The Parables House in Taybeh DAY 6

10.45am we were taken to the Parables House, a typical 1st century home that is situated in the church car park. This house was lived in right up to 1974 when it was bought by the parish and restored.Although the actual house is only 300 years old the entrance is about 2000 years old.

Engraved in stone on the facade above the door there are 5 religious symbols of the time. These include the Star of David and the less noticeable Star or Balaam.

The house is quite small at less than thirty feet by thirty feet. As soon as you go in there is a small hall way. The door itself is wind and water tight but there is a small channel built in the step underneath the door. This is like a glorified cat flap without a flap for smaller animals to get in and out of the house. We read in Songs of Songs 5: 4-5 when the man speaks to the woman he loves through the door but passes his hand through the opening at the bottom of the door!

On the right, there are two rooms. The first one has a very low ceiling this was the place where smaller animals were lodged. The arch straight in front is the entrance for where the larger animals were kept.

The smell in the house may not have been pleasant but keeping these animals inside had its advantages. It provided free central heating and protected the animals from being stolen by thieves or getting injured and killed by other animals.

the first room for the small animals like sheep and dogs

Underneath the store room, adjacent to the low ceiling animal stable, is the fourth room. The floor here is far from being level. Instead it shows the rocks on which the house was built. It was common wisdom to build one's house in caves or on rocks to protect them from gales and storms - as Jesus taught!

This fourth room was for cows and horses and other bigger animals which would not have had enough space in the smaller animal shelter.

the fourth room for the larger animals. I think this is the photo

The room above the animals quarters is reached by climbing the 3 steps. This was the living room in every sense of the word. There is a fire which shows people used to cook there, it was also the sitting room and bedroom. Mattresses of straw were splet in at night and rolled up neatly during the day. All members of the family lived there.

From this setting one could understand the inconvenience caused to the man in the Gospel whose friend goes to knock on his door and begs him for food at night. He has to climb over his sleeping family, make his way through any animals sleeping in the hallway and look after his friend who called.

Hanging on the wall there are a couple of old garments making obvious the foolishness of using old cloth on new garments and vice versa. There is also a big casket of wine, reminding the visitor of putting old wine into fresh skins and fresh wine into old skins.

Father Raed in the second room or multi-function room explaining why it is called a parables house.

There are also some agricultural implements. The fork was used for sifting wheat from harvest after the harvest. The plough is what Jesus told his disciples not to look back while using it.

The room and indeed the whole house have no electric lighting. There is a shelf above the fire place. Several lamps of oil are there, like the ones used by the wise and foolish virgins in the parable. As you walk in the darkened house, it is easy to recall Jesus' instruction not to leave one's light hidden under the bushel.

From the multi-purpose room one could see a kind of skylight in the roof which was closed in winters and opened in the summer. This was the kind of opening in the roof through which the paralytic was let in to the house where Jesus was. The skylight was in the room next door, the upper room, and Jesus would have been in the multi-purpose room.
Now that completely spoils my image of the friends destroying the roof.

The separating wall between and the multi purpose room and the other upper room was built of four or five bins made of clay and straw for lentils and wheat and various grains. The room was a store room which reminds the visitor of the parable of the man whose land gave a lot of produce and so he decided to fill up his stores and have an easy life until death came to him that same night. "And then", asked Jesus, "whose will all this wealth be?"
The whole of the upper room next to the multi purpose living room was a store room. The householder had access to the bins from this room as well as to the other storage space in the room itself. [see picture with Father Raed in]

One could see in its historical context, from this building, what Jesus' hearers would have understood when he refers to storing goods that last and well up to eternal life.

The third room or Upper room The amount of clutter in the upper multi purpose room and the presence of several animals in the house bring to life the effort the woman would have had to put into sweeping the house until she found the lost drachma. It was a major effort also because the floors were not tiled and no water, toilet or cleaning facilities could be found in the house.

This was such a special place I think everyone in the group was very much moved.