Galilee

Rockets crashed into the Galilee region Friday, the second such attack in northern Israel this week, but there were no injuries.

Archaeologists in Israel have discovered a mysterious stone monument weighing 60,000 tons and rising 32 feet above the bottom of the Sea of Galilee. Scientists don't know who built the structure, or why, but in a recent paper in the International Journal of Nautical Archaeology the researchers shared a few hypotheses before concluding that further study is needed. The mystery rock pile was first discovered in 2003 during a sonar survey of the bottom of the southwestern part of the sea. The sonar revealed a pile of boulders arranged in a circular shape, lying on the sea floor.

Archaeologists in Israel have discovered a mysterious stone monument weighing 60,000 tons and rising 32 feet above the bottom of the Sea of Galilee. Scientists don't know who built the structure, or why, but in a recent paper in the International Journal of Nautical Archaeology the researchers shared a few hypotheses before concluding that further study is needed. The mystery rock pile was first discovered in 2003 during a sonar survey of the bottom of the southwestern part of the sea. The sonar revealed a pile of boulders arranged in a circular shape, lying on the sea floor.

There was a map of the Holy Land on the front flap of my mother's Bible. It was colored in pale pinks and blues and it showed Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Galilee and the Jordan River. The names told the story of the life of Christ, but to me the map made it real. Older now, I have graduated from dreaming over maps to visiting places embedded in my consciousness, above all Israel. It is just a sliver of a country about the size of New Jersey but deep in terms of time.

We had climbed Masada, floated in the Dead Sea, prayed at the Wailing Wall, traced the steps of Jesus and touched Mohammed's rock. We had "done" Israel, like millions of other tourists before us, and we were exhausted. We had a few days left on our family vacation and wanted to do something different and restful. "It can't be another museum or ancient ruin," our teen-ager said. We agreed. We consulted an Israeli friend who is a travel agent. "I have just the thing for you," she said, "a dude ranch in the Galilee."

As far as I know, without reading it, Todd Gitlin's "The Murder of Albert Einstein" (Oct. 18) might be an ingenious and instructive picture of the times of modern science, and great fun. At least it apparently does not pretend to be a serious premise, and thus introduces an entirely new genre. Instead of fictionalized biography, we are now to have biographized fiction, in which any kind of story is wrapped in the ready-made aura of some great figure. Exactly what we need for the petri dish of the popular mind.

Archeological excavations at an ancient urban site in Galilee about four miles from Nazareth are reinforcing a growing view among religion scholars that Jesus may have been much more cosmopolitan than usually supposed. The hilltop excavations are at Sepphoris, the capital of Roman-occupied Galilee for most of the 1st Century. Although Sepphoris is unmentioned in the New Testament, the Gospels indicate that Jesus was raised in the small village of Nazareth.

We rushed through the Old City of Jerusalem, visiting various mosques and shrines and holy places. Here and there priests of one sect or another were singing their prayers before altars, oblivious of the herds of tourists. The places seemed too ancient and too holy to be profaned by mere tourists. The shops along the narrow lanes in the Arab quarter closed at noon. Our guide told us that Palestinian protesters had insisted on the closing. Graffito was scrawled on shop walls as a warning.

An archeological team digging through the ruins of a Roman palace in Galilee during the summer of 1986 made an interesting discovery--the border of a mosaic floor design. "The black and white border disappeared into an unexcavated portion," said the students' supervisor, the Rev. Mary June Nestler, a Los Angeles Episcopal priest studying for her doctorate at UCLA. "We knew what direction to dig this year, but we had no idea it would be so spectacular at its center," Nestler said.

The Rose Drive Friends Church Sanctuary Choir, Orchestra and Drama Ministries will present "Two From Galilee" at 6 p.m. Sunday, 7:30 p.m. Wednesday and 7:30 p.m. Friday. Morning services will take place at 8 and 10:50 a.m. Sunday. The church is at 4221 Rose Drive, Yorba Linda. Information: (714) 528-0520. St. Alban's Church will have its 8th annual Cambridge University Service of Lessons and Carols at 7:30 p.m. Sunday. Refreshments will follow. The church is at 300 E. Imperial Highway, Brea.

UNTOLD millions know the story of Holy Week -- from Jesus' arrival in Jerusalem on Palm Sunday to his resurrection on Easter. And yet, since the dawn of Christianity, people have disagreed about the events of Jesus' last days and what they mean. Even the gospels vary in details and emphases. And as two new books demonstrate, how believers understand that story matters greatly to their faith. In "The Last Week," biblical scholars Marcus J.

The creek known as Nahal Tsalmon has nourished wheat fields and olive groves, pushed mill wheels and provided a cooling oasis for the mostly Arab residents around it here in the rural Galilee. But a bitter standoff also has played out along its stony banks. Since the 1980s, Israeli officials have wanted to develop a national park around the stream but have been unable to do so because Arab families live inside the proposed boundaries.

Samir Hamzi looks at the empty tables in his spotless restaurant, a place packed just seven weeks ago with Jews and Arabs eating kosher-style Arab food beneath framed copies of Koranic verses, and sees a dream disappearing. Hamzi opened Samir's in April as a gathering place for the two peoples who so uneasily share this land. He hung cheery apricot drapes at the windows, spread the tables with crisp blue cloths and supplied comfy wicker chairs.

Tracing the footsteps of Jesus in the land of biblical miracles and modern-day conflicts, Pope John Paul II stood Friday on a gentle slope overlooking the Sea of Galilee and appealed to thousands of young people to act for good in the world, warning them against the "voice of evil" that glorifies pride, hatred and war.

Guerrillas in Lebanon fired Katyusha rockets into Israel's northern Galilee region early today, witnesses said, hours after Israelis elected a new prime minister. No injuries were reported. The witnesses said the sound of ordnance hitting the ground could be heard from the border town of Kiryat Shemona, where senior Labor Party members earlier had been celebrating the victory of party leader Ehud Barak.

The Rose Drive Friends Church Sanctuary Choir, Orchestra and Drama Ministries will present "Two From Galilee" at 6 p.m. Sunday, 7:30 p.m. Wednesday and 7:30 p.m. Friday. Morning services will take place at 8 and 10:50 a.m. Sunday. The church is at 4221 Rose Drive, Yorba Linda. Information: (714) 528-0520. St. Alban's Church will have its 8th annual Cambridge University Service of Lessons and Carols at 7:30 p.m. Sunday. Refreshments will follow. The church is at 300 E. Imperial Highway, Brea.

A newly betrothed couple is forced to register for a census in a town far away. The woman is nine months pregnant. When they finally reach their destination after an arduous journey, there is no place to stay. The woman gives birth in a stable. Scholars and clergy differ on whether the Nativity stories in the Gospels of Luke and Matthew are historical accounts or symbolic narratives of Christianity's beginnings.

In Galilee, even the weather sometimes seems biblical. Mighty, swift-moving thunderstorms darken the skies and smite the earth in this rugged hill country of northern Israel. Then the gray marble clouds part, and a single incandescent beam pours through like a searchlight, probing the green hills and bone-white stones like a miracle looking for a place to land.