One of the sites we visited was Shepherds Field just a few miles from Bethlehem near the village of Beit Sahour, a very sacred place to Christians, this the place were the Angel of the Lord told the shepherds of the birth of Jesus. It is a very interesting place with caves and chapel in addition we saw a shepherd tending his flock at the base of the hill. What got my attention was the Israeli settlement encroaching on this holy site and the land stolen from the Palestinian people. These are not settlements they are luxury condominiums which belies all of the stories in our media. Just to the right of the condominiums is an "Israeli only" road that is used to bisect Palestinian land cutting off the owners from their property. Once the land is unattended for 3 years the Israelis use "Ottoman law" to steal the land and turn it over to more settlers.

As I walked out of the church of the Nativity and proceeded across manger square I couldn't help but notice the mosque spire with the creasent and the Christmas Lutheran Church in the background with the cross on its bell tower. Just a great picture of the religions of Bethlehem reminding me of the foolishness of many so called religious people with their narrow minded belief that they and only they know the truth when in fact none of us no the one true God, even if there is one.

I had the opportunity to travel to Israel this summer and got to tour many different sites while there this was one of the most impressive sites on the trip. I was so overwhelmed with being there that I had trouble composing a picture, I took this standard picture that everyone else takes and walked around and took several more one of which I'll share at a later time with a little history of the Dome of the Rock.