Havarim ... Friends,

Soon you'll be on the ground in Israel and Jordan. This website is an opportunity to see some of that ground before you leave so your perceptions are sharper when you're in the Land, you take more of it in and bring more of it home with you.

You have some great sites planned on your itinerary and the guides are very knowledgeable about them, but I've found they often ignore much of what lies between stops. They usually don't expect most church groups to be knowledgeable about the Bible or the areas we're passing through, so location after location is passed uncommented upon.

What I have done is laid out the route on Google Earth that you will most likely be driving. In parts, I know it's accurate because there's no other way. In others, I've had to guess a bit. But either way, I've hit the sites on your itinerary. There is an exception -- Jerusalem. The resolution of the current imagery for Israel on Google Earth is not sufficient to be of use identifying sites in the Old City. But it does give us an idea of the lay of the land, so we'll use it there accepting those limitations.

Next I created "flights" along the routes you will travel. There are several of them, generally organized by day. Included with the routes and the flights is a file of site locations -- specific locations for probably hundreds of Biblical sites, stretching from Spain to Iran. I've also witten a narrative description of each day's flight linked to its time code. You may find it easier to print the narrative description to have in hand while viewing the Google Earth flight on your screen.

The flights and narrative descriptions do not simply stick to the itinerary -- we take some sidetrips to see what's across that distant hill or in the next valley so that we don't miss anything and so we develop an understanding of the logic of the Land and its history.

So, how to begin ....

1.  The Tour description files are accessible from this page.

2. Download and install Google Earth: https://www.google.com/earth/download/gep/agree.html

3. Download the Google Earth tour files:  http://www.LandoftheBible.com/epiclesis/Epiclesis_tour.kmz

4. We need to set some Google Earth parameters so you see what I intended when creating the files. Don't be intimidated by the numbr of steps:

A. This is what you should see when Google Earth starts up if you opened it by clicking on Epiclesis_tour.kmz. On the left is the sidebar. I've been using Google Earth for years and have dozens of files of flights and places marked. Yours, if you're new to Google Earth, won't look like mine does here, so just ignore mine.

image_02.jpg (480735 bytes)

 

B. Epiclesis_tour.kmz shows up in the sidebar. Click the little arrow to the left of it to open the file to see its contents.

image_03.jpg (112875 bytes)

 

C. Click on the folders until your screen looks like this, below. There's a folder Routes that contains the information that made the green road that follows your itinerary. The Site folder has many, many locations marked in the Mediterranean and Mideast area. I keep the folder closed for neatness, but feel free to open it, pick a site that interests you and Google Earth will take you there. That's something you may want to do when you're not doing the tours -- just exploring on your own. Finally, there are the Tour files. They're organized by day, mostly coinciding with your itinerary.

A bit further down on the sidebar is the Layers section. Google Earth has layers of information that you can add. I encourage you to play around with it. But for what we're doing, in order to reduce the clutter on the screen, leave them off with the exception of Terrain. In fact Terrain MUST be on in order to see in 3D.

image_04.jpg (126072 bytes)

 

D. Next, at the top of the page, click Tools, the Options ...

image_05.jpg (50395 bytes)

 

E. The Google Earth Options box will open. We're only interested setting values in two of the tabs: 3D View and Touring. Set your options for 3D View as shown below.

image_06.jpg (255387 bytes)

 

F. Now, click on the Touring tab in the Google Earth Options box and make your values match mine. When you've done that, click the Apply button and the OK button.

image_07.jpg (236375 bytes)

 

G. Let's pick one of the tours -- Oct_16_&17 Tour. I've combined your two full days in Galilee into a single "flight." So, highlight that one, then click on the little camera icon below it to play the tour. Make sure your seat and tray table are in their upright position ... we're taking off.

image_08.jpg (70111 bytes)

 

H. Let's also close the sidebar so we have the full screen for viewing. The Hide Sidebar button is at the top of the page.

image_09.jpg (22862 bytes)

 

I. These "flights" open with an overview of where we'll be going. Note in the lower left corner is a bar that tells how many seconds into the flight we are. This is the time coding that is linked to the Descriptive Narrative files I've listed, above. Use it to get more information about what you're seeing. The time-code bar will disappear, but all you need to do is hover your mouse over that spot and it comes back. You may be able to split your screen so you can see both the flight and the narrative at the same time or it may be easier to print out the narratives on paper.

image_10.jpg (424521 bytes)

 

J. The time-code bar has three buttons on the left. The one in the middle will pause the flight when you click it and restart the flight when you click it again. The arrow on the left reverses the direction of the flight when you click it. Click it again, and it doubles its speed. The button on the right doubles the forward speed with each click. You may see something that interests you in the middle of the tour -- just pause it. Next, we'll look at some navigation tools to go exploring.

image_11.jpg (41446 bytes)

 

K. If the navigation tools, below, are not visible on your screen, just hover your mouse over the upper-right portion of the image.

The top tool lets you look around from a stationary position. Click the left arrow and you will spin in a circle to the left. Click the right arrow and spin to the right. You can also spin in place by clicking within the outer circle, holding the mouse button down and dragging it around. The up arrow brings your view toward the horizon and higher. The down arrow brings your view to the ground.

The middle tool lets you move around. Click an arrow and you move in that direction. You can also click and hold in the center of the tool and apply pressure in the direction you want to go like a joystick.

The bottom tool is a slider that lets you zoom in and out.

image_12.jpg (37886 bytes)

 

L. The "little man" icon is used for Google Earth's Street View. Google vehicles, equipped with a special camera pod on the roof capture 360-degree images. In Israel and Jordan we can use this tool to actually go to ground level and see what it looks like by dragging the icon with the mouse and dropping it on a road.. Of course, as the name suggests, we're limited to streets where Google's cars have gone.

When you hold the mouse button down on icon, wait a few seconds. Those streets that have Street View data will show up in blue. To leave Street View, click the icon in the upper right of the image.

Below is the turnoff to Megiddo.

streetview.jpg (242998 bytes)

 

M. There is an exception to the street-only rule, however. Google also sends its data gatherers on foot with a 360-degree camera mounted atop a backpack in places of special interest. So far, I've followed Street View down the Siq in Petra, through the Old City in Jerusalem, atop Masada, atop Mt. Arbel and down its cliff face where Herod defeated the Zealots. Below is a Street View just inside the Damascus Gate in the Old City.

Enjoy ...

streetview2.jpg (196440 bytes)

 

IMPORTANT: When you're finished and close Google Earth, answer "Save" when prompted with "You have unsaved items in your "Temporary Places" folder. Would you like to save them to your "My Places" folder?" The next time you start Google Earth, click on its icon on your desktop instead of the Epiclesis_tour.kmz.

 

If I can be of any help, email me at jaybaggett@sbcglobal.net