Day 3 - Bethlehem
In the afternoon, Heather and I headed to Bethlehem. Situated on the West Bank, it is necessary to cross the border into Palestinian territory. This was a fairly easy crossing. A couple later were far more involved.
Heather studied one summer at a center situated on the border. She told me that it was common for Palestinians to cross the grounds of the campus there to avoid the checkpoint.
Day 1 Jerusalem
Day 2 Jerusalem
Day 3 Jerusalem
Day 4 Dead Sea
Day 5 Petra
Day 6 Gaza
We soon reached Bethlehem and took a long flight of steps to the top of a courtyard leading to the Church of the Nativity. Helen, the mother of Emperor Constantine of Rome, was the founder of this church. She converted to Christianity around 350 AD and soon thereafter, Rome adopted Christianity as the state religion.
Helen journeyed to the Holy Land and scouted religious sites. It was in a certain cave that the local Christians told her was the nativity. She built a church over it.
The entrance to the church is a low door. Once it was quite tall, however, it was later reduced in size to prevent conquering tribes from riding their horses in it.
Below is the interior.
Not long ago, workers noticed that there were levels of flooring over previous floors in the church. Then they dug to the lowest level and discovered the mosaics first laid by Helen sixteen hundred years ago.
At several points, the current floor is opened to allow the viewing of this ancient Roman floor some two feet below the current one.
