"Usually the missing ingredient for most tourists [to the Holy Land] is not making the difference, the distinction between what goes on in your camera and what goes on in your mind... Quite often you will say to a visitor of the land, "Did you see Masada?" "Yes, I have four pictures of Masada." "Did you see the Solomonic gate at Megiddo?" "Yep, got five pictures there." "Did you see the excavation at Scythopolis?" "Yes, got half a roll there." And most people enter and leave this land only with image. To move you from image alone to deeper impressions -- that is, to questions of "how were things used?", "what did they functionally mean to the ancients?" - is our purpose in the archeological garden.

These words from a classroom lecture by Dr. Jim Fleming, Director of Biblical Resources and a teacher at the Ecumenical Institute at Tantur, go a long way in conveying the mission of the Scripture Garden on the Hebron Road, between Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Here countless Christian pilgrims have been encouraged to better understand and appreciate considerations of deeper function beyond mere outward form.

While Fleming (a Biblical archeologist and Director of Biblical Resources) is a lecturer much in demand in the States and a respected guide in Israel (responsible, in fact, for training that state's 4,000 tour guides on Christian sites), the Scripture Garden reputation stands on its own. A Jerusalem Post Magazine article (March 24, 1989), for example, defines the Scripture Garden as a place where "modern technology is combined with ancient finds in an attempt to convey a sense of reality to the Christian biblical narrative." Or again, Time Magazine (March 27, 1989) featured the Scripture Garden's first century life presentation, highlighting its "authentic" Last Supper in its Travel Advisory of musts for world class travelers.

A service of Biblical Resources since 1978, the "Last Supper" biblical meal has been acclaimed by hundreds of Christian groups as the "highlight of our trip to the Holy Land." Making no claims to be a formal or official celebration of the Eucharist, the presentation seeks to enrich participant's understanding of the Last Supper meal as it would have been observed by Jesus and His disciples during the Passover Season. To the soft glow of Roman-style lamps set on authentic, stone-cut tricliniums (three-sided reclining tables such as were used in the first century), pilgrims enjoy a full feast of foods patterned after a menu from Jesus' day. Meal hosts -- versed in biblical meal time customs and manners -- guide individuals through the meal, offering an enriched understanding of the Passover and its symbols as well as insights into the setting of our Lord's "Last Supper." (Among the foci, for example, is a consideration -- grounded in clues from the Scriptures and first century customs -- of the probable place of seating of Jesus, John, Judas, and Peter. Watch out, though: for here, as elsewhere in the Scripture Garden, some of our western prejudices and preconceptions may be in need of adjustment!) Ultimately, then, the meal is enriching beyond description. For as satisfying as the meals are the multiple lessons and insights which feed the pilgrim in his/her understanding and appreciation of that greater table and feast which is the Eucharist.

Highlight for many as it is, the Scripture Gardens are more than the Biblical Meal presentation. Situated amidst an olive and almond orchard on an ancient terraced hillside, the Garden features over a dozen archeological reconstructions from the Biblical world as well as a host of places for meditation and reading. Visitors may go through the Gardens as part of a formal tour. (Many guides and travel agencies, in fact, make the Scripture Garden a required stop for their groups coming to the Land.) Or, visitors may prefer to go through the Garden at their own pace, using a specially designed guidebook (available through the Biblical Resources bookstore) which provides drawings of and information about the reconstructions in the Gardens as well as a list of suggested readings from the Bible.

A sampling of these reconstructions in the Garden and the various Biblical passages they help to "unpack" are:

1. A Threshing Floor (and Harvest Processing Area) which serves not only to illuminate images in the story of Ruth but also two important feasts of the land (the Feast of Unleavened Bread and the Feast of Pentecost), not to mention the foundation of the altar of the Jerusalem temple.

2. An Ancient Stone Quarry provides insights not only into those methods that would have been instrumental in the construction of the temple, but also provides a place for considering the function of rock in the Scriptures and the believer's call to be a "living stone."

3. Tomb Replicas (from the Old Testament period and the New Testament period) afford as natural a setting for reflecting upon the burial of our Lord as is possible in the Land.

4. A Watchtower & Wine Press help to unpack a variety of Scriptural images: from God as vinedresser and Christ as the vine to the stomping vat being both a symbol of mirth and wrath. (Follow the production of grapes from harvest collection through stomping and straining to storage!)

5. A Sheepfold helps to illuminate the function of images which appear over 500 times in the Scriptures: sheep and Shepherd. From the 23rd Psalm to John 10, consider the importance and qualities of the Good Shepherd -- the key to a lamb's and the flock's survival.

6. An Altar Replica (a reproduction of an Israelite worship center at Tel Arad) invites us to reflect upon the meaning of sacrifice in the Old Testament and the New Testament, including the supreme sacrifice which was Christ's for us.

7. A Working Olive Press not only allows us to understand oil production in ancient times and the various uses of these oils in ancient society, but provides an interesting insight into our Lord's agony in the "Garden of the Oil Press." (Gethsemane, from "gat" [press] and "shemen" [oil])

8. A Cistern, Spring, Well and Watering Trough not only hint at the supreme importance of water in life and in the land but work to convey the varying degrees of labor involved in securing it and thereby the difference between human works and gracefully given "living water."

For the pilgrim traveling alone or in a group, the Scripture Garden is more than just a rest stop or a side trip. It is truly a "journey into the Biblical World" that fuels and resources one's further stops in the Land and in the Holy Scriptures.

Acclamations for the Garden and the work of Biblical Resources run far and wide: from the Archbishop of Canterbury to countless lay people and pastors representing a breadth of denominational perspectives and nationalities. Of these, perhaps the words of a Colorado parish priest-- a seven-time pilgrim to the Land -- are most representative:

"Recent years of biblical study, especially since Vatican II in the Roman Catholic Church, along with easier and safer travel to Israel, have brought a whole new type of pilgrim to the area. This new pilgrim is the one I have journyed with so often. This is the pilgrim I have watched during a tour of the archeologically accurate replicas in the Scripture Garden and celebrated the Biblical Meal with at the triclinium place. This is the pilgrim I have heard praise the Biblical Resources lecturer for helping "put it all together as the conclusion to their days in lsrael."

Biblical Resources fills an educational and ecumenical gap in Scripture studies that, to my knowledge, no one else is doing. Using the visual and the tactile, weaving important Hebrew and Christian themes together, Dr. Jim Fleming and his associates are providing a total educational experience that day by day contributes to a world of understanding and spiritual enrichment.

© copyright 1997

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