Tag: Egypt

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What Does Visiting Egypt Teach Us About the Bible? Part 1: Why Go (Back) to Egypt?

I arrived in Aswan, Egypt on the afternoon of May 5th. After a 20 plus hour train ride, we were met by the Spanish-speaking guide of Memphis Tours because the English one was not available. With my Spanish and his English, we were able to piece together what was going on. We were heading to the Movenpick Hotel.

There was no way to drive to the Movenpick Hotel. You had to take a ferry across the Nile River because this hotel was located on Elephantine Island (pictured above). There is something magical about crossing a river in a boat to get to your hotel.

As the night went on, I was thinking, “I know that name, Elephantine Island. Where have I heard it before?” I finally remembered. It was the island where the Jews went after the destruction of Jerusalem by King of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar. Some of the remaining Jews had fled to Egypt to escape his wrath after they had killed the governor that King Nebuchadnezzar had put in power. With them went Jeremiah the prophet, whose prophecies I had read many times. “Wow! And to think, I am on the very island to which Jeremiah came with the Jews.” It was a profoundly moving experience.

And that was one big surprise of Egypt. It is the second Bible land. After Israel, Egypt is the most prominent “land” of the Bible. Besides the experience on Elephantine Island, I had many other experiences in Egypt that illuminated the Bible for me. In this series of articles, I want to share them with you. The first thing I learned was why Egypt was so inviting. Why did Abraham want to go to Egypt? Why did the Israelite former slaves even want to return there? I understood much better after visiting Egypt.

Why Go to Egypt?
When Abram went to Canaan, there was a famine in the land. Abram might have thought, “God told me to go here, and now this place is a total bust!” So, where did he go? To Egypt.

Now, why would he go to Egypt? Isn’t Egypt just a big desert? Continue reading “What Does Visiting Egypt Teach Us About the Bible? Part 1: Why Go (Back) to Egypt?”

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The Wonders of Egypt: The Pyramids Are Just the Beginning

If you mention the pyramids, what comes to people’s minds? Egypt. Would you like to visit them? “Yes!” Almost everybody would. I have had the privilege of visiting the pyramids twice in less than two years, but what I have found is that the pyramids are just the tip of the iceberg in Egypt. Egypt is a place like no other. The almost tropical scenes of the Nile allowed an amazing civilization to flourish, but the desert a few meters away preserved it for us today. It is a Muslim culture, but it is the home of some of the oldest churches in the world, some of which the large Christian minority still use. You can also find Greek and Roman history as well as the history of Arabs, Turks, British, and French. But the best part of Egypt for me is the people. They are a people who know hospitality, who are ready to dance, who know how to cook, and are ready to be your friend. For all of these reasons, Egypt is a destination you do not want to miss.

In this post, I want to describe what it is like to travel through Egypt and introduce you to the places I visited in two trips. Our trips consisted of six parts: Cairo, Aswan, Abu Simbel, the Nile, Luxor, and Hurghada. That’s our route in this article.

Cairo
Cairo is huge and filled with people. About 30 million people, one fourth of the population of Egypt, lives in and around Cairo. Make sure you see it from the air as you come in to get an idea of its size. The traffic is unbelievable. It makes driving anywhere in the United States look orderly and easy in comparison.

On the edges of Cairo, you come to Giza, still very crowded. There, you find the pyramids. No matter how many pictures you’ve seen, there is simply no way to do justice to the size and wonder of these ancient structures. There are three great pyramids named after the kings who built them, Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaure. You come first to the largest, the pyramid of Khufu. You can enter into this pyramid and ascend to the tomb deep within the pyramids. The second largest is that of Khafre, and the third is that of Menkaure.

Continue reading “The Wonders of Egypt: The Pyramids Are Just the Beginning”

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Traveling to Egypt in the Time of Coronavirus

I read it again and again. To enter Egypt, “you’ll need a Covid test that is stamped and signed on original paper, not a copy. This test must be taken within 96 hours of the departure of your last flight to Egypt.” That was the clear directive from the Egyptian government.

The Plan(s)
Fall 2020 brought a new school year but a strange one. Kids could go to school and wear masks, or they could do the “online option.” They could sit in front of a computer for 8 hours and watch school. My oldest daughter, an extremely outgoing and social senior, opted for the online option. She hated it. So, she decided she wanted to do “homeschool” instead. This would also allow her to work first shift once she had turned 18, relatively early in the school year.

One thing that was disappointing about her not going to school was that she would not have any senior trips. So, I said to her one day, “Why don’t we do a senior trip and go somewhere in the world. If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you like to go?”

She replied, “Scotland.”

I said, “Let’s do it.”

Now, I had not travelled outside the country in 25 years, other than Canada, which, with all due respect to my Canadian friends, was not that different than driving somewhere within the United States. So, I had a lot to learn.

That fall, it was my great pleasure to research the ins and outs of travel to Scotland. I planned the trip day by day and even made cancelable reservations for hotels. We were going to spend two weeks in Scotland and explore it from one end to the other.

