leader even pointed out the 24 km route he ran to Jezreel afterwards.  From that height, we could see the places where Joseph was taken into slavery, where Deborah and Barak went down from Mt. Tabor to defeat the godless commander Sisera and the Canaanites, where Gideon led a conquering army of 300 against countless more, and where Saul fought his last battle with the Philistines.  While I have never been one with a solid grasp on geography, and am prone to jumble my history, being on such sites makes me determined to look further into Biblical maps and timelines, as the land now feels personal.