Johann Quisumbing

An Adventure Story of Yeshua bar Yosef by JQuisumbing

Chapter 1 

The climb to the ridge was hard. This one in particular was made up of mostly shale piled loosely on top of each other. This made the climb tortuous even when the slope was gradual. No sooner he placed weight on a seemingly sturdy flat rock that it would inadvertently crumble causing him to stumble and slide a few steps down under an avalanche of crumbling stones. By the time the climber reached the crest, he was exhausted. But as his eyes took in the breathtaking view, he soon forgot his tiredness. 

‘Behold! The Judean wilderness’, he thought triumphantly. He so wanted to shout out but thought better of it because with the wind blowing so strong, the sound of his yell would have been carried away instead of hearing a satisfying echo of his voice. 

Spotting the Jordan River, his eyes followed it until it flowed into the sunken sea. His abba Yosef once took him there when he was a boy. They detoured there on their way to the great city.  On the shoreline, his father once made a comparison of this body of water to the mountain lake near their home. He said that one was alive and the one before him was dead. 

“Why Abba?”, his young self asked. His father told him to dip his fingers into the sea and taste it. His olderself smiled at the memory of the mischievousness in his father’s eyes. He would always play tricks with him growing up. Knowing this, he shrugged his shoulders then cupped his hand and scooped up a handful of water straight into his mouth to show that he was not afraid. The acrid taste of it was so fowl, he coughed and gagged it out, accusingly crying, “Abba!”

“Why did you drink it?”, Yosef said, laughing so loudly. “I only wanted you to taste it a little.”

“Blah! I thought it was just saltwater like that of the great sea in the far west.”

“No, my son. The salt in this water is so dense that when one goes into it, you will not sink.”

“But Abba, why is it still called a dead sea?”

“Look around, my boy. What do you not see but are seen plenty of at the Sea of Galilee?”

His younger self’s brow creased in thought as he looked left, right, up, then down. He was staring hard into the shallows when he realized that there were no seedlings swimming.  

“Of course, Abba! There’s no fish! So, there are no birds here to feed on them. I see no cranes or even the pelicans that would dive into the waters of Galilee coming out with fish in their funny looking bills.”

“Very good, my son. Now learn this lesson. The waters up north are higher than the sea here which is so low that it is even lower than the Mediterranean in the west or the Red Sea far far south. And because it is so low, water pours in but it does not pour forth. This means the water stagnates and becomes so salty there can only be death. Do you see, my son?”

Yosef’s question faded back into his memory like a disappearing echo and he took in a deep breath. Then he slowly did a 360, taking in a panoramic view of barren looking mountains, terraces, deep ravines and then back to the Dead Sea. Everywhere he looked, the Holy Scriptures would come alive in his mind. 

He swept his eyes to the south, as far as his eyes could see until the lake disappeared in the distant haze. He knew that about a day or two march from here, along the western shore, buried deep in sand and sediment were the charred ruins of the legendary cities of Sodom & Gomorrah which were divinely destroyed thousands of years ago. In his mind’s eye, he uncannily recalled that the valleys where those cities once proudly stood were covered with rich grazing grass and hectares of fruit laden groves, hence the reason why Lot, Abraham’s nephew, settled there with his flocks. The memory surprised him, for no one these days had ever seen that area but as a desolate wasteland. 

His eyes then gazed across the sea, amongst the misty mountain range beyond. The ancient land of what was once the kingdom of Moab, descendents of the incestuous relations between the patriarch Lot and one of his daughters. In one of those distant peaks was Mount Nebo where the great Adonai granted an aged Moses an opportunity to set eyes on the promised land that was denied him just as the wandering people of Israel were finally led into the promised land. 

It was also from among the Moabites that a woman named Ruth became part of Israel’s history so much so, that the great Prophet Samuel saw fit to dedicate a portion of the Scriptures to her story. Ruth’s story started with her being the childless widow of the son of another widow named Naomi who came to Moab from Bethlehem escaping a famine. While in Moab, Naomi loses her entire family, her husband and two sons, leaving her with only the two Moabite daughter-in-laws. One returned to her people. Ruth chose to renounce her country and religion to accompany her mother-in-law back to the lands of Judah. She did it out of love for Naomi. When returning to Bethlehem, those same virtues attracted the eyes of a relative of Naomi’s named Boaz. And with the traditional exchange of footwear, Boaz redeemed the right to wed Ruth. From their divine union, came the Davidic line of which the climber was a direct descendant. There was more of this to consider his inner thoughts, but he looked up at the sun and figured that he had about 3 hours left before sunset. He had to make camp.

Below the ridge was a box canyon which was showing some green in it. He found it perfect for a good place to make camp. He would rather spend his time among people, but since this morning at the banks of the great river, he was compelled to come into this wilderness where he was tasked to be tested. 

He wound his way down a game trail onto the canyon floor. When he reached its sandy bottom, he found that the canyon was well shaded and had enough foliage indicating water. He chose an area next to the south face of the canyon wall under a shittah tree guaranteeing shade throughout the day. He put down his staff and bundle under the tree then unshed his outer robe and hung it on a branch. He proceeded to clear out a space under the tree of debris. Afterwhich, he spent two hours collecting enough flat shale rocks to erect a wind-breaker wall 5 feet high and 7 feet long. Seeing that it’ll be dark soon he went out of his shelter and collected firewood. 

As night fell, the man was hunkered down next to the windbreak keeping warm by the campfire. A jackal howled into the night sky some distance away, but he heeded it not, for he was staring into the fire lost in thought of the past week’s event which brought him into this wilderness. 

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In my next posting, we will pick up the story by going back about a week’s time.

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