By Shelby Peck | Copy Editor
The newly created Biblical Journeys in the Holy Land study abroad program has been postponed from May 2024 to January 2025 due to the escalating Israel-Hamas War.
Dr. Cynthia Shafer-Elliott, associate professor of Hebrew Bible and Old Testament and coordinator for the trip, said even if travel remained legal, faculty did not feel comfortable continuing with the trip in May. She said faculty will keep a very close eye on the situation in collaboration with the Study Abroad Office. Assuming and praying all goes well, “whatever that looks like,” she said the trip will take place during the Spring 2025 Wintermester.
“I’m hoping that will give us ample time for things to sort themselves out, … but of course, we will monitor the situation very carefully,” Shafer-Elliott said.
The U.S. Department of State has currently placed travel to Israel at travel advisory level three: reconsider travel due to “terrorism and civil unrest.” Israel officially declared war on Sunday after a surprise attack by Hamas, an extremist Palestinian Islamic political party.
“I tend to look beyond will it be safe to go to Israel in 2024 and more what is this going to mean for all of our study abroad programs in many different places if people use [these attacks] as a reason to expand conflict beyond that fairly narrow area,” Joanne Cummings, lecturer in the Baylor Interdisciplinary Core, Great Texts and political science, said. “In terms of the Holy Land, if the study abroad goes ahead, I would hope that the students are able to use that opportunity to not only understand various aspects of what Israel is but also why Palestinians feel the way they do.”
Shafer-Elliott said Biblical Journeys: Baylor in Israel and Jordan was intended to be a “historical-geography-type class” that highlights ancient Israel from its beginnings through the Bronze Age, Old Testament and New Testament. After leading a similar program at her previous institution, Shafer-Elliott said she planned to lead the inaugural Baylor trip next summer.
“You’re trying to see the lands of the Bible, trying to go to the places where these events occurred, trying to understand the topography, the geography, archaeology, the history, the culture, the faith,” Shafer-Elliott said. “So it’s really a kind of multifaceted-type trip connected with trying to understand the Bible in its setting better — as really when you go there, it just does make such a huge impact on how you read scripture.”
Shafer-Elliott said the trip planned to take students on a two-and-a-half-week journey through the Holy Land, beginning in Jerusalem and traveling to other regions such as Galilee, Nazareth and Jordan. She said exploring Israel by bus allows students to get a full sense of the land and a better estimate of the actual distance between religious sites.
“Like travel often does, it transforms us in ways that you can’t really anticipate, and it’s the type of learning you really can’t replicate in the classroom,” Shafer-Elliott said. “I went on one of these trips when I was a college student, and I don’t think I would be doing what I am today if it wasn’t for that trip.”