There was only one really big problem. Covid. Now, I am not saying that Covid itself was the problem, even though I do think it is a problem. The problem was the reaction of the Scottish government to Covid. Scotland’s reaction to Covid made the strictest state in the U.S. look virtually unconcerned about Covid. So, that was the problem. Continue reading “Traveling to Egypt in the Time of Coronavirus”

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Reflections on the United States After Visits to Egypt and Mexico

This year, I was blessed to spend two weeks each in Egypt and Mexico. It was the first time in 25 years that I had travelled outside the United States or Canada. My major takeaway from my trips to Mexico and Egypt was a new appreciation for the blessings we enjoy in the United States. The U.S. has its weaknesses, to be sure, but we have a lot of strengths, and our prosperity allows us the resources to work on our weaknesses. What are those strengths?

Before I talk about America’s strengths, let me talk about the strengths of Mexico and Egypt. First, let me talk about Mexico. I knew that Mexico is more prosperous than many Americans think. I went to Cancún and Guadalajara. Guadalajara is right in the heart of Mexico. It is surprisingly prosperous. Its plazas or shopping centers can rival or outdo those of the United States.

One day, an Uber dropped me off near a lower-end plaza. I was waiting for a friend to finish with a meeting. So, I looked for a good place to wait. I was there by the road, and I looked across the street. There was a Starbucks, just one of many that I saw in México. I was actually standing in front of an Autozone. Down the street, there was a Denny’s, because a Grand Slam is a Grand Slam in any language. Walmart and Sam’s Club were everywhere. Mexico is more like the United States and more prosperous than one might suppose.

What is striking about México is the insecurity. Every house seems to have high walls. There is often barbed wire on the top of the walls. Nevertheless, I talked to numerous locals, and they assured me that it was safe to walk in the street during the day in Guadalajara. I had no problems as I did so, though, admittedly, I only did this a couple of times.

In terms of economic conditions, Mexico and Egypt are somewhat similar. The dollar goes a lot further in those countries than it does back home. Egypt did not seem as prosperous as Mexico, though. The conditions seemed more challenging (see this interesting comparison here).

What struck me most about Egypt was the friendliness of people. Everyone was ready to connect with you and be your friend. People would greet you with kindness. For example, I would ask them if they were having a good day. All over, they would say things like, “I am having a good day because I get to see you.” Now, the cynic in me was tempted to think that this was because of American money. However, three things showed me that this was not the case. First, I observed that they always treated each other with the same warmth. Second, when we stayed at a hotel during the celebration of the Feast of Eids, we met numerous upper middle class or upper class people. They were just as friendly as the poorer people had been. They took us under their wing and wanted to be our friends. Third, in Mexico, Melinda and I met two Egyptian women who lived in the United States and were vacationing in Mexico. They were the same way, they wanted to connect with us and were happy to be friends with us. I’ve never been to a place where it was easier to make friends. Continue reading “Reflections on the United States After Visits to Egypt and Mexico”

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11 Fascinating Facts from the History of Egypt

In May, I will be travelling to Egypt for the first time. In order to profit from my trip, I’ve been studying the history of Egypt. It is fascinating. As Herodotus said, “I will speak at length about Egypt because there is no other country like it, nor any other that possesses as many wonders.” I recommend Jason Thompson’s A History of Egypt, as an overview of the whole history. It keeps moving and doesn’t get bogged down yet covers every era in a helpful way. Here are 11 fascinating facts from the history of Egypt. These are the things that stuck out to me. I am curious to see if this list will change after I visit Egypt.

1. Djoser, the second king of the 3rd Dynasty, erected the Step Pyramid. It was the first great stone building in the world. “Described by one Egyptologist as a ‘subterranean palace,’ the underground dimension of the Step Pyramid was never equaled in subsequent pyramids” (22). There were many pyramids built subsequently, but it is interesting to note that there were twice as many pyramids were built in Nubia as in Egypt. You can see these today in North Sudan.

2. Hieroglyphs (not hieroglyphics), the writing of the Egyptians, began in the Old Kingdom. They considered it as a gift from the god of wisdom, Thoth. So, they wanted to keep using the same writing throughout their history. Even in ancient times, people were impressed with the appearance of this writing. It continued from the third millennium B.C. until the Byzantine Empire (around the 6th century A.D., when the last temple (Philae, near Aswan) was closed). Eventually, the knowledge of their meaning was lost. It was not rediscovered until they were deciphered in the 19th century after the discovery of the Rosetta Stone.

3. The Old Kingdom (Ancient Egyptian history is commonly divided into Old, Middle, and New Kingdoms) had no slaves. They used the corvée, which was the drafting of individuals in the kingdom for a month of labor, to construct the great pyramids. The reason they could do this was “a widely shared ideology about the nature of society and how it should function” (34). “The pyramids were certainly designed as royal tombs. Doubts that any society would devote so much of its resources to such a purpose are based on misunderstandings of the Old Kingdom and its driving ideology” (36). Continue reading “11 Fascinating Facts from the History of Egypt”

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