Israel Day 2/7: Nazareth Village

Nazareth Village is a living museum opened in 2000 on the site of a 1st-century terraced farm on the outskirts of Old Nazareth. They recreated everything just as it would have been in Jesus' time. The farm/village is still worked in the same way it was then.

Reenactors help make the experience even more realistic and our guide explained many of the features of the village.

The tour starts in the small museum.

Our first stop was to meet Sarah and look at the very old olive trees growing there.

They wanted to recreate a 1st century tomb but after a month of using traditional tools and making no progress, they had to resort to more modern techniques...

Then we met the shepherd and saw his sheep pen...

The terraced vineyard is complete with a watchtower and wine press dating back to the time of Jesus...

There were also homes...

I loved the fence made from twigs

We learned how olives are pressed into oil three times, each producing a different grade of oil for different purposes...

We got to watch both the weaver and the carpenter at work...

Then we visited the village synagogue...

While the roof is built with many more wooden beams to meet modern safety codes, in Jesus' time roof beams would have been much further apart making it easy for the three men to lower their friend through to Jesus for Him to heal.

There were hyssop plants growing outside. The stalk of the hyssop plant were used to lift the drink to Jesus on the cross. The leaves were used in our authentic lunch of Za'atar dip (hyssop, sesame & olive oil), chicken, lentil stew, hummus, bread, yogurt salad, olives, cabbage salad and apple slices with date spread. 

we were so busy eating and talking this 

is the only picture I got of our meal

After lunch we all received an olive oil lamp. 

It is the smaller lamp in the back right corner