Thoughts on the shore

Sitting at a table on the beach at Magdala, on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. Scruffy kind of place really. A lot of litter, just like the beaches at home.

You have to wonder what kind of litter there was when Jesus walked these shores, looking for a fisher of men? Certainly no Coke bottles, or cigarette packages, or the left-overs from somebody's lunch on another table.

There could have been corpses sometimes, I suppose. When the Romans made examples of those who defied their rule? It wasn't a time of civil rights, except when you were a Roman citizen. If your city or tribe decided to rebel against Rome, or even a few people within your group, everybody was killed, or sold into slavery.

Selling into slavery was a profitable option for the Romans. They built the Coliseum on the profits made from tens of thousands of prisoners sold after the sacking of Jerusalem and the plundering of the Temple.

These are the kind of tidbits which our guide Abie -- short for Abraham -- drops into his commentary on the times of the people in the time of Jesus.

His engaging style works well, and I was prompted to the thought that the Israelis were lucky to have a blockbuster bestseller on which to base their tourist industry.

Well this part of it anyhow. I'm not sure how the rest of tourism works here, but the Holy Land part of it around Galilee is all about places where Jesus worked in the three years of his public life.

Three years might seem short, but when you see the geographical area involved, three years could be enough. The 'sea' of Galilee is a middle to small sized lake. And the biblical tourist trail is mostly a slipping from point to point around it. Church to church, really.

The holy sites are managed in the most part by the Fransiscans.

Reported from Magdala by the Accidental Pilgrim.