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one or two other buildings the Romans attempted to build were not
on the site of OLD Tyre on the mainland, as it was represented to
me---but on the peninsula that once was an island, and on the site
of NEW Tyre. Actually, no town or city has ever been built on the
site of Old Tyre, since Alexander the Great scraped its wreckage,
debris, timbers, stones and top-soil into the sea. However, the
site of Old Tyre is not solid rock today, because thru the 2550
long years much dirt has blown in over its rock base, and it looks
like any other ground---but no city has ever been built there.
There's absolutely NOTHING there but the barren earth.
All this experience has made us realize as never before
that God is REAL. What He has said is SURE. These places are
REAL!
But while, as I said, I have now walked where Jesus
walked, I have not walked on the same ground. The ground where
Jesus walked is now buried some 20 or more feet under the present
ground-surface. We have not seen ANY of the buildings that stood
in Jerusalem in Bible times, for one century builds on top of the
debris of the previous century. But we did see a few places in the
wall of Jerusalem which in all probability are the very same
original stones that were a part of the wall in Jesus' day. The
city is still in the same identical spot, only the earth has built
up so that we are always 20 or 30 feet higher than they were 1900
years ago. Yet the whole shape and contour of the land in general
is the SAME. And it's the same kind of soil. So we know exactly
how it all looked to Jesus and to Peter and Paul.
I forgot to mention---of course I have taken motion-
picture films of all these very important places, to be used on
future TELEVISION programs. Mrs. Armstrong, of course, is with me,
and also our elder son Richard (Dick). Dick has taken scores and
scores of still pictures with our German Contax camera, while I
have taken most of the movies with a Bolex---many hundreds of feet
of film. These pictures will be used in the PLAIN TRUTH as well as
on TV.
One thing we've seen that makes the Bible more REAL is
the dress and the customs of the people here in the Middle East.
While the earth is the same earth---the trees and vegetation mostly
the same as in the same climate-zones in the United States---yet
the customs and the garb worn, and the architecture and design of
cities is quite different.
In all these Bible lands, except the new country of
"Israel" which we entered only yesterday afternoon, the people are
Arabs. Their dress, their ways and methods are still the same as
they were 2,000 years ago. In Egypt, Saudi-Arabia, and to a
considerable extent in Jordan and Syria, men do not wear trousers,
coats and hats. They wear long flowing robes, with an Arab-type
cloth turban covering their heads and flowing down their
backs---often wrapped around most of their faces, especially in
rural sections out in the hot sun. The women wear black robes and
keep their faces half-veiled or full-veiled. Usually the women are
walking along in a graceful glide, arms swinging, balancing a wide
flat basket, a tall water-jug, or almost any kind of cartage on