Day 7 Sat Jun 12

Day Seven - Saturday June 12

Today was travel for the first part, then seeing the city of Troy.

We got on the bus in Istanbul and traveled for a couple of hours to a rest stop, then back on the bus and another couple of hours till lunch. Lunch was right before we took a ferry across the Dardenelles.

We traveled for another hour or so, stopping at the ancient city of Troy, legendary from the stories of Homer of the Illiad and the Oddessey - the idea of a 10 year old battle between the Greeks and the Persians, over a woman named Helen, ending when the Greeks left a wooden horse and the Persians took it into their city. In the 1930's a German by the name of Schliemann was looking for Troy and found this Tel in the right place. He hired some Turkish workers and started excavating, and he found something. Schliemann was not the most careful archeologist, and what he discovered they later found to be the ruins of Troy II from 2500 BC. The city of Troy that Homer wrote about would have been Troy VI around 500 BC. In all, they have found nine distinct Troys, with some subdivisions within each one.

Day 7 teaching from Pastor Wayne was on the bus before Troy, giving us some history background on the people in this area that we are traveling through. Covering the period from 2000 BC (time of Abraham) to 1500 BC (time of Moses). The Old Babylonian empire was in decline. The Egytian empire was going strong. These times are called "Heroic" times because there is little hard evidence, but a lot of legends, which are generally based on some truth.

During this time, the Hittite people arose in present-day Turkey, and for a while they controlled the area at Jerusalem. We don't know a lot about them because of lack of records. There was also the Minoan culture on Crete, which apparently had a very strong navy because they did not build walls around their city. We don't know a whole lot about them because they wrote in a language we call Linear Script B, and we have not found a Rosetta stone to allow us to translate it. This time was also a rise of a people groups called Phoenician, which were active in the seas. The Phoenicians gave us the Western alphabet.

In the time around 1500 BC, several of these people groups were on the move. Not sure what the exact reason was, but there was some climate change in what is modern-day Russia, which forced some nomads further south.

(Notes below are a very raw. I'll come back and clean them up later.)

Sea Peoples - Achians, Tjtker (Mt. Carmel) - Preterset  Philistines who settled in Gaza.
Began to attack and raid.
We know about them because they attacked Egypt under Ramses and he repelled them and put together a historical record of his victory.
Also the Hapiru - Hebrews.
Phtmos the 3rd ~1400 BC probably the pharaoh that God hit with the plagues.
Aichnaten - Pharaoh Queen was Nefritity
Power vacuum. Tell Amara Find
Lachish - write letters
Assyria - started in turkey
Nineva, Nimrod - conquered Israel
New Babyloian empire w/ Nebecanazer lasted only about 100 years. 
Medes - mountain parts of Syria
Persians - plain parts of Syria
Gen 15:6 - Suzerante treaty --  God & Abraham
Leander and Troy
Gen 10, Exodus 13, Ezekial 28
Troas-Acts 16, Acts 20, 2 Tim 4

TEP Project - may have found Biblical Sodom in Jordan
 Note: old books never make up geography. 
Gen 10: list of people who are places 10:9-14
In the Pentatuch, there are very few value judgements, but Gen 10:9 Nimrod was a mighty hunter.
Nimrod: represents Babylon, the defiant human vs. Jerusalem, that represents peace and God's values. 
Exodus 13:17 Philistines - who later became the Greeks who attacked Troy.
Where there is trade there is exchange of ideas.
Eze 28:5 greatest sarcastic line in the Bible - "By your wisdom"
Troas: Acts 16:7-11, 20:7, 2 Tim 4:13

*Dale*