Question
Can you give me the specifics pertaining to the walls of Jericho? I am looking for size, dimensions, etc.

Answer
There have been three Jericho’s during its long history (beginning 8000 BC). They are on three different sites. They are the Jericho of Joshua (often called the Old Testament Jericho). It is identified with the mount of Tell esSultan about a mile from the village of er-Riha. The modern Jericho, which is the Jericho of the Crusades. It is located about seventeen miles northeast of Jerusalem. The New Testament Jericho (the Jericho of Herod) is identified with the mounds of Tulul Abu el-Alyiq a little less than a mile from modern Jericho.

In 1930 to 1936 the British archaeologist John Garstang believed that he found evidence of Joshua’s destruction of the city. He discovered an inner wall about twelve feet thick and an outer wall about six feet thick. However, in 1952, Kathleen Kenyon found evidence that conflicted with that of Garstang. She discovered that little of the city of Joshua’s day remained. The most spectacular discoveries made by Kenyon were the Stone Age defenses, including a tower dating to about 7000 BC.

It may be fair to say at this point that the walls of Jericho as described in Joshua have not been discovered. However, this does not mean that the story is in anyway untrue. An added historical note: the size of the Jericho of Joshua was about six acres.

On Monday November 15, 2004 I entered the hospital for the second of two stints for my heart in the last three weeks. I had two stints about 12 days after my open heart surgery in January 1999. The doctor told me after the procedure that he had done a great job. I have light duty for about a week and then gradually move back toward a full schedule. I am thankful that the procedure went well. Thanks for all of you who prayed for me.

Below I have put two pictures of the inside of my heart that the doctor took. One before the stint (the first one) has an arrow pointing to the 90% blockage and one after the stint (the second one). I was awake for the whole procedure. The “ties” on the left are from my open heart surgery in January 1999. They tied my rib cage back together. The doctor who put in the stints told me which doctor had done the heart surgery by apparently looking at the way he tied off my rib cage. He left his autograph inside my chest.

I am truely bionic.

BEFORE

AFTER

On Sunday, October 24, 2004 about 4:00 pm I began to feel some pain in my back and could not detect if it was from sitting toooooo long in front of my computer. Finally, about 9:30 pm I knew it was not back pain so I called 911.

In January 1999 I had open heart surgery. So any call to 911 is an instant trip to ER. After arriving at the ER they took blood and history of the day. About an hour later one of the heart doctors from the “heart group” that treats me showed up and told me that I was in the process of having a heart attack and that he was going to do a cauterization procedure to see what was going on.

While looking inside my heart they found two “clogged” arteries in the “by pass” arteries and put a stint in one and will put a stint in the other on November 14, 2004.

I am back home on a one week rest routine before returning to a regular routine.

BTW: Put me on your prayer list. I would appreciate it.

Here is an old blog I thought you might enjoy revisiting.

Eugene and Jan Peterson, what kind and gracious people. I had the privilege of spending two evenings in their home in Montana this last week. I flew to Boise from Seattle and met up with Todd Hunter, Eric Keck, and Mark Priddy and we drove through the mountains of Idaho to Montana. We arrived at the Peterson home on Monday evening. They had prepared homemade soup and bread. We ate and chatted around their dinner table for several hours. We asked questions and he kindly answered and told stories. Before we retired for the evening, we had evening prayers together. Eugene offered a brief background and story about the writer of the prayer.

The next morning we had breakfast together and then some chores. We pulled a paddleboat onto the dock and emptied the water and chopped and carried wood to stack at the back of their house, and Eric cleaned up the compost container that a bear had overturned more than likely looking for food. Late morning and early afternoon was spent with Eugene on the deck overlooking the lake with more Q&A. After lunch we continued our conversation. We ate the evening meal about 7:00 pm and continued our conversation around the table until evening prayers. The next morning was spent with another conversation time and Eugene signing the Message. Eugene is not retired. He is in his early ’70s and carries on a rigorous day. He is up at 6:00 am and plugs in the coffee. He goes down to the lake and does a morning ritual of Mikvah, a ritual purification bath taken by Jews. He returns and brings Jan a cup of coffee and then to his office for prayer. About 7:30 he takes a walk (about a mile) to retrieve the local morning paper. Breakfast. About 8:30-9:00 am he goes to his office to write until about 1:00. Lunch. Then a “liturgical nap.” After the nap he takes another walk (about 2 miles). He returns to the study to finish the day’s work and then the evening meal around 7:00 pm followed by evening prayers.

