At the tail end of my trip to Israel and Palestine, I visited Nazareth and nearby Mount Overthrow. Nazareth is often considered to be the third most significant area of the Holy Land.
The first stop logically was the picturesque Orthodox Church of the Archangel Gabriel which features a Holy Spring above the source of over where the Virgin Mary came for water.
This church was under heavy construction on its outside, but inside it was packed with tourists and pilgrims.
Below are photos of the Holy Spring -- a source of water that is said to have been consistently flowing for more than two thousand years:
As is often the case (for some odd reason) with historical monuments and areas of significance that contain water, tourists throw coins into the area -- this is an erroneous action that is discouraged in scripture. Specifically, as noted in the Gospel of Matthew (21:22) Jesus Purifies the Temple, it is said: Then Jesus went into the temple of God and drove out all those who bought tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. And He said, "It is written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer,' but you have made it a 'den of thieves.'
Jesus cleansed the temple which pointed to a necessity that the Church be kept free from earthly pursuits.
In Nazareth there are two ancient temples dedicated to the Annunciation. The second is Catholic and was built in the late 1960s:
Next, I drove over to nearby Mount Precipice -- a mountain that is mentioned in the Gospel of Luke (4:28-30) in the story of Christ's first sermon in the synagogue of Nazareth.
The preaching of Christ infuriated many Jews in the synagogue which led them to attempt to stone him. This stoning procedure was said to have first required throwing Christ off a mountain or a high place, and then using stones. Therefore, the Jews led Christ out of the city, "to the top of the mountain on which their city was built, to overthrow it." These words gave the name to the mountain - the mountain of the Overthrow of the Lord (characteristically, the Jews call it "Har Ha-Kvitsa", literally from Hebrew - "Mountain of the Jump").
Many believe that this mountain could have become Golgotha...