On Tuesday we followed his liturgical nap schedule (at least two of us did, I’ll leave you to guess which who the other one was). All of us took a walk with him through the woods where we saw three deer and one quail. (BTW: the first night as we were driving in we saw a bear in the middle of the road (about 5 foot tall as he stood up, one of us got out of the vehicle and started throwing rocks at him (I’m sure you can guess which one. The letters of his name are ERIC.). The walk that day was about 3 miles and took about an hour and a half. Most of the conversation we had was about the church and scripture. (BTW: he translated the whole New Testament and the Book of Psalms in about a 16-month period. When he translated the rest of the OT he worked about 14 hours a day covering about 5 pages of Hebrew text a day.) He believes church is the place where God’s people are trained in faithfulness and obedience. He suggested that it was a mistake to think strategically about the church. For him the Holy Spirit creates the church, not us. We should be careful not to develop strategies to beef up our own significance. Size is not what brings true significance, influence is. Regarding groups who have entered into a “conversation only” mode as a pedagogical method he was quite clear. He said that mere “conversation only” implies “no truth and no authority.” There needs to be someone who is trained to provide instruction. Story as a pedagogical method was natural and normal while propositional teaching was not useful. One of his favorite contemporary authors is Wendell Berry. I told him that my dad was a barber and he told me that I should read Berry’s Jayber Crow.

The last morning he suggested that followers of Jesus should be aggressive in their attentiveness to God and apathetic to what others say about their attentiveness. Aggressive attentiveness and apathy should be seen as spiritual disciplines.

I came away from this experience with a quiet settled calm about life. Here was a man and woman who have influenced the church greatly over the years living a simple Christian life on a daily basis now in their Montana home. It was a sight to behold! I believe that I am changed, I’m not sure how, because of the encounter with Eugene and Jan Peterson.

From The Message: This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life.

+++ May the peace of God be richly yours as you live in harmony
as God’s renewed humanity in the midst of his world for her sake. +++

One has to watch, if that is possible, what he or she says when speaking in public, huh?

Click Here to hear the MP3 file.

A cheerful heart brings a smile to your face;
     a sad heart makes it hard to get through the day (Proverbs 15.13 The Message).

and

A cheerful disposition is good for your health;
     gloom and doom leave you bone-tired (Proverbs 17.22 The Message).

So says the “wise guy” of the Bible.

I know this stuff is all over the net. I received these from a friend in Colorado so I thought I would share them. Have fun!

I was driving with my three young children one warm summer evening when a woman in the convertible ahead of us stood up and waved. She was stark naked! As I was reeling from the shock, I heard my 5-year-old shout from the back seat, “Mom! That lady isn’t wearing a seat belt!

My son Zachary, 4, came screaming out of the bathroom to tell me he’d dropped his toothbrush in the toilet. So I fished it out and threw it in the garbage. Zachary stood there thinking for a moment, then ran to my bathroom and came out with my toothbrush. He held it up and said with a charming little smile, “We better throw this one out too then, ’cause it fell in the toilet a few days ago.

On the first day of school, a first-grader handed his teacher a note from his mother. The note read, “The opinions expressed by this child are not necessarily those of his parents.”

A woman was trying hard to get the ketchup to come out of the bottle. During her struggle the phone rang so she asked her 4-year-old daughter to answer the phone. “It’s the minister, Mommy,” the child said to her mother. Then she added, “Mommy can’t come to the phone to talk to you right now. She’s hitting the bottle.”

A little boy got lost at the YMCA and found himself in the women’s locker room. When he was spotted, the room burst into shrieks, with ladies grabbing towels and running for cover. The little boy watched in amazement and then asked, “What’s the matter haven’t you ever seen a little boy before?”

While working for an organization that delivers lunches to elderly shut-ins, I used to take my 4-year-old daughter on my afternoon rounds. The various appliances of old age, particularly the canes, walkers and wheelchairs, unfailingly intrigued her. One day I found her staring at a pair of false teeth soaking in a glass. As I braced myself for the inevitable barrage of questions, she merely turned and whispered, “The tooth fairy will never believe this!”

A little girl was watching her parents dress for a party. When she saw her dad donning his tuxedo, she warned, “Daddy, you shouldn’t wear that suit.”
“And why not, darling?”
“You know that it always gives you a headache the next morning.”

While walking along the sidewalk in front of his church, our minister heard the intoning of a prayer that nearly made his collar wilt. Apparently, his 5-year-old son and his playmates had found a dead robin. Feeling that a proper burial should be performed, they had secured a small box and cotton batting, then dug a hole and made ready for the disposal of the deceased. The minister’s son was chosen to say the appropriate prayers and with sonorous dignity intoned his version of what he thought his Father always said: “Glory be unto the Faaaather, and unto the Sonnn … and into the hole he gooooes.”

A little girl had just finished her first week of school. “I’m just wasting my time,” she said to her mother. “I can’t read, I can’t write and they won’t let me talk!”

A little boy opened the big family Bible. He was fascinated as he fingered through the old pages. Suddenly, something fell out of the Bible. He picked up the object and looked at it. What he saw was an old leaf that had been pressed in between the pages. “Mama, look what I found”, the boy called out.
” What have you got there, dear?”
With astonishment in the young boy’s voice, he answered, “I think it’s Adam’s underwear!”